I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
A society, a demos, requires everyone to have a stake in it.
Supermarket food is going to be cheaper as a result of Brexit, and eating out is going to be more expensive. People working in central London for £9 an hour is a thing of the past, because it’s simply not possible to live there and earn that little money. That’s a good thing.
We shall see. I'm not 100% sure I know why Supermarket food will be cheaper as a result of Brexit (nor eating out more expensive) but the market will clear at the appropriate level.
If labour is scarce then wages will rise. That leaves employers a choice of two options. I am very interested to see which they choose.
Three options: 1. Use less Labour 2. Pay Labour more 3. Invest in capital to replace Labour.
The more of #3, the better for the economy.
Absolutely as @Philip has noted with supermarkets replacing humans with robots. How is that helping the working classes who were previously disadvantaged by cheap foreign labour?
Because the humans who aren't replaced with robots can earn more.
So 100 humans originally, earning £15/hour. New robots leave 20 humans. Let's suppose for some unknown, without precedent reason their wages are raised to £30/hour.
What about the remaining 80 humans?
Not sure about the answer to that, but I know that the robots don’t put pressure on housing, schools and hospital places. And the resentment they cause by undercutting low paid workers jobs doesn’t lead to the working class being tarred as racist for noticing
Most of the 80 humans without jobs find other jobs to do - as the economy expands.
@Topping your argument only works if high cost countries such as Switzerland or Sweden / Norway had high levels of unemployment. None of them do.
My point is that countless studies show that while it is observable that foreign cheap workers suppress wages to a very small degree, the usual phenomenon is that indigenous workers move up the value chain.
Not trying to argue, but what would a middle aged man who has been working on a building site since he left school do? Or a cleaner for an office block?
Why hasn’t this phenomenon occurred with the A8 immigration? Why have the indigenous population who have seen their lives bettered by it voted to stop it?
Well as we have noted today that man on a building site is doing very well, thank you! And why can't a cleaner for an office block retrain?
We were talking about supermarket workers who are about to be put out of work by robots. @Philip_Thompson - and others - were saying that it didn't matter because those left in work would be paid more while those out of work could retrain.
My question is and was why couldn't they always retrain? What about the 60-yr old shelf stacker? He can't really retrain I suppose, although working life far from over, so perhaps he can. So it's either robots or foreigners who does for him. (Some) Brexiters seem to think that robots is a good way to be put out of work and foreigners a bad way.
Retraining for almost anything these days when not paid by an employer is hugely expensive. The explosion of fees in the FE sector, together with the slashing of courses and casualisation of staff is a huge drag on productivity.
Absolutely I have no doubt. We were just pondering the fate of the 80/100 Tesco's staff thrown out of work on account of the advent of robots. If anything it will exacerbate employers' strengths because there will be 80 people chasing 20 jobs and we know how that ends up (or at least we do if we have studied economics, as @Philip_Thompson has).
The idea that mechanisation reduces jobs is exactly the reasoning behind the decisions not to mechanise (further) portions of Soviet agriculture. Which went something like this
- If we mechanise, what will the workers do. - It is morally good for the university students to help in the harvest. - We haven't got the capacity to make more tractors anyway. - Oh dear, we have a food shortage. Buy from the West again.
Shortly after the wall fell, ex-Soviet agriculture mechanised at a furious pace. Employment in farming collapsed and production soared.
Russian medical student are no longer required to help with the harvest.
Bank holiday effect. Look at the last "big weekend" in April.
People have prioritised going away and relaxing for the weekend over getting a vaccination.
Its a weekend, its a bank holiday, its a day with a y in it. I think we will go for 21st June regardless but it is silly to pretend that the number of vaccines we do before then won't affect the scale of the risk. Why are the opposition not screaming about this? Where is the surge?
Foakes is injured (pulled muscle slipping on the floor). I believe Buttler is a rotation based on IPL (getting enough rest etc). Bairstow has been tried and doesn't quite come up to scratch. Very good player, some stunning one day batting, and has had some good test scores. but never really kicked on in tests. I agree the side looks odd, and I put a tenner on NZ to win the match last night, and I stick by that.
Why do people need IPL rest when the tournament is not even taking place and they have been home for weeks? I agree with your bet, NZ have brought their first team.
Blame sports science. Their health and fitness is analyzed to the nth degree now, like the footballers and rugby players. Aim is to avoid injuries etc. In the old days, as Fred Truman would say, you just played every game (so 32 3-day games against the counties and tests too. Probably a lot less in the winter though.
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
A society, a demos, requires everyone to have a stake in it.
Supermarket food is going to be cheaper as a result of Brexit, and eating out is going to be more expensive. People working in central London for £9 an hour is a thing of the past, because it’s simply not possible to live there and earn that little money. That’s a good thing.
We shall see. I'm not 100% sure I know why Supermarket food will be cheaper as a result of Brexit (nor eating out more expensive) but the market will clear at the appropriate level.
If labour is scarce then wages will rise. That leaves employers a choice of two options. I am very interested to see which they choose.
Three options: 1. Use less Labour 2. Pay Labour more 3. Invest in capital to replace Labour.
The more of #3, the better for the economy.
Absolutely as @Philip has noted with supermarkets replacing humans with robots. How is that helping the working classes who were previously disadvantaged by cheap foreign labour?
Because the humans who aren't replaced with robots can earn more.
So 100 humans originally, earning £15/hour. New robots leave 20 humans. Let's suppose for some unknown, without precedent reason their wages are raised to £30/hour.
What about the remaining 80 humans?
Not sure about the answer to that, but I know that the robots don’t put pressure on housing, schools and hospital places. And the resentment they cause by undercutting low paid workers jobs doesn’t lead to the working class being tarred as racist for noticing
Most of the 80 humans without jobs find other jobs to do - as the economy expands.
@Topping your argument only works if high cost countries such as Switzerland or Sweden / Norway had high levels of unemployment. None of them do.
My point is that countless studies show that while it is observable that foreign cheap workers suppress wages to a very small degree, the usual phenomenon is that indigenous workers move up the value chain.
Not trying to argue, but what would a middle aged man who has been working on a building site since he left school do? Or a cleaner for an office block?
Why hasn’t this phenomenon occurred with the A8 immigration? Why have the indigenous population who have seen their lives bettered by it voted to stop it?
Well as we have noted today that man on a building site is doing very well, thank you! And why can't a cleaner for an office block retrain?
We were talking about supermarket workers who are about to be put out of work by robots. @Philip_Thompson - and others - were saying that it didn't matter because those left in work would be paid more while those out of work could retrain.
My question is and was why couldn't they always retrain? What about the 60-yr old shelf stacker? He can't really retrain I suppose, although working life far from over, so perhaps he can. So it's either robots or foreigners who does for him. (Some) Brexiters seem to think that robots is a good way to be put out of work and foreigners a bad way.
Retraining for almost anything these days when not paid by an employer is hugely expensive. The explosion of fees in the FE sector, together with the slashing of courses and casualisation of staff is a huge drag on productivity.
Absolutely I have no doubt. We were just pondering the fate of the 80/100 Tesco's staff thrown out of work on account of the advent of robots. If anything it will exacerbate employers' strengths because there will be 80 people chasing 20 jobs and we know how that ends up (or at least we do if we have studied economics, as @Philip_Thompson has).
The idea that mechanisation reduces jobs is exactly the reasoning behind the decisions not to mechanise (further) portions of Soviet agriculture. Which went something like this
- If we mechanise, what will the workers do. - It is morally good for the university students to help in the harvest. - We haven't got the capacity to make more tractors anyway. - Oh dear, we have a food shortage. Buy from the West again.
Shortly after the wall fell, ex-Soviet agriculture mechanised at a furious pace. Employment in farming collapsed and production soared.
Russian medical student are no longer required to help with the harvest.
It is not medical students who are likely to see their jobs automated but the unskilled and the lower skilled and less creative, they need jobs too
So the EU has added Japan (does no testing has vaccinated nobody and has had rising death rates) to its “safe travel” list, but still holding fire on the U.K. (does loads of testing, has vaccinated most people, and has minimal death rates).
No, not political at all...
Definitely nothing to do with the Olympics, which are still scheduled to be on next month.
Foakes is injured (pulled muscle slipping on the floor). I believe Buttler is a rotation based on IPL (getting enough rest etc). Bairstow has been tried and doesn't quite come up to scratch. Very good player, some stunning one day batting, and has had some good test scores. but never really kicked on in tests. I agree the side looks odd, and I put a tenner on NZ to win the match last night, and I stick by that.
Why do people need IPL rest when the tournament is not even taking place and they have been home for weeks? I agree with your bet, NZ have brought their first team.
Blame sports science. Their health and fitness is analyzed to the nth degree now, like the footballers and rugby players. Aim is to avoid injuries etc. In the old days, as Fred Truman would say, you just played every game (so 32 3-day games against the counties and tests too. Probably a lot less in the winter though.
Normally that is the case, but it the current climate (as mentioned above) i think it’s far more about the mental health/bio bubble etc issues.
Bank holiday effect. Look at the last "big weekend" in April.
People have prioritised going away and relaxing for the weekend over getting a vaccination.
Its a weekend, its a bank holiday, its a day with a y in it. I think we will go for 21st June regardless but it is silly to pretend that the number of vaccines we do before then won't affect the scale of the risk. Why are the opposition not screaming about this? Where is the surge?
The vaccinations that haven't occurred because of the Bank Holiday will simply be transferred. I expect that because of half term, this week will be low overall.
Vaccinations have been going up - the seven day average (as of last week) was nearly 600K. The issue is supply - which is the same for ever country.
Bank holiday effect. Look at the last "big weekend" in April.
People have prioritised going away and relaxing for the weekend over getting a vaccination.
Its a weekend, its a bank holiday, its a day with a y in it. I think we will go for 21st June regardless but it is silly to pretend that the number of vaccines we do before then won't affect the scale of the risk. Why are the opposition not screaming about this? Where is the surge?
I think the surge was overstated, but so was the supply issues in April/May. In truth we are doing around 4 million a week and crucially have protected the most vulnerable/likely to need hospital/likely to die. Opening up on the 21st isn't a huge change - we are not in lockdown now. I went to the pub last night with family, played cricket at the weekend, then went to the pub, then the club. I went to a giant flea market with thousands of people on sunday. What is still present is pettifogging, nitpicking, and ultimately probably fairly pointless restrictions that should be binned on the 21st. I generally would have no issue with masks in clinical settings. Fine. But not in shops and pubs. And if people still want to lock themselves away - fine, thats their choice.
Now I'm wondering about one cap wonders now this century, used to be all the rage when I started following cricket in 1990.
Now I'm repressing Darren Patinson.
England selectors in the 90's were a shambles. Pick a player, if they didn't get a ton, or a stack of wickets in the their first match, they were never picked again. Imagine the pressure that brings to your debut. No wonder so many failed...
“We don’t want children doing Maths at five and six in the evening”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green tells #BBCBreakfast Labour would keep schools open for longer but not for formal education as government announces £1.4bn catch-up plan in England.
“We don’t want children doing Maths at five and six in the evening”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green tells #BBCBreakfast Labour would keep schools open for longer but not for formal education as government announces £1.4bn catch-up plan in England.
I was often in school until 5pm doing work, then going home to do homework.
You want kids to have the best education, then they need to work for it.
And there goes some of Starmers bounce.....the labour nutters are out again...
Does she genuinely think kids should only do learning 9-3, 5 days a week?
Whatever happened to espousing you need to work hard and you will be rewarded. Like you I certainly worked a lot more hours than simply the school timetable. You are also going to get a nasty shock if you didn't do that and end up at a top uni.
Now I'm wondering about one cap wonders now this century, used to be all the rage when I started following cricket in 1990.
Now I'm repressing Darren Patinson.
England selectors in the 90's were a shambles. Pick a player, if they didn't get a ton, or a stack of wickets in the their first match, they were never picked again. Imagine the pressure that brings to your debut. No wonder so many failed...
It was the horses for courses approach that annoyed me.
Mind you I think central contracts have helped, just imagine the test careers that people like Angus Fraser and Darren Gough could have had with central contracts.
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
A society, a demos, requires everyone to have a stake in it.
Supermarket food is going to be cheaper as a result of Brexit, and eating out is going to be more expensive. People working in central London for £9 an hour is a thing of the past, because it’s simply not possible to live there and earn that little money. That’s a good thing.
We shall see. I'm not 100% sure I know why Supermarket food will be cheaper as a result of Brexit (nor eating out more expensive) but the market will clear at the appropriate level.
If labour is scarce then wages will rise. That leaves employers a choice of two options. I am very interested to see which they choose.
Three options: 1. Use less Labour 2. Pay Labour more 3. Invest in capital to replace Labour.
The more of #3, the better for the economy.
Absolutely as @Philip has noted with supermarkets replacing humans with robots. How is that helping the working classes who were previously disadvantaged by cheap foreign labour?
Because the humans who aren't replaced with robots can earn more.
So 100 humans originally, earning £15/hour. New robots leave 20 humans. Let's suppose for some unknown, without precedent reason their wages are raised to £30/hour.
What about the remaining 80 humans?
Not sure about the answer to that, but I know that the robots don’t put pressure on housing, schools and hospital places. And the resentment they cause by undercutting low paid workers jobs doesn’t lead to the working class being tarred as racist for noticing
Most of the 80 humans without jobs find other jobs to do - as the economy expands.
@Topping your argument only works if high cost countries such as Switzerland or Sweden / Norway had high levels of unemployment. None of them do.
My point is that countless studies show that while it is observable that foreign cheap workers suppress wages to a very small degree, the usual phenomenon is that indigenous workers move up the value chain.
Not trying to argue, but what would a middle aged man who has been working on a building site since he left school do? Or a cleaner for an office block?
Why hasn’t this phenomenon occurred with the A8 immigration? Why have the indigenous population who have seen their lives bettered by it voted to stop it?
Well as we have noted today that man on a building site is doing very well, thank you! And why can't a cleaner for an office block retrain?
We were talking about supermarket workers who are about to be put out of work by robots. @Philip_Thompson - and others - were saying that it didn't matter because those left in work would be paid more while those out of work could retrain.
My question is and was why couldn't they always retrain? What about the 60-yr old shelf stacker? He can't really retrain I suppose, although working life far from over, so perhaps he can. So it's either robots or foreigners who does for him. (Some) Brexiters seem to think that robots is a good way to be put out of work and foreigners a bad way.
Retraining for almost anything these days when not paid by an employer is hugely expensive. The explosion of fees in the FE sector, together with the slashing of courses and casualisation of staff is a huge drag on productivity.
Absolutely I have no doubt. We were just pondering the fate of the 80/100 Tesco's staff thrown out of work on account of the advent of robots. If anything it will exacerbate employers' strengths because there will be 80 people chasing 20 jobs and we know how that ends up (or at least we do if we have studied economics, as @Philip_Thompson has).
The other point is, of course, we are talking of shortages of staff in particular areas aren't we? Chefs, tutors and construction have been mentioned. How are these automated? And said Tesco workers will be in no position to take up these posts without years of retraining. Years without access to student loans, nor Universal Credit. So unless they have savings, an inheritance or a lottery win, who will fund them? Not HMG, if today's education announcement is any guide.
Something strange going on at the edges of teaching, perhaps.
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
No idea why you're calling it Trumpton.
Plus of course the supermarkets are doing what they can to eliminate as many staff roles as possible.
I have a new Tesco Superstore that's just been developed near to me and it has quite a skeleton crew of staff compared to what they used to have but the customer service is actually better than any other supermarkets I go to. They've really rethought the self checkouts to remove all the bugbears: no scales* (so no irritating "your item is not on bagging scale" or "too much weight on bagging scale" errors stopping the checkouts. Plus there's a single touchscreen the staff member can use to authorise every checkout if Challenge 25 pops up and the shopper is obviously over 25 rather than waiting for a cashier to come to your own till to deal with it.
* Someone asked last time I mentioned this about weighing fresh produce. There's a scale by the tills that prints out barcodes once you've weighed the products so you just need to scan that barcode.
Trumpton, known to the entire world as Trumpton especially if you know anyone who lives there, is a very pleasant village a few miles South of Nottingham.
I used to know Pugh, Pugh, Charley McGrew, Cuthbert, Dribble and Grubb but I've not seen them for quite a while.
“We don’t want children doing Maths at five and six in the evening”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green tells #BBCBreakfast Labour would keep schools open for longer but not for formal education as government announces £1.4bn catch-up plan in England.
I was often in school until 5pm doing work, then going home to do homework.
You want kids to have the best education, then they need to work for it.
I always did my homework between 4 and 5 (until it got more than I could do in an hour). I think there are issues with keeping kids engaged though. I hate lecture slots late in the day and that is for students, let alone school kids. I got my worst ever feedback for a set of tutorials starting at 3.15 on friday afternoons - I was the last thing keeping them from the bar...
“We don’t want children doing Maths at five and six in the evening”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green tells #BBCBreakfast Labour would keep schools open for longer but not for formal education as government announces £1.4bn catch-up plan in England.
I was often in school until 5pm doing work, then going home to do homework.
You want kids to have the best education, then they need to work for it.
And there goes some of Starmers bounce.....the labour nutters are out again...
Does she genuinely think kids should only do learning 9-3, 5 days a week?
Whatever happened to espousing you need to work hard and you will be rewarded.
I’ve said it before and will say it again. Labour have so many open goals against the education secretary but Kate Green is a woeful performer. Absolutely terrible.
I haven't watched the Starmer interview - and probably won't because I'd have to see Morgan - but from write ups it sounds similar to his Desert Island Discs appearance. If so, good, because that was excellent.
But the million dollar question is to what extent "Boris" Johnson has changed the game. Do you now need to create a facetious comic persona in order to be PM material?
One hopes not, if one has an interest in the health of our democracy, but one can't be sure of this if one is honest. The Johnson brand is insidious. It's affecting people's synapses, some of them perfectly decent people.
The next year will tell us a lot and is so so important. I just can't emphasize enough how important this next year is going to be. It could go either way.
The next year - one of a glorious return to freedom and economic revival - will be won by the leader who can best project sunny optimism and confidence in our national resurgence, so Sir Keir ... is probably screwed.
If there is a turn of the tide - as I think on balance there will be - one of the biggest boons is we'll get to see a different side of you. In place of remorseless overconfidence and ebullience will come doubt and introspection, and I sense a touch of endearing vulnerability.
I rather doubt it. My confidence didn't waver in the darkest days of the pandemic when we had no vaccines, little hope, and no end in sight - a uniquely dire political environment for the incumbent in which the Opposition managed to, er, momentarily draw level in the polling averages. Having scrambled out of that particular abyss, it's nothing more than potholes from here on out...
Ok, but let's agree you won't pretend to be feeling great about things when you aren't. If the black dog barks, let me know about it. Deal?
I sense we are due another thread header entitled ' Imagine Labour with a 10 point poll lead ' - with everyone encouraged to share their joy. In the absence of said lead it's about the only pro-Starmer angle yet to be covered.
Yes, good idea. I'll get cracking on that. People other than Johnson fanbois and Tory partisans need and deserve a booster shot.
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
A society, a demos, requires everyone to have a stake in it.
Supermarket food is going to be cheaper as a result of Brexit, and eating out is going to be more expensive. People working in central London for £9 an hour is a thing of the past, because it’s simply not possible to live there and earn that little money. That’s a good thing.
We shall see. I'm not 100% sure I know why Supermarket food will be cheaper as a result of Brexit (nor eating out more expensive) but the market will clear at the appropriate level.
If labour is scarce then wages will rise. That leaves employers a choice of two options. I am very interested to see which they choose.
Three options: 1. Use less Labour 2. Pay Labour more 3. Invest in capital to replace Labour.
The more of #3, the better for the economy.
Absolutely as @Philip has noted with supermarkets replacing humans with robots. How is that helping the working classes who were previously disadvantaged by cheap foreign labour?
Because the humans who aren't replaced with robots can earn more.
So 100 humans originally, earning £15/hour. New robots leave 20 humans. Let's suppose for some unknown, without precedent reason their wages are raised to £30/hour.
What about the remaining 80 humans?
Not sure about the answer to that, but I know that the robots don’t put pressure on housing, schools and hospital places. And the resentment they cause by undercutting low paid workers jobs doesn’t lead to the working class being tarred as racist for noticing
Most of the 80 humans without jobs find other jobs to do - as the economy expands.
@Topping your argument only works if high cost countries such as Switzerland or Sweden / Norway had high levels of unemployment. None of them do.
My point is that countless studies show that while it is observable that foreign cheap workers suppress wages to a very small degree, the usual phenomenon is that indigenous workers move up the value chain.
Not trying to argue, but what would a middle aged man who has been working on a building site since he left school do? Or a cleaner for an office block?
Why hasn’t this phenomenon occurred with the A8 immigration? Why have the indigenous population who have seen their lives bettered by it voted to stop it?
Well as we have noted today that man on a building site is doing very well, thank you! And why can't a cleaner for an office block retrain?
We were talking about supermarket workers who are about to be put out of work by robots. @Philip_Thompson - and others - were saying that it didn't matter because those left in work would be paid more while those out of work could retrain.
My question is and was why couldn't they always retrain? What about the 60-yr old shelf stacker? He can't really retrain I suppose, although working life far from over, so perhaps he can. So it's either robots or foreigners who does for him. (Some) Brexiters seem to think that robots is a good way to be put out of work and foreigners a bad way.
For one, robots dont need housing, hospital beds and school places. Nor does their presence provide an easy slur of Robot-ism to be thrown at the low paid workers whose jobs they take
I guess the answer is that the middle aged, low paid worker with family commitments would prefer not to have to retrain. They had probably settled for a life on low paid, but safe and steady local employment, and hadn't anticipated the labour market being turned upside down by the party their family voted for their whole lives. Hence Brexit.
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
A society, a demos, requires everyone to have a stake in it.
Supermarket food is going to be cheaper as a result of Brexit, and eating out is going to be more expensive. People working in central London for £9 an hour is a thing of the past, because it’s simply not possible to live there and earn that little money. That’s a good thing.
We shall see. I'm not 100% sure I know why Supermarket food will be cheaper as a result of Brexit (nor eating out more expensive) but the market will clear at the appropriate level.
If labour is scarce then wages will rise. That leaves employers a choice of two options. I am very interested to see which they choose.
Three options: 1. Use less Labour 2. Pay Labour more 3. Invest in capital to replace Labour.
The more of #3, the better for the economy.
Absolutely as @Philip has noted with supermarkets replacing humans with robots. How is that helping the working classes who were previously disadvantaged by cheap foreign labour?
Because the humans who aren't replaced with robots can earn more.
So 100 humans originally, earning £15/hour. New robots leave 20 humans. Let's suppose for some unknown, without precedent reason their wages are raised to £30/hour.
What about the remaining 80 humans?
Not sure about the answer to that, but I know that the robots don’t put pressure on housing, schools and hospital places. And the resentment they cause by undercutting low paid workers jobs doesn’t lead to the working class being tarred as racist for noticing
Most of the 80 humans without jobs find other jobs to do - as the economy expands.
@Topping your argument only works if high cost countries such as Switzerland or Sweden / Norway had high levels of unemployment. None of them do.
My point is that countless studies show that while it is observable that foreign cheap workers suppress wages to a very small degree, the usual phenomenon is that indigenous workers move up the value chain.
Not trying to argue, but what would a middle aged man who has been working on a building site since he left school do? Or a cleaner for an office block?
Why hasn’t this phenomenon occurred with the A8 immigration? Why have the indigenous population who have seen their lives bettered by it voted to stop it?
Well as we have noted today that man on a building site is doing very well, thank you! And why can't a cleaner for an office block retrain?
We were talking about supermarket workers who are about to be put out of work by robots. @Philip_Thompson - and others - were saying that it didn't matter because those left in work would be paid more while those out of work could retrain.
My question is and was why couldn't they always retrain? What about the 60-yr old shelf stacker? He can't really retrain I suppose, although working life far from over, so perhaps he can. So it's either robots or foreigners who does for him. (Some) Brexiters seem to think that robots is a good way to be put out of work and foreigners a bad way.
Retraining for almost anything these days when not paid by an employer is hugely expensive. The explosion of fees in the FE sector, together with the slashing of courses and casualisation of staff is a huge drag on productivity.
Absolutely I have no doubt. We were just pondering the fate of the 80/100 Tesco's staff thrown out of work on account of the advent of robots. If anything it will exacerbate employers' strengths because there will be 80 people chasing 20 jobs and we know how that ends up (or at least we do if we have studied economics, as @Philip_Thompson has).
The other point is, of course, we are talking of shortages of staff in particular areas aren't we? Chefs, tutors and construction have been mentioned. How are these automated? And said Tesco workers will be in no position to take up these posts without years of retraining. Years without access to student loans, nor Universal Credit. And years of many thousands of fees to shell out. So unless they have savings, an inheritance or a lottery win, who will fund them? Not HMG, if today's education announcement is any guide.
It should be noted that, historically, the mechanisation of work has, overall, grown the economy.
Indeed. My point was rather the total paucity of any policy to upskill. Other than expecting businesses or individuals to do so on a free market basis. Historically there was an extensive network of reasonably priced local FE Colleges.
By historic I take it you mean until roughly 199? - evening classes had gone the way of the dinosaur by 1997.
They had. I'm talking more about the full time training to become a Chef or mental health therapist, electrician or other areas of potential skills shortages which need to be filled post Brexit and pandemic.
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
A society, a demos, requires everyone to have a stake in it.
Supermarket food is going to be cheaper as a result of Brexit, and eating out is going to be more expensive. People working in central London for £9 an hour is a thing of the past, because it’s simply not possible to live there and earn that little money. That’s a good thing.
We shall see. I'm not 100% sure I know why Supermarket food will be cheaper as a result of Brexit (nor eating out more expensive) but the market will clear at the appropriate level.
If labour is scarce then wages will rise. That leaves employers a choice of two options. I am very interested to see which they choose.
Three options: 1. Use less Labour 2. Pay Labour more 3. Invest in capital to replace Labour.
The more of #3, the better for the economy.
Absolutely as @Philip has noted with supermarkets replacing humans with robots. How is that helping the working classes who were previously disadvantaged by cheap foreign labour?
Because the humans who aren't replaced with robots can earn more.
So 100 humans originally, earning £15/hour. New robots leave 20 humans. Let's suppose for some unknown, without precedent reason their wages are raised to £30/hour.
What about the remaining 80 humans?
Not sure about the answer to that, but I know that the robots don’t put pressure on housing, schools and hospital places. And the resentment they cause by undercutting low paid workers jobs doesn’t lead to the working class being tarred as racist for noticing
Most of the 80 humans without jobs find other jobs to do - as the economy expands.
@Topping your argument only works if high cost countries such as Switzerland or Sweden / Norway had high levels of unemployment. None of them do.
My point is that countless studies show that while it is observable that foreign cheap workers suppress wages to a very small degree, the usual phenomenon is that indigenous workers move up the value chain.
Not trying to argue, but what would a middle aged man who has been working on a building site since he left school do? Or a cleaner for an office block?
Why hasn’t this phenomenon occurred with the A8 immigration? Why have the indigenous population who have seen their lives bettered by it voted to stop it?
Well as we have noted today that man on a building site is doing very well, thank you! And why can't a cleaner for an office block retrain?
We were talking about supermarket workers who are about to be put out of work by robots. @Philip_Thompson - and others - were saying that it didn't matter because those left in work would be paid more while those out of work could retrain.
My question is and was why couldn't they always retrain? What about the 60-yr old shelf stacker? He can't really retrain I suppose, although working life far from over, so perhaps he can. So it's either robots or foreigners who does for him. (Some) Brexiters seem to think that robots is a good way to be put out of work and foreigners a bad way.
For one, robots dont need housing, hospital beds and school places. Nor does their presence provide an easy slur of Robot-ism to be thrown at the low paid workers whose jobs they take
I guess the answer is that the middle aged, low paid worker with family commitments would prefer not to have to retrain. They had probably settled for a life on low paid, but safe and steady local employment, and hadn't anticipated the labour market being turned upside down by the party their family voted for their whole lives. Hence Brexit.
What with the minimum and national living wage I think he has done very well. There aren't passport checks before payment of the national living wage.
Edit: plus the labour market is always turned upside down by something or other. Robots, foreigners, something.
Now I'm wondering about one cap wonders now this century, used to be all the rage when I started following cricket in 1990.
Now I'm repressing Darren Patinson.
Did Gary Pratt ever get a cap, despite taking one of the greatest wickets of all time?
No cap, but he did sit on the victory parade bus.
I can still see Ponting’s angry face as he walked back to the pavilion, wondering what the hell just happened, not recognising the guy who threw the ball that ran him out.
Really? That seems very high phatically the 75-79 at 100%
It so I'm very happy but do you mind me asking where you got those numbers from?
There is almost certainly an underestimate of how many 75-79 year olds we actually have in this country. I think the 'unrounded' figure is some way above 100%. OTOH, it might be that the 16-35 figure is actually based on a population overestimate, with many workers in that age range having gone back to their home country. So that percentage is maybe really a little higher. OTOH2, this probably doesn't include a significant number who are here but don't show up in official figures.
Interesting that more 40-44 have been jabbed than 45-49.
To be fair to the LD candidate most parliamentary candidates who do not already live in the constituency rent a flat there before and during the campaign and then only buy a permanent property there if they win the seat.
The issue here though I think is more whether the address is actually hers or that of a LD local councillor
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
A society, a demos, requires everyone to have a stake in it.
Supermarket food is going to be cheaper as a result of Brexit, and eating out is going to be more expensive. People working in central London for £9 an hour is a thing of the past, because it’s simply not possible to live there and earn that little money. That’s a good thing.
We shall see. I'm not 100% sure I know why Supermarket food will be cheaper as a result of Brexit (nor eating out more expensive) but the market will clear at the appropriate level.
If labour is scarce then wages will rise. That leaves employers a choice of two options. I am very interested to see which they choose.
Three options: 1. Use less Labour 2. Pay Labour more 3. Invest in capital to replace Labour.
The more of #3, the better for the economy.
Absolutely as @Philip has noted with supermarkets replacing humans with robots. How is that helping the working classes who were previously disadvantaged by cheap foreign labour?
Because the humans who aren't replaced with robots can earn more.
So 100 humans originally, earning £15/hour. New robots leave 20 humans. Let's suppose for some unknown, without precedent reason their wages are raised to £30/hour.
What about the remaining 80 humans?
Not sure about the answer to that, but I know that the robots don’t put pressure on housing, schools and hospital places. And the resentment they cause by undercutting low paid workers jobs doesn’t lead to the working class being tarred as racist for noticing
Most of the 80 humans without jobs find other jobs to do - as the economy expands.
@Topping your argument only works if high cost countries such as Switzerland or Sweden / Norway had high levels of unemployment. None of them do.
My point is that countless studies show that while it is observable that foreign cheap workers suppress wages to a very small degree, the usual phenomenon is that indigenous workers move up the value chain.
Not trying to argue, but what would a middle aged man who has been working on a building site since he left school do? Or a cleaner for an office block?
Why hasn’t this phenomenon occurred with the A8 immigration? Why have the indigenous population who have seen their lives bettered by it voted to stop it?
Well as we have noted today that man on a building site is doing very well, thank you! And why can't a cleaner for an office block retrain?
We were talking about supermarket workers who are about to be put out of work by robots. @Philip_Thompson - and others - were saying that it didn't matter because those left in work would be paid more while those out of work could retrain.
My question is and was why couldn't they always retrain? What about the 60-yr old shelf stacker? He can't really retrain I suppose, although working life far from over, so perhaps he can. So it's either robots or foreigners who does for him. (Some) Brexiters seem to think that robots is a good way to be put out of work and foreigners a bad way.
For one, robots dont need housing, hospital beds and school places. Nor does their presence provide an easy slur of Robot-ism to be thrown at the low paid workers whose jobs they take
I guess the answer is that the middle aged, low paid worker with family commitments would prefer not to have to retrain. They had probably settled for a life on low paid, but safe and steady local employment, and hadn't anticipated the labour market being turned upside down by the party their family voted for their whole lives. Hence Brexit.
What with the minimum and national living wage I think he has done very well. There aren't passport checks before payment of the national living wage.
Well it seems he (they) disagree.
I don't think people live their lives to squeeze every drop of value out of their assets or labour the way economists think they should. They could probably all be a bit better off if they rented out their spare room to casual workers rather than storing old photographs and the kids toys in them too, but they dont. Most are happy with a steady income and a settled life, that is why the consequence of Blair's revolutionary act of allowing FOM from Eastern Europe was so unpopular to have seen Brexit, and Northern working class Labour voters go Tory.
Now I'm wondering about one cap wonders now this century, used to be all the rage when I started following cricket in 1990.
Now I'm repressing Darren Patinson.
Did Gary Pratt ever get a cap, despite taking one of the greatest wickets of all time?
No cap, but he did sit on the victory parade bus.
I can still see Ponting’s angry face as he walked back to the pavilion, wondering what the hell just happened, not recognising the guy who threw the ball that ran him out.
He was right in principle, but wrong on specifics. We had been resting the bowlers, but this one was not. Classic moment, and just shows the importance of fielding well.
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
A society, a demos, requires everyone to have a stake in it.
Supermarket food is going to be cheaper as a result of Brexit, and eating out is going to be more expensive. People working in central London for £9 an hour is a thing of the past, because it’s simply not possible to live there and earn that little money. That’s a good thing.
We shall see. I'm not 100% sure I know why Supermarket food will be cheaper as a result of Brexit (nor eating out more expensive) but the market will clear at the appropriate level.
If labour is scarce then wages will rise. That leaves employers a choice of two options. I am very interested to see which they choose.
Three options: 1. Use less Labour 2. Pay Labour more 3. Invest in capital to replace Labour.
The more of #3, the better for the economy.
Absolutely as @Philip has noted with supermarkets replacing humans with robots. How is that helping the working classes who were previously disadvantaged by cheap foreign labour?
Because the humans who aren't replaced with robots can earn more.
So 100 humans originally, earning £15/hour. New robots leave 20 humans. Let's suppose for some unknown, without precedent reason their wages are raised to £30/hour.
What about the remaining 80 humans?
Not sure about the answer to that, but I know that the robots don’t put pressure on housing, schools and hospital places. And the resentment they cause by undercutting low paid workers jobs doesn’t lead to the working class being tarred as racist for noticing
Most of the 80 humans without jobs find other jobs to do - as the economy expands.
@Topping your argument only works if high cost countries such as Switzerland or Sweden / Norway had high levels of unemployment. None of them do.
My point is that countless studies show that while it is observable that foreign cheap workers suppress wages to a very small degree, the usual phenomenon is that indigenous workers move up the value chain.
Not trying to argue, but what would a middle aged man who has been working on a building site since he left school do? Or a cleaner for an office block?
Why hasn’t this phenomenon occurred with the A8 immigration? Why have the indigenous population who have seen their lives bettered by it voted to stop it?
Well as we have noted today that man on a building site is doing very well, thank you! And why can't a cleaner for an office block retrain?
We were talking about supermarket workers who are about to be put out of work by robots. @Philip_Thompson - and others - were saying that it didn't matter because those left in work would be paid more while those out of work could retrain.
My question is and was why couldn't they always retrain? What about the 60-yr old shelf stacker? He can't really retrain I suppose, although working life far from over, so perhaps he can. So it's either robots or foreigners who does for him. (Some) Brexiters seem to think that robots is a good way to be put out of work and foreigners a bad way.
For one, robots dont need housing, hospital beds and school places. Nor does their presence provide an easy slur of Robot-ism to be thrown at the low paid workers whose jobs they take
I guess the answer is that the middle aged, low paid worker with family commitments would prefer not to have to retrain. They had probably settled for a life on low paid, but safe and steady local employment, and hadn't anticipated the labour market being turned upside down by the party their family voted for their whole lives. Hence Brexit.
What with the minimum and national living wage I think he has done very well. There aren't passport checks before payment of the national living wage.
Well it seems he (they) disagree.
I don't think people live their lives to squeeze every drop of value out of their assets or labour the way economists think they should. They could probably all be a bit better off if they rented out their spare room to casual workers rather than storing old photographs and the kids toys in them too, but they dont. Most are happy with a steady income and a settled life, that is why the consequence of Blair's revolutionary act of allowing FOM from Eastern Europe was so unpopular to have seen Brexit, and Northern working class Labour voters go Tory.
I can't disagree with the result. They did vote Brexit and Tory. I hope they will be less unhappy when their job is automated or something else disruptive happens to it.
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
A society, a demos, requires everyone to have a stake in it.
Supermarket food is going to be cheaper as a result of Brexit, and eating out is going to be more expensive. People working in central London for £9 an hour is a thing of the past, because it’s simply not possible to live there and earn that little money. That’s a good thing.
We shall see. I'm not 100% sure I know why Supermarket food will be cheaper as a result of Brexit (nor eating out more expensive) but the market will clear at the appropriate level.
If labour is scarce then wages will rise. That leaves employers a choice of two options. I am very interested to see which they choose.
Three options: 1. Use less Labour 2. Pay Labour more 3. Invest in capital to replace Labour.
The more of #3, the better for the economy.
Absolutely as @Philip has noted with supermarkets replacing humans with robots. How is that helping the working classes who were previously disadvantaged by cheap foreign labour?
Because the humans who aren't replaced with robots can earn more.
So 100 humans originally, earning £15/hour. New robots leave 20 humans. Let's suppose for some unknown, without precedent reason their wages are raised to £30/hour.
What about the remaining 80 humans?
Not sure about the answer to that, but I know that the robots don’t put pressure on housing, schools and hospital places. And the resentment they cause by undercutting low paid workers jobs doesn’t lead to the working class being tarred as racist for noticing
Most of the 80 humans without jobs find other jobs to do - as the economy expands.
@Topping your argument only works if high cost countries such as Switzerland or Sweden / Norway had high levels of unemployment. None of them do.
My point is that countless studies show that while it is observable that foreign cheap workers suppress wages to a very small degree, the usual phenomenon is that indigenous workers move up the value chain.
Not trying to argue, but what would a middle aged man who has been working on a building site since he left school do? Or a cleaner for an office block?
Why hasn’t this phenomenon occurred with the A8 immigration? Why have the indigenous population who have seen their lives bettered by it voted to stop it?
Well as we have noted today that man on a building site is doing very well, thank you! And why can't a cleaner for an office block retrain?
We were talking about supermarket workers who are about to be put out of work by robots. @Philip_Thompson - and others - were saying that it didn't matter because those left in work would be paid more while those out of work could retrain.
My question is and was why couldn't they always retrain? What about the 60-yr old shelf stacker? He can't really retrain I suppose, although working life far from over, so perhaps he can. So it's either robots or foreigners who does for him. (Some) Brexiters seem to think that robots is a good way to be put out of work and foreigners a bad way.
Retraining for almost anything these days when not paid by an employer is hugely expensive. The explosion of fees in the FE sector, together with the slashing of courses and casualisation of staff is a huge drag on productivity.
Absolutely I have no doubt. We were just pondering the fate of the 80/100 Tesco's staff thrown out of work on account of the advent of robots. If anything it will exacerbate employers' strengths because there will be 80 people chasing 20 jobs and we know how that ends up (or at least we do if we have studied economics, as @Philip_Thompson has).
The other point is, of course, we are talking of shortages of staff in particular areas aren't we? Chefs, tutors and construction have been mentioned. How are these automated? And said Tesco workers will be in no position to take up these posts without years of retraining. Years without access to student loans, nor Universal Credit. So unless they have savings, an inheritance or a lottery win, who will fund them? Not HMG, if today's education announcement is any guide.
Something strange going on at the edges of teaching, perhaps.
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
No idea why you're calling it Trumpton.
Plus of course the supermarkets are doing what they can to eliminate as many staff roles as possible.
I have a new Tesco Superstore that's just been developed near to me and it has quite a skeleton crew of staff compared to what they used to have but the customer service is actually better than any other supermarkets I go to. They've really rethought the self checkouts to remove all the bugbears: no scales* (so no irritating "your item is not on bagging scale" or "too much weight on bagging scale" errors stopping the checkouts. Plus there's a single touchscreen the staff member can use to authorise every checkout if Challenge 25 pops up and the shopper is obviously over 25 rather than waiting for a cashier to come to your own till to deal with it.
* Someone asked last time I mentioned this about weighing fresh produce. There's a scale by the tills that prints out barcodes once you've weighed the products so you just need to scan that barcode.
Trumpton, known to the entire world as Trumpton especially if you know anyone who lives there, is a very pleasant village a few miles South of Nottingham.
I used to know Pugh, Pugh, Charley McGrew, Cuthbert, Dribble and Grubb but I've not seen them for quite a while.
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
A society, a demos, requires everyone to have a stake in it.
Supermarket food is going to be cheaper as a result of Brexit, and eating out is going to be more expensive. People working in central London for £9 an hour is a thing of the past, because it’s simply not possible to live there and earn that little money. That’s a good thing.
We shall see. I'm not 100% sure I know why Supermarket food will be cheaper as a result of Brexit (nor eating out more expensive) but the market will clear at the appropriate level.
If labour is scarce then wages will rise. That leaves employers a choice of two options. I am very interested to see which they choose.
Three options: 1. Use less Labour 2. Pay Labour more 3. Invest in capital to replace Labour.
The more of #3, the better for the economy.
Absolutely as @Philip has noted with supermarkets replacing humans with robots. How is that helping the working classes who were previously disadvantaged by cheap foreign labour?
Because the humans who aren't replaced with robots can earn more.
So 100 humans originally, earning £15/hour. New robots leave 20 humans. Let's suppose for some unknown, without precedent reason their wages are raised to £30/hour.
What about the remaining 80 humans?
Not sure about the answer to that, but I know that the robots don’t put pressure on housing, schools and hospital places. And the resentment they cause by undercutting low paid workers jobs doesn’t lead to the working class being tarred as racist for noticing
Most of the 80 humans without jobs find other jobs to do - as the economy expands.
@Topping your argument only works if high cost countries such as Switzerland or Sweden / Norway had high levels of unemployment. None of them do.
My point is that countless studies show that while it is observable that foreign cheap workers suppress wages to a very small degree, the usual phenomenon is that indigenous workers move up the value chain.
Not trying to argue, but what would a middle aged man who has been working on a building site since he left school do? Or a cleaner for an office block?
Why hasn’t this phenomenon occurred with the A8 immigration? Why have the indigenous population who have seen their lives bettered by it voted to stop it?
Well as we have noted today that man on a building site is doing very well, thank you! And why can't a cleaner for an office block retrain?
We were talking about supermarket workers who are about to be put out of work by robots. @Philip_Thompson - and others - were saying that it didn't matter because those left in work would be paid more while those out of work could retrain.
My question is and was why couldn't they always retrain? What about the 60-yr old shelf stacker? He can't really retrain I suppose, although working life far from over, so perhaps he can. So it's either robots or foreigners who does for him. (Some) Brexiters seem to think that robots is a good way to be put out of work and foreigners a bad way.
Retraining for almost anything these days when not paid by an employer is hugely expensive. The explosion of fees in the FE sector, together with the slashing of courses and casualisation of staff is a huge drag on productivity.
Absolutely I have no doubt. We were just pondering the fate of the 80/100 Tesco's staff thrown out of work on account of the advent of robots. If anything it will exacerbate employers' strengths because there will be 80 people chasing 20 jobs and we know how that ends up (or at least we do if we have studied economics, as @Philip_Thompson has).
The idea that mechanisation reduces jobs is exactly the reasoning behind the decisions not to mechanise (further) portions of Soviet agriculture. Which went something like this
- If we mechanise, what will the workers do. - It is morally good for the university students to help in the harvest. - We haven't got the capacity to make more tractors anyway. - Oh dear, we have a food shortage. Buy from the West again.
Shortly after the wall fell, ex-Soviet agriculture mechanised at a furious pace. Employment in farming collapsed and production soared.
Russian medical student are no longer required to help with the harvest.
There is a Quote for Milton Freedman, I think when he was filming his TV series 'Free to Choose'
he was visiting a construction site, and the host informed him that 'they where using shovels and wheel barrowed not diggers, so it creates lots of jobs.'
To which Milton Freedman replied, in that case why don't you take the shovels off them and give them tee spoons?
Well, we have spent years drilling into them that nothing unnatural goes into their bodies or they are out. It's got to have some effect on their psyche.
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
A society, a demos, requires everyone to have a stake in it.
Supermarket food is going to be cheaper as a result of Brexit, and eating out is going to be more expensive. People working in central London for £9 an hour is a thing of the past, because it’s simply not possible to live there and earn that little money. That’s a good thing.
We shall see. I'm not 100% sure I know why Supermarket food will be cheaper as a result of Brexit (nor eating out more expensive) but the market will clear at the appropriate level.
If labour is scarce then wages will rise. That leaves employers a choice of two options. I am very interested to see which they choose.
Three options: 1. Use less Labour 2. Pay Labour more 3. Invest in capital to replace Labour.
The more of #3, the better for the economy.
Absolutely as @Philip has noted with supermarkets replacing humans with robots. How is that helping the working classes who were previously disadvantaged by cheap foreign labour?
Because the humans who aren't replaced with robots can earn more.
So 100 humans originally, earning £15/hour. New robots leave 20 humans. Let's suppose for some unknown, without precedent reason their wages are raised to £30/hour.
What about the remaining 80 humans?
Not sure about the answer to that, but I know that the robots don’t put pressure on housing, schools and hospital places. And the resentment they cause by undercutting low paid workers jobs doesn’t lead to the working class being tarred as racist for noticing
Most of the 80 humans without jobs find other jobs to do - as the economy expands.
@Topping your argument only works if high cost countries such as Switzerland or Sweden / Norway had high levels of unemployment. None of them do.
My point is that countless studies show that while it is observable that foreign cheap workers suppress wages to a very small degree, the usual phenomenon is that indigenous workers move up the value chain.
Not trying to argue, but what would a middle aged man who has been working on a building site since he left school do? Or a cleaner for an office block?
Why hasn’t this phenomenon occurred with the A8 immigration? Why have the indigenous population who have seen their lives bettered by it voted to stop it?
Well as we have noted today that man on a building site is doing very well, thank you! And why can't a cleaner for an office block retrain?
We were talking about supermarket workers who are about to be put out of work by robots. @Philip_Thompson - and others - were saying that it didn't matter because those left in work would be paid more while those out of work could retrain.
My question is and was why couldn't they always retrain? What about the 60-yr old shelf stacker? He can't really retrain I suppose, although working life far from over, so perhaps he can. So it's either robots or foreigners who does for him. (Some) Brexiters seem to think that robots is a good way to be put out of work and foreigners a bad way.
Retraining for almost anything these days when not paid by an employer is hugely expensive. The explosion of fees in the FE sector, together with the slashing of courses and casualisation of staff is a huge drag on productivity.
Absolutely I have no doubt. We were just pondering the fate of the 80/100 Tesco's staff thrown out of work on account of the advent of robots. If anything it will exacerbate employers' strengths because there will be 80 people chasing 20 jobs and we know how that ends up (or at least we do if we have studied economics, as @Philip_Thompson has).
The more jobs are automated and not replaced by new jobs, the more a UBI funded by a robot tax becomes inevitable
What if the robots refuse to pay?
Quite. Or (more likely) up sticks to a country that lets them keep more of what they earn. Basic Laffer curve stuff.
“We don’t want children doing Maths at five and six in the evening”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green tells #BBCBreakfast Labour would keep schools open for longer but not for formal education as government announces £1.4bn catch-up plan in England.
I was often in school until 5pm doing work, then going home to do homework.
You want kids to have the best education, then they need to work for it.
I always did my homework between 4 and 5 (until it got more than I could do in an hour). I think there are issues with keeping kids engaged though. I hate lecture slots late in the day and that is for students, let alone school kids. I got my worst ever feedback for a set of tutorials starting at 3.15 on friday afternoons - I was the last thing keeping them from the bar...
I used to teach advocacy to Diploma students between 6 and 8 on a Thursday night. Some of the classes were better than others. I still remember telling one particular group that I was a representative of a potential employer if they were looking for a traineeship and I wouldn't employ any of them. That seemed to genuinely shock them and things improved but it was never easy.
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
A society, a demos, requires everyone to have a stake in it.
Supermarket food is going to be cheaper as a result of Brexit, and eating out is going to be more expensive. People working in central London for £9 an hour is a thing of the past, because it’s simply not possible to live there and earn that little money. That’s a good thing.
We shall see. I'm not 100% sure I know why Supermarket food will be cheaper as a result of Brexit (nor eating out more expensive) but the market will clear at the appropriate level.
If labour is scarce then wages will rise. That leaves employers a choice of two options. I am very interested to see which they choose.
Three options: 1. Use less Labour 2. Pay Labour more 3. Invest in capital to replace Labour.
The more of #3, the better for the economy.
Absolutely as @Philip has noted with supermarkets replacing humans with robots. How is that helping the working classes who were previously disadvantaged by cheap foreign labour?
Because the humans who aren't replaced with robots can earn more.
So 100 humans originally, earning £15/hour. New robots leave 20 humans. Let's suppose for some unknown, without precedent reason their wages are raised to £30/hour.
What about the remaining 80 humans?
Not sure about the answer to that, but I know that the robots don’t put pressure on housing, schools and hospital places. And the resentment they cause by undercutting low paid workers jobs doesn’t lead to the working class being tarred as racist for noticing
Most of the 80 humans without jobs find other jobs to do - as the economy expands.
@Topping your argument only works if high cost countries such as Switzerland or Sweden / Norway had high levels of unemployment. None of them do.
My point is that countless studies show that while it is observable that foreign cheap workers suppress wages to a very small degree, the usual phenomenon is that indigenous workers move up the value chain.
Not trying to argue, but what would a middle aged man who has been working on a building site since he left school do? Or a cleaner for an office block?
Why hasn’t this phenomenon occurred with the A8 immigration? Why have the indigenous population who have seen their lives bettered by it voted to stop it?
Well as we have noted today that man on a building site is doing very well, thank you! And why can't a cleaner for an office block retrain?
We were talking about supermarket workers who are about to be put out of work by robots. @Philip_Thompson - and others - were saying that it didn't matter because those left in work would be paid more while those out of work could retrain.
My question is and was why couldn't they always retrain? What about the 60-yr old shelf stacker? He can't really retrain I suppose, although working life far from over, so perhaps he can. So it's either robots or foreigners who does for him. (Some) Brexiters seem to think that robots is a good way to be put out of work and foreigners a bad way.
For one, robots dont need housing, hospital beds and school places. Nor does their presence provide an easy slur of Robot-ism to be thrown at the low paid workers whose jobs they take
I guess the answer is that the middle aged, low paid worker with family commitments would prefer not to have to retrain. They had probably settled for a life on low paid, but safe and steady local employment, and hadn't anticipated the labour market being turned upside down by the party their family voted for their whole lives. Hence Brexit.
What with the minimum and national living wage I think he has done very well. There aren't passport checks before payment of the national living wage.
Well it seems he (they) disagree.
I don't think people live their lives to squeeze every drop of value out of their assets or labour the way economists think they should. They could probably all be a bit better off if they rented out their spare room to casual workers rather than storing old photographs and the kids toys in them too, but they dont. Most are happy with a steady income and a settled life, that is why the consequence of Blair's revolutionary act of allowing FOM from Eastern Europe was so unpopular to have seen Brexit, and Northern working class Labour voters go Tory.
I can't disagree with the result. They did vote Brexit and Tory. I hope they will be less unhappy when their job is automated or something else disruptive happens to it.
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
A society, a demos, requires everyone to have a stake in it.
Supermarket food is going to be cheaper as a result of Brexit, and eating out is going to be more expensive. People working in central London for £9 an hour is a thing of the past, because it’s simply not possible to live there and earn that little money. That’s a good thing.
We shall see. I'm not 100% sure I know why Supermarket food will be cheaper as a result of Brexit (nor eating out more expensive) but the market will clear at the appropriate level.
If labour is scarce then wages will rise. That leaves employers a choice of two options. I am very interested to see which they choose.
Three options: 1. Use less Labour 2. Pay Labour more 3. Invest in capital to replace Labour.
The more of #3, the better for the economy.
Absolutely as @Philip has noted with supermarkets replacing humans with robots. How is that helping the working classes who were previously disadvantaged by cheap foreign labour?
Because the humans who aren't replaced with robots can earn more.
So 100 humans originally, earning £15/hour. New robots leave 20 humans. Let's suppose for some unknown, without precedent reason their wages are raised to £30/hour.
What about the remaining 80 humans?
Not sure about the answer to that, but I know that the robots don’t put pressure on housing, schools and hospital places. And the resentment they cause by undercutting low paid workers jobs doesn’t lead to the working class being tarred as racist for noticing
Most of the 80 humans without jobs find other jobs to do - as the economy expands.
@Topping your argument only works if high cost countries such as Switzerland or Sweden / Norway had high levels of unemployment. None of them do.
My point is that countless studies show that while it is observable that foreign cheap workers suppress wages to a very small degree, the usual phenomenon is that indigenous workers move up the value chain.
Not trying to argue, but what would a middle aged man who has been working on a building site since he left school do? Or a cleaner for an office block?
Why hasn’t this phenomenon occurred with the A8 immigration? Why have the indigenous population who have seen their lives bettered by it voted to stop it?
Well as we have noted today that man on a building site is doing very well, thank you! And why can't a cleaner for an office block retrain?
We were talking about supermarket workers who are about to be put out of work by robots. @Philip_Thompson - and others - were saying that it didn't matter because those left in work would be paid more while those out of work could retrain.
My question is and was why couldn't they always retrain? What about the 60-yr old shelf stacker? He can't really retrain I suppose, although working life far from over, so perhaps he can. So it's either robots or foreigners who does for him. (Some) Brexiters seem to think that robots is a good way to be put out of work and foreigners a bad way.
Retraining for almost anything these days when not paid by an employer is hugely expensive. The explosion of fees in the FE sector, together with the slashing of courses and casualisation of staff is a huge drag on productivity.
Absolutely I have no doubt. We were just pondering the fate of the 80/100 Tesco's staff thrown out of work on account of the advent of robots. If anything it will exacerbate employers' strengths because there will be 80 people chasing 20 jobs and we know how that ends up (or at least we do if we have studied economics, as @Philip_Thompson has).
The other point is, of course, we are talking of shortages of staff in particular areas aren't we? Chefs, tutors and construction have been mentioned. How are these automated? And said Tesco workers will be in no position to take up these posts without years of retraining. Years without access to student loans, nor Universal Credit. So unless they have savings, an inheritance or a lottery win, who will fund them? Not HMG, if today's education announcement is any guide.
Something strange going on at the edges of teaching, perhaps.
I see in the Times this morning that Tim Martin from Weatherspoons is calling for a visa scheme for workers that favours countries that are geographically closer to the U.K. because pubs are struggling to find staff.
Yeah he can fuck off. Pay your workers!
And here is the clash between the immovable object and the unstoppable force. A significant number of Brexit voters think Poles (other types of forrin is available) dilute their wages so lets send them all home and get paid more. A significant number of Brexiteer business owners like Mr Martin wanted a bonfire of red tape so that we could be more like Singapore and have workers paid less and have less rights.
Brexit won. But which Brexit? The one where Spoons pay their staff better? Or one where Spoons pay their staff less?
Many on here are of the first flavour. They see it as an unmitigated good for the working classes to have less foreign competition and hence wages will rise.
Beer, groceries more expensive for everyone (else)? Who cares is their line. The workers will be better off.
Let's see if this Trumpton version of economics actually works. We are privileged to be in such a real life experiment.
No idea why you're calling it Trumpton.
Plus of course the supermarkets are doing what they can to eliminate as many staff roles as possible.
I have a new Tesco Superstore that's just been developed near to me and it has quite a skeleton crew of staff compared to what they used to have but the customer service is actually better than any other supermarkets I go to. They've really rethought the self checkouts to remove all the bugbears: no scales* (so no irritating "your item is not on bagging scale" or "too much weight on bagging scale" errors stopping the checkouts. Plus there's a single touchscreen the staff member can use to authorise every checkout if Challenge 25 pops up and the shopper is obviously over 25 rather than waiting for a cashier to come to your own till to deal with it.
* Someone asked last time I mentioned this about weighing fresh produce. There's a scale by the tills that prints out barcodes once you've weighed the products so you just need to scan that barcode.
Trumpton, known to the entire world as Trumpton especially if you know anyone who lives there, is a very pleasant village a few miles South of Nottingham.
I used to know Pugh, Pugh, Charley McGrew, Cuthbert, Dribble and Grubb but I've not seen them for quite a while.
I haven't watched the Starmer interview - and probably won't because I'd have to see Morgan - but from write ups it sounds similar to his Desert Island Discs appearance. If so, good, because that was excellent.
But the million dollar question is to what extent "Boris" Johnson has changed the game. Do you now need to create a facetious comic persona in order to be PM material?
One hopes not, if one has an interest in the health of our democracy, but one can't be sure of this if one is honest. The Johnson brand is insidious. It's affecting people's synapses, some of them perfectly decent people.
The next year will tell us a lot and is so so important. I just can't emphasize enough how important this next year is going to be. It could go either way.
The next year - one of a glorious return to freedom and economic revival - will be won by the leader who can best project sunny optimism and confidence in our national resurgence, so Sir Keir ... is probably screwed.
If there is a turn of the tide - as I think on balance there will be - one of the biggest boons is we'll get to see a different side of you. In place of remorseless overconfidence and ebullience will come doubt and introspection, and I sense a touch of endearing vulnerability.
I rather doubt it. My confidence didn't waver in the darkest days of the pandemic when we had no vaccines, little hope, and no end in sight - a uniquely dire political environment for the incumbent in which the Opposition managed to, er, momentarily draw level in the polling averages. Having scrambled out of that particular abyss, it's nothing more than potholes from here on out...
Ok, but let's agree you won't pretend to be feeling great about things when you aren't. If the black dog barks, let me know about it. Deal?
I sense we are due another thread header entitled ' Imagine Labour with a 10 point poll lead ' - with everyone encouraged to share their joy. In the absence of said lead it's about the only pro-Starmer angle yet to be covered.
Yes, good idea. I'll get cracking on that. People other than Johnson fanbois and Tory partisans need and deserve a booster shot.
Well, there's a great new Owen Jones video for you to enjoy, to which I've started to occasionally dip in on your recommendation:
He has a nice chat with a card-carrying Communist in the second half, but the first part with the Cicero-quoting James Butler was even better, especially the 30-35 minute segment:
OJ: When the lockdown was going to happen, they were going on about how you can't shut down the schools, you can't shut down the schools... I mean imbeciles, absolute stupid imbeciles... they've let the Government get away with it. What on Earth do you think Labour were thinking all the way through, and do you think it's now just ended in a situation where ... 'cos I think the Captain Hindsight attack line, I think it's got, they'd got a point...
JB: It's extremely effective.
Y'know, I've always said that Owen had valuable insights to offer from time to time...
Really? That seems very high phatically the 75-79 at 100%
It so I'm very happy but do you mind me asking where you got those numbers from?
There is almost certainly an underestimate of how many 75-79 year olds we actually have in this country. I think the 'unrounded' figure is some way above 100%. OTOH, it might be that the 16-35 figure is actually based on a population overestimate, with many workers in that age range having gone back to their home country. So that percentage is maybe really a little higher. OTOH2, this probably doesn't include a significant number who are here but don't show up in official figures.
Interesting that more 40-44 have been jabbed than 45-49.
Also interesting that more 60-64 have had there first jab than 65-69 but not there second jab,
While I hope these numbers are correct or at lest correctish, I'm not convinced that they are more than a back of an envelope guesstimate.
“We don’t want children doing Maths at five and six in the evening”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green tells #BBCBreakfast Labour would keep schools open for longer but not for formal education as government announces £1.4bn catch-up plan in England.
I was often in school until 5pm doing work, then going home to do homework.
You want kids to have the best education, then they need to work for it.
I always did my homework between 4 and 5 (until it got more than I could do in an hour). I think there are issues with keeping kids engaged though. I hate lecture slots late in the day and that is for students, let alone school kids. I got my worst ever feedback for a set of tutorials starting at 3.15 on friday afternoons - I was the last thing keeping them from the bar...
I used to teach advocacy to Diploma students between 6 and 8 on a Thursday night. Some of the classes were better than others. I still remember telling one particular group that I was a representative of a potential employer if they were looking for a traineeship and I wouldn't employ any of them. That seemed to genuinely shock them and things improved but it was never easy.
One of the big issues is the degreeisation of work, I work as a developer, when I got into it I did it by sitting there in the evenings with a pc and a books on c and general development in the evenings after being banned from the chemical labs due to chemical sensitisation. I did that while working a day job. Done the job sucessfully for 25+ years. Nowadays if I tried that I doubt would get a foot in the door as don't have a degree
Seems to me that the unions had too much power in the past and took the mickey with their overbearing influence as to who could do what job (I got this from Carry on at your convenience). Thatcher took them on and they were weakened to the point that when something happened that was beyond their wildest nightmares (offering out every UK workers low paid job to tens of millions who could undercut them from Eastern Europe) they were unable to defend what membership they had left
Really? That seems very high phatically the 75-79 at 100%
It so I'm very happy but do you mind me asking where you got those numbers from?
There is almost certainly an underestimate of how many 75-79 year olds we actually have in this country. I think the 'unrounded' figure is some way above 100%. OTOH, it might be that the 16-35 figure is actually based on a population overestimate, with many workers in that age range having gone back to their home country. So that percentage is maybe really a little higher. OTOH2, this probably doesn't include a significant number who are here but don't show up in official figures.
Interesting that more 40-44 have been jabbed than 45-49.
Also interesting that more 60-64 have had there first jab than 65-69 but not there second jab,
While I hope these numbers are correct or at lest correctish, I'm not convinced that they are more than a back of an envelope guesstimate.
Using NIMIS, the state of play as of last week (27th) was (for first vaccinations)
Matt Hancock in Oxford: "I can tell you today that we have started commercial negotiations with AstraZeneca to secure a variant vaccine future supplies of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine that have been adapted to tackle the B.1351 variant first found in South Africa."
Really? That seems very high phatically the 75-79 at 100%
It so I'm very happy but do you mind me asking where you got those numbers from?
There is almost certainly an underestimate of how many 75-79 year olds we actually have in this country. I think the 'unrounded' figure is some way above 100%. OTOH, it might be that the 16-35 figure is actually based on a population overestimate, with many workers in that age range having gone back to their home country. So that percentage is maybe really a little higher. OTOH2, this probably doesn't include a significant number who are here but don't show up in official figures.
Interesting that more 40-44 have been jabbed than 45-49.
Also interesting that more 60-64 have had there first jab than 65-69 but not there second jab,
While I hope these numbers are correct or at lest correctish, I'm not convinced that they are more than a back of an envelope guesstimate.
Using NIMIS, the state of play as of last week (27th) was (for first vaccinations)
Thanks, Those numbers look very believable, can I ask what is NIMIS? I just googled and it seems there is a town in in northern Sweden by that name, but suspect it also something different in this contest?
To be honest there is no chance of Boris being interviewed by Morgan
Indeed if he is able to open the economy shortly and some normality returns to everyone's lives he will have a secure legacy of Brexit and Covid 19
I did not watch the programme but then I would not watch Morgan on any programme as I simply dislike him
I am sure some will have enjoyed his interview, but hs revelation he is close to the Clooney's will just affirm his left wing Metropolitan elite status with many
Boris tends to avoid being interviewed by anyone. He’s not really big on accountability.
It does not seem to be doing him any harm at present
Boris wins elections Because he is popular Because he wins elections Because he is popular Because he wins elections
Etc etc
Not much more to add
The very essence of a successful politician
But is he any good at governing?
The frustrating thing for me personally is that I can’t remember in my lifetime a government like this which has no ideology except what will keep them in power.
Obviously all governments attempt to stay in government but in my living memory they were set about a project they believed would advance the country.
Boris and his team don’t have one. And please don’t say, “levelling up”. There’s no serious attempt at policy development on this front, just random (and modest) cash giveaways.
Compare with Thatcher’s privatisation drive, Blair’s “third way” reform of public services, and even Cameron’s “return to fiscal sobriety plus liberal reform”.
To be fair Brexit and covid overwhelms anything else
In both cases the jury is very much still out.
There are economic storm clouds looming large overhead. The economic boom based on house price inflation, leading to general inflation, Haldane has already hinted will be dealt with by interest rate rises. That will need to be a balancing act by the BoE and the Government, one that has gone horribly wrong in the past
On topic. Starmer is a very naive and ineffective LOTO. However, he is not Corbyn, which if the country crashes, it may be enough to see him over the line. I would prefer not to see the country crash, however based on historical precedence, I can't see past that.
"Britain braced for summer of migrant mayhem: Fears of 'mob unrest' by asylum seekers unhappy with their conditions after landing in the UK - as 'phenomenal' numbers continue to arrive despite Priti's vow of border crackdown
More than 500 migrants arrived across Channel in final four days of May bringing monthly total to 1,619 Friday was busiest day of 2021 with 336 migrants reaching Britain aboard 19 dinghies and other boats Priti Patel has vowed to make illegal immigration across Channel 'unviable' but numbers are still soaring Dover's Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke has called for 'urgent action' to stop the Channel crossings"
To be honest there is no chance of Boris being interviewed by Morgan
Indeed if he is able to open the economy shortly and some normality returns to everyone's lives he will have a secure legacy of Brexit and Covid 19
I did not watch the programme but then I would not watch Morgan on any programme as I simply dislike him
I am sure some will have enjoyed his interview, but hs revelation he is close to the Clooney's will just affirm his left wing Metropolitan elite status with many
Boris tends to avoid being interviewed by anyone. He’s not really big on accountability.
It does not seem to be doing him any harm at present
Boris wins elections Because he is popular Because he wins elections Because he is popular Because he wins elections
Etc etc
Not much more to add
The very essence of a successful politician
But is he any good at governing?
The frustrating thing for me personally is that I can’t remember in my lifetime a government like this which has no ideology except what will keep them in power.
Obviously all governments attempt to stay in government but in my living memory they were set about a project they believed would advance the country.
Boris and his team don’t have one. And please don’t say, “levelling up”. There’s no serious attempt at policy development on this front, just random (and modest) cash giveaways.
Compare with Thatcher’s privatisation drive, Blair’s “third way” reform of public services, and even Cameron’s “return to fiscal sobriety plus liberal reform”.
To be fair Brexit and covid overwhelms anything else
In both cases the jury is very much still out.
There are economic storm clouds looming large overhead. The economic boom based on house price inflation, leading to general inflation, Haldane has already hinted will be dealt with by interest rate rises. That will need to be a balancing act by the BoE and the Government, one that has gone horribly wrong in the past
On topic. Starmer is a very naive and ineffective LOTO. However, he is not Corbyn, which if the country crashes, it may be enough to see him over the line. I would prefer not to see the country crash, however based on historical precedence, I can't see past that.
I understand your views and it is very much for the future but if we open on the 21st June with a minimal spike in covid hospitalisations, then Boris will receive a boost from the public and of course the economic growth is likely to be spectacular and continuing into 2022
Random question: the PS5 has swanky controllers. Does the Xbox Whateverthehelltheycalledit, or did they utterly miss a trick?
No, the Xbox controllers haven't changed a lot since the last gen. The PS5 controller is very cool and the only legitimately next gen thing about it so far IMO.
“We don’t want children doing Maths at five and six in the evening”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green tells #BBCBreakfast Labour would keep schools open for longer but not for formal education as government announces £1.4bn catch-up plan in England.
"Peru has more than doubled its Covid death toll following a review, making it the country with the world's highest death rate per capita, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The official death toll is now more than 180,000, up from 69,342, in a country of about 33 million people. Prime Minister Violeta Bermudez said the number was increased on the advice of Peruvian and international experts. This was in line with so-called excess deaths figures."
"Britain braced for summer of migrant mayhem: Fears of 'mob unrest' by asylum seekers unhappy with their conditions after landing in the UK - as 'phenomenal' numbers continue to arrive despite Priti's vow of border crackdown
More than 500 migrants arrived across Channel in final four days of May bringing monthly total to 1,619 Friday was busiest day of 2021 with 336 migrants reaching Britain aboard 19 dinghies and other boats Priti Patel has vowed to make illegal immigration across Channel 'unviable' but numbers are still soaring Dover's Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke has called for 'urgent action' to stop the Channel crossings"
For all that we are (rightly) appalled by the hostile environment created by Mrs May as Home Sec we have simply nothing on the French. My daughter's experience last summer working as a volunteer for Caring for Calais was just astonishing. The repeated theft and willful destruction of tents, sleeping bags, mobile phones and such meagre personal possessions as the migrants had along with the bus trips to the middle of nowhere leaving people exposed without food, shelter, transport or money is behaviour that is really hard to conceive of in a supposedly civilised western European country.
It is hardly surprising that they are so desperate to get here that they are willing to risk their lives. It's pretty hard to see it stopping.
Really? That seems very high phatically the 75-79 at 100%
It so I'm very happy but do you mind me asking where you got those numbers from?
There is almost certainly an underestimate of how many 75-79 year olds we actually have in this country. I think the 'unrounded' figure is some way above 100%. OTOH, it might be that the 16-35 figure is actually based on a population overestimate, with many workers in that age range having gone back to their home country. So that percentage is maybe really a little higher. OTOH2, this probably doesn't include a significant number who are here but don't show up in official figures.
Interesting that more 40-44 have been jabbed than 45-49.
Also interesting that more 60-64 have had there first jab than 65-69 but not there second jab,
While I hope these numbers are correct or at lest correctish, I'm not convinced that they are more than a back of an envelope guesstimate.
Using NIMIS, the state of play as of last week (27th) was (for first vaccinations)
Thanks, Those numbers look very believable, can I ask what is NIMIS? I just googled and it seems there is a town in in northern Sweden by that name, but suspect it also something different in this contest?
Firstly I posted the wrong numbers - those were from the 20th
NIMS = National Immunisation Management Service, Public Health England
They started with ONS 2019, and then used population growth estimates, cross checked with other records. It's an ongoing effort - their number change (slightly) week to week.
“We don’t want children doing Maths at five and six in the evening”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green tells #BBCBreakfast Labour would keep schools open for longer but not for formal education as government announces £1.4bn catch-up plan in England.
“We don’t want children doing Maths at five and six in the evening”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green tells #BBCBreakfast Labour would keep schools open for longer but not for formal education as government announces £1.4bn catch-up plan in England.
I was often in school until 5pm doing work, then going home to do homework.
You want kids to have the best education, then they need to work for it.
I always did my homework between 4 and 5 (until it got more than I could do in an hour). I think there are issues with keeping kids engaged though. I hate lecture slots late in the day and that is for students, let alone school kids. I got my worst ever feedback for a set of tutorials starting at 3.15 on friday afternoons - I was the last thing keeping them from the bar...
I used to teach advocacy to Diploma students between 6 and 8 on a Thursday night. Some of the classes were better than others. I still remember telling one particular group that I was a representative of a potential employer if they were looking for a traineeship and I wouldn't employ any of them. That seemed to genuinely shock them and things improved but it was never easy.
I would hope that, as students learning Advocacy, they immediately put it to you that any group-wide inadequacy must have been due to the failings of the teacher.
[Voice of @Leon] Unless it unequivocally says it came from a lab, then it's not worth watching.
Anything with Matt Ridley is worth watching
Overall I'm not paying much attention to this story, aware its going on, but have not looked in to it. it is interesting that so many people in the media and real life where so quick to dismiss when trump was saying it, but re-evaluate when he has gone. but maybe I'm being cynical.
but as lots of people are now talking about it I probably will pay a bit of attention and a Youtube with a Biologist who is also a good communicator is probably the place to start.
Have Gloucestershire had an England test player since Robert Charles Russell?
Jon Lewis played one test and 13 ODIs. There were two other players who played ODIs - Jeremy Snape and Mark Alleyne - but no Test players since Russell played his last Test in 1998. Even if we go back to his debut, I think that only adds two players - Syd Lawrence and Mike Smith - although two players played Test cricket after leaving Gloucestershire for another county (John Childs and Chris Read).
Who would give the Prime Minister a reasonably sympathetic interview, which by the sound of it Piers did for SKS?
I think people are writing off SKS a little bit too early btw. There is a long way to go until the next election and “events” are coming a bit thick and fast so far since the last one. Having someone who is seen as boringly competent could very well be a great selling point.
I don’t know I’d go that far. I can’t quite see him leading Labour to government.
His job however was to restore normality and sanity after the Corbyn years so Labour will eventually be taken seriously again and not as a bunch of freeloading racists with small brains, greedy minds and gross self-centredness.
Remember, if Long Bailey had won we would in all probability be talking very seriously about a substantiallyincreased Tory majority next time. At that stage, we would have to ponder whether Labour could ever hope to return to power or whether their vote would fracture to the Lib Dems and Greens.
Starmer had killed that talk stone dead. He may never be PM. Probably won’t. But he has salvaged an opposition from Corbyn’s wreckage that looks, with faults and drawbacks, like something that will again a reasonably credible alternative party of government. And for that, he deserves all our heartfelt thanks.
Alternatively, Corbyn introduced the variance Labour need. Yes he got whacked in 2019 but he almost won in 2017. Miliband, Brown, and maybe Starmer, are continuity Blair without the charisma so can’t win, but don’t get a hiding.
It’s the difference between going to a Man City as a non top 4 club and defending for your life and getting beat 2-0 or going for a 4-3 win whilst risking a 6-0 loss
Actually Miliband, Brown and Starmer are left of Blair without Blair's charisma, Corbyn was far left of Blair but with some charisma
Blair was very far left in the mid-80s, until he realised it was a losing strategy. He governed from the centre of course.
I don't think it makes sense to think of him as left or right, but just as an opportunist.
As is Boris, most winning party leaders are.
Only a handful of general election winners like Attlee and Thatcher are genuine ideologues
Some are, some aren't. Tony Benn was right in his signposts vs weathercocks distinction.
And some are a mixture of both - opportunist on matters they don't care about, principled on a few core beliefs. Churchill was an obvious example of that. I'd say Boris was more like that than the Blair-type total opportunist.
Who would give the Prime Minister a reasonably sympathetic interview, which by the sound of it Piers did for SKS?
I think people are writing off SKS a little bit too early btw. There is a long way to go until the next election and “events” are coming a bit thick and fast so far since the last one. Having someone who is seen as boringly competent could very well be a great selling point.
I don’t know I’d go that far. I can’t quite see him leading Labour to government.
His job however was to restore normality and sanity after the Corbyn years so Labour will eventually be taken seriously again and not as a bunch of freeloading racists with small brains, greedy minds and gross self-centredness.
Remember, if Long Bailey had won we would in all probability be talking very seriously about a substantiallyincreased Tory majority next time. At that stage, we would have to ponder whether Labour could ever hope to return to power or whether their vote would fracture to the Lib Dems and Greens.
Starmer had killed that talk stone dead. He may never be PM. Probably won’t. But he has salvaged an opposition from Corbyn’s wreckage that looks, with faults and drawbacks, like something that will again a reasonably credible alternative party of government. And for that, he deserves all our heartfelt thanks.
Alternatively, Corbyn introduced the variance Labour need. Yes he got whacked in 2019 but he almost won in 2017. Miliband, Brown, and maybe Starmer, are continuity Blair without the charisma so can’t win, but don’t get a hiding.
It’s the difference between going to a Man City as a non top 4 club and defending for your life and getting beat 2-0 or going for a 4-3 win whilst risking a 6-0 loss
Actually Miliband, Brown and Starmer are left of Blair without Blair's charisma, Corbyn was far left of Blair but with some charisma
Blair was very far left in the mid-80s, until he realised it was a losing strategy. He governed from the centre of course.
I don't think it makes sense to think of him as left or right, but just as an opportunist.
As is Boris, most winning party leaders are.
Only a handful of general election winners like Attlee and Thatcher are genuine ideologues
Some are, some aren't. Tony Benn was right in his signposts vs weathercocks distinction.
And some are a mixture of both - opportunist on matters they don't care about, principled on a few core beliefs. Churchill was an obvious example of that. I'd say Boris was more like that than the Blair-type total opportunist.
Benn was a signpost but it is weathercocks who generally win general elections.
Boris even wrote articles backing Remain as well as Leave before plumping for Leave to boost his chances of becoming Tory leader and PM
To be honest there is no chance of Boris being interviewed by Morgan
Indeed if he is able to open the economy shortly and some normality returns to everyone's lives he will have a secure legacy of Brexit and Covid 19
I did not watch the programme but then I would not watch Morgan on any programme as I simply dislike him
I am sure some will have enjoyed his interview, but hs revelation he is close to the Clooney's will just affirm his left wing Metropolitan elite status with many
Boris tends to avoid being interviewed by anyone. He’s not really big on accountability.
It does not seem to be doing him any harm at present
Boris wins elections Because he is popular Because he wins elections Because he is popular Because he wins elections
Etc etc
Not much more to add
The very essence of a successful politician
But is he any good at governing?
The frustrating thing for me personally is that I can’t remember in my lifetime a government like this which has no ideology except what will keep them in power.
Obviously all governments attempt to stay in government but in my living memory they were set about a project they believed would advance the country.
Boris and his team don’t have one. And please don’t say, “levelling up”. There’s no serious attempt at policy development on this front, just random (and modest) cash giveaways.
Compare with Thatcher’s privatisation drive, Blair’s “third way” reform of public services, and even Cameron’s “return to fiscal sobriety plus liberal reform”.
To be fair Brexit and covid overwhelms anything else
In both cases the jury is very much still out.
There are economic storm clouds looming large overhead. The economic boom based on house price inflation, leading to general inflation, Haldane has already hinted will be dealt with by interest rate rises. That will need to be a balancing act by the BoE and the Government, one that has gone horribly wrong in the past
On topic. Starmer is a very naive and ineffective LOTO. However, he is not Corbyn, which if the country crashes, it may be enough to see him over the line. I would prefer not to see the country crash, however based on historical precedence, I can't see past that.
I understand your views and it is very much for the future but if we open on the 21st June with a minimal spike in covid hospitalisations, then Boris will receive a boost from the public and of course the economic growth is likely to be spectacular and continuing into 2022
I don't disagree with your analysis, which is why I have not discounted a 2022 election, giving Johnson a free run to 2027. I fear the fire and brimstone will be raining down by early 2023.
Who would give the Prime Minister a reasonably sympathetic interview, which by the sound of it Piers did for SKS?
I think people are writing off SKS a little bit too early btw. There is a long way to go until the next election and “events” are coming a bit thick and fast so far since the last one. Having someone who is seen as boringly competent could very well be a great selling point.
I don’t know I’d go that far. I can’t quite see him leading Labour to government.
His job however was to restore normality and sanity after the Corbyn years so Labour will eventually be taken seriously again and not as a bunch of freeloading racists with small brains, greedy minds and gross self-centredness.
Remember, if Long Bailey had won we would in all probability be talking very seriously about a substantiallyincreased Tory majority next time. At that stage, we would have to ponder whether Labour could ever hope to return to power or whether their vote would fracture to the Lib Dems and Greens.
Starmer had killed that talk stone dead. He may never be PM. Probably won’t. But he has salvaged an opposition from Corbyn’s wreckage that looks, with faults and drawbacks, like something that will again a reasonably credible alternative party of government. And for that, he deserves all our heartfelt thanks.
Alternatively, Corbyn introduced the variance Labour need. Yes he got whacked in 2019 but he almost won in 2017. Miliband, Brown, and maybe Starmer, are continuity Blair without the charisma so can’t win, but don’t get a hiding.
It’s the difference between going to a Man City as a non top 4 club and defending for your life and getting beat 2-0 or going for a 4-3 win whilst risking a 6-0 loss
Actually Miliband, Brown and Starmer are left of Blair without Blair's charisma, Corbyn was far left of Blair but with some charisma
Blair was very far left in the mid-80s, until he realised it was a losing strategy. He governed from the centre of course.
I don't think it makes sense to think of him as left or right, but just as an opportunist.
As is Boris, most winning party leaders are.
Only a handful of general election winners like Attlee and Thatcher are genuine ideologues
I really doubt Blair was ever “far left”.
His famous and cringingly awful letter to Michael Foot in July 1982 says he was.
To be honest there is no chance of Boris being interviewed by Morgan
Indeed if he is able to open the economy shortly and some normality returns to everyone's lives he will have a secure legacy of Brexit and Covid 19
I did not watch the programme but then I would not watch Morgan on any programme as I simply dislike him
I am sure some will have enjoyed his interview, but hs revelation he is close to the Clooney's will just affirm his left wing Metropolitan elite status with many
Boris tends to avoid being interviewed by anyone. He’s not really big on accountability.
It does not seem to be doing him any harm at present
Boris wins elections Because he is popular Because he wins elections Because he is popular Because he wins elections
Etc etc
Not much more to add
The very essence of a successful politician
But is he any good at governing?
The frustrating thing for me personally is that I can’t remember in my lifetime a government like this which has no ideology except what will keep them in power.
Obviously all governments attempt to stay in government but in my living memory they were set about a project they believed would advance the country.
Boris and his team don’t have one. And please don’t say, “levelling up”. There’s no serious attempt at policy development on this front, just random (and modest) cash giveaways.
Compare with Thatcher’s privatisation drive, Blair’s “third way” reform of public services, and even Cameron’s “return to fiscal sobriety plus liberal reform”.
To be fair Brexit and covid overwhelms anything else
In both cases the jury is very much still out.
There are economic storm clouds looming large overhead. The economic boom based on house price inflation, leading to general inflation, Haldane has already hinted will be dealt with by interest rate rises. That will need to be a balancing act by the BoE and the Government, one that has gone horribly wrong in the past
On topic. Starmer is a very naive and ineffective LOTO. However, he is not Corbyn, which if the country crashes, it may be enough to see him over the line. I would prefer not to see the country crash, however based on historical precedence, I can't see past that.
I understand your views and it is very much for the future but if we open on the 21st June with a minimal spike in covid hospitalisations, then Boris will receive a boost from the public and of course the economic growth is likely to be spectacular and continuing into 2022
I don't disagree with your analysis, which is why I have not discounted a 2022 election, giving Johnson a free run to 2027. I fear the fire and brimstone will be raining down by early 2023.
Forecasting the future is an exercise in hope over expectations on all sides of the political debate to be fair
Who would give the Prime Minister a reasonably sympathetic interview, which by the sound of it Piers did for SKS?
I think people are writing off SKS a little bit too early btw. There is a long way to go until the next election and “events” are coming a bit thick and fast so far since the last one. Having someone who is seen as boringly competent could very well be a great selling point.
I don’t know I’d go that far. I can’t quite see him leading Labour to government.
His job however was to restore normality and sanity after the Corbyn years so Labour will eventually be taken seriously again and not as a bunch of freeloading racists with small brains, greedy minds and gross self-centredness.
Remember, if Long Bailey had won we would in all probability be talking very seriously about a substantiallyincreased Tory majority next time. At that stage, we would have to ponder whether Labour could ever hope to return to power or whether their vote would fracture to the Lib Dems and Greens.
Starmer had killed that talk stone dead. He may never be PM. Probably won’t. But he has salvaged an opposition from Corbyn’s wreckage that looks, with faults and drawbacks, like something that will again a reasonably credible alternative party of government. And for that, he deserves all our heartfelt thanks.
Alternatively, Corbyn introduced the variance Labour need. Yes he got whacked in 2019 but he almost won in 2017. Miliband, Brown, and maybe Starmer, are continuity Blair without the charisma so can’t win, but don’t get a hiding.
It’s the difference between going to a Man City as a non top 4 club and defending for your life and getting beat 2-0 or going for a 4-3 win whilst risking a 6-0 loss
Actually Miliband, Brown and Starmer are left of Blair without Blair's charisma, Corbyn was far left of Blair but with some charisma
Blair was very far left in the mid-80s, until he realised it was a losing strategy. He governed from the centre of course.
I don't think it makes sense to think of him as left or right, but just as an opportunist.
As is Boris, most winning party leaders are.
Only a handful of general election winners like Attlee and Thatcher are genuine ideologues
I really doubt Blair was ever “far left”.
His famous and cringingly awful letter to Michael Foot in July 1982 says he was.
He also said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that he was ‘a pretty straight kind of guy.’
Who would give the Prime Minister a reasonably sympathetic interview, which by the sound of it Piers did for SKS?
I think people are writing off SKS a little bit too early btw. There is a long way to go until the next election and “events” are coming a bit thick and fast so far since the last one. Having someone who is seen as boringly competent could very well be a great selling point.
I don’t know I’d go that far. I can’t quite see him leading Labour to government.
His job however was to restore normality and sanity after the Corbyn years so Labour will eventually be taken seriously again and not as a bunch of freeloading racists with small brains, greedy minds and gross self-centredness.
Remember, if Long Bailey had won we would in all probability be talking very seriously about a substantiallyincreased Tory majority next time. At that stage, we would have to ponder whether Labour could ever hope to return to power or whether their vote would fracture to the Lib Dems and Greens.
Starmer had killed that talk stone dead. He may never be PM. Probably won’t. But he has salvaged an opposition from Corbyn’s wreckage that looks, with faults and drawbacks, like something that will again a reasonably credible alternative party of government. And for that, he deserves all our heartfelt thanks.
Alternatively, Corbyn introduced the variance Labour need. Yes he got whacked in 2019 but he almost won in 2017. Miliband, Brown, and maybe Starmer, are continuity Blair without the charisma so can’t win, but don’t get a hiding.
It’s the difference between going to a Man City as a non top 4 club and defending for your life and getting beat 2-0 or going for a 4-3 win whilst risking a 6-0 loss
Actually Miliband, Brown and Starmer are left of Blair without Blair's charisma, Corbyn was far left of Blair but with some charisma
Blair was very far left in the mid-80s, until he realised it was a losing strategy. He governed from the centre of course.
I don't think it makes sense to think of him as left or right, but just as an opportunist.
As is Boris, most winning party leaders are.
Only a handful of general election winners like Attlee and Thatcher are genuine ideologues
Some are, some aren't. Tony Benn was right in his signposts vs weathercocks distinction.
And some are a mixture of both - opportunist on matters they don't care about, principled on a few core beliefs. Churchill was an obvious example of that. I'd say Boris was more like that than the Blair-type total opportunist.
Benn was a signpost but it is weathercocks who generally win general elections.
Boris even wrote articles backing Remain as well as Leave before plumping for Leave to boost his chances of becoming Tory leader and PM
You see through the haze that blinds the Boris fanbois.
No surprise given for the price of a 1 bed flat in central London you could buy a 4 bed detached house in the Red Wall
That's surprising. The anecdata is all about booming prices in places like Devon and the Lake District - really super-pleasant places but with few professional jobs, where people are now giddy at the possibility of living ALL THE TIME. But this map shows it's rather more humdrum places which are growing most.
Who would give the Prime Minister a reasonably sympathetic interview, which by the sound of it Piers did for SKS?
I think people are writing off SKS a little bit too early btw. There is a long way to go until the next election and “events” are coming a bit thick and fast so far since the last one. Having someone who is seen as boringly competent could very well be a great selling point.
I don’t know I’d go that far. I can’t quite see him leading Labour to government.
His job however was to restore normality and sanity after the Corbyn years so Labour will eventually be taken seriously again and not as a bunch of freeloading racists with small brains, greedy minds and gross self-centredness.
Remember, if Long Bailey had won we would in all probability be talking very seriously about a substantiallyincreased Tory majority next time. At that stage, we would have to ponder whether Labour could ever hope to return to power or whether their vote would fracture to the Lib Dems and Greens.
Starmer had killed that talk stone dead. He may never be PM. Probably won’t. But he has salvaged an opposition from Corbyn’s wreckage that looks, with faults and drawbacks, like something that will again a reasonably credible alternative party of government. And for that, he deserves all our heartfelt thanks.
Alternatively, Corbyn introduced the variance Labour need. Yes he got whacked in 2019 but he almost won in 2017. Miliband, Brown, and maybe Starmer, are continuity Blair without the charisma so can’t win, but don’t get a hiding.
It’s the difference between going to a Man City as a non top 4 club and defending for your life and getting beat 2-0 or going for a 4-3 win whilst risking a 6-0 loss
Actually Miliband, Brown and Starmer are left of Blair without Blair's charisma, Corbyn was far left of Blair but with some charisma
Blair was very far left in the mid-80s, until he realised it was a losing strategy. He governed from the centre of course.
I don't think it makes sense to think of him as left or right, but just as an opportunist.
As is Boris, most winning party leaders are.
Only a handful of general election winners like Attlee and Thatcher are genuine ideologues
Some are, some aren't. Tony Benn was right in his signposts vs weathercocks distinction.
And some are a mixture of both - opportunist on matters they don't care about, principled on a few core beliefs. Churchill was an obvious example of that. I'd say Boris was more like that than the Blair-type total opportunist.
Benn was a signpost but it is weathercocks who generally win general elections.
Boris even wrote articles backing Remain as well as Leave before plumping for Leave to boost his chances of becoming Tory leader and PM
You see through the haze that blinds the Boris fanbois.
Do you mean Hyufd ‘sees through it’ as in, penetrates it and so sees all clearly, or ‘sees through it’ as in, has everything distorted by it?
Who would give the Prime Minister a reasonably sympathetic interview, which by the sound of it Piers did for SKS?
I think people are writing off SKS a little bit too early btw. There is a long way to go until the next election and “events” are coming a bit thick and fast so far since the last one. Having someone who is seen as boringly competent could very well be a great selling point.
I don’t know I’d go that far. I can’t quite see him leading Labour to government.
His job however was to restore normality and sanity after the Corbyn years so Labour will eventually be taken seriously again and not as a bunch of freeloading racists with small brains, greedy minds and gross self-centredness.
Remember, if Long Bailey had won we would in all probability be talking very seriously about a substantiallyincreased Tory majority next time. At that stage, we would have to ponder whether Labour could ever hope to return to power or whether their vote would fracture to the Lib Dems and Greens.
Starmer had killed that talk stone dead. He may never be PM. Probably won’t. But he has salvaged an opposition from Corbyn’s wreckage that looks, with faults and drawbacks, like something that will again a reasonably credible alternative party of government. And for that, he deserves all our heartfelt thanks.
Alternatively, Corbyn introduced the variance Labour need. Yes he got whacked in 2019 but he almost won in 2017. Miliband, Brown, and maybe Starmer, are continuity Blair without the charisma so can’t win, but don’t get a hiding.
It’s the difference between going to a Man City as a non top 4 club and defending for your life and getting beat 2-0 or going for a 4-3 win whilst risking a 6-0 loss
Actually Miliband, Brown and Starmer are left of Blair without Blair's charisma, Corbyn was far left of Blair but with some charisma
Blair was very far left in the mid-80s, until he realised it was a losing strategy. He governed from the centre of course.
I don't think it makes sense to think of him as left or right, but just as an opportunist.
As is Boris, most winning party leaders are.
Only a handful of general election winners like Attlee and Thatcher are genuine ideologues
Some are, some aren't. Tony Benn was right in his signposts vs weathercocks distinction.
And some are a mixture of both - opportunist on matters they don't care about, principled on a few core beliefs. Churchill was an obvious example of that. I'd say Boris was more like that than the Blair-type total opportunist.
Benn was a signpost but it is weathercocks who generally win general elections.
Boris even wrote articles backing Remain as well as Leave before plumping for Leave to boost his chances of becoming Tory leader and PM
Depends. I think signposts are likelier to win elections in times of crisis, weathercocks when things are normal or benign.
I don't think the articles thing is as big a deal as people make it out to be. A relative of mine used to write lists of pros and cons before he made a big decision - it's the same thing. It's just how he thinks because of his training as a journalist.
There are plenty of other signs of Boris's opportunism, I just don't think that's one.
“We don’t want children doing Maths at five and six in the evening”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green tells #BBCBreakfast Labour would keep schools open for longer but not for formal education as government announces £1.4bn catch-up plan in England.
I was often in school until 5pm doing work, then going home to do homework.
You want kids to have the best education, then they need to work for it.
I always did my homework between 4 and 5 (until it got more than I could do in an hour). I think there are issues with keeping kids engaged though. I hate lecture slots late in the day and that is for students, let alone school kids. I got my worst ever feedback for a set of tutorials starting at 3.15 on friday afternoons - I was the last thing keeping them from the bar...
I used to teach advocacy to Diploma students between 6 and 8 on a Thursday night. Some of the classes were better than others. I still remember telling one particular group that I was a representative of a potential employer if they were looking for a traineeship and I wouldn't employ any of them. That seemed to genuinely shock them and things improved but it was never easy.
I would hope that, as students learning Advocacy, they immediately put it to you that any group-wide inadequacy must have been due to the failings of the teacher.
LOL, no they didn't but maybe they should have done.
I found teaching an interesting study in group dynamics. Some classes were conscientious almost to a fault, driven and demanding. Some were pretty rebellious and unruly like the group in question. What I found interesting was that you could tell the group psychology within half an hour of the first class and it rarely changed. It was also extremely rare for anyone to step outside the group consensus either by being lazy if they were diligent or diligent when they were being lazy. I don't know if this is a consequence of our University system but there was very little individuality. When you considered that these were the court lawyers of the future it troubled me.
“We don’t want children doing Maths at five and six in the evening”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green tells #BBCBreakfast Labour would keep schools open for longer but not for formal education as government announces £1.4bn catch-up plan in England.
I was often in school until 5pm doing work, then going home to do homework.
You want kids to have the best education, then they need to work for it.
People say a lot of difference between kids who do well and kids who don't is homelife.
I've always thought the biggest difference is kids who have books at home and read them for leisure, versus kids who don't.
My daughter this year has reached the point that she can read novels by herself and we've bought a boxed set of a novel series she loves and when she's not been outside in the sunshine this halftime she's been frequently been reading. She's got quite a library developing and we've decided on the next ones we're planning on getting for her. Her reading has come on leaps and bounds and so has her confidence at school as a result.
The novels she's reading have nothing to do with the curriculum but frankly it doesn't matter what you're reading, its the fact that you are. Anyone who gets bitten by reading bug early on and is supported on that (either by libraries or books at home) is going to have a tremendous advantage over kids who never read except when they're told they must at school.
Who would give the Prime Minister a reasonably sympathetic interview, which by the sound of it Piers did for SKS?
I think people are writing off SKS a little bit too early btw. There is a long way to go until the next election and “events” are coming a bit thick and fast so far since the last one. Having someone who is seen as boringly competent could very well be a great selling point.
I don’t know I’d go that far. I can’t quite see him leading Labour to government.
His job however was to restore normality and sanity after the Corbyn years so Labour will eventually be taken seriously again and not as a bunch of freeloading racists with small brains, greedy minds and gross self-centredness.
Remember, if Long Bailey had won we would in all probability be talking very seriously about a substantiallyincreased Tory majority next time. At that stage, we would have to ponder whether Labour could ever hope to return to power or whether their vote would fracture to the Lib Dems and Greens.
Starmer had killed that talk stone dead. He may never be PM. Probably won’t. But he has salvaged an opposition from Corbyn’s wreckage that looks, with faults and drawbacks, like something that will again a reasonably credible alternative party of government. And for that, he deserves all our heartfelt thanks.
Alternatively, Corbyn introduced the variance Labour need. Yes he got whacked in 2019 but he almost won in 2017. Miliband, Brown, and maybe Starmer, are continuity Blair without the charisma so can’t win, but don’t get a hiding.
It’s the difference between going to a Man City as a non top 4 club and defending for your life and getting beat 2-0 or going for a 4-3 win whilst risking a 6-0 loss
Actually Miliband, Brown and Starmer are left of Blair without Blair's charisma, Corbyn was far left of Blair but with some charisma
Blair was very far left in the mid-80s, until he realised it was a losing strategy. He governed from the centre of course.
I don't think it makes sense to think of him as left or right, but just as an opportunist.
As is Boris, most winning party leaders are.
Only a handful of general election winners like Attlee and Thatcher are genuine ideologues
I really doubt Blair was ever “far left”.
His famous and cringingly awful letter to Michael Foot in July 1982 says he was.
He also said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that he was ‘a pretty straight kind of guy.’
Unless you have some stronger evidence of centrist or right-wing tendencies in the early 1980s, his words are all we can go by.
Comments
- If we mechanise, what will the workers do.
- It is morally good for the university students to help in the harvest.
- We haven't got the capacity to make more tractors anyway.
- Oh dear, we have a food shortage. Buy from the West again.
Shortly after the wall fell, ex-Soviet agriculture mechanised at a furious pace. Employment in farming collapsed and production soared.
Russian medical student are no longer required to help with the harvest.
Now I'm wondering about one cap wonders now this century, used to be all the rage when I started following cricket in 1990.
Now I'm repressing Darren Patinson.
See @TLG86's post below.
16-29 22%
30-34 49%
35-39 68%
40-44 84%
45-49 83%
50-54 91%
55-59 97%
60-64 99%
65-69 95%
70-74 98%
75-79 100%
80+ 97%
As of yesterday, in England the following in each age group have had both vaccine doses:
16-29 12%
30-34 19%
35-39 22%
40-44 29%
45-49 34%
50-54 57%
55-59 66%
60-64 86%
65-69 90%
70-74 95%
75-79 100%
80+ 93%
Vaccinations have been going up - the seven day average (as of last week) was nearly 600K. The issue is supply - which is the same for ever country.
“We don’t want children doing Maths at five and six in the evening”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green tells #BBCBreakfast Labour would keep schools open for longer but not for formal education as government announces £1.4bn catch-up plan in England.
https://bbc.in/3vI5tiN
I was often in school until 5pm doing work, then going home to do homework.
You want kids to have the best education, then they need to work for it.
Does she genuinely think kids should only do learning 9-3, 5 days a week?
Whatever happened to espousing you need to work hard and you will be rewarded. Like you I certainly worked a lot more hours than simply the school timetable. You are also going to get a nasty shock if you didn't do that and end up at a top uni.
Mind you I think central contracts have helped, just imagine the test careers that people like Angus Fraser and Darren Gough could have had with central contracts.
https://twitter.com/WisdenCricket/status/1338797449276760066
It so I'm very happy but do you mind me asking where you got those numbers from?
I guess the answer is that the middle aged, low paid worker with family commitments would prefer not to have to retrain. They had probably settled for a life on low paid, but safe and steady local employment, and hadn't anticipated the labour market being turned upside down by the party their family voted for their whole lives. Hence Brexit.
Edit: plus the labour market is always turned upside down by something or other. Robots, foreigners, something.
OTOH, it might be that the 16-35 figure is actually based on a population overestimate, with many workers in that age range having gone back to their home country. So that percentage is maybe really a little higher.
OTOH2, this probably doesn't include a significant number who are here but don't show up in official figures.
Interesting that more 40-44 have been jabbed than 45-49.
https://order-order.com/2021/06/02/libdems-lying-here-amersham-by-election-candidate-still-lives-in-london/
The issue here though I think is more whether the address is actually hers or that of a LD local councillor
I don't think people live their lives to squeeze every drop of value out of their assets or labour the way economists think they should. They could probably all be a bit better off if they rented out their spare room to casual workers rather than storing old photographs and the kids toys in them too, but they dont. Most are happy with a steady income and a settled life, that is why the consequence of Blair's revolutionary act of allowing FOM from Eastern Europe was so unpopular to have seen Brexit, and Northern working class Labour voters go Tory.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-9644261/Euro-2020-Half-Belgiums-squad-turn-Covid-jab-amid-fears-effects-tournament.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6YE4PCRNwc
he was visiting a construction site, and the host informed him that 'they where using shovels and wheel barrowed not diggers, so it creates lots of jobs.'
To which Milton Freedman replied, in that case why don't you take the shovels off them and give them tee spoons?
You could stick a bus through the gap between the ball pitch and the leg stump.
https://twitter.com/SusanMichie/status/1399014301718007815
He has a nice chat with a card-carrying Communist in the second half, but the first part with the Cicero-quoting James Butler was even better, especially the 30-35 minute segment:
OJ: When the lockdown was going to happen, they were going on about how you can't shut down the schools, you can't shut down the schools... I mean imbeciles, absolute stupid imbeciles... they've let the Government get away with it. What on Earth do you think Labour were thinking all the way through, and do you think it's now just ended in a situation where ... 'cos I think the Captain Hindsight attack line, I think it's got, they'd got a point...
JB: It's extremely effective.
Y'know, I've always said that Owen had valuable insights to offer from time to time...
While I hope these numbers are correct or at lest correctish, I'm not convinced that they are more than a back of an envelope guesstimate.
Under 40 24%
40-44 64%
45-49 75%
50-54 84%
55-59 86%
60-64 89%
65-69 92%
70-74 94%
75-79 95%
80+ 95%
There are economic storm clouds looming large overhead. The economic boom based on house price inflation, leading to general inflation, Haldane has already hinted will be dealt with by interest rate rises. That will need to be a balancing act by the BoE and the Government, one that has gone horribly wrong in the past
On topic. Starmer is a very naive and ineffective LOTO. However, he is not Corbyn, which if the country crashes, it may be enough to see him over the line. I would prefer not to see the country crash, however based on historical precedence, I can't see past that.
More than 500 migrants arrived across Channel in final four days of May bringing monthly total to 1,619
Friday was busiest day of 2021 with 336 migrants reaching Britain aboard 19 dinghies and other boats
Priti Patel has vowed to make illegal immigration across Channel 'unviable' but numbers are still soaring
Dover's Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke has called for 'urgent action' to stop the Channel crossings"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9643651/Migrant-mayhem-1-619-asylum-seekers-landed-UK-May.html#comments
Unless it unequivocally says it came from a lab, then it's not worth watching.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-57307861
It is hardly surprising that they are so desperate to get here that they are willing to risk their lives. It's pretty hard to see it stopping.
The numbers for the 27th are actually
Under 40 28.88%
40-44 68.57%
45-49 77.12%
50-54 84.14%
55-59 86.84%
60-64 89.07%
65-69 91.72%
70-74 94.13%
75-79 95.14%
80+ 94.76%
NIMS = National Immunisation Management Service, Public Health England
They started with ONS 2019, and then used population growth estimates, cross checked with other records. It's an ongoing effort - their number change (slightly) week to week.
Overall I'm not paying much attention to this story, aware its going on, but have not looked in to it. it is interesting that so many people in the media and real life where so quick to dismiss when trump was saying it, but re-evaluate when he has gone. but maybe I'm being cynical.
but as lots of people are now talking about it I probably will pay a bit of attention and a Youtube with a Biologist who is also a good communicator is probably the place to start.
https://order-order.com/2021/06/02/libdems-lying-here-amersham-by-election-candidate-still-lives-in-london/
Tim Paine.
And some are a mixture of both - opportunist on matters they don't care about, principled on a few core beliefs. Churchill was an obvious example of that. I'd say Boris was more like that than the Blair-type total opportunist.
Boris even wrote articles backing Remain as well as Leave before plumping for Leave to boost his chances of becoming Tory leader and PM
I don't think the articles thing is as big a deal as people make it out to be. A relative of mine used to write lists of pros and cons before he made a big decision - it's the same thing. It's just how he thinks because of his training as a journalist.
There are plenty of other signs of Boris's opportunism, I just don't think that's one.
I found teaching an interesting study in group dynamics. Some classes were conscientious almost to a fault, driven and demanding. Some were pretty rebellious and unruly like the group in question. What I found interesting was that you could tell the group psychology within half an hour of the first class and it rarely changed. It was also extremely rare for anyone to step outside the group consensus either by being lazy if they were diligent or diligent when they were being lazy. I don't know if this is a consequence of our University system but there was very little individuality. When you considered that these were the court lawyers of the future it troubled me.
I've always thought the biggest difference is kids who have books at home and read them for leisure, versus kids who don't.
My daughter this year has reached the point that she can read novels by herself and we've bought a boxed set of a novel series she loves and when she's not been outside in the sunshine this halftime she's been frequently been reading. She's got quite a library developing and we've decided on the next ones we're planning on getting for her. Her reading has come on leaps and bounds and so has her confidence at school as a result.
The novels she's reading have nothing to do with the curriculum but frankly it doesn't matter what you're reading, its the fact that you are. Anyone who gets bitten by reading bug early on and is supported on that (either by libraries or books at home) is going to have a tremendous advantage over kids who never read except when they're told they must at school.