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S Times: Raab told to return on the Friday – but got back early Monday – politicalbetting.com

24

Comments

  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,459

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    It depends upon your circumstances of course, but there's no reason why a real terms pay rise should be entirely cancelled out by increased everyday costs since the cost of labour is just a fraction of the cost of items.
    Of course, but I was merely highlighting that the issue isn't so black and white.

    A care home worker on minimum wage is going to be worse off if the price of food rises, for example, even if that price rise better reflects the true value of the work that goes into the product.

    That might be fair enough, and probably is, but it isn't going to make that person or family feel any better. That doesn't have anything to do with the "middle class" vs the "working class".
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,723
    edited August 2021

    I am glad Raab had his holiday, like millions of others he deserved it. The world did not stop whilst he was away and nor should it.

    Well, we can be sure the world did not stop while he was away. Certainly the Taliban did not stop.
    The Foreign Office has how many staff.????. and they couldn't do anything.???
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175

    I wonder how many of the working from home gang are complaining about Raab not being in the office :wink:

    Now this does show that Boris is a 'soft boss' and he's certainly not someone who would like one of his holidays interrupting.

    But that's not an excuse for Raab.

    Whether or not Raab being back in Westminster would have helped or not the imagery for an ambitious politician demanded that he was so.

    So a question arises about Raab's political judgement and you can double that by asking why Raab was taking a posho foreign holiday this year at all.
    I haven't followed the issue that closely, but why wasn't the phone call delegated upwards to Boris? When I go on leave it's my boss that is responsible for covering my work.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,459

    I am glad Raab had his holiday, like millions of others he deserved it. The world did not stop whilst he was away and nor should it.

    Well, we can be sure the world did not stop while he was away. Certainly the Taliban did not stop.
    The Forein Office has how many staff.????. and they couldn't do anything.???
    Isn't the story that the Foreign Office was banned from speaking to various parties without Big Dom's approval? Or something like that anyway.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    IanB2 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    justin124 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Westminster voting intention:

    CON: 39% (-3)
    LAB: 36% (+1)
    LDEM: 8% (+1)
    GRN: 6% (+1)

    via @OpiniumResearch, 19 - 20 Aug
    Chgs. w/ 06 Aug
    https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-august-2021/

    Noise
    Very much Hung Parliament territory.
    Yeah but in the circumstances you'd probably expect Labour to be like 10-15% ahead?

    Labour's just not doing well enough to withstand swingbaaaaaaaaaack before GE
    Tories losing 3 is just about significant. Other parties gaining 1 each is not significant, but Labour not gaining 3 might be.
    On the other hand, 36% matches Labour's GB share under Blair in 2005 - despite circa 2% having been chipped off its national vote share by the 2015 collapse in Scotland. On that basis Labour is now polling better in England & Wales than was the case in 2005.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    tlg86 said:

    I haven't followed the issue that closely, but why wasn't the phone call delegated upwards to Boris? When I go on leave it's my boss that is responsible for covering my work.

    BoZo was also on holiday
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,723

    tlg86 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Westminster voting intention:

    CON: 39% (-3)
    LAB: 36% (+1)
    LDEM: 8% (+1)
    GRN: 6% (+1)

    via @OpiniumResearch, 19 - 20 Aug
    Chgs. w/ 06 Aug
    https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-august-2021/

    So what do we think? 3 points from Con to Lab because of Afghanistan, but 1 point each to LD and Green from Lab because of Afghanistan.
    I'd guess that Cons-> Stay at home is quite a big part of the story.

    But the thing to remember is that poll-to-poll changes are nearly always MOE- it's the trend in the swarm that matters.

    And MOE can cover a big range of outcomes; C41L34 would be a fairly hefty Conservative win, C37L38 would surely see Starmer as PM.
    I suspect its Tories on holiday...
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,459
    justin124 said:

    IanB2 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    justin124 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Westminster voting intention:

    CON: 39% (-3)
    LAB: 36% (+1)
    LDEM: 8% (+1)
    GRN: 6% (+1)

    via @OpiniumResearch, 19 - 20 Aug
    Chgs. w/ 06 Aug
    https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-august-2021/

    Noise
    Very much Hung Parliament territory.
    Yeah but in the circumstances you'd probably expect Labour to be like 10-15% ahead?

    Labour's just not doing well enough to withstand swingbaaaaaaaaaack before GE
    Tories losing 3 is just about significant. Other parties gaining 1 each is not significant, but Labour not gaining 3 might be.
    On the other hand, 36% matches Labour's GB share under Blair in 2005 - despite circa 2% having been chipped off its national vote share by the 2015 collapse in Scotland. On that basis Labour is now polling better in England & Wales than was the case in 2005.
    That is a good point. However how much of that vote share increase is inefficient? Piling up the votes in places where it is not needed.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,284

    dodrade said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Who is leaking this stuff, and to what end?

    What was Dom Cummings's relationship with Dom Raab? If it was dysfunctional then I'd guess it's one of the former's spies in Whitehall. If Raab is destroyed that will still reflect poorly on the judgment of Boris, who is of course the big prize.
    He was quite complimentary about his time as stand in during Boris's illness to the select committee IIRC.

    5D chess - make everyone think he likes Raab so no one suspects him when he furtively sets out to crush him.
    Classic Dom...
  • Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    It depends upon your circumstances of course, but there's no reason why a real terms pay rise should be entirely cancelled out by increased everyday costs since the cost of labour is just a fraction of the cost of items.
    Of course, but I was merely highlighting that the issue isn't so black and white.

    A care home worker on minimum wage is going to be worse off if the price of food rises, for example, even if that price rise better reflects the true value of the work that goes into the product.

    That might be fair enough, and probably is, but it isn't going to make that person or family feel any better. That doesn't have anything to do with the "middle class" vs the "working class".
    Unless labour shortages cause the care home to pay care home workers more than minimum wage of course.

    The fact that care home workers are deemed 'minimum wage' is quite depressing to me. Its not a job I'd want to do for minimum wage by any means.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,459

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    It depends upon your circumstances of course, but there's no reason why a real terms pay rise should be entirely cancelled out by increased everyday costs since the cost of labour is just a fraction of the cost of items.
    Of course, but I was merely highlighting that the issue isn't so black and white.

    A care home worker on minimum wage is going to be worse off if the price of food rises, for example, even if that price rise better reflects the true value of the work that goes into the product.

    That might be fair enough, and probably is, but it isn't going to make that person or family feel any better. That doesn't have anything to do with the "middle class" vs the "working class".
    Unless labour shortages cause the care home to pay care home workers more than minimum wage of course.

    The fact that care home workers are deemed 'minimum wage' is quite depressing to me. Its not a job I'd want to do for minimum wage by any means.
    It must be highlighted that I don't disagree with you at all.
  • Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    Pay rises all around for the working class might lead to higher prices but the working class are getting pay rises to more than make up for it.

    Its the middle classes who lose out if the working classes get a pay rise.

    And its a middle class whine we read in the media on this issue.

    Now much of this is plain snobbery but I wonder if there's a middle class insecurity about their own kids future - the thought they're getting loaded down with debt for worthless degrees while working class kids are now getting opportunities for higher pay and better training.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,679

    Scott_xP said:

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.

    Brexit makes everything more expensive.

    Why wasn't that on a bus?
    It was.

    If you want to make things cheap by suppressing wages then that was the Stuart Rose argument made in the referendum.

    Unsurprisingly people found "make goods cheaper by not getting pay rises" to be an uncompelling argument.
    You remind me of that old phrase by the communists: 'My loaf of bread costs the same as your loaf of bread.'
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    BigRich said:

    MrEd said:

    Apologies if commented on before:

    https://thefederalist.com/2021/08/19/new-poll-from-the-federalist-susquehanna-shows-joe-bidens-approval-nose-diving-following-botched-afghanistan-withdrawal/

    Basic upshot - headline poll says 49pc approval rating for Biden vs 45pc disapproval. However take the sub-segment pilled after the fall of Kabul, it’s 38pc approve, 51pc disapprove

    That's not the big 8PM poll we have been tolled about is it?
    That poll is from the 19th, so no.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175
    Scott_xP said:

    tlg86 said:

    I haven't followed the issue that closely, but why wasn't the phone call delegated upwards to Boris? When I go on leave it's my boss that is responsible for covering my work.

    BoZo was also on holiday
    Well that's not good planning, though I thought I read on here Boris had to cancel his before it had even started. Where had he gone?
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,459

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    Pay rises all around for the working class might lead to higher prices but the working class are getting pay rises to more than make up for it.

    Its the middle classes who lose out if the working classes get a pay rise.

    And its a middle class whine we read in the media on this issue.

    Now much of this is plain snobbery but I wonder if there's a middle class insecurity about their own kids future - the thought they're getting loaded down with debt for worthless degrees while working class kids are now getting opportunities for higher pay and better training.
    Upset 'middle England' at your peril. Blair knew that more than most.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    tlg86 said:

    Well that's not good planning, though I thought I read on here Boris had to cancel his before it had even started. Where had he gone?

    Somerset
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    justin124 said:

    IanB2 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    justin124 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Westminster voting intention:

    CON: 39% (-3)
    LAB: 36% (+1)
    LDEM: 8% (+1)
    GRN: 6% (+1)

    via @OpiniumResearch, 19 - 20 Aug
    Chgs. w/ 06 Aug
    https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-august-2021/

    Noise
    Very much Hung Parliament territory.
    Yeah but in the circumstances you'd probably expect Labour to be like 10-15% ahead?

    Labour's just not doing well enough to withstand swingbaaaaaaaaaack before GE
    Tories losing 3 is just about significant. Other parties gaining 1 each is not significant, but Labour not gaining 3 might be.
    On the other hand, 36% matches Labour's GB share under Blair in 2005 - despite circa 2% having been chipped off its national vote share by the 2015 collapse in Scotland. On that basis Labour is now polling better in England & Wales than was the case in 2005.
    That is a good point. However how much of that vote share increase is inefficient? Piling up the votes in places where it is not needed.
    We don't really know the answer to that. I would also add that in a GE - particularly a close GE - much of the 6% Green vote would be likely to tactically switch to Labour - taking the party to circa 39%. Close poll results like this at a GE should also be helpful to Labour in Scotland by encouraging quite a few SNP Holyrood supporters to return to Labour at the Westminster election.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,587

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    This is fine…

    @DavePuglisiTV
    The city of Orlando is asking residents to reduce water consumption IMMEDIATELY. Liquid oxygen used to treat water is being diverted to the hospitals to treat COVID patients. They believe if water consumption doesn’t change, water treatment could hit a critical point in a week.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    kle4 said:

    In ordinary times Raab should be a like a stepmom on Pornhub.

    Plentiful and backed by the masses?
    Enormous fake breasts and lots of tattoos?
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    On a UNS basis the Tories would lose 46 seats to Labour , 4 to the LDs and probably a few to SNP.They would be at 310 - 312 seats.

    Is that before or after boundary changes?
    On the basis of existing boundaries. New boundaries have yet to be determined.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    GIN1138 said:

    kle4 said:

    John Rentoul
    @JohnRentoul
    ·
    2h
    Dominic Raab is not going to be sacked (unless something else happens), partly because he serves a purpose

    Given that in any government there's always some minister on the verge of being sacked, Raab's purpose seems to be to permanently inhabit that role so no-one else temporarily has to.
    Ministerial purposes?

    Boris: There for the Red wallers (for now)
    Sunak: For non-Borisites to think 'well, Sunak might be ok, let's stick around for now'
    Patel: To invoke lust in the membership for her hardline stances
    Williamson: To make everyone else look good by comparison
    Gove: To make everyone more likable by comparison
    Raab: The blank canvas to fill space when needed
    Truss: To demonstrate at least one minister is doing something (even if you think it isn't much)
    Javid: To signal the end of the reign of Dom
    The rest: Who?
    Don't forget JRM ;)
    To make everyone else look in touch with the masses.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,587

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    Especially since many of the workers benefiting from the wage rises will be EU immigrants. Not only do these people hate nasty british workers getting pay rises, they don’t want it to happen to EU citizens who, in other sitiations, they fawn over.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    justin124 said:

    IanB2 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    justin124 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Westminster voting intention:

    CON: 39% (-3)
    LAB: 36% (+1)
    LDEM: 8% (+1)
    GRN: 6% (+1)

    via @OpiniumResearch, 19 - 20 Aug
    Chgs. w/ 06 Aug
    https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-august-2021/

    Noise
    Very much Hung Parliament territory.
    Yeah but in the circumstances you'd probably expect Labour to be like 10-15% ahead?

    Labour's just not doing well enough to withstand swingbaaaaaaaaaack before GE
    Tories losing 3 is just about significant. Other parties gaining 1 each is not significant, but Labour not gaining 3 might be.
    On the other hand, 36% matches Labour's GB share under Blair in 2005 - despite circa 2% having been chipped off its national vote share by the 2015 collapse in Scotland. On that basis Labour is now polling better in England & Wales than was the case in 2005.
    Yes: but the LibDems are polling ten points less, and most of that has gone to the Conservatives.

    (Or more likely, there's been a fair amount of stuff washing around in all directions.)
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,459
    carnforth said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.
    Not necessarily, no. But a minimum wage working class worker in another industry is certainly not going to be happy with increased costs, nor are they a 'middle class whiner'.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,525
    Some interesting Opinium sidelines:

    - Everyone's unpopular to varying degrees except Sunak, Javid and Khan. Johnson and Starmer have very similar numbers of fans (33/31), though more people disapprove of Johnson (46/37). Johnson still leads in best PM, by 5.
    - People still, by a large margin, think the intervention in Afghanistan was a good idea, yet most people don't think further interventions anywhere are a good idea unless Britain is directly affected
    - People accept that climate change is happening and are willing to be forced to reduce meat and foreign travel, but not general reductions in income
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    rcs1000 said:

    justin124 said:

    IanB2 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    justin124 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Westminster voting intention:

    CON: 39% (-3)
    LAB: 36% (+1)
    LDEM: 8% (+1)
    GRN: 6% (+1)

    via @OpiniumResearch, 19 - 20 Aug
    Chgs. w/ 06 Aug
    https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-august-2021/

    Noise
    Very much Hung Parliament territory.
    Yeah but in the circumstances you'd probably expect Labour to be like 10-15% ahead?

    Labour's just not doing well enough to withstand swingbaaaaaaaaaack before GE
    Tories losing 3 is just about significant. Other parties gaining 1 each is not significant, but Labour not gaining 3 might be.
    On the other hand, 36% matches Labour's GB share under Blair in 2005 - despite circa 2% having been chipped off its national vote share by the 2015 collapse in Scotland. On that basis Labour is now polling better in England & Wales than was the case in 2005.
    Yes: but the LibDems are polling ten points less, and most of that has gone to the Conservatives.

    (Or more likely, there's been a fair amount of stuff washing around in all directions.)
    All true - plus both the SNP and the Greens are stronger.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,279
    edited August 2021
    If my fam WhatsApp is any reliable indicator (spoiler:it isn't) there is a huge sense of shame, despair and anger about Afghanistan. Genuine emotion. No idea how this plays out as politics. Maybe just noise, and it will dwindle away...
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    carnforth said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.
    This is obvious as soon as you realize that low wage jobs are only a small proportion of the cost of most household items.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/21/keir-starmer-ill-paint-a-picture-of-my-vision-in-primary-colours

    “What is the one thing that connects the victories in ’45 with Attlee, in the ’60s with Wilson and with Blair in ’97? It is that the Labour party in those moments glimpsed the future and had a forward-looking programme. That is at the heart of what we are doing at the moment.”

    I think this is the right attitude, but the tricky thing is working out what it is about the future that could make the difference at an election.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,459
    edited August 2021
    Aslan said:

    carnforth said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.
    This is obvious as soon as you realize that low wage jobs are only a small proportion of the cost of most household items.
    I'm looking forward to continuing low inflation then, if you are all so confident.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    On the basis of this poll, it is far from fanciful to suggest that Labour could poll 39% at a GE held over the next six months.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    This chimes with fears we reported into Tuesday’s Telegraph from UK defence sources. That there is a risk IS-KP could target the airport with so many Western soldiers there. Terror threat was discussed at Monday’s COBR meeting. https://twitter.com/nbcpolitics/status/1429162931493740551
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,929
    justin124 said:

    On the basis of this poll, it is far from fanciful to suggest that Labour could poll 39% at a GE held over the next six months.

    Although a GE held in the next six months does seem pretty fanciful.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    rcs1000 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Isn't that great? Getting prisoners back to work is one of the hardest things to do. But if you can get them in steady jobs, their chance of recidivism dramatically declines.
    The terror of the Lord Adonis and Femi types is not just that their fabled economic armageddon never happened. It's that Brexit and immigration restrictions will actually improve the pay and conditions of the British working class.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    edited August 2021
    carnforth said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.
    Some goods are dense and valuable, meaning transport costs are a negligible portion of end price.
    Other goods are not-dense (can't think of the right word...) and cheap, and therefore transport is a big portion of their costs.

    Aggregates, for example, can cost as little as $10/tonne from the hole in the ground. If your truck is carrying 20 tonnes, it's only got $200 of product on board, and the labour cost of the driver is substantial.

    By contrast, if you're pulling one of those petrol/gasoline tanks around, then you're hauling round tens of thousands of pounds of product and it'll make bugger all difference.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Isn't that great? Getting prisoners back to work is one of the hardest things to do. But if you can get them in steady jobs, their chance of recidivism dramatically declines.
    The terror of the Lord Adonis and Femi types is not just that their fabled economic armageddon never happened. It's that Brexit and immigration restrictions will actually improve the pay and conditions of the British working class.
    Fingers crossed.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,838
    rcs1000 said:

    carnforth said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.
    Some goods are dense and valuable, meaning transport costs are a negligible portion of end price.
    Other goods are not-dense (can't think of the right word...) and cheap, and therefore transport is a big portion of their costs.

    Aggregates, for example, can cost as little as $10/tonne from the hole in the ground. If your truck is carrying 20 tonnes, it's only got $200 of product on board, and the labour cost of the driver is substantial.

    By contrast, if you're pulling one of those petrol/gasoline tanks around, then you're hauling round tens of thousands of pounds of product and it'll make bugger all difference.
    Light?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175
    edited August 2021
    Scott_xP said:

    This chimes with fears we reported into Tuesday’s Telegraph from UK defence sources. That there is a risk IS-KP could target the airport with so many Western soldiers there. Terror threat was discussed at Monday’s COBR meeting. https://twitter.com/nbcpolitics/status/1429162931493740551

    Surely there's a non-negligible chance that an attack happens and the US reverse ferrets and it becomes all out war. I'd have thought the smarter elements of the Taliban are aware of this, but there's always some who want to kick off.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,960
    Soubs getting nifty with the old Photoshop


  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    RobD said:

    justin124 said:

    On the basis of this poll, it is far from fanciful to suggest that Labour could poll 39% at a GE held over the next six months.

    Although a GE held in the next six months does seem pretty fanciful.
    Very unlikely I agree - though it is far from clear that any return to normal politics as as we move into 2022 will be to the Government's advantage. I suspect it will prove not to be so.
  • UnpopularUnpopular Posts: 883
    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    IanB2 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    justin124 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Westminster voting intention:

    CON: 39% (-3)
    LAB: 36% (+1)
    LDEM: 8% (+1)
    GRN: 6% (+1)

    via @OpiniumResearch, 19 - 20 Aug
    Chgs. w/ 06 Aug
    https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-august-2021/

    Noise
    Very much Hung Parliament territory.
    Yeah but in the circumstances you'd probably expect Labour to be like 10-15% ahead?

    Labour's just not doing well enough to withstand swingbaaaaaaaaaack before GE
    Tories losing 3 is just about significant. Other parties gaining 1 each is not significant, but Labour not gaining 3 might be.
    On the other hand, 36% matches Labour's GB share under Blair in 2005 - despite circa 2% having been chipped off its national vote share by the 2015 collapse in Scotland. On that basis Labour is now polling better in England & Wales than was the case in 2005.
    That is a good point. However how much of that vote share increase is inefficient? Piling up the votes in places where it is not needed.
    We don't really know the answer to that. I would also add that in a GE - particularly a close GE - much of the 6% Green vote would be likely to tactically switch to Labour - taking the party to circa 39%. Close poll results like this at a GE should also be helpful to Labour in Scotland by encouraging quite a few SNP Holyrood supporters to return to Labour at the Westminster election.
    Idly thinking, with a few pints in me, I wonder (or rather fear) whether Starmer's Labour might end up with the opposite problem of Corbyn's Labour. That they will pile up votes in seats that they can't win, as opposed to piling up votes in safe seats.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,459
    justin124 said:

    RobD said:

    justin124 said:

    On the basis of this poll, it is far from fanciful to suggest that Labour could poll 39% at a GE held over the next six months.

    Although a GE held in the next six months does seem pretty fanciful.
    Very unlikely I agree - though it is far from clear that any return to normal politics as as we move into 2022 will be to the Government's advantage. I suspect it will prove not to be so.
    At the end of the day, there is currently very little reason for people who voted Tory in 2019 to now vote Labour.

    Until that changes, the Tories will continue to hover around 40%.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,587
    rcs1000 said:

    carnforth said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.
    Some goods are dense and valuable, meaning transport costs are a negligible portion of end price.
    Other goods are not-dense (can't think of the right word...) and cheap, and therefore transport is a big portion of their costs.

    Aggregates, for example, can cost as little as $10/tonne from the hole in the ground. If your truck is carrying 20 tonnes, it's only got $200 of product on board, and the labour cost of the driver is substantial.

    By contrast, if you're pulling one of those petrol/gasoline tanks around, then you're hauling round tens of thousands of pounds of product and it'll make bugger all difference.
    Do you know what a typical labour/fuel/depreciation split of the total transport cost is?
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,723
    Scott_xP said:
    You are reposting the repost of the post of the repost of the post that was reposted. Yawn...
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,459
    tlg86 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    This chimes with fears we reported into Tuesday’s Telegraph from UK defence sources. That there is a risk IS-KP could target the airport with so many Western soldiers there. Terror threat was discussed at Monday’s COBR meeting. https://twitter.com/nbcpolitics/status/1429162931493740551

    Surely there's a non-negligible chance that an attack happens and the US reverse ferrets and it becomes all out war. I'd have thought the smarter elements of the Taliban are aware of this, but there's always some who want to kick off.
    Yep. Surely all it will take is one itchy trigger finger?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    IanB2 said:

    GIN1138 said:

    justin124 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Westminster voting intention:

    CON: 39% (-3)
    LAB: 36% (+1)
    LDEM: 8% (+1)
    GRN: 6% (+1)

    via @OpiniumResearch, 19 - 20 Aug
    Chgs. w/ 06 Aug
    https://www.opinium.com/resource-center/uk-voting-intention-19th-august-2021/

    Noise
    Very much Hung Parliament territory.
    Yeah but in the circumstances you'd probably expect Labour to be like 10-15% ahead?

    Labour's just not doing well enough to withstand swingbaaaaaaaaaack before GE
    Tories losing 3 is just about significant. Other parties gaining 1 each is not significant, but Labour not gaining 3 might be.
    On the other hand, 36% matches Labour's GB share under Blair in 2005 - despite circa 2% having been chipped off its national vote share by the 2015 collapse in Scotland. On that basis Labour is now polling better in England & Wales than was the case in 2005.
    That is a good point. However how much of that vote share increase is inefficient? Piling up the votes in places where it is not needed.
    We don't really know the answer to that. I would also add that in a GE - particularly a close GE - much of the 6% Green vote would be likely to tactically switch to Labour - taking the party to circa 39%. Close poll results like this at a GE should also be helpful to Labour in Scotland by encouraging quite a few SNP Holyrood supporters to return to Labour at the Westminster election.
    Yes - the Green vote can probably be added to the Labour / LibDem totals in marginal seats.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    justin124 said:

    RobD said:

    justin124 said:

    On the basis of this poll, it is far from fanciful to suggest that Labour could poll 39% at a GE held over the next six months.

    Although a GE held in the next six months does seem pretty fanciful.
    Very unlikely I agree - though it is far from clear that any return to normal politics as as we move into 2022 will be to the Government's advantage. I suspect it will prove not to be so.
    At the end of the day, there is currently very little reason for people who voted Tory in 2019 to now vote Labour.

    Until that changes, the Tories will continue to hover around 40%.
    Not if they voted Tory in 2019 because of Corbyn and/or Brexit. Those factors no longer have much relevance.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,459
    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    RobD said:

    justin124 said:

    On the basis of this poll, it is far from fanciful to suggest that Labour could poll 39% at a GE held over the next six months.

    Although a GE held in the next six months does seem pretty fanciful.
    Very unlikely I agree - though it is far from clear that any return to normal politics as as we move into 2022 will be to the Government's advantage. I suspect it will prove not to be so.
    At the end of the day, there is currently very little reason for people who voted Tory in 2019 to now vote Labour.

    Until that changes, the Tories will continue to hover around 40%.
    Not if they voted Tory in 2019 because of Corbyn and/or Brexit. Those factors no longer have much relevance.
    Brexit is an ideal, not an event as such. It will remain salient for a good while.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    edited August 2021
    carnforth said:

    rcs1000 said:

    carnforth said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.
    Some goods are dense and valuable, meaning transport costs are a negligible portion of end price.
    Other goods are not-dense (can't think of the right word...) and cheap, and therefore transport is a big portion of their costs.

    Aggregates, for example, can cost as little as $10/tonne from the hole in the ground. If your truck is carrying 20 tonnes, it's only got $200 of product on board, and the labour cost of the driver is substantial.

    By contrast, if you're pulling one of those petrol/gasoline tanks around, then you're hauling round tens of thousands of pounds of product and it'll make bugger all difference.
    Do you know what a typical labour/fuel/depreciation split of the total transport cost is?
    For road haulage? Well, my guess is that an HGV average 40 mph and manages 10mpg. So, it'll get through 4 gallons of petrol in an hour on average. Which is £20/hour for fuel. So, I'd reckon it's probably:

    £40 - labour
    £20 - fuel
    £10 - depreciation

    But those are wild guesses.
    (Labour includes all non-wage costs, like NI etc.)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,279

    Soubs getting nifty with the old Photoshop


    That must have taken her about an hour. Well spent?

    Strasbourg Syndrome. Just like Scott
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    edited August 2021

    Aslan said:

    carnforth said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.
    This is obvious as soon as you realize that low wage jobs are only a small proportion of the cost of most household items.
    I'm looking forward to continuing low inflation then, if you are all so confident.
    Quite a change from historic Toryism that the PB Tories are now in favour of payrises for the workers, debasing the currency and unbothered by inflation.

    Where were they in the early Eighties?
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    justin124 said:

    justin124 said:

    RobD said:

    justin124 said:

    On the basis of this poll, it is far from fanciful to suggest that Labour could poll 39% at a GE held over the next six months.

    Although a GE held in the next six months does seem pretty fanciful.
    Very unlikely I agree - though it is far from clear that any return to normal politics as as we move into 2022 will be to the Government's advantage. I suspect it will prove not to be so.
    At the end of the day, there is currently very little reason for people who voted Tory in 2019 to now vote Labour.

    Until that changes, the Tories will continue to hover around 40%.
    Not if they voted Tory in 2019 because of Corbyn and/or Brexit. Those factors no longer have much relevance.
    Brexit is an ideal, not an event as such. It will remain salient for a good while.
    Only for the zealots. Many former Labour voters went Tory in 2019 because they were sick to death of the issue - and wanted at least some finality in the short -term. EU membership was not a salient issue in the elections of 2005 and 2010 - nor did it dominate in 2015 despite the strong UKIP showing.I doubt that Brexit will affect votes much at all by 2023/2024. Very little sign of it at Chesham & Amersham and Batley & Spen.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    Leon said:

    Soubs getting nifty with the old Photoshop


    That must have taken her about an hour. Well spent?

    Strasbourg Syndrome. Just like Scott
    Nope. It took her a few seconds.

    She tweeted something without hat-tipping the creator. Captain Howdy.

    Theft is easy & quick.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    edited August 2021
    Leon said:

    Soubs getting nifty with the old Photoshop


    That must have taken her about an hour. Well spent?

    Strasbourg Syndrome. Just like Scott
    Nah, she lifted it off another tweeter.

    https://twitter.com/MajorPazuzu/status/1428671189417930757?s=19
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    Dominic Raab found time to pick up the phone to the Prime Minister to extend his own holiday, but refused to call the Afghan Gov hours before Kabul fell to the Taliban.

    Their negligence is unforgivable.
    https://twitter.com/lisanandy/status/1429168461889089542
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    rcs1000 said:

    carnforth said:

    rcs1000 said:

    carnforth said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.
    Some goods are dense and valuable, meaning transport costs are a negligible portion of end price.
    Other goods are not-dense (can't think of the right word...) and cheap, and therefore transport is a big portion of their costs.

    Aggregates, for example, can cost as little as $10/tonne from the hole in the ground. If your truck is carrying 20 tonnes, it's only got $200 of product on board, and the labour cost of the driver is substantial.

    By contrast, if you're pulling one of those petrol/gasoline tanks around, then you're hauling round tens of thousands of pounds of product and it'll make bugger all difference.
    Do you know what a typical labour/fuel/depreciation split of the total transport cost is?
    For road haulage? Well, my guess is that an HGV average 40 mph and manages 10mpg. So, it'll get through 4 gallons of petrol in an hour on average. Which is £20/hour for fuel. So, I'd reckon it's probably:

    £40 - labour
    £20 - fuel
    £10 - depreciation

    But those are wild guesses.
    (Labour includes all non-wage costs, like NI etc.)
    rcs1000 said:

    carnforth said:

    rcs1000 said:

    carnforth said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.
    Some goods are dense and valuable, meaning transport costs are a negligible portion of end price.
    Other goods are not-dense (can't think of the right word...) and cheap, and therefore transport is a big portion of their costs.

    Aggregates, for example, can cost as little as $10/tonne from the hole in the ground. If your truck is carrying 20 tonnes, it's only got $200 of product on board, and the labour cost of the driver is substantial.

    By contrast, if you're pulling one of those petrol/gasoline tanks around, then you're hauling round tens of thousands of pounds of product and it'll make bugger all difference.
    Do you know what a typical labour/fuel/depreciation split of the total transport cost is?
    For road haulage? Well, my guess is that an HGV average 40 mph and manages 10mpg. So, it'll get through 4 gallons of petrol in an hour on average. Which is £20/hour for fuel. So, I'd reckon it's probably:

    £40 - labour
    £20 - fuel
    £10 - depreciation

    But those are wild guesses.
    (Labour includes all non-wage costs, like NI etc.)
    I do know it's an incredibly low margin (2%ish) business.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    .

    I am glad Raab had his holiday, like millions of others he deserved it. The world did not stop whilst he was away and nor should it.

    Well, we can be sure the world did not stop while he was away. Certainly the Taliban did not stop.
    The Foreign Office has how many staff.????. and they couldn't do anything.???
    That isn't the point, but at it doesn't worry 40% of the voters it really doesn't matter.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    Working harder than anyone in government

    =

    Staying on holiday for a couple of days when it’s all kicking off in the office


    https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1429169531352662016
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 22,284
    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:
    WHO GIVES A FUCK

    Is this a kind of dissonance-avoiding technique?

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare:

    "Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million US bounty on him, put in charge of security in new Afghani government as Biden claims terror group “gone” from Afghanistan"

    https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/1429095204880007172?s=20

    And yet *some* PB-ers focus on the phone calls between Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab.

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    And I can't help noticing it is the pathetic Remoaners like Scott who bang on and on about this. Like it is some personal revenge that must be satisfied by swords, during the early trench warfare of World War 1. It is instructionally dumb

    FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad
    I basically said that about 2 hours ago... though not with your flourish for the English language obviously...
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,279
    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,279
    edited August 2021
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Soubs getting nifty with the old Photoshop


    That must have taken her about an hour. Well spent?

    Strasbourg Syndrome. Just like Scott
    Nah, she lifted it off another tweeter.

    https://twitter.com/MajorPazuzu/status/1428671189417930757?s=19
    Arguably worse? Look at the replies to the original. It is all FBPE and EU flags and all that dreary, dreary shite. Good god
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,587
    rcs1000 said:



    For road haulage? Well, my guess is that an HGV average 40 mph and manages 10mpg. So, it'll get through 4 gallons of petrol in an hour on average. Which is £20/hour for fuel. So, I'd reckon it's probably:

    £40 - labour
    £20 - fuel
    £10 - depreciation

    But those are wild guesses.
    (Labour includes all non-wage costs, like NI etc.)

    I couldn't find UK, but for the US, per page 21 of this:

    https://truckingresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ATRI-Operational-Costs-of-Trucking-2019-1.pdf

    Driver wage + benefits 43%, fuel 24%, truck loan payments 15%, maintenance 9%, insurance 5%.

    Of course, their fuel is cheaper.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    I mean, maybe the reason he couldn’t phone the Afghan minister was because he was working harder than anybody else phoning the PM asking for a couple more days in Crete
    https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1429171287323287556
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    Soubs getting nifty with the old Photoshop


    That must have taken her about an hour. Well spent?

    Strasbourg Syndrome. Just like Scott
    Nah, she lifted it off another tweeter.

    https://twitter.com/MajorPazuzu/status/1428671189417930757?s=19
    Arguably worse?
    She retweeted him in acknowledgement.

    https://twitter.com/MrSplendiferous/status/1429074274330071041?s=19
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,279
    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    You have become a wholly tragic figure

    Maybe I should regenerate, 7 times
    Just once might help you
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,896
    edited August 2021

    GIN1138 said:

    Maybe Boris will throw a dead cat on the table and do a Hugh Grant from Love Actually on Biden (he's already did one scene from Love Actually in the election) ?

    Oh yeah, the Andrew Lincoln thing that Allin -Khan plageurised the week before.
    Bob Dylan just texted from a recent thread to say he done it first.
    Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick Blues
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,883
    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    You have become a wholly tragic figure

    Maybe I should regenerate, 7 times
    Just once might help you
    What's up, Leon? Withdrawal symptoms from your holiday?
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,207
    https://twitter.com/air_intel/status/1429141958631608325/photo/1

    Brit Army in Kabul

    Looks like some of our locally based boys, but no doubt some Hereford types too
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368

    GIN1138 said:

    Maybe Boris will throw a dead cat on the table and do a Hugh Grant from Love Actually on Biden (he's already did one scene from Love Actually in the election) ?

    Oh yeah, the Andrew Lincoln thing that Allin -Khan plageurised the week before.
    Bob Dylan just texted from a recent thread to say he done it first.
    Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick Blues
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0
    So Dylan plageurised Boris in 1965?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,821
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:
    WHO GIVES A FUCK

    Is this a kind of dissonance-avoiding technique?

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare:

    "Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million US bounty on him, put in charge of security in new Afghani government as Biden claims terror group “gone” from Afghanistan"

    https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/1429095204880007172?s=20

    And yet *some* PB-ers focus on the phone calls between Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab.

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    And I can't help noticing it is the pathetic Remoaners like Scott who bang on and on about this. Like it is some personal revenge that must be satisfied by swords, during the early trench warfare of World War 1. It is instructionally dumb

    FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad
    You are dead wrong about this, because the more of a fuck I give about Afghanistan, the more of a fuck I give about how little of a fuck the sleazy lazy self regarding fuckers who represent my country give about it .
    Then look at the substance, not the trivia. You won't be short of material and it just might have made a difference.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,279
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:
    WHO GIVES A FUCK

    Is this a kind of dissonance-avoiding technique?

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare:

    "Khalil Haqqani, who has a $5 million US bounty on him, put in charge of security in new Afghani government as Biden claims terror group “gone” from Afghanistan"

    https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/1429095204880007172?s=20

    And yet *some* PB-ers focus on the phone calls between Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab.

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    And I can't help noticing it is the pathetic Remoaners like Scott who bang on and on about this. Like it is some personal revenge that must be satisfied by swords, during the early trench warfare of World War 1. It is instructionally dumb

    FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad
    You are dead wrong about this, because the more of a fuck I give about Afghanistan, the more of a fuck I give about how little of a fuck the sleazy lazy self regarding fuckers who represent my country give about it .
    Then you are diverting necessary energy. I too am deeply exercised by Afghanistan and the disaster - moral, military, political, geopolitical, demographic, psycho-intellectual - it represents for the West. But rather down on my list is the way the UK poodled the USA into conflict and much much much further down the list are the holidaying habits of Raab and Boris

    I believe the original Afghan intervention was inevitable, after 9/11. Those who now deny this are ignoring the enormity of that crime. At the time I believed we should have gone in and once the job was done, we shoulda left. Taliban scattered, Al Qaeda routed. Bin Laden hunted for life. We should have then left with a warning to the next Kabul government: whatever you do, if you menace us, we bomb you into atoms

    That was a good call by me, but I certainly am not boasting. I made WAY too many truly terrible calls (inasmuch as my personal opinion matters, which is very little). I supported the 2nd Iraq war, for my shame. A catastrophe that almost matches what we have today

    Anyway we have to deal with Now. Trump's deal was terrible, Biden has contrived to make it 5 times worse, and then some. The entire idea of the West now totters. This is, for me, not the moment to focus on the phone calls of Dominic Raab from his massage table in Cyprus but I guess for others it diverts them from focusing on the grim reality of where we are: which is this. We are about to enter a world ruled by regimes which are REGRESSIVE. That is to say, they promise less for humanity and less potential for the human soul than went before. We are walking into Darker Ages

    We have spent 500 happy years believing we were all marching to progress. I wonder if Romans felt the same at various points?

    Now, we realise, NO. The Vandals gather
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,896
    edited August 2021

    GIN1138 said:

    Maybe Boris will throw a dead cat on the table and do a Hugh Grant from Love Actually on Biden (he's already did one scene from Love Actually in the election) ?

    Oh yeah, the Andrew Lincoln thing that Allin -Khan plageurised the week before.
    Bob Dylan just texted from a recent thread to say he done it first.
    Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick Blues
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0
    So Dylan plageurised Boris in 1965?
    And that's why Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for ... physics.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,871

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    It depends upon your circumstances of course, but there's no reason why a real terms pay rise should be entirely cancelled out by increased everyday costs since the cost of labour is just a fraction of the cost of items.
    Of course, but I was merely highlighting that the issue isn't so black and white.

    A care home worker on minimum wage is going to be worse off if the price of food rises, for example, even if that price rise better reflects the true value of the work that goes into the product.

    That might be fair enough, and probably is, but it isn't going to make that person or family feel any better. That doesn't have anything to do with the "middle class" vs the "working class".
    You are forgetting that the minimum wage care worker is also likely to be seeing pay raises as their labour is also in short supply. Food increasing in cost by even 10% isn't as big an issue as you believe. Even in the poorest decile the amount spent on food is still only 14% of budget. It rising to 15.4% is easily offset by even an inflation level pay rise.

    Among the poorest the big costs in their budget remains housing and energy. I don't notice folks like you complaining about "how will the poor afford it?" when green taxes are postulated on energy.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,821

    GIN1138 said:

    Maybe Boris will throw a dead cat on the table and do a Hugh Grant from Love Actually on Biden (he's already did one scene from Love Actually in the election) ?

    Oh yeah, the Andrew Lincoln thing that Allin -Khan plageurised the week before.
    Bob Dylan just texted from a recent thread to say he done it first.
    Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick Blues
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0
    Utter genius.
  • Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    I honestly don't get it. We are facing an absolute historic nightmare

    :...

    Fuck, they might be right. Jeez, maybe Raab should resign? But this is so monumentally trivial and diversionary, compared to what we actually face. An epochal moment in the decline of the West.

    That's the point.

    We face an existential crisis, and the people we have in charge are a fucking clown and his punchbag.

    Raab should resign, at a minimum. You should be demanding it.

    Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.
    You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that
    He's kinda got a point though, hasn't he?

    The politicians who've worked so hard to get to the top table, who are leading us right now, are increasingly exposed as fools, shysters or foolish shysters.

    The vision of New Britain as the brains of a Glorious Anglosphere haven't worked out the way that some hoped.

    So we need a better model than "We need Boris, or Framer Jones Europe will be back"... Don't we?
  • TomsToms Posts: 2,478
    Completely off topic, here's A Washington Post article about the Biden/Trump/Taliban withdrawal from Afghanistan.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/20/trump-peace-deal-taliban/
  • That Southern Brave (Irish?) batsman Paul Stirling is a unit. He looks like a retired prop.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    Tomorrow's @independent front page #tomorrowspaperstoday To subscribe to the Daily Edition http://www.independentsubscriptions.co.uk/ https://twitter.com/ThairShaikh/status/1429170122770587652/photo/1

    @ThairShaikh @Independent Tony Blair article to be published at 10pm
  • TomsToms Posts: 2,478
    edited August 2021
    DavidL said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Maybe Boris will throw a dead cat on the table and do a Hugh Grant from Love Actually on Biden (he's already did one scene from Love Actually in the election) ?

    Oh yeah, the Andrew Lincoln thing that Allin -Khan plageurised the week before.
    Bob Dylan just texted from a recent thread to say he done it first.
    Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick Blues
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0
    Utter genius.
    Snap. That was a handful.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,960
    Leon said:

    Soubs getting nifty with the old Photoshop


    That must have taken her about an hour. Well spent?

    Strasbourg Syndrome. Just like Scott
    Wasn't actually her, she nicked it naturlich.
  • Scott_xP said:

    So we need a better model than "We need Boris, or Framer Jones Europe will be back"... Don't we?

    We said BoZo was a Clown.

    We said he would be terrible.

    They voted for him anyway.

    Now they wail about how terrible it is...
    There's a Craig Brown anecdote about going to a party hosted by Alan Clark. From memory, it was to celebrate his return to Parliament in 1997. And he looked around at the other guests and thought to himself "these are all the most awful people in London". This caused him to muse on what this said about him.

    It baffles me that any Cabinet member can look at their colleagues and not have similar thoughts.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    @LubyLou64th @lewis_goodall BJ left the previous Thursday

    @ShippersUnbound @lewis_goodall But didn't they say he went on Saturday. 🤔.

    @welshgirl900 @LubyLou64th @lewis_goodall But he left on Thursday. No idea where the Guardian got Saturday from.

    @ShippersUnbound @welshgirl900 @LubyLou64th @lewis_goodall No10 has been misleading all week including in lobby briefing if he really left on Thursday...
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,011
    GIN1138 said:

    kle4 said:

    John Rentoul
    @JohnRentoul
    ·
    2h
    Dominic Raab is not going to be sacked (unless something else happens), partly because he serves a purpose

    Given that in any government there's always some minister on the verge of being sacked, Raab's purpose seems to be to permanently inhabit that role so no-one else temporarily has to.
    Ministerial purposes?

    Boris: There for the Red wallers (for now)
    Sunak: For non-Borisites to think 'well, Sunak might be ok, let's stick around for now'
    Patel: To invoke lust in the membership for her hardline stances
    Williamson: To make everyone else look good by comparison
    Gove: To make everyone more likable by comparison
    Raab: The blank canvas to fill space when needed
    Truss: To demonstrate at least one minister is doing something (even if you think it isn't much)
    Javid: To signal the end of the reign of Dom
    The rest: Who?
    Don't forget JRM ;)
    To make the rest of them appear to be in touch with ordinary people.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,871

    carnforth said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Food manufacturers and restaurants are scrambling to recruit prisoners to help ease the “desperate” shortage of workers caused by Covid-19 and Brexit.

    A lack of HGV drivers, fruit pickers and factory workers has left some supermarkets struggling to keep shelves filled, with everything from fruit and vegetables to bottled water, wine and baked goods severely depleted in parts of the country.

    The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

    Delivery drivers
    Fruit pickers
    Factory workers
    Construction workers
    Restaurant workers
    Hotel workers

    Its revelatory to learn how much some people hate the thought of the working classes getting a pay rise.
    As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

    Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.
    You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.
    Not necessarily, no. But a minimum wage working class worker in another industry is certainly not going to be happy with increased costs, nor are they a 'middle class whiner'.
    Sighs if there is a shortage of workers it will be a shortage over all minimum wage positions in all industries, these are jobs it is reasonably easy to move to, so for example if hospitality staff start earning more than minimum wage and people start moving to do it from other minimum wage jobs that causes a shortage in other industries
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,094

    Scott_xP said:

    So we need a better model than "We need Boris, or Framer Jones Europe will be back"... Don't we?

    We said BoZo was a Clown.

    We said he would be terrible.

    They voted for him anyway.

    Now they wail about how terrible it is...
    There's a Craig Brown anecdote about going to a party hosted by Alan Clark. From memory, it was to celebrate his return to Parliament in 1997. And he looked around at the other guests and thought to himself "these are all the most awful people in London". This caused him to muse on what this said about him.

    It baffles me that any Cabinet member can look at their colleagues and not have similar thoughts.
    I'm not sure self reflection is a useful quality when seeking out a top level political career, as opposed to ambition and self confidence, so I'd believe they don't.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    I’m not saying this Raab chap is an
    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Anyway we have to deal with Now.

    Yes, and what can 'we' do while Fuckwit von Clownstick is the man in charge?

    What 'we' could practically do to improve our lot is get rid of the Clown collective.

    It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...
    You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    carnforth said:

    rcs1000 said:



    For road haulage? Well, my guess is that an HGV average 40 mph and manages 10mpg. So, it'll get through 4 gallons of petrol in an hour on average. Which is £20/hour for fuel. So, I'd reckon it's probably:

    £40 - labour
    £20 - fuel
    £10 - depreciation

    But those are wild guesses.
    (Labour includes all non-wage costs, like NI etc.)

    I couldn't find UK, but for the US, per page 21 of this:

    https://truckingresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ATRI-Operational-Costs-of-Trucking-2019-1.pdf

    Driver wage + benefits 43%, fuel 24%, truck loan payments 15%, maintenance 9%, insurance 5%.

    Of course, their fuel is cheaper.
    You know, I'm rather proud of my wild stab in the dark numbers, they weren't far off :-)

    I'm slightly surprised insurance for haulage is so low, because I am very good friends with the guys at HDVI (they're the Just Auto Insurance for the HGV space), and their per mile prices in places like California are utterly eye-popping. (Albeit, it does very much depend on the cargo being carried.)
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,723
    edited August 2021
    Scott_xP said:

    Working harder than anyone in government

    =

    Staying on holiday for a couple of days when it’s all kicking off in the office


    https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1429169531352662016

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