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I am shocked by this poll finding – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,101
    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    I don't get your logic. If said employee was as productive working from home why would the company go bust?

    I my experience wfh can be more productive, both personally and for the teams I have managed. Most people will work longer hours and still have more leisure time *because* they are not having to commute.

    Managing shirkers is a different issue but needs to be done on output not presenteeism - seeing someone sat at their desk does not mean they are being productive.

    Now, I get that companies might seek an opportunity to cut costs but I doubt any emplyoment contracts are going to allow for that.

    Cost cutting happens all the time. You make it sound like employment contracts have so far prevented any form of cost cutting.
    My last sentence is badly worded. I meant I doubt any employment contracts are going to allow for cost cutting in this way (salary reductions based on working location). Though now I think about it I guess there might be a route via the London allowance.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,101
    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    Just out of interest, have you ever worked as an employee for a big organisation in an office-based role?
  • MrEd said:

    Isn't Facebook policy in the US now if you WFH abd move out of state you get paid less?

    Yes, that is what they want. Meeting some resistance but it is the direction of travel. Banks are saying the same.
    One problem I can foresee is massive distortion of some rural markets, just like has happened here in Cornwall.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,101
    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday

    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Which minister? No name on that front page as far as I can see.
    “It’s difficult to know whether someone at home was working or watching television”.

    Well… if you are that unable to measure output rather than input, you can either safely eliminate the role. Or you eliminate the manager. Which in this case I suppose means the “senior cabinet minister” quoted.
    Or, third option, the said minister does not know his or her arse from his or her elbow.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,216

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    I don't get your logic. If said employee was as productive working from home why would the company go bust?

    I my experience wfh can be more productive, both personally and for the teams I have managed. Most people will work longer hours and still have more leisure time *because* they are not having to commute.

    Managing shirkers is a different issue but needs to be done on output not presenteeism - seeing someone sat at their desk does not mean they are being productive.

    Now, I get that companies might seek an opportunity to cut costs but I doubt any emplyoment contracts are going to allow for that.

    Cost cutting happens all the time. You make it sound like employment contracts have so far prevented any form of cost cutting.
    My last sentence is badly worded. I meant I doubt any employment contracts are going to allow for cost cutting in this way (salary reductions based on working location). Though now I think about it I guess there might be a route via the London allowance.
    There’s a lot of bollocks spoken on this topic by people who can’t face the idea of cities going through a period of decline and depopulation. Just last month, my employer (it is big and famous) rolled my London allowance into an increased salary on a like for like basis.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,659
    Now Raab dodges travel rules: Foreign Secretary visited 'amber plus list' France but avoided quarantine on his return https://trib.al/zCU1lnL
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,604

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    I don't get your logic. If said employee was as productive working from home why would the company go bust?

    I my experience wfh can be more productive, both personally and for the teams I have managed. Most people will work longer hours and still have more leisure time *because* they are not having to commute.

    Managing shirkers is a different issue but needs to be done on output not presenteeism - seeing someone sat at their desk does not mean they are being productive.

    Now, I get that companies might seek an opportunity to cut costs but I doubt any emplyoment contracts are going to allow for that.

    Cost cutting happens all the time. You make it sound like employment contracts have so far prevented any form of cost cutting.
    My last sentence is badly worded. I meant I doubt any employment contracts are going to allow for cost cutting in this way (salary reductions based on working location). Though now I think about it I guess there might be a route via the London allowance.
    Most organisations will move to hybrid working, part at home and part in the office.

    However if you want to be full time WFH and your office is in London then it is only fair you do not get London weighting, especially with the commuting costs you save
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,101
    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    Agreed. (Well, I am not sure about the 'normally lucid' bit but hey...)
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited August 2021
    I take it back about the Hundred.....the punishment for overruninng is great...not that you have to have an extra field in the circle, its that it looks like KP car is locked in the car park and he is having to scramble to get home by other means (or get a hotel).
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,659
    edited August 2021
    Apparently the un-named minister is IDS
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,101
    edited August 2021
    HYUFD said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    I don't get your logic. If said employee was as productive working from home why would the company go bust?

    I my experience wfh can be more productive, both personally and for the teams I have managed. Most people will work longer hours and still have more leisure time *because* they are not having to commute.

    Managing shirkers is a different issue but needs to be done on output not presenteeism - seeing someone sat at their desk does not mean they are being productive.

    Now, I get that companies might seek an opportunity to cut costs but I doubt any emplyoment contracts are going to allow for that.

    Cost cutting happens all the time. You make it sound like employment contracts have so far prevented any form of cost cutting.
    My last sentence is badly worded. I meant I doubt any employment contracts are going to allow for cost cutting in this way (salary reductions based on working location). Though now I think about it I guess there might be a route via the London allowance.
    Most organisations will move to hybrid working, part at home and part in the office.

    However if you want to be full time WFH and your office is in London then it is only fair you do not get London weighting, especially with the commuting costs you save
    It's going to get messy. How many days do you have to be in the office each week to qualify for London weighting?

    But I do concede there's an issue that will have to be addressed here, as we move to more an more flexible working.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,545
    On the subject of the thread, yes I agree a referendum is not a good way of solving big issues because generally the electorate is as thick as pig shit when it comes to knowledge of the issues. However having said that the mp in the house of commons are also as equally full of pig shit.....who can forget caroline flint minsister for europe admitting before the lisbon treaty was signed that she hadnt even fucking read it.

    Decisions by referendum are shit but they are no worse than decision by clueless mps
  • Leon said:

    Just watched the marthon runner bottle man, at real time.

    Nothing malicious in it at all IMO. He's clearly tired, focused on the race, and struggling to pick up a bottle.

    Bollocks

    If you watch it in slow motion, he tries to pretend he's fumbling for a bottle, but he clearly intends to knock them all over, and then - surprise - just manages to grab the last one, very easily. Leaving no others.

    At some points he is not even attempting to pick up the bottles, just flapping them out of the way


    That said, I don't think he deserves the worldwide crucifixion he is now getting. It was a mean spirited bit of sportsmanship, but not a capital crime
    The left-hand row of bottles are all standing.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,659
    Pagan2 said:

    who can forget caroline flint minsister for europe admitting before the lisbon treaty was signed that she hadnt even fucking read it.

    Neither BoZo nor Frost read the fucking withdrawal agreement. And they fucking wrote it!
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,774
    tlg86 said:

    Of Britain’s overall total of 65 medals, 16 were won by Scottish athletes.

    It's worth giving the more honest statistic: 11 of the 112 athletes who contributed to Britain's 65 medals were Scottish.
    By the looks of their listing, not a single Scottish individual gold out of the GB's haul of 14, plus 3 of the 25 contributers to GB's 8 team golds.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    Just out of interest, have you ever worked as an employee for a big organisation in an office-based role?
    God no
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,742
    HYUFD said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    I don't get your logic. If said employee was as productive working from home why would the company go bust?

    I my experience wfh can be more productive, both personally and for the teams I have managed. Most people will work longer hours and still have more leisure time *because* they are not having to commute.

    Managing shirkers is a different issue but needs to be done on output not presenteeism - seeing someone sat at their desk does not mean they are being productive.

    Now, I get that companies might seek an opportunity to cut costs but I doubt any emplyoment contracts are going to allow for that.

    Cost cutting happens all the time. You make it sound like employment contracts have so far prevented any form of cost cutting.
    My last sentence is badly worded. I meant I doubt any employment contracts are going to allow for cost cutting in this way (salary reductions based on working location). Though now I think about it I guess there might be a route via the London allowance.
    Most organisations will move to hybrid working, part at home and part in the office.

    However if you want to be full time WFH and your office is in London then it is only fair you do not get London weighting, especially with the commuting costs you save
    London weighting is often implicit rather than explicit though. Eg all the City jobs.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,545
    Scott_xP said:

    Pagan2 said:

    who can forget caroline flint minsister for europe admitting before the lisbon treaty was signed that she hadnt even fucking read it.

    Neither BoZo nor Frost read the fucking withdrawal agreement. And they fucking wrote it!
    So fucking what, what does that prove apart from what I said....mps are just as clueless voting as referendums are.....we get it you dont like boris...I am not pro boris. You proved my point mps dont know fuck all about most of what they vote on. Now fuck off
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,101
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    Just out of interest, have you ever worked as an employee for a big organisation in an office-based role?
    God no
    That explains why you're such an expert.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,216
    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    I don't get your logic. If said employee was as productive working from home why would the company go bust?

    I my experience wfh can be more productive, both personally and for the teams I have managed. Most people will work longer hours and still have more leisure time *because* they are not having to commute.

    Managing shirkers is a different issue but needs to be done on output not presenteeism - seeing someone sat at their desk does not mean they are being productive.

    Now, I get that companies might seek an opportunity to cut costs but I doubt any emplyoment contracts are going to allow for that.

    Cost cutting happens all the time. You make it sound like employment contracts have so far prevented any form of cost cutting.
    My last sentence is badly worded. I meant I doubt any employment contracts are going to allow for cost cutting in this way (salary reductions based on working location). Though now I think about it I guess there might be a route via the London allowance.
    Most organisations will move to hybrid working, part at home and part in the office.

    However if you want to be full time WFH and your office is in London then it is only fair you do not get London weighting, especially with the commuting costs you save
    London weighting is often implicit rather than explicit though. Eg all the City jobs.
    City jobs also almost always have a discretionary element to compensation. If someone’s output really does drop because they’re not stuffed on the drain every morning, it’s easy enough to rebase their pay.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700
    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,303
    Of all the people to wave the rules on foreign travel and quarantining that I'd be least annoyed about the Foreign Secretary would probably be it.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,742
    Pagan2 said:

    On the subject of the thread, yes I agree a referendum is not a good way of solving big issues because generally the electorate is as thick as pig shit when it comes to knowledge of the issues. However having said that the mp in the house of commons are also as equally full of pig shit.....who can forget caroline flint minsister for europe admitting before the lisbon treaty was signed that she hadnt even fucking read it.

    Decisions by referendum are shit but they are no worse than decision by clueless mps

    Well I don't know who should be making the big decisions then if it's neither the public nor the politicians.
  • Scott_xP said:

    Now Raab dodges travel rules: Foreign Secretary visited 'amber plus list' France but avoided quarantine on his return https://trib.al/zCU1lnL

    Sky made a big play of Sharma, and yet two nights ago Sally Lockwood was reading the UK news from London and tonight she is in Greece reporting on the fires

    Burley, and now Lockwood and Sky just hypocrites
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited August 2021
    Trying to compartmentalize Team GB medals were won by people from different countries is also flawed, because now a) they are all paid out of the Team GB funding model and b) there are dedicated centres for many sports, meaning pooled resources, coaching etc.

    Bath hosts all the modern pentathlon training and 1 of the 3 elite swimming centres (the other 2 are Loughborough and Stirling). Manchester is the dedicated training centre where basically all the cyclists are and most crucially they get all the massive tech advances done for the equipment (apparently there is up to a 2s difference due to the tech alone in the pursuit, where 2s is difference between medal and nowhere).
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,545
    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    On the subject of the thread, yes I agree a referendum is not a good way of solving big issues because generally the electorate is as thick as pig shit when it comes to knowledge of the issues. However having said that the mp in the house of commons are also as equally full of pig shit.....who can forget caroline flint minsister for europe admitting before the lisbon treaty was signed that she hadnt even fucking read it.

    Decisions by referendum are shit but they are no worse than decision by clueless mps

    Well I don't know who should be making the big decisions then if it's neither the public nor the politicians.
    I dont know either because frankly few know all the facts, the public votes on emotion the politicians vote as they are told by party leaders. Neither ever understands the issues
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,216
    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 59,942
    edited August 2021
    kle4 said:

    Of all the people to wave the rules on foreign travel and quarantining that I'd be least annoyed about the Foreign Secretary would probably be it.

    And to be fair there seems to be quite a bit of rowing back on Sharma as there is an acceptance that on COP26 personal meetings with some foreign leaders is essential
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,932
    .
    Scott_xP said:

    Apparently the un-named minister is IDS

    He's a minister?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,259
    The Client (1994) is just starting on BBC One. Is it worth watching?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,786
    edited August 2021
    Scott_xP said:

    Apparently the un-named minister is IDS

    Is IDS a minister?

    ETA scooped by @RobD
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,216
    Andy_JS said:

    The Client (1994) is just starting on BBC One. Is it worth watching?

    No
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,144
    Pagan2 said:

    On the subject of the thread, yes I agree a referendum is not a good way of solving big issues because generally the electorate is as thick as pig shit when it comes to knowledge of the issues. However having said that the mp in the house of commons are also as equally full of pig shit.....who can forget caroline flint minsister for europe admitting before the lisbon treaty was signed that she hadnt even fucking read it.

    Decisions by referendum are shit but they are no worse than decision by clueless mps

    Good evening Pagan - thought of you today on my annual trip to Padstow - ferry over from Rock; speedboat trip; pasty; ice cream; crabbing in the harbour; at least one daughter gets her hair braided; all daughters spend their money on tourist tat (in this case, a giant inflatable flamingo); ferry back again. Same as every year. Happiness.
    I don't know what locals must think of this sort of pantomime, and I'm sure the crowds and the artificiality must rankle, but if my family is typical the genuine pleasure it must bring hundreds and thousands of people each year is huge, and we are very grateful.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,259
    moonshine said:

    Andy_JS said:

    The Client (1994) is just starting on BBC One. Is it worth watching?

    No
    Thanks for the pithy reply.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700
    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



  • Andy_JS said:

    The Client (1994) is just starting on BBC One. Is it worth watching?

    Probably. There was a spin-off so someone liked it. tbh I stopped reading Grisham some time ago.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited August 2021
    Another couple of examples of why you can't compartmentalize...

    They asked Tom Daley why he was diving with a different partner and he said the performance director puts together pairing and they had analyzed the spin rates of all dives to match them up.

    Rowing, once you enter the elite programme, again they analyze all the data and determine which boats you will be in.

    Same with the sprint relays, the runner for each leg is carefully selected to maximize performance.

    With these mature highly competitive sports where edges are tiny, there is no turning up and saying me and my mate are good at this. There is no Go Team Scotland or Wales or England in terms of the Olympics, it is Go whatever lineup maximizes performance.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Charles said:



    I was thinking of the decision that led to Ulster’s 9 counties becoming NI’s 6. I couldn’t be arsed to look up the precise term, but it conveyed the meaning.

    You're not a details man, sure..
    It conveyed the meaning. Language is about communication.

    But may be engage with the substance rather than just insulting others?

    If certain parts of Scotland vote to remain part of England why should they be separated against their will?
    Is that not the argument that many Scots used/are using with respect to being taken out of the EU?
    Yes, which is why I was interested to see how they would address it.

    Strangely enough none of them had an answer
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,545
    Cookie said:

    Pagan2 said:

    On the subject of the thread, yes I agree a referendum is not a good way of solving big issues because generally the electorate is as thick as pig shit when it comes to knowledge of the issues. However having said that the mp in the house of commons are also as equally full of pig shit.....who can forget caroline flint minsister for europe admitting before the lisbon treaty was signed that she hadnt even fucking read it.

    Decisions by referendum are shit but they are no worse than decision by clueless mps

    Good evening Pagan - thought of you today on my annual trip to Padstow - ferry over from Rock; speedboat trip; pasty; ice cream; crabbing in the harbour; at least one daughter gets her hair braided; all daughters spend their money on tourist tat (in this case, a giant inflatable flamingo); ferry back again. Same as every year. Happiness.
    I don't know what locals must think of this sort of pantomime, and I'm sure the crowds and the artificiality must rankle, but if my family is typical the genuine pleasure it must bring hundreds and thousands of people each year is huge, and we are very grateful.
    Glad you enjoyed it, just dont think you are pouring all that money into cornwall most of those businsesses are owned by londoners. Most cornish people get the minimum wage jobs they allow us. Yes there are exceptions but not that many. Even when I worked summer holidays there was the same....the boss lady came down from london. Interviewed a few selected her staff...then left us to run the store and took the profit
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,216
    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    Automation of white collar jobs is a wholly different topic but you are right that it is likely to place deflationary pressure on wages in coming decades. But that’s not what we were talking about. You’ve mainly been talking about a massive bias to knowledge economy wage deflation in say, the next 24 months because of new hybrid working models. I heartily disagree.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited August 2021
    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    Automation of white collar jobs is a wholly different topic but you are right that it is likely to place deflationary pressure on wages in coming decades. But that’s not what we were talking about. You’ve mainly been talking about a massive bias to knowledge economy wage deflation in say, the next 24 months because of new hybrid working models. I heartily disagree.
    This is a topic no politician (except Andrew Yang) wants to engage with. A lot of peope are going to get a nasty shock when we see a similar massive disruptive changes to when factories mechanised.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Interesting thought on the 2024 Olympics - it could be Marine Le Pen leading the opening celebrations....
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    kinabalu said:

    Carnyx said:

    kinabalu said:

    Candy said:

    kinabalu said:


    What's just as intriguing is how a freeborn Englishman who advances Sovereignty as the reason they voted for Brexit can be so viscerally opposed to Scottish Independence given the Sovereignty argument is (at the very least) of equal relevance there.

    A freeborn Englishman - David Cameron - gave the Scots their referendum in 2014, to the horror of the Europeans (Matteo Renzi declared Cameron was "mad").

    The Scots voted to remain in the UK. The old argument that being part of the UK was a stitch-up agreed amongst barrons 300 odd years ago is gone. Being part of the UK is now the settled will of the Scots as affirmed by a referendum with an 84% turnout.

    The issue is that the losers refuse to accept the result (much like Trump refused to accept the result of the US 2020 election and remainers refused to accept the result of the 2016 EU referendum).

    What do you do about anti-democrats who refuse to accept the results of referendums and general elections?
    It was accepted but Brexit put it back on the table. That supplied a rationale for another vote so long as this was franked at the polls in a Scottish election. Which it was - just. We now await developments.
    Bit more than just: quite a reasonable majority at Holyrood (and Westminster too). But basically yes.
    Pro-independence lawmakers = 71
    Unionist lawmakers = 57
    Presiding Officer (from a pro-independence party) = 1

    Hardly “just”.
    Ok, drop "just". But not quite the slam dunk of SNP outright majority. A word between the 2.
    “Just” is entirely legitimate

    A decision on a referendum is not within the authority of the Scottish parliament. So the number of MSPs is irrelevant

    The case that the SNP can make is that a majority of the votes* were cast for pro-referendum parties (irrespective of constituencies) and therefore Westminster should heed their request.

    *I believe (there was some back and forth on the calculation at the time) there was a narrow majority for pro-referendum parties (principally SNP&Greens)
  • Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    The question is whether firms need workers to cluster in one location. If they do then the way to save money was to offshore to cheaper locations. If, however, workers can all WFH then having them scattered round the cheaper parts of Britain makes sense.

    In America, we've seen companies run with this: work remotely in cheap states if you like but for less money. I doubt we'd see pay cuts here but rather cheaper replacements as and when vacancies occur.

    All of which said, even before Covid, we've seen some companies reverse WFH policies and call employees back to the office, so I'd not go all in on WFH being more efficient for employers.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,244



    For context, an annual season ticket from Haslemere to London is £4500 in standard, £7500 in first class. Going forward, there's a grown up conversation to be had about how the fruits of saving that cost get shared between employer and employee. And given that hybrid working is nicer for the employee than having to be in the office every day, it's likely that employers will have to pay a premium if they want to demand full-time office presence.

    But that doesn't seem to be what this article is about. An anonymous minister is going on about unfairness, as if they were in Starmer's shadow cabinet. Some people have found a way to get their jobs done without spending thousands on commuting, best of luck to them. Free market, innovation, all those things Conservatives say they believe in.

    And there are two other potential absurdities here. First is that you can be pretty sure that civil servants have secure enough contracts that applying a WFH pay cut won't stick. So this anonymous minister is howling at the moon in impotent rage. Second is that the government wants to level up the provinces. The more well-paid working people are spending their days and their money outside Westminster, the better. Get this right, and it will do more dispersal of good stuff than any number of Northern Campuses.

    Also, people who work in the office 2 days a week (which seems to be what most offices are planning) won't save that much on commuting, since a season ticket for 2 days/week doesn't exiswt (I think), and they'll have to pay one trip at a time.

    I think it's just one of those divide-and-rule things - get different groups of the population quarelling with each other, and they won't spend time blaming the government.

    Are you based in Haslemere (rather than Romford), Stuart? Or is that where the Minister was referring to?
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,216

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    Automation of white collar jobs is a wholly different topic but you are right that it is likely to place deflationary pressure on wages in coming decades. But that’s not what we were talking about. You’ve mainly been talking about a massive bias to knowledge economy wage deflation in say, the next 24 months because of new hybrid working models. I heartily disagree.
    This is a topic no politician (except Andrew Yang) wants to engage with. A lot of peope are going to get a nasty shock when we see a similar massive disruptive changes to when factories mechanised.
    I dunno. Wasnt furlough like the dry run for what will be before too long the permanent “new normal”? It’s going to be an interesting couple of decades.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    MrEd said:

    Isn't Facebook policy in the US now if you WFH abd move out of state you get paid less?

    Yes, that is what they want. Meeting some resistance but it is the direction of travel. Banks are saying the same.
    One problem I can foresee is massive distortion of some rural markets, just like has happened here in Cornwall.
    Which is kind of what Facebook said (they example they used was Minnesota).

    It is going to be a massive rural distorting issue particularly if all the claims about rural broadband come to pass. At the moment, problem the one thing holding things back is the unreliability of communications. Fix that and....
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited August 2021
    moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    Automation of white collar jobs is a wholly different topic but you are right that it is likely to place deflationary pressure on wages in coming decades. But that’s not what we were talking about. You’ve mainly been talking about a massive bias to knowledge economy wage deflation in say, the next 24 months because of new hybrid working models. I heartily disagree.
    This is a topic no politician (except Andrew Yang) wants to engage with. A lot of peope are going to get a nasty shock when we see a similar massive disruptive changes to when factories mechanised.
    I dunno. Wasnt furlough like the dry run for what will be before too long the permanent “new normal”? It’s going to be an interesting couple of decades.
    Furlough didn't effect the sort of people who automation will hit. Those who were most insulated from the pandemic are the most at risk from ML / AI automating a way big chunks of their industry.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    Automation of white collar jobs is a wholly different topic but you are right that it is likely to place deflationary pressure on wages in coming decades. But that’s not what we were talking about. You’ve mainly been talking about a massive bias to knowledge economy wage deflation in say, the next 24 months because of new hybrid working models. I heartily disagree.
    This is a topic no politician (except Andrew Yang) wants to engage with. A lot of peope are going to get a nasty shock when we see a similar massive disruptive changes to when factories mechanised.
    Spot on. What has been very interesting with the pandemic is how firms have used it as an opportunity to automate a lot of processes and, as a result, the disruption to jobs is moving up the value chain. Why do you need a manager if you have software tools that can track employees' progress and how well they are doing?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,005
    stodge said:

    IanB2 said:

    There has been a lot of rainfall in a short amount of time, creating localised flooding events rather than it being a wet period.

    The worst-hit places were the City of London, which has had 143 per cent of its average rainfall this summer, the Isle of Wight with 174 per cent of its average summer rainfall, and Surrey with 126 per cent.

    [Met Office] Ms Mitchell believes the Isle of Wight will only get rainier and imagines the percentage will be “much higher by the end of summer”.

    By comparison, Scotland has only has 38 per cent of its average rainfall and Ms Mitchell said “a few northern areas have been much, much drier”.

    The synoptic pattern this summer has been a continuation of that often seen in April or May which then moves into the "traditional" summer pattern of settled and warmer conditions to the south and east and more unsettled weather affecting Northern and Western parts.

    The question, perhaps, is why has the synoptic pattern failed to change? The Atlantic, in terms of Low Pressure systems rushing towards us from the west, has been very quiet this summer - this has consolidated the patterns in situ. Is this part of something else happening - slowing Gulf Stream etc, or is this just year-on-year variation or a bit of both?
    The rain has nevertheless highlighted a problem with the sewer beneath my road, and I have spent a fascinating evening with the Dyno Rod guy looking at his camera gadgets exploring the subterranean world. It would appear that our sewer is full of stones and a house brick.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700
    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    Automation of white collar jobs is a wholly different topic but you are right that it is likely to place deflationary pressure on wages in coming decades. But that’s not what we were talking about. You’ve mainly been talking about a massive bias to knowledge economy wage deflation in say, the next 24 months because of new hybrid working models. I heartily disagree.
    A confluence is coming. AI and WFH and all of it

    Expect carnage
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,216
    MrEd said:

    MrEd said:

    Isn't Facebook policy in the US now if you WFH abd move out of state you get paid less?

    Yes, that is what they want. Meeting some resistance but it is the direction of travel. Banks are saying the same.
    One problem I can foresee is massive distortion of some rural markets, just like has happened here in Cornwall.
    Which is kind of what Facebook said (they example they used was Minnesota).

    It is going to be a massive rural distorting issue particularly if all the claims about rural broadband come to pass. At the moment, problem the one thing holding things back is the unreliability of communications. Fix that and....
    SpaceX internet is open to beta testers in at least southern England and possibly further north now? I am reminded a bit of Boris Johnson going back on his pledge not to shut ticket offices when Mayor. “iPads weren’t invented when I said that, how could I possibly have known!” If you’re paying attention, you can see what way the wind is blowing.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,216
    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    Automation of white collar jobs is a wholly different topic but you are right that it is likely to place deflationary pressure on wages in coming decades. But that’s not what we were talking about. You’ve mainly been talking about a massive bias to knowledge economy wage deflation in say, the next 24 months because of new hybrid working models. I heartily disagree.
    A confluence is coming. AI and WFH and all of it

    Expect carnage
    Maybe but there will also be sex robots and designer narcotics.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,005



    For context, an annual season ticket from Haslemere to London is £4500 in standard, £7500 in first class. Going forward, there's a grown up conversation to be had about how the fruits of saving that cost get shared between employer and employee. And given that hybrid working is nicer for the employee than having to be in the office every day, it's likely that employers will have to pay a premium if they want to demand full-time office presence.

    But that doesn't seem to be what this article is about. An anonymous minister is going on about unfairness, as if they were in Starmer's shadow cabinet. Some people have found a way to get their jobs done without spending thousands on commuting, best of luck to them. Free market, innovation, all those things Conservatives say they believe in.

    And there are two other potential absurdities here. First is that you can be pretty sure that civil servants have secure enough contracts that applying a WFH pay cut won't stick. So this anonymous minister is howling at the moon in impotent rage. Second is that the government wants to level up the provinces. The more well-paid working people are spending their days and their money outside Westminster, the better. Get this right, and it will do more dispersal of good stuff than any number of Northern Campuses.

    Also, people who work in the office 2 days a week (which seems to be what most offices are planning) won't save that much on commuting, since a season ticket for 2 days/week doesn't exiswt (I think), and they'll have to pay one trip at a time.

    I think it's just one of those divide-and-rule things - get different groups of the population quarelling with each other, and they won't spend time blaming the government.

    Are you based in Haslemere (rather than Romford), Stuart? Or is that where the Minister was referring to?
    I thought they were trialing new types of season ticket to meet just this demand?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700
    edited August 2021

    moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    Automation of white collar jobs is a wholly different topic but you are right that it is likely to place deflationary pressure on wages in coming decades. But that’s not what we were talking about. You’ve mainly been talking about a massive bias to knowledge economy wage deflation in say, the next 24 months because of new hybrid working models. I heartily disagree.
    This is a topic no politician (except Andrew Yang) wants to engage with. A lot of peope are going to get a nasty shock when we see a similar massive disruptive changes to when factories mechanised.
    I dunno. Wasnt furlough like the dry run for what will be before too long the permanent “new normal”? It’s going to be an interesting couple of decades.
    Furlough didn't effect the sort of people who automation will hit. Those who were most insulated from the pandemic are the most at risk from ML / AI automating a way big chunks of their industry.
    Yes, this is exactly right.

    WFH has made workers realise they don't have to commute, and can still be productive. It feels like win win to people like moonshine. But it is extremely temporary

    At the same time companies are thinking, Hold on, if we can pay this guy £50k to do his London work from Brighton, we could probably pay some dude to do exactly the same work from Bangalore, for £5k

    And the next leap from that is Wait, we can probably pay GPT5 to do the same job for 50 pence, from the cloud

    Covid is going to accelerate all of this massively, solicitors and middle managers and coders and the rest will soon be cheaper than truck drivers


  • For context, an annual season ticket from Haslemere to London is £4500 in standard, £7500 in first class. Going forward, there's a grown up conversation to be had about how the fruits of saving that cost get shared between employer and employee. And given that hybrid working is nicer for the employee than having to be in the office every day, it's likely that employers will have to pay a premium if they want to demand full-time office presence.

    But that doesn't seem to be what this article is about. An anonymous minister is going on about unfairness, as if they were in Starmer's shadow cabinet. Some people have found a way to get their jobs done without spending thousands on commuting, best of luck to them. Free market, innovation, all those things Conservatives say they believe in.

    And there are two other potential absurdities here. First is that you can be pretty sure that civil servants have secure enough contracts that applying a WFH pay cut won't stick. So this anonymous minister is howling at the moon in impotent rage. Second is that the government wants to level up the provinces. The more well-paid working people are spending their days and their money outside Westminster, the better. Get this right, and it will do more dispersal of good stuff than any number of Northern Campuses.

    Also, people who work in the office 2 days a week (which seems to be what most offices are planning) won't save that much on commuting, since a season ticket for 2 days/week doesn't exiswt (I think), and they'll have to pay one trip at a time.

    I think it's just one of those divide-and-rule things - get different groups of the population quarelling with each other, and they won't spend time blaming the government.

    Are you based in Haslemere (rather than Romford), Stuart? Or is that where the Minister was referring to?
    You're probably right about the divide-and-rule, with a side order of frustration at employers and employees not paying attention when ministers say "back to the office", as they have been for months now.

    And no, I really am in Romford, but Haslemere was the home of Sir Humphrey Appleby, which I why I chose it as an example...
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700
    In the end, only the dildo flint knappers will survive. Think on that. We are the cockroaches of the new economy
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,631
    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    Automation of white collar jobs is a wholly different topic but you are right that it is likely to place deflationary pressure on wages in coming decades. But that’s not what we were talking about. You’ve mainly been talking about a massive bias to knowledge economy wage deflation in say, the next 24 months because of new hybrid working models. I heartily disagree.
    A confluence is coming. AI and WFH and all of it

    Expect carnage
    Maybe but there will also be sex robots and designer narcotics.
    There are already sex robots and designer narcotics.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,216
    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    Automation of white collar jobs is a wholly different topic but you are right that it is likely to place deflationary pressure on wages in coming decades. But that’s not what we were talking about. You’ve mainly been talking about a massive bias to knowledge economy wage deflation in say, the next 24 months because of new hybrid working models. I heartily disagree.
    This is a topic no politician (except Andrew Yang) wants to engage with. A lot of peope are going to get a nasty shock when we see a similar massive disruptive changes to when factories mechanised.
    I dunno. Wasnt furlough like the dry run for what will be before too long the permanent “new normal”? It’s going to be an interesting couple of decades.
    Furlough didn't effect the sort of people who automation will hit. Those who were most insulated from the pandemic are the most at risk from ML / AI automating a way big chunks of their industry.
    Yes, this is exactly right.

    WFH has made workers realise they don't have to commute, and can still be productive. It feels like win win to people like moonshine. But it is extremely temporary

    At the same time companies are thinking, Hold on, if we can pay this guy £50k to do his London work from Brighton, we could probably pay some dude to do exactly the same work from Bangalore, for £5k

    And the next leap from that is Wait, we can probably pay GPT5 to do the same job for 50 pence, from the cloud

    Covid is going to accelerate all of this massively, solicitors and middle managers and coders and the rest will soon be cheaper than truck drivers
    It’s a tired trope to say these jobs can be outsourced to Bangalore or Ho Chi Minh or wherever else. The ones that easily can be have been. In the medium term, as education levels continue improving in those places, globalisation of labour will continue on the same path for services as it has in the industrial and manufacturing sectors. But you also miss that in higher skilled sectors, a massive proportion of the jobs have already been “outsourced” abroad, just with the foreign employees sitting in London.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Leon said:

    In the end, only the dildo flint knappers will survive. Think on that. We are the cockroaches of the new economy

    We are moving to the extremes when it comes to the workforce - a sliver of very well-paid people and a mass of low paid workers fighting for jobs with the middle increasing hollowed out as their roles are automated and / or replaced by software (in some cases, also sent to cheaper markets).
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    Automation of white collar jobs is a wholly different topic but you are right that it is likely to place deflationary pressure on wages in coming decades. But that’s not what we were talking about. You’ve mainly been talking about a massive bias to knowledge economy wage deflation in say, the next 24 months because of new hybrid working models. I heartily disagree.
    This is a topic no politician (except Andrew Yang) wants to engage with. A lot of peope are going to get a nasty shock when we see a similar massive disruptive changes to when factories mechanised.
    I dunno. Wasnt furlough like the dry run for what will be before too long the permanent “new normal”? It’s going to be an interesting couple of decades.
    Furlough didn't effect the sort of people who automation will hit. Those who were most insulated from the pandemic are the most at risk from ML / AI automating a way big chunks of their industry.
    Yes, this is exactly right.

    WFH has made workers realise they don't have to commute, and can still be productive. It feels like win win to people like moonshine. But it is extremely temporary

    At the same time companies are thinking, Hold on, if we can pay this guy £50k to do his London work from Brighton, we could probably pay some dude to do exactly the same work from Bangalore, for £5k

    And the next leap from that is Wait, we can probably pay GPT5 to do the same job for 50 pence, from the cloud

    Covid is going to accelerate all of this massively, solicitors and middle managers and coders and the rest will soon be cheaper than truck drivers
    It’s a tired trope to say these jobs can be outsourced to Bangalore or Ho Chi Minh or wherever else. The ones that easily can be have been. In the medium term, as education levels continue improving in those places, globalisation of labour will continue on the same path for services as it has in the industrial and manufacturing sectors. But you also miss that in higher skilled sectors, a massive proportion of the jobs have already been “outsourced” abroad, just with the foreign employees sitting in London.
    It depends.

    On IT, you are right, the pay rates for IT developers in Serbia, the Ukraine, Romania etc are apparently rocketing as they have realised they are in demand and so up their wages.

    The issue is that there are a lot of jobs that can be automated. Take solicitors. One of the time-old practices was getting junior lawyers to proof read at 2am for which you would need warm bodies. Now I can get a piece of software that will do it 24 hours a day and far more accurately.

    For those at the top, getting rid of expensive professionals is a no-brainer - they charge the same for their services yet take away a lot of the costs.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited August 2021
    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    Automation of white collar jobs is a wholly different topic but you are right that it is likely to place deflationary pressure on wages in coming decades. But that’s not what we were talking about. You’ve mainly been talking about a massive bias to knowledge economy wage deflation in say, the next 24 months because of new hybrid working models. I heartily disagree.
    This is a topic no politician (except Andrew Yang) wants to engage with. A lot of peope are going to get a nasty shock when we see a similar massive disruptive changes to when factories mechanised.
    I dunno. Wasnt furlough like the dry run for what will be before too long the permanent “new normal”? It’s going to be an interesting couple of decades.
    Furlough didn't effect the sort of people who automation will hit. Those who were most insulated from the pandemic are the most at risk from ML / AI automating a way big chunks of their industry.
    Yes, this is exactly right.

    WFH has made workers realise they don't have to commute, and can still be productive. It feels like win win to people like moonshine. But it is extremely temporary

    At the same time companies are thinking, Hold on, if we can pay this guy £50k to do his London work from Brighton, we could probably pay some dude to do exactly the same work from Bangalore, for £5k

    And the next leap from that is Wait, we can probably pay GPT5 to do the same job for 50 pence, from the cloud

    Covid is going to accelerate all of this massively, solicitors and middle managers and coders and the rest will soon be cheaper than truck drivers
    It’s a tired trope to say these jobs can be outsourced to Bangalore or Ho Chi Minh or wherever else. The ones that easily can be have been. In the medium term, as education levels continue improving in those places, globalisation of labour will continue on the same path for services as it has in the industrial and manufacturing sectors. But you also miss that in higher skilled sectors, a massive proportion of the jobs have already been “outsourced” abroad, just with the foreign employees sitting in London.
    Places like Estonia are much better primed for higher level job outsourcing. Highly educated population, widely spoken English, fantastic internet, pro tech government where you can do everything online, stable steady country with protections of the EU.

    Other Eastern European countries are also becoming common for outsourcing high skilled tech jobs things like skilled VFX work, game development...
  • LeonLeon Posts: 45,700
    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    Automation of white collar jobs is a wholly different topic but you are right that it is likely to place deflationary pressure on wages in coming decades. But that’s not what we were talking about. You’ve mainly been talking about a massive bias to knowledge economy wage deflation in say, the next 24 months because of new hybrid working models. I heartily disagree.
    This is a topic no politician (except Andrew Yang) wants to engage with. A lot of peope are going to get a nasty shock when we see a similar massive disruptive changes to when factories mechanised.
    I dunno. Wasnt furlough like the dry run for what will be before too long the permanent “new normal”? It’s going to be an interesting couple of decades.
    Furlough didn't effect the sort of people who automation will hit. Those who were most insulated from the pandemic are the most at risk from ML / AI automating a way big chunks of their industry.
    Yes, this is exactly right.

    WFH has made workers realise they don't have to commute, and can still be productive. It feels like win win to people like moonshine. But it is extremely temporary

    At the same time companies are thinking, Hold on, if we can pay this guy £50k to do his London work from Brighton, we could probably pay some dude to do exactly the same work from Bangalore, for £5k

    And the next leap from that is Wait, we can probably pay GPT5 to do the same job for 50 pence, from the cloud

    Covid is going to accelerate all of this massively, solicitors and middle managers and coders and the rest will soon be cheaper than truck drivers
    It’s a tired trope to say these jobs can be outsourced to Bangalore or Ho Chi Minh or wherever else. The ones that easily can be have been. In the medium term, as education levels continue improving in those places, globalisation of labour will continue on the same path for services as it has in the industrial and manufacturing sectors. But you also miss that in higher skilled sectors, a massive proportion of the jobs have already been “outsourced” abroad, just with the foreign employees sitting in London.
    It WAS a tired trope. It is now going to be wildly reinvigorated, by Covid and WFH. Surprised you don't realise this
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,133
    Pagan2 said:

    On the subject of the thread, yes I agree a referendum is not a good way of solving big issues because generally the electorate is as thick as pig shit when it comes to knowledge of the issues. However having said that the mp in the house of commons are also as equally full of pig shit.....who can forget caroline flint minsister for europe admitting before the lisbon treaty was signed that she hadnt even fucking read it.

    Decisions by referendum are shit but they are no worse than decision by clueless mps

    If you're not a lawyer you're probably better reading a briefing by an expert who is than the original text. Legal documents are tricky because they're kind of English, but also kind of not.
  • YoungTurkYoungTurk Posts: 158
    edited August 2021

    kinabalu said:


    Like I just said to KLE4 it's not that an English Leaver can't be a Unionist. Course they can, eg for the reasons he suggests - they love the UK, want it free of the EU, want it not to break up via Sindy. Such people in their own way love Scotland. They love Scotland as part of the Union. They empathize with the Sovereignty argument for Sindy - how could they not, as Leavers? - but feel We Are Better Together, hope the Scots feel the same way, are prepared to argue the case for the Union. What I'm talking about is not that sentiment, it's something else entirely, and it is very common, yes, which is why I'm interested in the mental place it's coming from. Not calling it "Sindy Derangement Syndrome", or any of that nonsense, I am purely and genuinely interested.

    I think part of it is that old chestnut, the ability to distinguish between Englishness and Britishness:

    This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, has chosen FREEDOM!
    What's that you say, part of this isle and a bit of another isle haven't chosen freedom? Well, those smelly poohpants can just shut up and get with the program.
    You think you are so clever and witty, but you have no idea of what the range of English views is of the Scots, and you won't acquire one so long as you cover up your ignorance with caricatures and with references to phrases such as "sceptred isle" or "rebellious Scots" or "two World Wars, one World Cup". That's stupid, not witty, as is your tiresome deployment of the word "Scotch" whenever you encounter scepticism about the Scottish nationalist party from those who are, either in reality or in your imagination, ethnically non-Scottish and therefore inferior. Haha, how funny you are - English people who have wide enough horizons to know something about nasty nationalism in general as well as in particular cases must be colonialists at heart, relating to "the Scotch" as they might to "coolies".

    "Haven't chosen freedom" - what ITAF are you talking about? You know there was a referendum. You know Scots have voted 12 times to nil for Unionist platforms this century already.

    I've never met a Scottish separatist who has the intelligence to converse sensibly about the difference between English and British identities in the minds of those who have both. You should get with the programme of wising up. If you actually asked an intelligent English person without insulting them they might be willing and able to explain.

    You of course love it when you receive the response from English people that you seem deliberately to provoke: getting told to Jock off. Which is called passive aggression.

    Post a one-line Twitteroid answer to that, whydoncha?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    stodge said:

    IanB2 said:

    There has been a lot of rainfall in a short amount of time, creating localised flooding events rather than it being a wet period.

    The worst-hit places were the City of London, which has had 143 per cent of its average rainfall this summer, the Isle of Wight with 174 per cent of its average summer rainfall, and Surrey with 126 per cent.

    [Met Office] Ms Mitchell believes the Isle of Wight will only get rainier and imagines the percentage will be “much higher by the end of summer”.

    By comparison, Scotland has only has 38 per cent of its average rainfall and Ms Mitchell said “a few northern areas have been much, much drier”.

    The synoptic pattern this summer has been a continuation of that often seen in April or May which then moves into the "traditional" summer pattern of settled and warmer conditions to the south and east and more unsettled weather affecting Northern and Western parts.

    The question, perhaps, is why has the synoptic pattern failed to change? The Atlantic, in terms of Low Pressure systems rushing towards us from the west, has been very quiet this summer - this has consolidated the patterns in situ. Is this part of something else happening - slowing Gulf Stream etc, or is this just year-on-year variation or a bit of both?
    I understand there is both a La Niña and a Negative Indian Dipole this year which is an unusual combination
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    stodge said:

    IanB2 said:

    There has been a lot of rainfall in a short amount of time, creating localised flooding events rather than it being a wet period.

    The worst-hit places were the City of London, which has had 143 per cent of its average rainfall this summer, the Isle of Wight with 174 per cent of its average summer rainfall, and Surrey with 126 per cent.

    [Met Office] Ms Mitchell believes the Isle of Wight will only get rainier and imagines the percentage will be “much higher by the end of summer”.

    By comparison, Scotland has only has 38 per cent of its average rainfall and Ms Mitchell said “a few northern areas have been much, much drier”.

    The synoptic pattern this summer has been a continuation of that often seen in April or May which then moves into the "traditional" summer pattern of settled and warmer conditions to the south and east and more unsettled weather affecting Northern and Western parts.

    The question, perhaps, is why has the synoptic pattern failed to change? The Atlantic, in terms of Low Pressure systems rushing towards us from the west, has been very quiet this summer - this has consolidated the patterns in situ. Is this part of something else happening - slowing Gulf Stream etc, or is this just year-on-year variation or a bit of both?
    I understand there is both a La Niña and a Negative Indian Dipole this year which is an unusual combination
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    Combining the two topics du jour: what about an UK supported Edinburgh* bid to host the Olympics in 2036?

    (*or Glasgow, though I think Edinburgh carries more international clout.)

    Combining the two topics du jour: what about an UK supported Edinburgh* bid to host the Olympics in 2036?

    (*or Glasgow, though I think Edinburgh carries more international clout.)

    Yes please! Either one would be a great idea.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,216
    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:

    moonshine said:


    Helen Miller
    @MsHelicat
    ·
    6m
    Monday's MAIL: Minister: Cut pay of civil servants who work at home #tomorrowspaperstoday




    That's the First Division out on strike then...

    Can we cut the pay of that anonymous minister instead? By 100% preferably
    BUT this has to be the future. Companies (and governments) cannot pay full whack for workers who are suddenly saving £1000s on commuting and, by the by, not paying London prices (so goodbye London weighting)

    These adjustments are inevitable. Any company that continued to pay full London wages to someone only doing 1 or 2 days in London would go bust quick. Governments will follow
    That’s not how the market works. You may find suitable candidates willing to accept a role for less money than before, if they have found a way to reduce their living cost. But then again you might not, given their wages are a function of their productivity. And without the wasted time and energy of a commute, their productivity may in many cases increase.
    No, this is how it works
    It’s like saying that companies must pay workers that live in flat shares less than people that live on their own, or they’ll go bust. You are normally lucid but you’re not making sense here.
    No, it's just the market. Wages will fall as companies realise they don't have to pay for commutes half the week. They will offer WFH but say, You get less money, and people will accept lower wages as they like the flexibility and the WFH stuff

    Governments will follow, eventually

    It's just basic capitalism
    Then several months later, another employer has a vacancy and a disgruntled employee at your firm takes the call. What’s the pay? Well funnily enough it’s driven by that worker’s perceived contribution to productivity. By your logic someone commuting on the premium price HS1 line would get given higher pay than the person who takes a boris bike in every day.
    The vast majority of workers are not that obviously, uniquely productive. They are just cogs in the machine

    Companies will replace them with other cogs if the present workers won't take pay cuts, as their commuting costs are halved or more. There will be plenty of willing replacements, especially as automation pressures the middle class jobs, having already devoured so many working class jobs, so competition hots up


    Perhaps you are especially valuable? That explains why you got a good deal. By definition most workers are not especially valuable

    There will be some people so personally vital to a business they have to be in the office 5 days a week ten hours a day. They will demand higher salaries as a result. And fair enough. Other salaries will therefore suffer. The companies won't carry on paying London weighting and travel costs out of charity, for people sat on their butts in Sussex or Wales



    Automation of white collar jobs is a wholly different topic but you are right that it is likely to place deflationary pressure on wages in coming decades. But that’s not what we were talking about. You’ve mainly been talking about a massive bias to knowledge economy wage deflation in say, the next 24 months because of new hybrid working models. I heartily disagree.
    This is a topic no politician (except Andrew Yang) wants to engage with. A lot of peope are going to get a nasty shock when we see a similar massive disruptive changes to when factories mechanised.
    I dunno. Wasnt furlough like the dry run for what will be before too long the permanent “new normal”? It’s going to be an interesting couple of decades.
    Furlough didn't effect the sort of people who automation will hit. Those who were most insulated from the pandemic are the most at risk from ML / AI automating a way big chunks of their industry.
    Yes, this is exactly right.

    WFH has made workers realise they don't have to commute, and can still be productive. It feels like win win to people like moonshine. But it is extremely temporary

    At the same time companies are thinking, Hold on, if we can pay this guy £50k to do his London work from Brighton, we could probably pay some dude to do exactly the same work from Bangalore, for £5k

    And the next leap from that is Wait, we can probably pay GPT5 to do the same job for 50 pence, from the cloud

    Covid is going to accelerate all of this massively, solicitors and middle managers and coders and the rest will soon be cheaper than truck drivers
    It’s a tired trope to say these jobs can be outsourced to Bangalore or Ho Chi Minh or wherever else. The ones that easily can be have been. In the medium term, as education levels continue improving in those places, globalisation of labour will continue on the same path for services as it has in the industrial and manufacturing sectors. But you also miss that in higher skilled sectors, a massive proportion of the jobs have already been “outsourced” abroad, just with the foreign employees sitting in London.
    It WAS a tired trope. It is now going to be wildly reinvigorated, by Covid and WFH. Surprised you don't realise this
    Depends what job you’re talking about doesn’t it. I think you would surprised by the amount of offshoring that’s already taken place in big firms and conversely, how hard it is to hire the right skill set for the roles not offshored. Lots of jobs are very niche indeed. I’ve looked on three continents to make a hire for a role before now.
  • YoungTurkYoungTurk Posts: 158
    edited August 2021
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?

    What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.

    My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.

    The EU referendum changed a few minds in Scotland about indy if various analyses are correct.
    Indeed it did. It made anyone with any understanding of economics realise that independence was now suicidal because we would have to choose between the SM of the UK (in which case why bother, we would be even more dominated by England than we are now and the democratic deficit would be worse) or the SM of the EU (with a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle and all the problems of NI plus no doubt some bonus extras such as currency).

    Unfortunately the SNP have prevented schools from teaching economics so who knows what might happen next?

    Edit, it is also worth noting that although the decline in support for independence commenced before Brexit actually happened the trend has continued since January.
    I don't think we'd have 'all the problems of NI' unless you know something about Unionist ultras that I don't?
    Murdo in a balaclava? Hmm, well one obvious advantage to that..
    I know that the vast majority of our readers find Scottish Independence arguments tedious beyond belief but to demonstrate the point made by the thread header let's suppose that the result in 2014 had been the other way around. Is 55:45 really any basis for something as disruptive as breaking up the country? I think it would be a calamitous basis on which to start.

    Exactly the same point could of course be made against me in relation to Brexit where I was the disrupter and it was even closer. I recognise the force of that argument. Its why I thought that Parliament really should have gone for a soft Brexit, May style, in the first instance and we could then determine whether to get closer to the EU again or further away over time. I very much regret that we did not achieve this. It has left the country very divided and weaker as a result.

    I largely agree

    On another point, if the SNP really do go for the ‘yay let’s have a hard border in berwick’ policy, this throws up lots of further issues. If the indyref2 was actually won by YES, and a hard border was sliced across Britain, I can foresee mass civil disobedience in the Borders, maybe even violence

    In addition, this policy underlines why any new indyref must be a choice for the UK Parliament as a whole (including Scots MPs), a hard Anglo-Scots border would severely affect millions of English people in the North
    If they do have a hard border it’s only reasonable to have a border poll - as in Ireland - so individual districts get to decide whether they are England or Scotland
    That's not what a border poll is!
    I was thinking of the decision that led to Ulster’s 9 counties becoming NI’s 6. I couldn’t be arsed to look up the precise term, but it conveyed the meaning.
    @Charles - I agree with you about its being fair to allow those in Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders to decide whether or not they want to become part of an independent Scotland. I'd add Shetland and Orkney too. And the Edinburgh area. But what are you referring to in Irish history? Walter Long wanted the London government to keep 9 counties as I recall, i.e. the whole of Ulster, but the strategists of a lasting Protestant ascendancy knocked it back to 6 because that's what they thought they could cope with. (And indeed they did cope with it, Jim Crow-style, for the next half-century). I don't think there was ever a popular vote on the issue. It sounds more as if it was decided by half a dozen gun-toting Harlot of Rome-fearers in a room.

    Maybe there was a redemption payments angle to 6 versus 9 too (or more exactly, 22 versus 19).
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,604
    MrEd said:

    Leon said:

    In the end, only the dildo flint knappers will survive. Think on that. We are the cockroaches of the new economy

    We are moving to the extremes when it comes to the workforce - a sliver of very well-paid people and a mass of low paid workers fighting for jobs with the middle increasing hollowed out as their roles are automated and / or replaced by software (in some cases, also sent to cheaper markets).
    Which inevitably leads to governments being elected on a platform of a UBI funded by a tax on the corporations profiting from automation
  • YoungTurkYoungTurk Posts: 158
    YoungTurk said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?

    What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.

    My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.

    The EU referendum changed a few minds in Scotland about indy if various analyses are correct.
    Indeed it did. It made anyone with any understanding of economics realise that independence was now suicidal because we would have to choose between the SM of the UK (in which case why bother, we would be even more dominated by England than we are now and the democratic deficit would be worse) or the SM of the EU (with a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle and all the problems of NI plus no doubt some bonus extras such as currency).

    Unfortunately the SNP have prevented schools from teaching economics so who knows what might happen next?

    Edit, it is also worth noting that although the decline in support for independence commenced before Brexit actually happened the trend has continued since January.
    I don't think we'd have 'all the problems of NI' unless you know something about Unionist ultras that I don't?
    Murdo in a balaclava? Hmm, well one obvious advantage to that..
    I know that the vast majority of our readers find Scottish Independence arguments tedious beyond belief but to demonstrate the point made by the thread header let's suppose that the result in 2014 had been the other way around. Is 55:45 really any basis for something as disruptive as breaking up the country? I think it would be a calamitous basis on which to start.

    Exactly the same point could of course be made against me in relation to Brexit where I was the disrupter and it was even closer. I recognise the force of that argument. Its why I thought that Parliament really should have gone for a soft Brexit, May style, in the first instance and we could then determine whether to get closer to the EU again or further away over time. I very much regret that we did not achieve this. It has left the country very divided and weaker as a result.

    I largely agree

    On another point, if the SNP really do go for the ‘yay let’s have a hard border in berwick’ policy, this throws up lots of further issues. If the indyref2 was actually won by YES, and a hard border was sliced across Britain, I can foresee mass civil disobedience in the Borders, maybe even violence

    In addition, this policy underlines why any new indyref must be a choice for the UK Parliament as a whole (including Scots MPs), a hard Anglo-Scots border would severely affect millions of English people in the North
    If they do have a hard border it’s only reasonable to have a border poll - as in Ireland - so individual districts get to decide whether they are England or Scotland
    That's not what a border poll is!
    I was thinking of the decision that led to Ulster’s 9 counties becoming NI’s 6. I couldn’t be arsed to look up the precise term, but it conveyed the meaning.
    @Charles - I agree with you about its being fair to allow those in Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders to decide whether or not they want to become part of an independent Scotland. I'd add Shetland and Orkney too. And the Edinburgh area. But what are you referring to in Irish history? Walter Long wanted the London government to keep 9 counties as I recall, i.e. the whole of Ulster, but the strategists of a lasting Protestant ascendancy knocked it back to 6 because that's what they thought they could cope with. (And indeed they did cope with it, Jim Crow-style, for the next half-century). I don't think there was ever a popular vote on the issue. It sounds more as if it was decided by half a dozen gun-toting Harlot of Rome-fearers in a room.

    Maybe there was a redemption payments angle to 6 versus 9 too (or more exactly, 22 versus 19).
    Sorry - got the arithmetic wrong - I mean 26 counties in the "Free State" rather than the 23 there would have been had Northern Ireland taken up the whole of Ulster.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,244
    moonshine said:

    Leon said:



    It WAS a tired trope. It is now going to be wildly reinvigorated, by Covid and WFH. Surprised you don't realise this

    Depends what job you’re talking about doesn’t it. I think you would surprised by the amount of offshoring that’s already taken place in big firms and conversely, how hard it is to hire the right skill set for the roles not offshored. Lots of jobs are very niche indeed. I’ve looked on three continents to make a hire for a role before now.
    Yes, that's an interesting point. A charity that I know has recently recruited people in Edinburgh, Oporto and Bologna to work on developing campaigns - not because it's cheaper for the organisation, but because they were thought to be the best candidates. Once one accepts the premise that office work can be done anywhere, the pool of potential candidates widens enormously, and you get a synergy between X who wants to live 500 miles away and Y who wants X's particular skills. Time zone is an issue which makes it hard to recruit someone in Ho Chi Minh City to work with someone in Dublin, but within Europe, it's not a problem. And the stuff about visas and work permits just evaporates.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,604
    YoungTurk said:

    YoungTurk said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?

    What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.

    My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.

    The EU referendum changed a few minds in Scotland about indy if various analyses are correct.
    Indeed it did. It made anyone with any understanding of economics realise that independence was now suicidal because we would have to choose between the SM of the UK (in which case why bother, we would be even more dominated by England than we are now and the democratic deficit would be worse) or the SM of the EU (with a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle and all the problems of NI plus no doubt some bonus extras such as currency).

    Unfortunately the SNP have prevented schools from teaching economics so who knows what might happen next?

    Edit, it is also worth noting that although the decline in support for independence commenced before Brexit actually happened the trend has continued since January.
    I don't think we'd have 'all the problems of NI' unless you know something about Unionist ultras that I don't?
    Murdo in a balaclava? Hmm, well one obvious advantage to that..
    I know that the vast majority of our readers find Scottish Independence arguments tedious beyond belief but to demonstrate the point made by the thread header let's suppose that the result in 2014 had been the other way around. Is 55:45 really any basis for something as disruptive as breaking up the country? I think it would be a calamitous basis on which to start.

    Exactly the same point could of course be made against me in relation to Brexit where I was the disrupter and it was even closer. I recognise the force of that argument. Its why I thought that Parliament really should have gone for a soft Brexit, May style, in the first instance and we could then determine whether to get closer to the EU again or further away over time. I very much regret that we did not achieve this. It has left the country very divided and weaker as a result.

    I largely agree

    On another point, if the SNP really do go for the ‘yay let’s have a hard border in berwick’ policy, this throws up lots of further issues. If the indyref2 was actually won by YES, and a hard border was sliced across Britain, I can foresee mass civil disobedience in the Borders, maybe even violence

    In addition, this policy underlines why any new indyref must be a choice for the UK Parliament as a whole (including Scots MPs), a hard Anglo-Scots border would severely affect millions of English people in the North
    If they do have a hard border it’s only reasonable to have a border poll - as in Ireland - so individual districts get to decide whether they are England or Scotland
    That's not what a border poll is!
    I was thinking of the decision that led to Ulster’s 9 counties becoming NI’s 6. I couldn’t be arsed to look up the precise term, but it conveyed the meaning.
    @Charles - I agree with you about its being fair to allow those in Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders to decide whether or not they want to become part of an independent Scotland. I'd add Shetland and Orkney too. And the Edinburgh area. But what are you referring to in Irish history? Walter Long wanted the London government to keep 9 counties as I recall, i.e. the whole of Ulster, but the strategists of a lasting Protestant ascendancy knocked it back to 6 because that's what they thought they could cope with. (And indeed they did cope with it, Jim Crow-style, for the next half-century). I don't think there was ever a popular vote on the issue. It sounds more as if it was decided by half a dozen gun-toting Harlot of Rome-fearers in a room.

    Maybe there was a redemption payments angle to 6 versus 9 too (or more exactly, 22 versus 19).
    Sorry - got the arithmetic wrong - I mean 26 counties in the "Free State" rather than the 23 there would have been had Northern Ireland taken up the whole of Ulster.
    The 1918 election map determined it.

    SF and the IPP swept Donegal, SF took Cavan and most of Moneghan.

    The Irish Unionists swept Antrim and Londonderry and most of Down and Armagh with Fermanagh and Tyrone split.

    Belfast was also Unionist dominated

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_Irish_general_election#/media/File:Irish_UK_election_1918.png

    https://www.familytreemagazine.com/heritage/irish/irish-counties-map/
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  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,216
    edited August 2021

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:



    It WAS a tired trope. It is now going to be wildly reinvigorated, by Covid and WFH. Surprised you don't realise this

    Depends what job you’re talking about doesn’t it. I think you would surprised by the amount of offshoring that’s already taken place in big firms and conversely, how hard it is to hire the right skill set for the roles not offshored. Lots of jobs are very niche indeed. I’ve looked on three continents to make a hire for a role before now.
    Yes, that's an interesting point. A charity that I know has recently recruited people in Edinburgh, Oporto and Bologna to work on developing campaigns - not because it's cheaper for the organisation, but because they were thought to be the best candidates. Once one accepts the premise that office work can be done anywhere, the pool of potential candidates widens enormously, and you get a synergy between X who wants to live 500 miles away and Y who wants X's particular skills. Time zone is an issue which makes it hard to recruit someone in Ho Chi Minh City to work with someone in Dublin, but within Europe, it's not a problem. And the stuff about visas and work permits just evaporates.
    It does and it doesn’t. In many places if you have permanent staff sitting in country X, the corporation ends up running substantial tax risk in that country for their corporate profits. Even if it’s just one employee! This is the case in India for example. Some firms try and get around this by hiring the person as a consultant but on an exclusive basis but this doesn’t fully mitigate the tax risk and causes other problems.

    For this reason, all the big firms have been placing hard restrictions on their employees during covid on how many WFH days can be spent physically overseas.

    Basically the big firms behaviour is thus far running completely counter to what Leon is arguing.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    edited August 2021
    YoungTurk said:

    YoungTurk said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Leon said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Are referendums not a bit like democracy: the worst way to resolve things apart from all the others?

    What we have seen all too painfully in Scotland, and indeed in the UK in respect of Brexit, is that they are divisive, disruptive and change very few minds but so does a situation where there is a very substantial minority who want something but cannot get it through Westminster either because they don't stand in enough seats or because there is a cosy metropolitan consensus shared by all the major parties.

    My view, FWIW, is that those wanting a referendum won a very, very narrow majority of the vote in Scotland at the last election. I think that entitles them to at least ask the question.

    The EU referendum changed a few minds in Scotland about indy if various analyses are correct.
    Indeed it did. It made anyone with any understanding of economics realise that independence was now suicidal because we would have to choose between the SM of the UK (in which case why bother, we would be even more dominated by England than we are now and the democratic deficit would be worse) or the SM of the EU (with a hard border from Berwick to Carlisle and all the problems of NI plus no doubt some bonus extras such as currency).

    Unfortunately the SNP have prevented schools from teaching economics so who knows what might happen next?

    Edit, it is also worth noting that although the decline in support for independence commenced before Brexit actually happened the trend has continued since January.
    I don't think we'd have 'all the problems of NI' unless you know something about Unionist ultras that I don't?
    Murdo in a balaclava? Hmm, well one obvious advantage to that..
    I know that the vast majority of our readers find Scottish Independence arguments tedious beyond belief but to demonstrate the point made by the thread header let's suppose that the result in 2014 had been the other way around. Is 55:45 really any basis for something as disruptive as breaking up the country? I think it would be a calamitous basis on which to start.

    Exactly the same point could of course be made against me in relation to Brexit where I was the disrupter and it was even closer. I recognise the force of that argument. Its why I thought that Parliament really should have gone for a soft Brexit, May style, in the first instance and we could then determine whether to get closer to the EU again or further away over time. I very much regret that we did not achieve this. It has left the country very divided and weaker as a result.

    I largely agree

    On another point, if the SNP really do go for the ‘yay let’s have a hard border in berwick’ policy, this throws up lots of further issues. If the indyref2 was actually won by YES, and a hard border was sliced across Britain, I can foresee mass civil disobedience in the Borders, maybe even violence

    In addition, this policy underlines why any new indyref must be a choice for the UK Parliament as a whole (including Scots MPs), a hard Anglo-Scots border would severely affect millions of English people in the North
    If they do have a hard border it’s only reasonable to have a border poll - as in Ireland - so individual districts get to decide whether they are England or Scotland
    That's not what a border poll is!
    I was thinking of the decision that led to Ulster’s 9 counties becoming NI’s 6. I couldn’t be arsed to look up the precise term, but it conveyed the meaning.
    @Charles - I agree with you about its being fair to allow those in Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders to decide whether or not they want to become part of an independent Scotland. I'd add Shetland and Orkney too. And the Edinburgh area. But what are you referring to in Irish history? Walter Long wanted the London government to keep 9 counties as I recall, i.e. the whole of Ulster, but the strategists of a lasting Protestant ascendancy knocked it back to 6 because that's what they thought they could cope with. (And indeed they did cope with it, Jim Crow-style, for the next half-century). I don't think there was ever a popular vote on the issue. It sounds more as if it was decided by half a dozen gun-toting Harlot of Rome-fearers in a room.

    Maybe there was a redemption payments angle to 6 versus 9 too (or more exactly, 22 versus 19).
    Sorry - got the arithmetic wrong - I mean 26 counties in the "Free State" rather than the 23 there would have been had Northern Ireland taken up the whole of Ulster.
    My interest in Ireland was really the IPP, Charles Stewart Parnell through to Edward Carson so much less focused on the Civil War and afterwards. It was a boundary commission not a popular vote in the case of Ireland.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,244
    moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:



    It WAS a tired trope. It is now going to be wildly reinvigorated, by Covid and WFH. Surprised you don't realise this

    Depends what job you’re talking about doesn’t it. I think you would surprised by the amount of offshoring that’s already taken place in big firms and conversely, how hard it is to hire the right skill set for the roles not offshored. Lots of jobs are very niche indeed. I’ve looked on three continents to make a hire for a role before now.
    Yes, that's an interesting point. A charity that I know has recently recruited people in Edinburgh, Oporto and Bologna to work on developing campaigns - not because it's cheaper for the organisation, but because they were thought to be the best candidates. Once one accepts the premise that office work can be done anywhere, the pool of potential candidates widens enormously, and you get a synergy between X who wants to live 500 miles away and Y who wants X's particular skills. Time zone is an issue which makes it hard to recruit someone in Ho Chi Minh City to work with someone in Dublin, but within Europe, it's not a problem. And the stuff about visas and work permits just evaporates.
    It does and it doesn’t. In many places if you have permanent staff sitting in country X, the corporation ends up running substantial tax risk in that country for their corporate profits. Even if it’s just one employee! This is the case in India for example. Some firms try and get around this by hiring the person as a consultant but on an exclusive basis but this doesn’t fully mitigate the tax risk and causes other problems.

    For this reason, all the big firms have placing hard restrictions on their employees during covid on how many WFH days can be spent physically overseas.

    Basically the big firms behaviour is thus far running completely counter to what Leon is arguing.
    Yes, and for slightly smaller organisations there are practical issues about setting up payrolls in N different countries, all operating under slightly different rules for social security etc.

    My own charity is quasi-global so we have a dozen national offices, and that partially solves the problem, as if you've got an office in, say, Warsaw anyway, you can recruit someone to work on a UK issue from the Warsaw office, or vice versa. It's not quite as good as having them face to face, but having a 130% better person working 90% as effectively makes sense.

    Logically, that means that existing staff living in expensive Surrey should be entitled to move away - my rent is double what it was in Nottingham and I have lots of friends up there. But literally moving away froim the office seems a big jump, somehow.

    The story has a lot of twists still to come as well all work it out. The London weighting issue is just going to be a footnote.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,605
    Offshoring IT to India again?

    I've worked with a company that has a lot of their technical development and support work based in India and it works for them. The people they have hired are good at their jobs, and they're willing to work European timezones. I don't know how much they pay them, but it has to be a lot less than they'd pay similarly skilled people over here.

    On the other hand, we were involved with a project with a UK company that had outsourced their IT to India, and whoever they had brought in to do the work had made an awful mess of it. They'd decided that a stored procedure was the solution to everything. It was obvious that whoever they'd had project managing it didn't have the technical knowhow to keep the outsourced IT people doing something sensible.

    It will be the same with AI and automation. You will need to have someone who knows what they are doing setting the thing up and checking what it has done. And you will also need to have people who can clean up the mess when someone who doesn't know what they are doing has tried to do so.
  • moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:



    It WAS a tired trope. It is now going to be wildly reinvigorated, by Covid and WFH. Surprised you don't realise this

    Depends what job you’re talking about doesn’t it. I think you would surprised by the amount of offshoring that’s already taken place in big firms and conversely, how hard it is to hire the right skill set for the roles not offshored. Lots of jobs are very niche indeed. I’ve looked on three continents to make a hire for a role before now.
    Yes, that's an interesting point. A charity that I know has recently recruited people in Edinburgh, Oporto and Bologna to work on developing campaigns - not because it's cheaper for the organisation, but because they were thought to be the best candidates. Once one accepts the premise that office work can be done anywhere, the pool of potential candidates widens enormously, and you get a synergy between X who wants to live 500 miles away and Y who wants X's particular skills. Time zone is an issue which makes it hard to recruit someone in Ho Chi Minh City to work with someone in Dublin, but within Europe, it's not a problem. And the stuff about visas and work permits just evaporates.
    It does and it doesn’t. In many places if you have permanent staff sitting in country X, the corporation ends up running substantial tax risk in that country for their corporate profits. Even if it’s just one employee! This is the case in India for example. Some firms try and get around this by hiring the person as a consultant but on an exclusive basis but this doesn’t fully mitigate the tax risk and causes other problems.

    For this reason, all the big firms have been placing hard restrictions on their employees during covid on how many WFH days can be spent physically overseas.

    Basically the big firms behaviour is thus far running completely counter to what Leon is arguing.
    Before the pandemic there was starting to be concern about globetrotting staff employed in one country but hopping round the hippy trail from one beach to the next with, as you say, different legal and tax implications every six months that no-one at all had looked into.

    I WFH'd for a decade for two megacorps. I'm broadly in favour but what we see at the moment is any number of companies feeling their way and some firms and some employees will get hurt and there may be a good deal of collateral damage along the way.

    It all feels a bit "dot com boom" when suddenly you could sell your artisanal knappings online to the Italians but what no-one told you was it would cost thousands of pounds a month and the Sicilians could go online and steal your customers with their olive oil-lubricated knapped toys. Now you can impose WFH, sell your office blocks, and cut wages by employing from cheap locations and it is all cost-free with massive no-risk savings. Here's a bridge I can sell you, and it will be a squillion pounds to get your data back.
  • moonshine said:

    moonshine said:

    Leon said:



    It WAS a tired trope. It is now going to be wildly reinvigorated, by Covid and WFH. Surprised you don't realise this

    Depends what job you’re talking about doesn’t it. I think you would surprised by the amount of offshoring that’s already taken place in big firms and conversely, how hard it is to hire the right skill set for the roles not offshored. Lots of jobs are very niche indeed. I’ve looked on three continents to make a hire for a role before now.
    Yes, that's an interesting point. A charity that I know has recently recruited people in Edinburgh, Oporto and Bologna to work on developing campaigns - not because it's cheaper for the organisation, but because they were thought to be the best candidates. Once one accepts the premise that office work can be done anywhere, the pool of potential candidates widens enormously, and you get a synergy between X who wants to live 500 miles away and Y who wants X's particular skills. Time zone is an issue which makes it hard to recruit someone in Ho Chi Minh City to work with someone in Dublin, but within Europe, it's not a problem. And the stuff about visas and work permits just evaporates.
    It does and it doesn’t. In many places if you have permanent staff sitting in country X, the corporation ends up running substantial tax risk in that country for their corporate profits. Even if it’s just one employee! This is the case in India for example. Some firms try and get around this by hiring the person as a consultant but on an exclusive basis but this doesn’t fully mitigate the tax risk and causes other problems.

    For this reason, all the big firms have placing hard restrictions on their employees during covid on how many WFH days can be spent physically overseas.

    Basically the big firms behaviour is thus far running completely counter to what Leon is arguing.
    Yes, and for slightly smaller organisations there are practical issues about setting up payrolls in N different countries, all operating under slightly different rules for social security etc.

    My own charity is quasi-global so we have a dozen national offices, and that partially solves the problem, as if you've got an office in, say, Warsaw anyway, you can recruit someone to work on a UK issue from the Warsaw office, or vice versa. It's not quite as good as having them face to face, but having a 130% better person working 90% as effectively makes sense.

    Logically, that means that existing staff living in expensive Surrey should be entitled to move away - my rent is double what it was in Nottingham and I have lots of friends up there. But literally moving away froim the office seems a big jump, somehow.

    The story has a lot of twists still to come as well all work it out. The London weighting issue is just going to be a footnote.
    It is not just payroll, or employment law. What about data protection, bribery and product liability? Can I now sue your UK-based company in a Lithuanian court or a Texas court? You do have reserves to cover American punitive damages after a hometown decision, I take it. #Brexit!

    No, the future lies in recruiting WFH staff from cheaper parts of this country where the law is the same but the cost of living isn't. It was starting to happen already but the new factor is that permanent WFH means you do not have to try and employ two dozen skilled people in, say, Redcar, where your new office is, and where there probably aren't 24 skilled people looking for jobs, but you can have one in Redcar and the other 23 in 23 other places. But even so, there will be tears before bedtime as a lot of firms will not have considered security, maintenance, bonding or 101 other problems.
  • OT half past midnight and no water polo on the red button. Time to think about getting the old body-clock back to 9-5.
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  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673

    Pagan2 said:

    On the subject of the thread, yes I agree a referendum is not a good way of solving big issues because generally the electorate is as thick as pig shit when it comes to knowledge of the issues. However having said that the mp in the house of commons are also as equally full of pig shit.....who can forget caroline flint minsister for europe admitting before the lisbon treaty was signed that she hadnt even fucking read it.

    Decisions by referendum are shit but they are no worse than decision by clueless mps

    If you're not a lawyer you're probably better reading a briefing by an expert who is than the original text. Legal documents are tricky because they're kind of English, but also kind of not.
    Especially a treaty designed to be written in legalese so as to avoid understanding.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,641
    YoungTurk said:

    kinabalu said:


    Like I just said to KLE4 it's not that an English Leaver can't be a Unionist. Course they can, eg for the reasons he suggests - they love the UK, want it free of the EU, want it not to break up via Sindy. Such people in their own way love Scotland. They love Scotland as part of the Union. They empathize with the Sovereignty argument for Sindy - how could they not, as Leavers? - but feel We Are Better Together, hope the Scots feel the same way, are prepared to argue the case for the Union. What I'm talking about is not that sentiment, it's something else entirely, and it is very common, yes, which is why I'm interested in the mental place it's coming from. Not calling it "Sindy Derangement Syndrome", or any of that nonsense, I am purely and genuinely interested.

    I think part of it is that old chestnut, the ability to distinguish between Englishness and Britishness:

    This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, has chosen FREEDOM!
    What's that you say, part of this isle and a bit of another isle haven't chosen freedom? Well, those smelly poohpants can just shut up and get with the program.
    You think you are so clever and witty, but you have no idea of what the range of English views is of the Scots, and you won't acquire one so long as you cover up your ignorance with caricatures and with references to phrases such as "sceptred isle" or "rebellious Scots" or "two World Wars, one World Cup". That's stupid, not witty, as is your tiresome deployment of the word "Scotch" whenever you encounter scepticism about the Scottish nationalist party from those who are, either in reality or in your imagination, ethnically non-Scottish and therefore inferior. Haha, how funny you are - English people who have wide enough horizons to know something about nasty nationalism in general as well as in particular cases must be colonialists at heart, relating to "the Scotch" as they might to "coolies".

    "Haven't chosen freedom" - what ITAF are you talking about? You know there was a referendum. You know Scots have voted 12 times to nil for Unionist platforms this century already.

    I've never met a Scottish separatist who has the intelligence to converse sensibly about the difference between English and British identities in the minds of those who have both. You should get with the programme of wising up. If you actually asked an intelligent English person without insulting them they might be willing and able to explain.

    You of course love it when you receive the response from English people that you seem deliberately to provoke: getting told to Jock off. Which is called passive aggression.

    Post a one-line Twitteroid answer to that, whydoncha?
    No need for a line , " pompous arsehole " suffices
This discussion has been closed.