Bbc going out of their way not to cover the Hancock affair.
Hardly surprising as it's not actually news it's a private matter
But it’s not necessarily a private matter is it. Do you not think it important to find out on what basis she was hired and whether the sexual relationship predates that point?
Apparently they knew each other from their university days
More Tory cronyism? Well knock me down with a feather!
Bbc going out of their way not to cover the Hancock affair.
Hardly surprising as it's not actually news it's a private matter
But it’s not necessarily a private matter is it. Do you not think it important to find out on what basis she was hired and whether the sexual relationship predates that point?
Serial adulterer Johnson is unlikely to sack first time offender Hancock for adultery. Come the reshuffle he’ll be elsewhere. His aide however should be gone today, if she has any self respect and wants to save her marriage. Fair? No. But life’s like that…
Separately hope DavidL got the help he needed last night.
Why should he be sacked for this? I can't see what it has to do with his job in government.
He won't be sacked for it but it is fair comment that his aide will need to leave her post
Bucket loads of sanctimony on here, keep the lying cheating crook in position but sack the poor aide he traduced. She definitely needs eye test and counselling but ratty should be taken out immediately , not only a robbing cheating low life but a home wrecker to boot.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
All the recent polling shows leads against rejoining the EU, not that they would be interested in readmitting us anyway.
Mike I’m disappointed you chose to include that Paul Mason tweet in the header
You have a great site here and it has achieved deserved prominence
To give credence to race/religious based motivations for voting here is just wrong. Mason is arguing Muslims should vote Labour because the Tories support Hindus.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Yep. A crisis the government have created by not having a clue. Indeed the crisis meeting called by the government to fix things descended into farce when the minister accused the industry of crying wolf despite them setting out in detail the facts on hand.
Things will get worse before they get better. A lot worse potentially. We're going to see a combination of empty supermarket shelves and the food that didn't get delivered to them being thrown away. We're already seeing a steep increase in the latter, with even the food waste charities like Fare Share unable to take delivery of it.
.@BorisJohnson is the last person to fire anyone for having an affair, of course. But if Hancock broke Covid rules (which he denies) then that would be altogether different.....
...Imagine if you've been literally banned by a govt from hugging your own grandchildren cos they are in 'a different household' and the health secretary has been hugging his lover from 'a different household'.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
Indeed. There's no shortage of people able to drive and able to be trained to drive HGVs.
Having a shortage of people willing to work for crap wages isn't a problem.
In isolation to the rest of the economy that may be true.
In aggregate if we need extra workers in several big sectors like hospitality, health, care, farming and transport then it may not just be a case of increasing wages.
We will continue to get high levels of immigration over the next decade, once covid is done, because we need it due to our demographics. Whether we want it or not will be secondary.
I have a very good friend with four daughters, the eldest (18) of which recently said she wanted to get a "23 and Me" test done.
He reacted with horror, and spewed all kinds of rubbish about how hackers could get hold of the data, etc.
Only now, a few days later, have I thought "hmmm... I wonder if there's a half brother or sister out there that's he's desperate to hide..."
Am I being unnecessarily cynical?
I'm one of those sad people 'into' Family History, and a year or so ago there was a complaint on of the blogs from someone who'd had one of those tests done and asserted that it was wrong. Apparently she had documentary evidence that all her family came from Bavaria (IIRC) and the test had indicated no German ancestry. Or something like that!
I have come across a couple of good stories, though!
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. The true number of Remainers in the UK is perhaps 30%, and of these, maybe only a third really, really, really care. So the LDs (if they are solely the party of Remain) are fishing in a pool of maybe 10% of the population.
But the death of Remain is probably good news for the LDs. It means they can revert to their traditional role of "I hate [x], and I'd never vote for [y], and the LDs seem like nice fellows so I'll lend them my vote."
Didn't all the polling this week confirm that very little has changed, and that the nation remains pretty evenly split? Also that a plurality think the government has done a bad job of negotiating Brexit.
I am surprised that the vaccine spat etc made so little difference, and don't expect any major English party to run on Rejoin in 2024, but no sign that I see of Remainers fading away.
My Facebook page is still full of people calling out various aspects of the nonsense that is the 'oven-ready agreement'.
Do these people distinguish between the oven-ready deal to leave (which is correct), and the oven-ready FTA (which did not exist), or is this the general Boo-Boris tendency that doesn't do such distinctions?
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Yep. A crisis the government have created by not having a clue. Indeed the crisis meeting called by the government to fix things descended into farce when the minister accused the industry of crying wolf despite them setting out in detail the facts on hand.
Things will get worse before they get better. A lot worse potentially. We're going to see a combination of empty supermarket shelves and the food that didn't get delivered to them being thrown away. We're already seeing a steep increase in the latter, with even the food waste charities like Fare Share unable to take delivery of it.
So how long do you reckon it will take before the industry faces facts and increases pay or hires staff instead of expecting to be able to import staff at lower than the market wages?
Bbc going out of their way not to cover the Hancock affair.
Hardly surprising as it's not actually news it's a private matter
But it’s not necessarily a private matter is it. Do you not think it important to find out on what basis she was hired and whether the sexual relationship predates that point?
No.
Well, there are two seperate questions here:
1. Did he have an affair? 2. Did he get his lover a job so they could continue their affair at the government's expense?
Right now, (1) looks like yes, but that doesn't affect his employment prospects. There is, however, the risk that (2) is also true. In which case he probably needs to start looking on LinkedIn.
I was very skeptical that the Tories would take B&S (but then I was also disbelieving that they would take 'Pool)
But, the flare-up in Israel/Palestine came at a perfect time for GG to exploit it. Now, I would not be at all surprised to see Labour lose it because of GG.
But the point is: B&S was a completely unnecessary by-election.
SKS may be forensic. But, he is just useless at politics, which needs a certain grubby street wisdom.
The Jewish Chronicle reports that Muslims in B&S are boycotting Labour because
Labour’s position on Palestine Kim Leadbetter is a lesbian Sir Keir’s wife is Jewish
Cultural Diversity is to be applauded I suppose?
The inevitable endpoint of Wokeness and multi-kulti and CRT is people voting almost entirely on their race and identity, as that is all that ‘matters’
So Muslims will abandon Labour for a Gallowayish Muslim Party
And, in the end, many white people will vote for white pride and a White Party. It is already happening in the USA. We hurtle towards tragedy
So happy to live in a country with a welcoming policy towards migrants
If Scotland is such a wecoming country towards migrants, why do so few of them end up there?
My part of the north east is rammed full of them. The supermarkets have a significant selection of foods to cover the Polish and Russian communities, there's a fair number of English, we have Hungarian and Latvian kids in my daughter's rural primary school class etc etc
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
Indeed. There's no shortage of people able to drive and able to be trained to drive HGVs.
Having a shortage of people willing to work for crap wages isn't a problem.
Actually, fewer and fewer youngsters bother to learn to drive at all:
He was complaining last night that it had taken fifty minutes for 111 paramedics to get back to him. Then complained about chest pains and feeling hot.
Unanimous opinion of everyone was chest pains = 999 though haven't seen him message again since. Hope that means he's at the hospital now.
Hopefully he is OK, but as previously said , waiting for 111 to do anything other than say see your GP tomorrow is not advisable.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
Indeed. There's no shortage of people able to drive and able to be trained to drive HGVs.
Having a shortage of people willing to work for crap wages isn't a problem.
In isolation to the rest of the economy that may be true.
In aggregate if we need extra workers in several big sectors like hospitality, health, care, farming and transport then it may not just be a case of increasing wages.
We will continue to get high levels of immigration over the next decade, once covid is done, because we need it due to our demographics. Whether we want it or not will be secondary.
Of course it is a case of increasing wages.
The most productive jobs will see their wages increase and be done. The least productive jobs will see those jobs exit the market. That's how a free market works.
If that means a machine makes your latte or washes your car instead of a human, so be it.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. The true number of Remainers in the UK is perhaps 30%, and of these, maybe only a third really, really, really care. So the LDs (if they are solely the party of Remain) are fishing in a pool of maybe 10% of the population.
But the death of Remain is probably good news for the LDs. It means they can revert to their traditional role of "I hate [x], and I'd never vote for [y], and the LDs seem like nice fellows so I'll lend them my vote."
Didn't all the polling this week confirm that very little has changed, and that the nation remains pretty evenly split? Also that a plurality think the government has done a bad job of negotiating Brexit.
I am surprised that the vaccine spat etc made so little difference, and don't expect any major English party to run on Rejoin in 2024, but no sign that I see of Remainers fading away.
My Facebook page is still full of people calling out various aspects of the nonsense that is the 'oven-ready agreement'.
Do these people distinguish between the oven-ready deal to leave (which is correct), and the oven-ready FTA (which did not exist), or is this the general Boo-Boris tendency that doesn't do such distinctions?
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
There’s a great oddlots podcast on this - US focussed, but many of the issues are similar here.
Basically, being a driver ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Razor thin margins. Constant boom/bust cycles.
In the US, it's mostly owner-operators. I.e., you want to be an HGV driver, you take the risk of owning the vehicle - even if you use someone else's brand.
Is it the same in the UK?
For a lot of drivers, yes. But there are also larger haulage companies.
I have a mate who went from driving for a company to self-owning, then upgraded to self-owning a huge Renault TIR type artic.
There's a lot of regulation, and owner drivers sometimes struggle to find somewhere to park it. He got out as the Renault did not add up, and now works as a machining-centre panjandrum in a posh furniture factory.
I was very skeptical that the Tories would take B&S (but then I was also disbelieving that they would take 'Pool)
But, the flare-up in Israel/Palestine came at a perfect time for GG to exploit it. Now, I would not be at all surprised to see Labour lose it because of GG.
But the point is: B&S was a completely unnecessary by-election.
SKS may be forensic. But, he is just useless at politics, which needs a certain grubby street wisdom.
The Jewish Chronicle reports that Muslims in B&S are boycotting Labour because
Labour’s position on Palestine Kim Leadbetter is a lesbian Sir Keir’s wife is Jewish
Cultural Diversity is to be applauded I suppose?
The inevitable endpoint of Wokeness and multi-kulti and CRT is people voting almost entirely on their race and identity, as that is all that ‘matters’
So Muslims will abandon Labour for a Gallowayish Muslim Party
And, in the end, many white people will vote for white pride and a White Party. It is already happening in the USA. We hurtle towards tragedy
So happy to live in a country with a welcoming policy towards migrants
If Scotland is such a wecoming country towards migrants, why do so few of them end up there?
My part of the north east is rammed full of them. The supermarkets have a significant selection of foods to cover the Polish and Russian communities, there's a fair number of English, we have Hungarian and Latvian kids in my daughter's rural primary school class etc etc
% Population born abroad: England: 15.5% Scotland: 9.3%
Bbc going out of their way not to cover the Hancock affair.
Hardly surprising as it's not actually news it's a private matter
But it’s not necessarily a private matter is it. Do you not think it important to find out on what basis she was hired and whether the sexual relationship predates that point?
No.
Well, there are two seperate questions here:
1. Did he have an affair? 2. Did he get his lover a job so they could continue their affair at the government's expense?
Right now, (1) looks like yes, but that doesn't affect his employment prospects. There is, however, the risk that (2) is also true. In which case he probably needs to start looking on LinkedIn.
I don't see why.
Any business I've ever worked in has had people sleeping together. Sometimes people meet through works, sometimes people getting theie SO a job.
So long as they're good at the job I could not care less.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
That has a lead time of at least a year and costs money worse insurance rates mean even when most people have qualified most companies don't want inexperienced drivers as the insurance rates are sky high.
It's also where my final point in the first post causes an issue - no one wants to spend £x,000 to be away from home all week, earn little and be treated badly by everyone.
Now the USA is slightly different as the market for drivers there sales drivers an "American Dream" of independent freedom. But much like a leasehold pub in the UK the reality is very different.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
Indeed. There's no shortage of people able to drive and able to be trained to drive HGVs.
Having a shortage of people willing to work for crap wages isn't a problem.
In isolation to the rest of the economy that may be true.
In aggregate if we need extra workers in several big sectors like hospitality, health, care, farming and transport then it may not just be a case of increasing wages.
We will continue to get high levels of immigration over the next decade, once covid is done, because we need it due to our demographics. Whether we want it or not will be secondary.
And notice that these are generally jobs where it's hard to automate the core of the job. And that moving other people into these roles might be an overall loss of productivity.
I was very skeptical that the Tories would take B&S (but then I was also disbelieving that they would take 'Pool)
But, the flare-up in Israel/Palestine came at a perfect time for GG to exploit it. Now, I would not be at all surprised to see Labour lose it because of GG.
But the point is: B&S was a completely unnecessary by-election.
SKS may be forensic. But, he is just useless at politics, which needs a certain grubby street wisdom.
The Jewish Chronicle reports that Muslims in B&S are boycotting Labour because
Labour’s position on Palestine Kim Leadbetter is a lesbian Sir Keir’s wife is Jewish
Cultural Diversity is to be applauded I suppose?
The inevitable endpoint of Wokeness and multi-kulti and CRT is people voting almost entirely on their race and identity, as that is all that ‘matters’
So Muslims will abandon Labour for a Gallowayish Muslim Party
And, in the end, many white people will vote for white pride and a White Party. It is already happening in the USA. We hurtle towards tragedy
So happy to live in a country with a welcoming policy towards migrants
If Scotland is such a wecoming country towards migrants, why do so few of them end up there?
My part of the north east is rammed full of them. The supermarkets have a significant selection of foods to cover the Polish and Russian communities, there's a fair number of English, we have Hungarian and Latvian kids in my daughter's rural primary school class etc etc
Usual crass bigotry from Carlotta, her union jack knickers will be twitching now you have shown some real facts, old toom tabard really really hates Scotland with a vengance.
I was very skeptical that the Tories would take B&S (but then I was also disbelieving that they would take 'Pool)
But, the flare-up in Israel/Palestine came at a perfect time for GG to exploit it. Now, I would not be at all surprised to see Labour lose it because of GG.
But the point is: B&S was a completely unnecessary by-election.
SKS may be forensic. But, he is just useless at politics, which needs a certain grubby street wisdom.
The Jewish Chronicle reports that Muslims in B&S are boycotting Labour because
Labour’s position on Palestine Kim Leadbetter is a lesbian Sir Keir’s wife is Jewish
Cultural Diversity is to be applauded I suppose?
The inevitable endpoint of Wokeness and multi-kulti and CRT is people voting almost entirely on their race and identity, as that is all that ‘matters’
So Muslims will abandon Labour for a Gallowayish Muslim Party
And, in the end, many white people will vote for white pride and a White Party. It is already happening in the USA. We hurtle towards tragedy
So happy to live in a country with a welcoming policy towards migrants
If Scotland is such a wecoming country towards migrants, why do so few of them end up there?
My part of the north east is rammed full of them. The supermarkets have a significant selection of foods to cover the Polish and Russian communities, there's a fair number of English, we have Hungarian and Latvian kids in my daughter's rural primary school class etc etc
% Population born abroad: England: 15.5% Scotland: 9.3%
I was very skeptical that the Tories would take B&S (but then I was also disbelieving that they would take 'Pool)
But, the flare-up in Israel/Palestine came at a perfect time for GG to exploit it. Now, I would not be at all surprised to see Labour lose it because of GG.
But the point is: B&S was a completely unnecessary by-election.
SKS may be forensic. But, he is just useless at politics, which needs a certain grubby street wisdom.
The Jewish Chronicle reports that Muslims in B&S are boycotting Labour because
Labour’s position on Palestine Kim Leadbetter is a lesbian Sir Keir’s wife is Jewish
Cultural Diversity is to be applauded I suppose?
The inevitable endpoint of Wokeness and multi-kulti and CRT is people voting almost entirely on their race and identity, as that is all that ‘matters’
So Muslims will abandon Labour for a Gallowayish Muslim Party
And, in the end, many white people will vote for white pride and a White Party. It is already happening in the USA. We hurtle towards tragedy
So happy to live in a country with a welcoming policy towards migrants
If Scotland is such a wecoming country towards migrants, why do so few of them end up there?
My part of the north east is rammed full of them. The supermarkets have a significant selection of foods to cover the Polish and Russian communities, there's a fair number of English, we have Hungarian and Latvian kids in my daughter's rural primary school class etc etc
After growing up in London moving to Devon was a bit jarring, and Edinburgh is much the same. Sure, there are Polish food shops, but the statistics are quite clear that there's a lot less immigration to Scotland than England.
The answer as to why has nothing to do with how welcoming Scotland is, but is the same reason why Scotland's population has declined relative to England's for decades - London's economy is much stronger.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
A shortage of trained drivers. Covid has largely stopped new driver training, which combined with an exodus of forrin drivers leaving and others unable / unwilling to drive under IR35 makes for a massive shortage.
"Just pay more" isn't the issue, a lot of people don't want to drive a truck which is why migrant labour was increasingly needed.
It's now a Mexican standoff. A hugely expensive overhaul of both wages and conditions are needed to attract people in so that the shortage doesn't get worse next year (this year is already fucked). But nobody can afford to pay as logistics is already crippled with high costs post BREXIT in an industry where the haulage bit was already the thin margins bit. The supermarkets are trying to recover from the extraordinary costs of Covid and have to cut costs for their new investors (Asda and soon Morrisons) and the manufacturing sector is similarly befuddled
Coats going up. Ability to swallow costs going down. Ultimately food price inflation is going to take off like a rocket.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
Indeed. There's no shortage of people able to drive and able to be trained to drive HGVs.
Having a shortage of people willing to work for crap wages isn't a problem.
Actually, fewer and fewer youngsters bother to learn to drive at all:
I was desperate to get out on the roads, but neither Fox Jr nor any of their cousins seems bothered, and it isn't just about living in big cities.
My grandchildren have, so far, been keen to drive as soon as possible. Although No 3, currently awaiting a test says that he doesn't plan to take his car to Uni, assuming he goes this Autumn. And yes his parents have found him a car; they live in a small community with not very good public transport and many of his school etc friends are 15-20 miles away.
I have a very good friend with four daughters, the eldest (18) of which recently said she wanted to get a "23 and Me" test done.
He reacted with horror, and spewed all kinds of rubbish about how hackers could get hold of the data, etc.
Only now, a few days later, have I thought "hmmm... I wonder if there's a half brother or sister out there that's he's desperate to hide..."
Am I being unnecessarily cynical?
I'm one of those sad people 'into' Family History, and a year or so ago there was a complaint on of the blogs from someone who'd had one of those tests done and asserted that it was wrong. Apparently she had documentary evidence that all her family came from Bavaria (IIRC) and the test had indicated no German ancestry. Or something like that!
I have come across a couple of good stories, though!
Reminds me of the classic calypso song "Shame and Scandal" covered by many over the years.
Bbc going out of their way not to cover the Hancock affair.
Hardly surprising as it's not actually news it's a private matter
But it’s not necessarily a private matter is it. Do you not think it important to find out on what basis she was hired and whether the sexual relationship predates that point?
No.
Well, there are two seperate questions here:
1. Did he have an affair? 2. Did he get his lover a job so they could continue their affair at the government's expense?
Right now, (1) looks like yes, but that doesn't affect his employment prospects. There is, however, the risk that (2) is also true. In which case he probably needs to start looking on LinkedIn.
Boris sacking him for (1) would be preposterous, Boris even sacking him for (2) would look pretty damn hypocritical - his profferments may have been more indirect but, cough, Arcuri, cough, what IS Carrie's role?, cough.
I wonder if this might remain in the pending pile for the next reshuffle.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
There’s a great oddlots podcast on this - US focussed, but many of the issues are similar here.
Basically, being a driver ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Razor thin margins. Constant boom/bust cycles.
In the US, it's mostly owner-operators. I.e., you want to be an HGV driver, you take the risk of owning the vehicle - even if you use someone else's brand.
Is it the same in the UK?
Yeah, it’s fascinating how little consolidation there is in US trucking. Also how Private Equity has steered clear of the sector. Seems to be lots of individual truck owner/drivers who suffer large turnover - and most of the rest are small companies, a sizeable chunk of which go bust every year.
Dunno about the specifics of UK freight and how it compares.
DavidL, if you're reading this, do call 999 now - I'd not read the detailed symptoms when I wrote general good wishes earlier. It's urgent, please don't wait.
Listen to Nick, he's a doctor.
I agree with Dr Palmer, chest pain is 999.
Happened to a friend of mine last week. The paramedics found him in ten mins in a lay-by through his mobile phone and bizarrely gave him an aspirin before taking him to hospital.
Aspirin is a blood thinner (ADP blocker if I remember correctly although it’s a while since I was looking at thrombosis). Absolutely the right thing to do
I was very skeptical that the Tories would take B&S (but then I was also disbelieving that they would take 'Pool)
But, the flare-up in Israel/Palestine came at a perfect time for GG to exploit it. Now, I would not be at all surprised to see Labour lose it because of GG.
But the point is: B&S was a completely unnecessary by-election.
SKS may be forensic. But, he is just useless at politics, which needs a certain grubby street wisdom.
The Jewish Chronicle reports that Muslims in B&S are boycotting Labour because
Labour’s position on Palestine Kim Leadbetter is a lesbian Sir Keir’s wife is Jewish
Cultural Diversity is to be applauded I suppose?
The inevitable endpoint of Wokeness and multi-kulti and CRT is people voting almost entirely on their race and identity, as that is all that ‘matters’
So Muslims will abandon Labour for a Gallowayish Muslim Party
And, in the end, many white people will vote for white pride and a White Party. It is already happening in the USA. We hurtle towards tragedy
So happy to live in a country with a welcoming policy towards migrants
If Scotland is such a wecoming country towards migrants, why do so few of them end up there?
My part of the north east is rammed full of them. The supermarkets have a significant selection of foods to cover the Polish and Russian communities, there's a fair number of English, we have Hungarian and Latvian kids in my daughter's rural primary school class etc etc
% Population born abroad: England: 15.5% Scotland: 9.3%
The way people "vote with their feet" would suggest Scotland is less welcoming to migrants than England.
Your posts would suggest you are biased and a fibber extrordinaire Lady Haw Haw
As ever you are a stranger to both facts and reason, but only familiar with cowardly and feeble insult. One might suspect you didn't have an argument to make, just spewing rubbish and bile.
On-topic: George Galloway helps the Labour candidate lose to her Tory opponent in two ways: by shifting some Labour votes directly to the Tory and other Labour votes to himself.
I won't be surprised if the Tory majority exceeds the Labour one of 3525 (7%) that they're overthrowing.
He was complaining last night that it had taken fifty minutes for 111 paramedics to get back to him. Then complained about chest pains and feeling hot.
Unanimous opinion of everyone was chest pains = 999 though haven't seen him message again since. Hope that means he's at the hospital now.
Hopefully he is OK, but as previously said , waiting for 111 to do anything other than say see your GP tomorrow is not advisable.
Is this true? I remember not so long ago when the complaints were that 111 was a problem because they were telling huge numbers of people to go to A&E, where a trained GP wouldn't have done anything of the sort. So it sounds as if they've potentially just replaced one problem (consistent over-reaction) with another (potential dismissal of serious symptoms).
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
A shortage of trained drivers. Covid has largely stopped new driver training, which combined with an exodus of forrin drivers leaving and others unable / unwilling to drive under IR35 makes for a massive shortage.
"Just pay more" isn't the issue, a lot of people don't want to drive a truck which is why migrant labour was increasingly needed.
It's now a Mexican standoff. A hugely expensive overhaul of both wages and conditions are needed to attract people in so that the shortage doesn't get worse next year (this year is already fucked). But nobody can afford to pay as logistics is already crippled with high costs post BREXIT in an industry where the haulage bit was already the thin margins bit. The supermarkets are trying to recover from the extraordinary costs of Covid and have to cut costs for their new investors (Asda and soon Morrisons) and the manufacturing sector is similarly befuddled
Coats going up. Ability to swallow costs going down. Ultimately food price inflation is going to take off like a rocket.
Considering a lot of those who voted were postal, probaably before C & A by election, the Lib Dems did reasonably well yesterday, especially in Taunton, where despite their ruling group apparent fallings out they again, for the second week running, managed to hold onto a seat and their one vote majority on the Council.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
A shortage of trained drivers. Covid has largely stopped new driver training, which combined with an exodus of forrin drivers leaving and others unable / unwilling to drive under IR35 makes for a massive shortage.
"Just pay more" isn't the issue, a lot of people don't want to drive a truck which is why migrant labour was increasingly needed.
It's now a Mexican standoff. A hugely expensive overhaul of both wages and conditions are needed to attract people in so that the shortage doesn't get worse next year (this year is already fucked). But nobody can afford to pay as logistics is already crippled with high costs post BREXIT in an industry where the haulage bit was already the thin margins bit. The supermarkets are trying to recover from the extraordinary costs of Covid and have to cut costs for their new investors (Asda and soon Morrisons) and the manufacturing sector is similarly befuddled
Coats going up. Ability to swallow costs going down. Ultimately food price inflation is going to take off like a rocket.
Then we find a new price equilibrium. So what?
In the log run? Sure. Its just going to be very bumpy whilst we get there. Food being thrown away whilst supermarkets have shortages isn't a good outcome. That your government refuse to accept there is an issue doesn't help.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
A shortage of trained drivers. Covid has largely stopped new driver training, which combined with an exodus of forrin drivers leaving and others unable / unwilling to drive under IR35 makes for a massive shortage.
"Just pay more" isn't the issue, a lot of people don't want to drive a truck which is why migrant labour was increasingly needed.
It's now a Mexican standoff. A hugely expensive overhaul of both wages and conditions are needed to attract people in so that the shortage doesn't get worse next year (this year is already fucked). But nobody can afford to pay as logistics is already crippled with high costs post BREXIT in an industry where the haulage bit was already the thin margins bit. The supermarkets are trying to recover from the extraordinary costs of Covid and have to cut costs for their new investors (Asda and soon Morrisons) and the manufacturing sector is similarly befuddled
Coats going up. Ability to swallow costs going down. Ultimately food price inflation is going to take off like a rocket.
My brother is an instructor, did a lot of remote / distanced training in odd ways during the pandemic for the supermarket delivery sector. Possibility is also that, some people who might have taken an interest in HGV may have been hoovered up by the light commercial sector.
I was very skeptical that the Tories would take B&S (but then I was also disbelieving that they would take 'Pool)
But, the flare-up in Israel/Palestine came at a perfect time for GG to exploit it. Now, I would not be at all surprised to see Labour lose it because of GG.
But the point is: B&S was a completely unnecessary by-election.
SKS may be forensic. But, he is just useless at politics, which needs a certain grubby street wisdom.
The Jewish Chronicle reports that Muslims in B&S are boycotting Labour because
Labour’s position on Palestine Kim Leadbetter is a lesbian Sir Keir’s wife is Jewish
Cultural Diversity is to be applauded I suppose?
The inevitable endpoint of Wokeness and multi-kulti and CRT is people voting almost entirely on their race and identity, as that is all that ‘matters’
So Muslims will abandon Labour for a Gallowayish Muslim Party
And, in the end, many white people will vote for white pride and a White Party. It is already happening in the USA. We hurtle towards tragedy
So happy to live in a country with a welcoming policy towards migrants
If Scotland is such a wecoming country towards migrants, why do so few of them end up there?
My part of the north east is rammed full of them. The supermarkets have a significant selection of foods to cover the Polish and Russian communities, there's a fair number of English, we have Hungarian and Latvian kids in my daughter's rural primary school class etc etc
After growing up in London moving to Devon was a bit jarring, and Edinburgh is much the same. Sure, there are Polish food shops, but the statistics are quite clear that there's a lot less immigration to Scotland than England.
The answer as to why has nothing to do with how welcoming Scotland is, but is the same reason why Scotland's population has declined relative to England's for decades - London's economy is much stronger.
I'm only talking about my experience and observations now, not of a past that I didn't see. Here and now its England for the English, and Scotland is welcoming migration to reverse that declining population.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
That has a lead time of at least a year and costs money worse insurance rates mean even when most people have qualified most companies don't want inexperienced drivers as the insurance rates are sky high.
It's also where my final point in the first post causes an issue - no one wants to spend £x,000 to be away from home all week, earn little and be treated badly by everyone.
Now the USA is slightly different as the market for drivers there sales drivers an "American Dream" of independent freedom. But much like a leasehold pub in the UK the reality is very different.
Yes, the great American dream of being an owner operator Truck driver, is actually a sweatshop on wheels. Real incomes for truckers have dropped through the floor in the USA.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
There’s a great oddlots podcast on this - US focussed, but many of the issues are similar here.
Basically, being a driver ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Razor thin margins. Constant boom/bust cycles.
In the US, it's mostly owner-operators. I.e., you want to be an HGV driver, you take the risk of owning the vehicle - even if you use someone else's brand.
Is it the same in the UK?
Yeah, it’s fascinating how little consolidation there is in US trucking. Also how Private Equity has steered clear of the sector. Seems to be lots of individual truck owner/drivers who suffer large turnover - and most of the rest are small companies, a sizeable chunk of which go bust every year.
Dunno about the specifics of UK freight and how it compares.
I think there are quite a few owner-operators. AIUI all that has to be bought is the tractor unit vehicle..... the one with the engine and the cab. The driver then hitches it up to a loaded trailer.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
It will be interesting to see where we are in 15/20 years time in terms of Rejoin. My, perhaps naive, hope is that Brexit will be seen as an error and we want to rejoin. But that means there'll have been a lot of pain and wasted years, which I don't really want to go through.
I was very skeptical that the Tories would take B&S (but then I was also disbelieving that they would take 'Pool)
But, the flare-up in Israel/Palestine came at a perfect time for GG to exploit it. Now, I would not be at all surprised to see Labour lose it because of GG.
But the point is: B&S was a completely unnecessary by-election.
SKS may be forensic. But, he is just useless at politics, which needs a certain grubby street wisdom.
The Jewish Chronicle reports that Muslims in B&S are boycotting Labour because
Labour’s position on Palestine Kim Leadbetter is a lesbian Sir Keir’s wife is Jewish
Cultural Diversity is to be applauded I suppose?
The inevitable endpoint of Wokeness and multi-kulti and CRT is people voting almost entirely on their race and identity, as that is all that ‘matters’
So Muslims will abandon Labour for a Gallowayish Muslim Party
And, in the end, many white people will vote for white pride and a White Party. It is already happening in the USA. We hurtle towards tragedy
So happy to live in a country with a welcoming policy towards migrants
If Scotland is such a wecoming country towards migrants, why do so few of them end up there?
My part of the north east is rammed full of them. The supermarkets have a significant selection of foods to cover the Polish and Russian communities, there's a fair number of English, we have Hungarian and Latvian kids in my daughter's rural primary school class etc etc
After growing up in London moving to Devon was a bit jarring, and Edinburgh is much the same. Sure, there are Polish food shops, but the statistics are quite clear that there's a lot less immigration to Scotland than England.
The answer as to why has nothing to do with how welcoming Scotland is, but is the same reason why Scotland's population has declined relative to England's for decades - London's economy is much stronger.
The SNP like to spin this myth of "difference" from England (but not Wales or Northern Ireland, for some curious reason). Almost all the data says attitudes are much more similar than different - but that does not suit the separatist's narrative.
While London does skew England's "born abroad" stats, all English regions bar the North East and South West have higher proportions of foreign born residents than Scotland.
I was just thinking how the Overton window has shifted, a Conservative government has just implemented a very costly advertising ban (for tv companies and ad agencies) and mostly met with a shrug.
"the Government’s own impact assessment suggests that over 25 years the restrictions will cost broadcasters £1.5 billion, online platforms £3.5 billion, advertising agencies £550 million, and retailers and manufacturers of HFSS products will see their profits reduced by £659 million."
Those numbers don’t make sense - it implies that the incremental profit contribution from additional sales is marginal. (The HFSS manufacturer revenues will have to cover cost of manufacturing plus all the expenses above to leave the profits).
I suspect they’ve massively loaded the profit figures to come up with some big numbers
v excited for Dominic Cummings' 70-tweet thread explaining that he knew about Hancock's affair and submitted research papers to the PM via whatsapp to try and end it but was ultimately unsuccessful because of whitehall red tape
I have a very good friend with four daughters, the eldest (18) of which recently said she wanted to get a "23 and Me" test done.
He reacted with horror, and spewed all kinds of rubbish about how hackers could get hold of the data, etc.
Only now, a few days later, have I thought "hmmm... I wonder if there's a half brother or sister out there that's he's desperate to hide..."
Am I being unnecessarily cynical?
Yes. It could also be that your friend is a serial killer or once stole a packet of biscuits. The FBI often sweeps commercial DNA databases for partial matches to criminals' DNA profiles.
I was very skeptical that the Tories would take B&S (but then I was also disbelieving that they would take 'Pool)
But, the flare-up in Israel/Palestine came at a perfect time for GG to exploit it. Now, I would not be at all surprised to see Labour lose it because of GG.
But the point is: B&S was a completely unnecessary by-election.
SKS may be forensic. But, he is just useless at politics, which needs a certain grubby street wisdom.
The Jewish Chronicle reports that Muslims in B&S are boycotting Labour because
Labour’s position on Palestine Kim Leadbetter is a lesbian Sir Keir’s wife is Jewish
Cultural Diversity is to be applauded I suppose?
The inevitable endpoint of Wokeness and multi-kulti and CRT is people voting almost entirely on their race and identity, as that is all that ‘matters’
So Muslims will abandon Labour for a Gallowayish Muslim Party
And, in the end, many white people will vote for white pride and a White Party. It is already happening in the USA. We hurtle towards tragedy
So happy to live in a country with a welcoming policy towards migrants
If Scotland is such a wecoming country towards migrants, why do so few of them end up there?
My part of the north east is rammed full of them. The supermarkets have a significant selection of foods to cover the Polish and Russian communities, there's a fair number of English, we have Hungarian and Latvian kids in my daughter's rural primary school class etc etc
After growing up in London moving to Devon was a bit jarring, and Edinburgh is much the same. Sure, there are Polish food shops, but the statistics are quite clear that there's a lot less immigration to Scotland than England.
The answer as to why has nothing to do with how welcoming Scotland is, but is the same reason why Scotland's population has declined relative to England's for decades - London's economy is much stronger.
The SNP like to spin this myth of "difference" from England (but not Wales or Northern Ireland, for some curious reason). Almost all the data says attitudes are much more similar than different - but that does not suit the separatist's narrative.
While London does skew England's "born abroad" stats, all English regions bar the North East and South West have higher proportions of foreign born residents than Scotland.
The ‘difference’ isn’t a myth when it comes to supporting EU membership, fawning over Farage for two decades or voting for a xenophobic Tory party, is it?
I find it hard to worry about someone shagging a work colleague. As long as she was hired in the appropriate way, which Grant Shapps assured us all just now on R4 that she would have been, then that's fine.
What is a sackable offence, however, is being such a fucking idiot as to snog your bit on the side underneath some CCTV cameras. And that goes for both of them.
And meanwhile, I am not religious so can't complete the saying, which when I see it is either used ironically or with a surfeit of tweeness but you have got to frigging believe me when I say my thoughts are with and for @DavidL.
I sincerely hope we are all making a mountain out of a molehill and he will tell us that his phone batteries ran out but I really, really hope he is ok and receiving the best possible care if it is needed.
I find it hard to worry about someone shagging a work colleague. As long as she was hired in the appropriate way, which Grant Shapps assured us all just now on R4 that she would have been, then that's fine.
What is a sackable offence, however, is being such a fucking idiot as to snog your bit on the side underneath some CCTV cameras. And that goes for both of them.
The sackable offence is leaking cctv photos from inside Whitehall. Who knows what top secret government shenanigans might be revealed.
One of the interesting things about the ONS data is that you can back out the proportion of people who stop being their (previously parent selected) denomination when they get to adulthood.
So, 19% of Christians move to the "No Religion" column between 15 and 20. For Muslims, it's 14%. The best performing religion, perhaps unsurprisingly, is Judaism.
That was me. Except it wasn't just my parents claiming religion on my behalf.
I would have self identified as Catholic up to 15 or 16, then a couple of years wibbling as Agnostic before decisively coming down as Atheist thereafter.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock 'is having affair' with his closest aide, 43, after pair were caught on camera having a passionate clinch outside his Whitehall office
Bonking around with a women he hired in the middle of a pandemic...
Never understood why an affair meant a politician should resign. Yeah, it's a crappy thing to do morally, on a personal level we can be indignant and I find it disgraceful, but it doesnt follow that it means they were bad at their job.
Of course if they've lied about it when pressed or theres aggravating factors then maybe - compromised position etc.
One of the interesting things about the ONS data is that you can back out the proportion of people who stop being their (previously parent selected) denomination when they get to adulthood.
So, 19% of Christians move to the "No Religion" column between 15 and 20. For Muslims, it's 14%. The best performing religion, perhaps unsurprisingly, is Judaism.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. The true number of Remainers in the UK is perhaps 30%, and of these, maybe only a third really, really, really care. So the LDs (if they are solely the party of Remain) are fishing in a pool of maybe 10% of the population.
But the death of Remain is probably good news for the LDs. It means they can revert to their traditional role of "I hate [x], and I'd never vote for [y], and the LDs seem like nice fellows so I'll lend them my vote."
Didn't all the polling this week confirm that very little has changed, and that the nation remains pretty evenly split? Also that a plurality think the government has done a bad job of negotiating Brexit.
I am surprised that the vaccine spat etc made so little difference, and don't expect any major English party to run on Rejoin in 2024, but no sign that I see of Remainers fading away.
I'd go for Rejoin in a heartbeat. Polly Toynbee (I know) has written in the Guardian this morning that 'Few have changed their mind: though polls put remain (or return) ahead by a nose, no one wants to be put through that hell again. Brexit is done for the foreseeable future' And quotes a Savanta poll to back up her claim on numbers.
My Facebook page is still full of people calling out various aspects of the nonsense that is the 'oven-ready agreement'.
I can understand people saying 'let it be' but it seems to me that there are more and more negatives with every day that passes.
That Dorset Tory MP telling the DUP on live TV that his constituents would “bite his hand off” to be inside the EU Single Market was a classic.
And the UK internal market - he was basically saying that NI has the best of both worlds (without to downsides)
You knew that, of course, but are selectively quoting out of context
I was just thinking how the Overton window has shifted, a Conservative government has just implemented a very costly advertising ban (for tv companies and ad agencies) and mostly met with a shrug.
"the Government’s own impact assessment suggests that over 25 years the restrictions will cost broadcasters £1.5 billion, online platforms £3.5 billion, advertising agencies £550 million, and retailers and manufacturers of HFSS products will see their profits reduced by £659 million."
Those numbers don’t make sense - it implies that the incremental profit contribution from additional sales is marginal. (The HFSS manufacturer revenues will have to cover cost of manufacturing plus all the expenses above to leave the profits).
I suspect they’ve massively loaded the profit figures to come up with some big numbers
Tobacco advertising was banned for various methods starting in 1965 (for TV), IIRC.
Every time the bans were extended or increased, the industry would give a gigantic number for lost business - especially for non-tobacco ones.
Formula One was supposed to collapse from this {giggle}......
Whenever a minister has an affair, or indeed any celebrity, the sanctimony comes with a huge whiff of hypocrisy. I cant remember the stats But the number of children whose father is not who they think it is is astonishingly large. Humans have affairs. They like sex, and they like sex with different people. For some, it’s a deal breaker in trust terms. I guy I know from work despises anyone who has an affair, and would never vote for them. I don’t have the same issue. I also think this is a bit sinister in how it has come out. Clearly some want him out. I’d argue now is not the time. A lot of you won’t agree but I think he has done an ok job. He is also across his brief. Don’t dump a new minister in now, when we clearly are still in the pandemic, even if hopefully close to the end of the immediate crisis.
Unsurprisingly, fatalities are down in line with the fall in road usage during lockdown. What has been picked up in the press is the increase in the number of cyclists killed, from 100 in 2019 to 140 in 2020:
It might be related to an increase in cycling, but I suspect it might also be to do with an increase in car speeds with less congestion.
One other thing stood out in the DfT figures was the big difference between men and women with far more men killed than women. I guess it reflects the fact that men probably drive more, but even so I suspect it also reflects differences in behaviour.
No he doesn't. Your boy Johnson has shifted the dial on the required standards of financial and sexual probity in public life. You voted for and enabled it so it's a bit much to be going Baxter Basics on it now.
It's the like the 90s all over again with tory sleaze. I might put my Dinosaur Jr t-shirt on and go for a rip in my 993 vert.
I don't think it's like the 90s at all. Life - in particular moral attitudes - has moved on so much since then.
The prurient coverage of affairs and toe sucking and such like used to bring politicians down. Nowadays I doubt it'd make any difference to anything. The casual acceptance/disregard of Boris Johnson's past affairs by the electorate isn't cause, it's effect.
Hancock is as safe in his job this morning as he was last night. I don't think it would've made any difference if he'd been caught shagging a bloke TBH. Definitely not 1993 anymore.
No, but considering hes already politically damaged as Boris evidently wants him gone, and hes probably exhausted in the role, it's a good event for him to be told he had better 'decide' to step down to focus on personal issues.
O/T I spent some time with a friend the other day telling me the absolute horror of what online gambling addiction does to families. I am normally not in favour of banning anything for consenting adults but I am now definitely in favour of banning it if possible. Are there any PBers with information or views on this?
That photo on the front of the Sun not only humiliates Hancock and his aide but, much more important, their entirely blameless families. Whoever leaked it is a worm of the very lowest kind.
Presumably it’s only a limited number of people who have access to the security camera footage?
I wonder if Hancock has broken any covid related rules. Sauce for Neil Ferguson and so on
That was the R4 line with Shapps - the "no hugging" rule.....
The elite who set the rules have been ignoring them for months according to reports from inside Downing Street iirc. They don't wear masks at work, don't bother with distance between desks, socialise as if nothing is happening etc etc.
No he doesn't. Your boy Johnson has shifted the dial on the required standards of financial and sexual probity in public life. You voted for and enabled it so it's a bit much to be going Baxter Basics on it now.
It's the like the 90s all over again with tory sleaze. I might put my Dinosaur Jr t-shirt on and go for a rip in my 993 vert.
I don't think it's like the 90s at all. Life - in particular moral attitudes - has moved on so much since then.
The prurient coverage of affairs and toe sucking and such like used to bring politicians down. Nowadays I doubt it'd make any difference to anything. The casual acceptance/disregard of Boris Johnson's past affairs by the electorate isn't cause, it's effect.
Hancock is as safe in his job this morning as he was last night. I don't think it would've made any difference if he'd been caught shagging a bloke TBH. Definitely not 1993 anymore.
No, but considering hes already politically damaged as Boris evidently wants him gone, and hes probably exhausted in the role, it's a good event for him to be told he had better 'decide' to step down to focus on personal issues.
Oh. I think I am still green on him for next Cons leader so perhaps we should all just be a bit more forgiving.
I was desperate to get out on the roads, but neither Fox Jr nor any of their cousins seems bothered, and it isn't just about living in big cities.
I recruited for a reasonably well-paid job, for which one applicant said he'd refuse if we required him to come to the office more than once a fortnight, as there was no public transport link and he felt the climate impact of driving more often would be unacceptable. Didn't appear to be an excuse - he was very into climate issues generally. And I'm aware of several people who have told their employers that they'd like to go to meetings by train even if it takes longer, for the same reason. I have a middle-aged friend who loves travel but has said she will never fly again unless required to for work. The issue does seem to be cutting through gradually.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock 'is having affair' with his closest aide, 43, after pair were caught on camera having a passionate clinch outside his Whitehall office
Bonking around with a women he hired in the middle of a pandemic...
Never understood why an affair meant a politician should resign. Yeah, it's a crappy thing to do morally, on a personal level we can be indignant and I find it disgraceful, but it doesnt follow that it means they were bad at their job.
Of course if they've lied about it when pressed or theres aggravating factors then maybe - compromised position etc.
If a man can betray his family then he can betray his country.
I was very skeptical that the Tories would take B&S (but then I was also disbelieving that they would take 'Pool)
But, the flare-up in Israel/Palestine came at a perfect time for GG to exploit it. Now, I would not be at all surprised to see Labour lose it because of GG.
But the point is: B&S was a completely unnecessary by-election.
SKS may be forensic. But, he is just useless at politics, which needs a certain grubby street wisdom.
The Jewish Chronicle reports that Muslims in B&S are boycotting Labour because
Labour’s position on Palestine Kim Leadbetter is a lesbian Sir Keir’s wife is Jewish
Cultural Diversity is to be applauded I suppose?
The inevitable endpoint of Wokeness and multi-kulti and CRT is people voting almost entirely on their race and identity, as that is all that ‘matters’
So Muslims will abandon Labour for a Gallowayish Muslim Party
And, in the end, many white people will vote for white pride and a White Party. It is already happening in the USA. We hurtle towards tragedy
So happy to live in a country with a welcoming policy towards migrants
If Scotland is such a wecoming country towards migrants, why do so few of them end up there?
My part of the north east is rammed full of them. The supermarkets have a significant selection of foods to cover the Polish and Russian communities, there's a fair number of English, we have Hungarian and Latvian kids in my daughter's rural primary school class etc etc
After growing up in London moving to Devon was a bit jarring, and Edinburgh is much the same. Sure, there are Polish food shops, but the statistics are quite clear that there's a lot less immigration to Scotland than England.
The answer as to why has nothing to do with how welcoming Scotland is, but is the same reason why Scotland's population has declined relative to England's for decades - London's economy is much stronger.
I'm only talking about my experience and observations now, not of a past that I didn't see. Here and now its England for the English, and Scotland is welcoming migration to reverse that declining population.
I think part of the point of Carlotta's question was that, with the SNP, as with politicians generally, there is often a large gap between rhetoric and reality.
It is nice to have people in authority use better rhetoric than the Home Office jackboots in England. Don't let that blind you to the reality.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
A shortage of trained drivers. Covid has largely stopped new driver training, which combined with an exodus of forrin drivers leaving and others unable / unwilling to drive under IR35 makes for a massive shortage.
"Just pay more" isn't the issue, a lot of people don't want to drive a truck which is why migrant labour was increasingly needed.
It's now a Mexican standoff. A hugely expensive overhaul of both wages and conditions are needed to attract people in so that the shortage doesn't get worse next year (this year is already fucked). But nobody can afford to pay as logistics is already crippled with high costs post BREXIT in an industry where the haulage bit was already the thin margins bit. The supermarkets are trying to recover from the extraordinary costs of Covid and have to cut costs for their new investors (Asda and soon Morrisons) and the manufacturing sector is similarly befuddled
Coats going up. Ability to swallow costs going down. Ultimately food price inflation is going to take off like a rocket.
Then we find a new price equilibrium. So what?
The market isn't perfect - so the price equilibrium will take years to be arrived at during which time shortages will be aplenty.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock 'is having affair' with his closest aide, 43, after pair were caught on camera having a passionate clinch outside his Whitehall office
I see Brillo is 'taking a break' from Gammon Boomer News. I wonder if it's health related. The revolting fucker looks like he's being force fed so his liver can be made into pâté.
O/T I spent some time with a friend the other day telling me the absolute horror of what online gambling addiction does to families. I am normally not in favour of banning anything for consenting adults but I am now definitely in favour of banning it if possible. Are there any PBers with information or views on this?
It's truly shocking. I don't know about banning it, but I'd certainly like to see the banning of gambling adverts on television and for sporting events.
The first sport I got hooked on as a kid was F1 and I was exposed to Rothmans, Marlboro, Benson & Hedges, etc., etc. And in no way did it make me want to start smoking! I think the tobacco industry used to claim that advertising was all about market share, though I can imagine it wasn't great for people trying to stop smoking.
But I can imagine the gambling adverts on TV do have an influence on kids. And I think if tobacco adverts are banned, then gambling ads should be banned too.
On topic, anecdotally the Corbo Bros (Assange, Palestine, Chris Williamson, Bernie S etc) I follow on Twitter definitely seem to be plumping for Galloway, mainly to kick SKS in the baws. Characteristically they don’t seem to have the faintest idea about what happens once they’ve got rid of Sir Keir.
Not sure how representative they are of the voters of B&S.
On the explosive revelation Matt Hancock has been having an affair with an aide in his work office during the Covid crisis, Grant Shapps says it’s an “entirely private matter - I don’t plan to comment” #timesradio
Some context for “entirely privately” line: -affair conducted in Health HQ -with an aide given taxpayer funded contract in secret last year -in the middle of the afternoon
O/T I spent some time with a friend the other day telling me the absolute horror of what online gambling addiction does to families. I am normally not in favour of banning anything for consenting adults but I am now definitely in favour of banning it if possible. Are there any PBers with information or views on this?
There are some excellent gambling addiction podcasts. I’m addicted to several of them….
Seriously though, I definitely agree. I think the liberalisation of gambling has gone too far. The industry makes its profits when people are at their most vulnerable. I’d be happy enough for all gambling to be completely banned.
DavidL, if you're reading this, do call 999 now - I'd not read the detailed symptoms when I wrote general good wishes earlier. It's urgent, please don't wait.
Listen to Nick, he's a doctor.
I agree with Dr Palmer, chest pain is 999.
Happened to a friend of mine last week. The paramedics found him in ten mins in a lay-by through his mobile phone and bizarrely gave him an aspirin before taking him to hospital.
Aspirin is a blood thinner (ADP blocker if I remember correctly although it’s a while since I was looking at thrombosis). Absolutely the right thing to do
Yes - there was even a time in the US where they were prescribing Aspirin daily for older age groups as a pre-heart attack treatment. Apparently if you have aspirin already in your system, it can massively reduce the effects.
The problem (IIRC) turned out to be that the side effects of giving Aspirin to everyone, daily, were bigger than the damage prevented...
Given the stresses Matt Hancock has been under the last 16 months or so it is understandable that he couldn't keep the snake inside the pet store and the public might forgive.
OTOH fornicating with someone you hired using taxpayers' money looks bad and could be toastish for Matt.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
There’s a great oddlots podcast on this - US focussed, but many of the issues are similar here.
Basically, being a driver ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Razor thin margins. Constant boom/bust cycles.
In the US, it's mostly owner-operators. I.e., you want to be an HGV driver, you take the risk of owning the vehicle - even if you use someone else's brand.
Is it the same in the UK?
Yeah, it’s fascinating how little consolidation there is in US trucking. Also how Private Equity has steered clear of the sector. Seems to be lots of individual truck owner/drivers who suffer large turnover - and most of the rest are small companies, a sizeable chunk of which go bust every year.
Dunno about the specifics of UK freight and how it compares.
I recommended a book below that covers US haulage in one chapter
I think the answer is that they need to sell a dream to bring enough workers in and it just doesn't work if those people were employees.
The bit that probably isn't obvious is that the trucks aren't owned by individuals but are leased to them on a weekly basis.
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
A shortage of trained drivers. Covid has largely stopped new driver training, which combined with an exodus of forrin drivers leaving and others unable / unwilling to drive under IR35 makes for a massive shortage.
"Just pay more" isn't the issue, a lot of people don't want to drive a truck which is why migrant labour was increasingly needed.
It's now a Mexican standoff. A hugely expensive overhaul of both wages and conditions are needed to attract people in so that the shortage doesn't get worse next year (this year is already fucked). But nobody can afford to pay as logistics is already crippled with high costs post BREXIT in an industry where the haulage bit was already the thin margins bit. The supermarkets are trying to recover from the extraordinary costs of Covid and have to cut costs for their new investors (Asda and soon Morrisons) and the manufacturing sector is similarly befuddled
Coats going up. Ability to swallow costs going down. Ultimately food price inflation is going to take off like a rocket.
Then we find a new price equilibrium. So what?
The market isn't perfect - so the price equilibrium will take years to be arrived at during which time shortages will be aplenty.
I thought Brexit was supposed to lead to cheaper food?
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
A shortage of trained drivers. Covid has largely stopped new driver training, which combined with an exodus of forrin drivers leaving and others unable / unwilling to drive under IR35 makes for a massive shortage.
"Just pay more" isn't the issue, a lot of people don't want to drive a truck which is why migrant labour was increasingly needed.
It's now a Mexican standoff. A hugely expensive overhaul of both wages and conditions are needed to attract people in so that the shortage doesn't get worse next year (this year is already fucked). But nobody can afford to pay as logistics is already crippled with high costs post BREXIT in an industry where the haulage bit was already the thin margins bit. The supermarkets are trying to recover from the extraordinary costs of Covid and have to cut costs for their new investors (Asda and soon Morrisons) and the manufacturing sector is similarly befuddled
Coats going up. Ability to swallow costs going down. Ultimately food price inflation is going to take off like a rocket.
Then we find a new price equilibrium. So what?
In the log run? Sure. Its just going to be very bumpy whilst we get there. Food being thrown away whilst supermarkets have shortages isn't a good outcome. That your government refuse to accept there is an issue doesn't help.
There isn't an issue.
ASDA not wanting to pay more is not the same thing as not being able to pay more.
If the government just opens the gates again and let's anyone in for minimum wage then yes the problem will go away. But considering YOUR PARTY is against homes for people coming in how is that a solution?
The issue will go away when a new equilibrium is reached under the law. If that causes disruption then businesses need to stop whinging that they want people to work for free negligible wages and start paying a market wage instead.
I see Brillo is 'taking a break' from Gammon Boomer News. I wonder if it's health related. The revolting fucker looks like he's being force fed so his liver can be made into pâté.
Summer holiday mate
less than 2 weeks after the channel launched - seems a strange time for a holiday.
On the explosive revelation Matt Hancock has been having an affair with an aide in his work office during the Covid crisis, Grant Shapps says it’s an “entirely private matter - I don’t plan to comment” #timesradio
Some context for “entirely privately” line: -affair conducted in Health HQ -with an aide given taxpayer funded contract in secret last year -in the middle of the afternoon
They weren't social distanced if the photos are genuine.
Yet again we have the rule makers ignoring the rules that they tell us are essential for survival of the NHS and so on and on. Rules are for the little people.
He must be sacked for that. Stay at home, protect the NHS, snog a colleague, save lives doesn't have the same ring does it?
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
That has a lead time of at least a year and costs money worse insurance rates mean even when most people have qualified most companies don't want inexperienced drivers as the insurance rates are sky high.
It's also where my final point in the first post causes an issue - no one wants to spend £x,000 to be away from home all week, earn little and be treated badly by everyone.
Now the USA is slightly different as the market for drivers there sales drivers an "American Dream" of independent freedom. But much like a leasehold pub in the UK the reality is very different.
Yes, the great American dream of being an owner operator Truck driver, is actually a sweatshop on wheels. Real incomes for truckers have dropped through the floor in the USA.
1. Boris and his henchmen decided that this week was the right time to exact revenge on Hancock for the Cummings embarrassment and his hiding of the latest SAGE modelling before the 14th June decision.
2. The Lib Dems continue their small resurgence in the South, cleaning up in Chichester and surviving against the odds in Taunton, while the Tories continue their march in the North and Midlands. Rugby - my parent's home town - is, of course, just a few miles North of the Watford gap and that internal border is becoming more and more marked.
Labour seem to be at a dead end. B&S seems clearly a Tory gain, crisis will ensue. What happens next?
Starmer must be kicking himself. If he'd spent less time trying to put the past behind him by purging himself of everything Corbyn and instead turned his fire on Johnson he'd be soaring at the moment.
Maybe he still can but an image for what Labour look like now is difficult to make out. A rebrand is desperately needed. Whether it can happen under Starmer I don't know.
It would be easier with a change but who is there? Perhaps If David Milliband could be persuaded it would give them a look....Angela Raynor is just swapping deckchairs. There are 52% Remainers wandering around like zombies looking for a home.That's got to be the starting point.
Why bother with labour when the lib dems are the remain party
And with all due respect "Remain" is dead. It died on the alter of Covid and vaccine procurement. vote."
I'm afraid you're really out of touch Robert, which tends to happen when you don't live in a country. Not a criticism as I've been in the same situation myself many times.
It's true that 3 months ago there was considerable anti-EU feeling because of the vaccination procurement but that has changed now. We have all seen the EU catching up and, in some ways, overtaking the UK especially on their freedoms.
The current Remain polling is around 55% so that's nonsense to say that it has dropped to 30% or gone away. It's very much alive right now. A real sense that among the many problems hitting Boris Johnson, problems with Brexit are among them. The honeymoon is well and truly over.
Citation required.
There is a difference between “should we have Remained” with support ~50% and “should we rejoin” where the support is in the 30% range. The “Rejoin” camp are a minority and no evidence that’s changing.
Unless you have a Tardis the 50% number is irrelevant.
This is an absolutely crucial point.
Maybe 50% of people think leaving was an error.
But of these, perhaps only 60% would vote to rejoin in a referendum.
And of these, it is of overriding importance to maybe a third of these.
Quite a few Don't Knows too.
But I don't expect it to be in the manifesto of any major English party at the next GE, though EEA may well be LD policy.
Joining the EEA was of course, would be very similar to the policy which had a 2-1 majority in the 1975 referendum. Which, as I recall, was a generally truthful campaign. And enthusiastically supported by, among others, the Daily Mail.
My wife reports fresh food shortages when she returns from shopping trips. Nothing major, admittedly; niggles.
I suspect that if and when people can go on holiday to Europe again there will be similar niggles and inconveniences; the return of roaming charges is an example. Maybe longer passport queues.
I expect the biggest issue is likely to be the labour shortages. Road haulage being the big one at the moment, but it is a big slice of the NHS staffing issues too.
Yes the shortage isn't due to getting fresh across the border as we have simply taken back control by implementing very few checks on anything coming in - you can get randomly busted for stuff the customs officers want to eat, but otherwise it sails through for now.
The shortage is a crippling lack of drivers thanks to the combination of IR35 and Forrin go home
Alof of the foreigners going home are also IR35 related as previously there were able to pocket the money almost tax free - a lot of those drivers really don't want to be on HMRC books.
It should be added that the industry has asked for HGV driving to be added to the Labour shortage list and the Home Office has explicitly said No and given that everyone needs to be registered by next Wednesday bringing drivers back from Europe isn't a solution any more.
Is this a shortage of people wanting to be HGV drivers, or a shortage of trained ones? If the latter, there is an obvious solution for employers.
A shortage of trained drivers. Covid has largely stopped new driver training, which combined with an exodus of forrin drivers leaving and others unable / unwilling to drive under IR35 makes for a massive shortage.
"Just pay more" isn't the issue, a lot of people don't want to drive a truck which is why migrant labour was increasingly needed.
It's now a Mexican standoff. A hugely expensive overhaul of both wages and conditions are needed to attract people in so that the shortage doesn't get worse next year (this year is already fucked). But nobody can afford to pay as logistics is already crippled with high costs post BREXIT in an industry where the haulage bit was already the thin margins bit. The supermarkets are trying to recover from the extraordinary costs of Covid and have to cut costs for their new investors (Asda and soon Morrisons) and the manufacturing sector is similarly befuddled
Coats going up. Ability to swallow costs going down. Ultimately food price inflation is going to take off like a rocket.
Then we find a new price equilibrium. So what?
In the log run? Sure. Its just going to be very bumpy whilst we get there. Food being thrown away whilst supermarkets have shortages isn't a good outcome. That your government refuse to accept there is an issue doesn't help.
There isn't an issue.
ASDA not wanting to pay more is not the same thing as not being able to pay more.
If the government just opens the gates again and let's anyone in for minimum wage then yes the problem will go away. But considering YOUR PARTY is against homes for people coming in how is that a solution?
The issue will go away when a new equilibrium is reached under the law. If that causes disruption then businesses need to stop whinging that they want people to work for free negligible wages and start paying a market wage instead.
And we all need to be ready to pay the higher prices that will lead to.
I was desperate to get out on the roads, but neither Fox Jr nor any of their cousins seems bothered, and it isn't just about living in big cities.
I recruited for a reasonably well-paid job, for which one applicant said he'd refuse if we required him to come to the office more than once a fortnight, as there was no public transport link and he felt the climate impact of driving more often would be unacceptable. Didn't appear to be an excuse - he was very into climate issues generally. And I'm aware of several people who have told their employers that they'd like to go to meetings by train even if it takes longer, for the same reason. I have a middle-aged friend who loves travel but has said she will never fly again unless required to for work. The issue does seem to be cutting through gradually.
I will travel by train where possible - simply because anything else (even staring out of a window) is a more productive use of my time than driving.
Is anyone else worried that if Boris Johnson sacks Matt Hancock for having an affair that the irony will be so great that it will create a black hole so large that will end up consuming the universe?
On topic, anecdotally the Corbo Bros (Assange, Palestine, Chris Williamson, Bernie S etc) I follow on Twitter definitely seem to be plumping for Galloway, mainly to kick SKS in the baws. Characteristically they don’t seem to have the faintest idea about what happens once they’ve got rid of Sir Keir.
Not sure how representative they are of the voters of B&S.
Bernie Sanders has a view on the Batley and Spen by-election???
Given the stresses Matt Hancock has been under the last 16 months or so it is understandable that he couldn't keep the snake inside the pet store and the public might forgive.
OTOH fornicating with someone you hired using taxpayers' money looks bad and could be toastish for Matt.
But what's the mechanism? Matt Hancock might have enough residual shame to resign for his hanky-panky, but one of the defining beliefs of this government is "you can't make me". Which is why, two years in, hardly anyone has resigned and the only reason people have been sacked is that they have personally annoyed the boss.
Given the stresses Matt Hancock has been under the last 16 months or so it is understandable that he couldn't keep the snake inside the pet store and the public might forgive.
OTOH fornicating with someone you hired using taxpayers' money looks bad and could be toastish for Matt.
Yes I can't think of any other member of the Cabinet who funneled public money to someone he was shagging and got away with it.
I see Brillo is 'taking a break' from Gammon Boomer News. I wonder if it's health related. The revolting fucker looks like he's being force fed so his liver can be made into pâté.
Summer holiday mate
I’ve just pinned my reputation as figurehead to a media startup in a competitive and quickly changing market, which has had a shaky beginning for technical reasons and with possible ad revenue problems.
I shall still be taking my summer holidays of course.
Given the stresses Matt Hancock has been under the last 16 months or so it is understandable that he couldn't keep the snake inside the pet store and the public might forgive.
OTOH fornicating with someone you hired using taxpayers' money looks bad and could be toastish for Matt.
Maybe I am old fashioned but I want his mind on the frigging job.
Comments
https://twitter.com/rosscolquhoun/status/1407670898157625351?s=21
Mike I’m disappointed you chose to include that Paul Mason tweet in the header
You have a great site here and it has achieved deserved prominence
To give credence to race/religious based motivations for voting here is just wrong. Mason is arguing Muslims should vote Labour because the Tories support Hindus.
Things will get worse before they get better. A lot worse potentially. We're going to see a combination of empty supermarket shelves and the food that didn't get delivered to them being thrown away. We're already seeing a steep increase in the latter, with even the food waste charities like Fare Share unable to take delivery of it.
...Imagine if you've been literally banned by a govt from hugging your own grandchildren cos they are in 'a different household' and the health secretary has been hugging his lover from 'a different household'.
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1408317258066190338?s=20
In aggregate if we need extra workers in several big sectors like hospitality, health, care, farming and transport then it may not just be a case of increasing wages.
We will continue to get high levels of immigration over the next decade, once covid is done, because we need it due to our demographics. Whether we want it or not will be secondary.
Apparently she had documentary evidence that all her family came from Bavaria (IIRC) and the test had indicated no German ancestry. Or something like that!
I have come across a couple of good stories, though!
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-shaky-evidence-for-starmers-attack-on-johnson-brexit-promise
1. Did he have an affair?
2. Did he get his lover a job so they could continue their affair at the government's expense?
Right now, (1) looks like yes, but that doesn't affect his employment prospects. There is, however, the risk that (2) is also true. In which case he probably needs to start looking on LinkedIn.
https://roadsafetygb.org.uk/news/n-a-5870/
I was desperate to get out on the roads, but neither Fox Jr nor any of their cousins seems bothered, and it isn't just about living in big cities.
The most productive jobs will see their wages increase and be done. The least productive jobs will see those jobs exit the market. That's how a free market works.
If that means a machine makes your latte or washes your car instead of a human, so be it.
I have a mate who went from driving for a company to self-owning, then upgraded to self-owning a huge Renault TIR type artic.
There's a lot of regulation, and owner drivers sometimes struggle to find somewhere to park it. He got out as the Renault did not add up, and now works as a machining-centre panjandrum in a posh furniture factory.
England: 15.5%
Scotland: 9.3%
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06077/
EU Settlement scheme applications:
England: 90%
Scotland: 5%
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/eu-settlement-scheme-quarterly-statistics-march-2021/eu-settlement-scheme-quarterly-statistics-march-2021
The way people "vote with their feet" would suggest Scotland is less welcoming to migrants than England.
An odd construction.
Any business I've ever worked in has had people sleeping together. Sometimes people meet through works, sometimes people getting theie SO a job.
So long as they're good at the job I could not care less.
It's also where my final point in the first post causes an issue - no one wants to spend £x,000 to be away from home all week, earn little and be treated badly by everyone.
Now the USA is slightly different as the market for drivers there sales drivers an "American Dream" of independent freedom. But much like a leasehold pub in the UK the reality is very different.
I recommnded https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Life-Groceries-American-Supermarket-ebook/dp/B083RZFYZC last year to RP (don't know if he read it) but it has a great chapter on how the US logistics industry consumes drivers.
And that moving other people into these roles might be an overall loss of productivity.
The answer as to why has nothing to do with how welcoming Scotland is, but is the same reason why Scotland's population has declined relative to England's for decades - London's economy is much stronger.
"Just pay more" isn't the issue, a lot of people don't want to drive a truck which is why migrant labour was increasingly needed.
It's now a Mexican standoff. A hugely expensive overhaul of both wages and conditions are needed to attract people in so that the shortage doesn't get worse next year (this year is already fucked). But nobody can afford to pay as logistics is already crippled with high costs post BREXIT in an industry where the haulage bit was already the thin margins bit. The supermarkets are trying to recover from the extraordinary costs of Covid and have to cut costs for their new investors (Asda and soon Morrisons) and the manufacturing sector is similarly befuddled
Coats going up. Ability to swallow costs going down. Ultimately food price inflation is going to take off like a rocket.
And yes his parents have found him a car; they live in a small community with not very good public transport and many of his school etc friends are 15-20 miles away.
I wonder if this might remain in the pending pile for the next reshuffle.
Dunno about the specifics of UK freight and how it compares.
I won't be surprised if the Tory majority exceeds the Labour one of 3525 (7%) that they're overthrowing.
Best wishes DavidL.
/ distanced training in odd ways during the pandemic for the supermarket delivery sector. Possibility is also that, some people who might have taken an interest in HGV may have been hoovered up by the light commercial sector.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/05/truck-stop/481926/
Edit..... when I recalled the correct name.
While London does skew England's "born abroad" stats, all English regions bar the North East and South West have higher proportions of foreign born residents than Scotland.
I suspect they’ve massively loaded the profit figures to come up with some big numbers
https://twitter.com/KirstyStricklan/status/1408321384397279234?s=20
What is a sackable offence, however, is being such a fucking idiot as to snog your bit on the side underneath some CCTV cameras. And that goes for both of them.
I sincerely hope we are all making a mountain out of a molehill and he will tell us that his phone batteries ran out but I really, really hope he is ok and receiving the best possible care if it is needed.
https://twitter.com/jimmfelton/status/1408326357713571843?s=21
I would have self identified as Catholic up to 15 or 16, then a couple of years wibbling as Agnostic before decisively coming down as Atheist thereafter.
But a Catholic Atheist, of course.
Of course if they've lied about it when pressed or theres aggravating factors then maybe - compromised position etc.
You knew that, of course, but are selectively quoting out of context
Every time the bans were extended or increased, the industry would give a gigantic number for lost business - especially for non-tobacco ones.
Formula One was supposed to collapse from this {giggle}......
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-provisional-results-2020/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-provisional-results-2020
Unsurprisingly, fatalities are down in line with the fall in road usage during lockdown. What has been picked up in the press is the increase in the number of cyclists killed, from 100 in 2019 to 140 in 2020:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/24/cyclists-killed-on-british-roads-rose-by-40-in-2020-official-figures-show
It might be related to an increase in cycling, but I suspect it might also be to do with an increase in car speeds with less congestion.
One other thing stood out in the DfT figures was the big difference between men and women with far more men killed than women. I guess it reflects the fact that men probably drive more, but even so I suspect it also reflects differences in behaviour.
It is nice to have people in authority use better rhetoric than the Home Office jackboots in England. Don't let that blind you to the reality.
The first sport I got hooked on as a kid was F1 and I was exposed to Rothmans, Marlboro, Benson & Hedges, etc., etc. And in no way did it make me want to start smoking! I think the tobacco industry used to claim that advertising was all about market share, though I can imagine it wasn't great for people trying to stop smoking.
But I can imagine the gambling adverts on TV do have an influence on kids. And I think if tobacco adverts are banned, then gambling ads should be banned too.
Not sure how representative they are of the voters of B&S.
Seriously though, I definitely agree. I think the liberalisation of gambling has gone too far. The industry makes its profits when people are at their most vulnerable. I’d be happy enough for all gambling to be completely banned.
The problem (IIRC) turned out to be that the side effects of giving Aspirin to everyone, daily, were bigger than the damage prevented...
OTOH fornicating with someone you hired using taxpayers' money looks bad and could be toastish for Matt.
I think the answer is that they need to sell a dream to bring enough workers in and it just doesn't work if those people were employees.
The bit that probably isn't obvious is that the trucks aren't owned by individuals but are leased to them on a weekly basis.
ASDA not wanting to pay more is not the same thing as not being able to pay more.
If the government just opens the gates again and let's anyone in for minimum wage then yes the problem will go away. But considering YOUR PARTY is against homes for people coming in how is that a solution?
The issue will go away when a new equilibrium is reached under the law. If that causes disruption then businesses need to stop whinging that they want people to work for free negligible wages and start paying a market wage instead.
Yet again we have the rule makers ignoring the rules that they tell us are essential for survival of the NHS and so on and on. Rules are for the little people.
He must be sacked for that. Stay at home, protect the NHS, snog a colleague, save lives doesn't have the same ring does it?
1. Boris and his henchmen decided that this week was the right time to exact revenge on Hancock for the Cummings embarrassment and his hiding of the latest SAGE modelling before the 14th June decision.
2. The Lib Dems continue their small resurgence in the South, cleaning up in Chichester and surviving against the odds in Taunton, while the Tories continue their march in the North and Midlands. Rugby - my parent's home town - is, of course, just a few miles North of the Watford gap and that internal border is becoming more and more marked.
Labour seem to be at a dead end. B&S seems clearly a Tory gain, crisis will ensue. What happens next?
I shall still be taking my summer holidays of course.