We need a worst-case scenario plan for the death of American democracy.
There's going to be a lot of violence during 2024 and after. A hell of a lot. If Trump engineers a win then I expect some states to leave the union and there will be blood.
Maybe it's my hangover but I am feeling very bleak today about American's prospects of remaining a stable democracy. It is just incredible that so many GOP members and voters don't want to live in a democracy; they want to live in a Trump monarchy dictatorship and they are prepared to work to undermine democracy to get that result. Seems all this love of the constitution and their way of life as free citizens in a republic was all bullshit.
Many are happy with a golf club semi fascist state; the better choice to (what they see as) a communist dictatorship under the democrats. Both sides are completely crazy. Maybe the answer is to split the country in to two.
In what way are the Democrats “completely crazy”. None of their politics seems particularly out of line with (say) European norms.
There’s only one party that’s gone completely batshit in the US & that’s the one questioning the results of legitimately held elections.
(Putting the obviously rejoinder that all politicians are slightly mad because it’s a necessary pre-requisite for wanting the job aside for the moment...)
The short answer is.... As much as I would like to, I don't have time to explain. I need to do something productive with my day. I am unhealthy, and need to go to the gym, and time is running out for this.
However, if you think everything is back to post war democratic norms under Biden and the democrats, I can only suggest that you read the article below, and consider the question further.
"Derek Chauvin...just a cop...ordinary in every way." Apart from kneeling on a bloke's neck for 9 minutes till he died. That a white man in authority is not given a ludicrously generous definition of "reasonable doubt", in the same way that doubtless Black men are afforded every single day, is a sure sign of a Woke society rampantly oppressing its majority population.
The European press are having a field day with the UKs supply issues . A bad few weeks for the anti EU brigade in mainland Europe . All the pro EU side have to say is look at the clusterfxck in the UK , do you really want all this drama .
Why would we be interested in the EU attitude
Answer: as we are near neighbours it would be isolationist and stupid if we were not
That is very true, and it's the same reason I used to give when people used to say the EU no longer cared what the UK did, and apparently thinking the EU was stupid enough to do such thing.
The EU seems to be alternating between disdain - "we don't need you, you dirty third country, you" - and desperately following things we do a little bit afterwards. And combining it will embarrassingly effusive self-justifications.
Umpteen elements of vaccines, resolving the USA Airbus / Scotch Whisky dispute, trade deals with Australia, ambitious green targets, stopping using peat, and now they are all rabbiting on about how they will do their own "tilt to the Indo-Pacific".
If they let us continue to allow us to set their agenda, the EU is going nowhere.
It needs to start by ditching the butthurt vanity, and setting its own agenda.
is working as designed for our post Brexit labour needs
BoZo just abandoned it
You just do not accept we have left the EU and the visa quota scheme addresses our labour needs with minimum salary of £25,600 and can apply worldwide and is specific
You would rather use cheap EU labour to keep down wages to the detriment of our low paid
It is a disgrace anyone would want that again
I'll ask again, since everyone making this claim seems to go to ground when I've previously asked: where is the evidence that low-paid wages have gone up since Brexit?
I tried a few times recently to get to the bottom of this claim, but all I've seen is a wage slump and rebound due to Covid. I don't know if you're right or wrong, but they way you and others keep dodging the question is making me suspicious.
And now I really do have to go.
Not a single attempt to back that claim up then? I'm now going to work on the assumption that it's a lie.
I think it probably too soon to tell, not until the covid related labour market shakedown is over, but I don't expect it to be a big effect, and may well be nonexistent or negative in terms of purchasing power.
Completely agree. Yet it's repeated multiple times daily as fact.
There is very strong evidence that lower wages in particular are increasing sharply at the moment but the figures are so distorted by Covid that the cause of the increase is uncertain. So, for example, those on low pay suffered disproportionately during furlough and a much greater percentage of them got 80% of their wages rather than having their employers make it up to 100%. As that drops out of the picture it shows that low wages have increased much more rapidly because they are back on 100%, if their jobs still exist. There is a good analysis of these effects here: https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/07/15/far-from-average-how-covid-19-has-impacted-the-average-weekly-earnings-data/
Whether Brexit has a long term effect on low wages has still to be determined. Economic laws of supply and demand suggest that it will but we shall see. At the moment, as I have suggested before, the ripples one way or another caused by Brexit are completely lost in the storms that we have been enduring.
Yes, I came across that excellent piece while trying to dig into this myself, and it's a good overview of the present difficulties in arriving at any firm conclusions. I will just remind everyone, though, that the question was about the lowest paid, not earnings in general. That's the claim that's been made repeatedly on here.
For the reasons I have set out the lowest paid are getting the largest increases at the moment. The fact that we have a very tight employment market with 1m vacancies suggests that we will continue to see an upward pressure on wages and this is likely to be particularly so at the bottom end of the market where the supply of labour was previously almost infinitely elastic. This, along with the real increases in the NLW, meant more and more of the workforce being caught by that level with previous enhancements swept away. We will hopefully see that reverse but it will be at least a couple of years before the other factors shake out and who knows what else will have happened by then?
We need a worst-case scenario plan for the death of American democracy.
There's going to be a lot of violence during 2024 and after. A hell of a lot. If Trump engineers a win then I expect some states to leave the union and there will be blood.
Maybe it's my hangover but I am feeling very bleak today about American's prospects of remaining a stable democracy. It is just incredible that so many GOP members and voters don't want to live in a democracy; they want to live in a Trump monarchy dictatorship and they are prepared to work to undermine democracy to get that result. Seems all this love of the constitution and their way of life as free citizens in a republic was all bullshit.
Many are happy with a golf club semi fascist state; the better choice to (what they see as) a communist dictatorship under the democrats. Both sides are completely crazy. Maybe the answer is to split the country in to two.
In what way are the Democrats “completely crazy”. None of their politics seems particularly out of line with (say) European norms.
There’s only one party that’s gone completely batshit in the US & that’s the one questioning the results of legitimately held elections.
(Putting the obviously rejoinder that all politicians are slightly mad because it’s a necessary pre-requisite for wanting the job aside for the moment...)
The short answer is.... As much as I would like to, I don't have time to explain. I need to do something productive with my day. I am unhealthy, and need to go to the gym, and time is running out for this.
However, if you think everything is back to post war democratic norms under Biden and the democrats, I can only suggest that you read the article below, and consider the question further.
The claim in the article is that the police officer who was filmed kneeling on a suspect's neck until the suspect died was unjustly convicted, because you may have a reasonable doubt that the death was caused by the kneeling on his neck, rather than an unrelated heart attack. You can agree with this if you like, but for many decades people have been routinely convicted of murder on far weaker grounds than that, so it's fairly ridiculous to think that it suddenly shows justice going off the rails.
Yes, it really doesn't make a very detailed argument in the article, lots of worries, and a suspicious the jury (and future juries) may not have given enough thought to reasonable doubt. Which is something to worry about, but it was not, at this stage, persuasive that this was or will routinely be the case.
Holyrood should have the power to ban arm sales and block wars involving Scottish troops, according to a left-wing Labour MSP.
Katy Clark believes devolving powers over foreign affairs and defence should be part of a package of measures designed to boost the parliament’s powers.
Holyrood should have the power to ban arm sales and block wars involving Scottish troops, according to a left-wing Labour MSP.
Katy Clark believes devolving powers over foreign affairs and defence should be part of a package of measures designed to boost the parliament’s powers.
is working as designed for our post Brexit labour needs
BoZo just abandoned it
You just do not accept we have left the EU and the visa quota scheme addresses our labour needs with minimum salary of £25,600 and can apply worldwide and is specific
You would rather use cheap EU labour to keep down wages to the detriment of our low paid
It is a disgrace anyone would want that again
I'll ask again, since everyone making this claim seems to go to ground when I've previously asked: where is the evidence that low-paid wages have gone up since Brexit?
I tried a few times recently to get to the bottom of this claim, but all I've seen is a wage slump and rebound due to Covid. I don't know if you're right or wrong, but they way you and others keep dodging the question is making me suspicious.
And now I really do have to go.
Not a single attempt to back that claim up then? I'm now going to work on the assumption that it's a lie.
Just the usual Tory made up buffoonery. They would not know the truth if it slapped them in the coupon.
is working as designed for our post Brexit labour needs
BoZo just abandoned it
You just do not accept we have left the EU and the visa quota scheme addresses our labour needs with minimum salary of £25,600 and can apply worldwide and is specific
You would rather use cheap EU labour to keep down wages to the detriment of our low paid
It is a disgrace anyone would want that again
I'll ask again, since everyone making this claim seems to go to ground when I've previously asked: where is the evidence that low-paid wages have gone up since Brexit?
I tried a few times recently to get to the bottom of this claim, but all I've seen is a wage slump and rebound due to Covid. I don't know if you're right or wrong, but they way you and others keep dodging the question is making me suspicious.
And now I really do have to go.
Not a single attempt to back that claim up then? I'm now going to work on the assumption that it's a lie.
I think it probably too soon to tell, not until the covid related labour market shakedown is over, but I don't expect it to be a big effect, and may well be nonexistent or negative in terms of purchasing power.
Completely agree. Yet it's repeated multiple times daily as fact.
There is very strong evidence that lower wages in particular are increasing sharply at the moment but the figures are so distorted by Covid that the cause of the increase is uncertain. So, for example, those on low pay suffered disproportionately during furlough and a much greater percentage of them got 80% of their wages rather than having their employers make it up to 100%. As that drops out of the picture it shows that low wages have increased much more rapidly because they are back on 100%, if their jobs still exist. There is a good analysis of these effects here: https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/07/15/far-from-average-how-covid-19-has-impacted-the-average-weekly-earnings-data/
Whether Brexit has a long term effect on low wages has still to be determined. Economic laws of supply and demand suggest that it will but we shall see. At the moment, as I have suggested before, the ripples one way or another caused by Brexit are completely lost in the storms that we have been enduring.
Yes, I came across that excellent piece while trying to dig into this myself, and it's a good overview of the present difficulties in arriving at any firm conclusions. I will just remind everyone, though, that the question was about the lowest paid, not earnings in general. That's the claim that's been made repeatedly on here.
I think it's fair to say the jury's still out. But you are correct - those who keep loudly making this claim as a slam dunk vindication of Brexit and Boris need to provide some concrete evidence or pipe down.
Holyrood should have the power to ban arm sales and block wars involving Scottish troops, according to a left-wing Labour MSP.
Katy Clark believes devolving powers over foreign affairs and defence should be part of a package of measures designed to boost the parliament’s powers.
Is there anything to stop Rishi putting a tax on electricity from public charge points to continue to pivot away from petrol / diesel taxes?
They must all have meters, surely?
The problem with taxing electricity is that there is so much of it about. Plug you car into a wall socket at home and it will charge overnight - enough for many uses. Minor bit of electrical work and you can pull 32A, no problem. and then you are really off to the races......
This is why civil servants were briefing about how a hydrogen economy would be better from the late 90s onwards.
I was working for an oil company that took the green revolution quite seriously. At one point, if you bought solar cells in Europe, you were probably buying from us. They were quite clear internally, and in various briefings that a big advantage for government of the hydrogen economy would be control and taxation.
That's true, but public charge points get use even now - even though the cost is approx. 40-250% more than home charging.
And if it makes more people install their own, then that is also a massive plus, and takes the load off the public network.
Win-win?
Say, 2-4p tax per unit, which could subsequently be increased?
is working as designed for our post Brexit labour needs
BoZo just abandoned it
You just do not accept we have left the EU and the visa quota scheme addresses our labour needs with minimum salary of £25,600 and can apply worldwide and is specific
You would rather use cheap EU labour to keep down wages to the detriment of our low paid
It is a disgrace anyone would want that again
I'll ask again, since everyone making this claim seems to go to ground when I've previously asked: where is the evidence that low-paid wages have gone up since Brexit?
I tried a few times recently to get to the bottom of this claim, but all I've seen is a wage slump and rebound due to Covid. I don't know if you're right or wrong, but they way you and others keep dodging the question is making me suspicious.
And now I really do have to go.
Not a single attempt to back that claim up then? I'm now going to work on the assumption that it's a lie.
I think it probably too soon to tell, not until the covid related labour market shakedown is over, but I don't expect it to be a big effect, and may well be nonexistent or negative in terms of purchasing power.
Completely agree. Yet it's repeated multiple times daily as fact.
There is very strong evidence that lower wages in particular are increasing sharply at the moment but the figures are so distorted by Covid that the cause of the increase is uncertain. So, for example, those on low pay suffered disproportionately during furlough and a much greater percentage of them got 80% of their wages rather than having their employers make it up to 100%. As that drops out of the picture it shows that low wages have increased much more rapidly because they are back on 100%, if their jobs still exist. There is a good analysis of these effects here: https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/07/15/far-from-average-how-covid-19-has-impacted-the-average-weekly-earnings-data/
Whether Brexit has a long term effect on low wages has still to be determined. Economic laws of supply and demand suggest that it will but we shall see. At the moment, as I have suggested before, the ripples one way or another caused by Brexit are completely lost in the storms that we have been enduring.
Yes, I came across that excellent piece while trying to dig into this myself, and it's a good overview of the present difficulties in arriving at any firm conclusions. I will just remind everyone, though, that the question was about the lowest paid, not earnings in general. That's the claim that's been made repeatedly on here.
For the reasons I have set out the lowest paid are getting the largest increases at the moment. The fact that we have a very tight employment market with 1m vacancies suggests that we will continue to see an upward pressure on wages and this is likely to be particularly so at the bottom end of the market where the supply of labour was previously almost infinitely elastic. This, along with the real increases in the NLW, meant more and more of the workforce being caught by that level with previous enhancements swept away. We will hopefully see that reverse but it will be at least a couple of years before the other factors shake out and who knows what else will have happened by then?
What I found bloody annoying is that while the ONS publishes time series on wages per sector, it doesn't publish a summary of time series in the same data set. So assembling some comparative data will take some serious effort...
Holyrood should have the power to ban arm sales and block wars involving Scottish troops, according to a left-wing Labour MSP.
Katy Clark believes devolving powers over foreign affairs and defence should be part of a package of measures designed to boost the parliament’s powers.
is working as designed for our post Brexit labour needs
BoZo just abandoned it
You just do not accept we have left the EU and the visa quota scheme addresses our labour needs with minimum salary of £25,600 and can apply worldwide and is specific
You would rather use cheap EU labour to keep down wages to the detriment of our low paid
It is a disgrace anyone would want that again
I'll ask again, since everyone making this claim seems to go to ground when I've previously asked: where is the evidence that low-paid wages have gone up since Brexit?
I tried a few times recently to get to the bottom of this claim, but all I've seen is a wage slump and rebound due to Covid. I don't know if you're right or wrong, but they way you and others keep dodging the question is making me suspicious.
And now I really do have to go.
Not a single attempt to back that claim up then? I'm now going to work on the assumption that it's a lie.
What do you think happens in the real world when demand outstrips supply ?
Prices rise.
So what do you think happens when demand for labour outstrips supply ?
Pay rates rise.
So do you think record vacancies plus 'all the Eastern Europeans have gone home' are having no effect ?
Pay rates for *that particular job* rise. However for anybody doing a different job producing something that has to be carried in a lorry pay rates drop, because the shortage means that less stuff is being produced and taken to buyers. The net effect definitely makes consumers overall poorer, and may well make non-immigrant workers in general poorer.
That really is zero sum gibberish.
Supplier costs have increased to my employer but that hasn't stopped pay rates rising and more workers being employed.
We have accepted Brexit. We just think it's fucking stupid and will take a certain grim satisfaction in pointing out its widely-predicted negative consequences, as they occur. Brexiteers are free to take similar delight in its upsides, should they ever manifest themselves.
It occurred to me this morning that the BoZo fanbois can still cheer their man for now.
He is still riding high (ish) but one day his star will wane again.
In the meantime, Brexit will be a shitshow for the rest of our lives.
We are never going to run out of material...
How many times?
It's not fair! This is not cuddly Boris' fault!
It is the fault of 24hour news, the tabloids and the entire voting public who are panic buying fuel!
is working as designed for our post Brexit labour needs
BoZo just abandoned it
You just do not accept we have left the EU and the visa quota scheme addresses our labour needs with minimum salary of £25,600 and can apply worldwide and is specific
You would rather use cheap EU labour to keep down wages to the detriment of our low paid
It is a disgrace anyone would want that again
I'll ask again, since everyone making this claim seems to go to ground when I've previously asked: where is the evidence that low-paid wages have gone up since Brexit?
I tried a few times recently to get to the bottom of this claim, but all I've seen is a wage slump and rebound due to Covid. I don't know if you're right or wrong, but they way you and others keep dodging the question is making me suspicious.
And now I really do have to go.
Not a single attempt to back that claim up then? I'm now going to work on the assumption that it's a lie.
I think it probably too soon to tell, not until the covid related labour market shakedown is over, but I don't expect it to be a big effect, and may well be nonexistent or negative in terms of purchasing power.
Completely agree. Yet it's repeated multiple times daily as fact.
There is very strong evidence that lower wages in particular are increasing sharply at the moment but the figures are so distorted by Covid that the cause of the increase is uncertain. So, for example, those on low pay suffered disproportionately during furlough and a much greater percentage of them got 80% of their wages rather than having their employers make it up to 100%. As that drops out of the picture it shows that low wages have increased much more rapidly because they are back on 100%, if their jobs still exist. There is a good analysis of these effects here: https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/07/15/far-from-average-how-covid-19-has-impacted-the-average-weekly-earnings-data/
Whether Brexit has a long term effect on low wages has still to be determined. Economic laws of supply and demand suggest that it will but we shall see. At the moment, as I have suggested before, the ripples one way or another caused by Brexit are completely lost in the storms that we have been enduring.
Yes, I came across that excellent piece while trying to dig into this myself, and it's a good overview of the present difficulties in arriving at any firm conclusions. I will just remind everyone, though, that the question was about the lowest paid, not earnings in general. That's the claim that's been made repeatedly on here.
For the reasons I have set out the lowest paid are getting the largest increases at the moment. The fact that we have a very tight employment market with 1m vacancies suggests that we will continue to see an upward pressure on wages and this is likely to be particularly so at the bottom end of the market where the supply of labour was previously almost infinitely elastic. This, along with the real increases in the NLW, meant more and more of the workforce being caught by that level with previous enhancements swept away. We will hopefully see that reverse but it will be at least a couple of years before the other factors shake out and who knows what else will have happened by then?
What I found bloody annoying is that while the ONS publishes time series on wages per sector, it doesn't publish a summary of time series in the same data set. So assembling some comparative data will take some serious effort...
Couldn't agree more. I spent ages looking for that before I got dragged off for a haircut. Thankfully there was no panic buying going on in the barbers or indeed the cheese shop.
If 50% of schoolkids have already been infected with covid (as per Whitty) doesn't that suggest that all the school closures, class bubbles, self-isolating and mask wearing was a failure ?
The idea, I think, was to slow down the rate of spread in schools to reduce the spread (in turn) from the school children to the older population.
Now whether that has had an effect, or had enough of an effect.....
Indeed.
And how much of an effect that had is unknown but we do know that the school restrictions had economic, educational and social costs.
is working as designed for our post Brexit labour needs
BoZo just abandoned it
You just do not accept we have left the EU and the visa quota scheme addresses our labour needs with minimum salary of £25,600 and can apply worldwide and is specific
You would rather use cheap EU labour to keep down wages to the detriment of our low paid
It is a disgrace anyone would want that again
I'll ask again, since everyone making this claim seems to go to ground when I've previously asked: where is the evidence that low-paid wages have gone up since Brexit?
I tried a few times recently to get to the bottom of this claim, but all I've seen is a wage slump and rebound due to Covid. I don't know if you're right or wrong, but they way you and others keep dodging the question is making me suspicious.
And now I really do have to go.
Not a single attempt to back that claim up then? I'm now going to work on the assumption that it's a lie.
What do you think happens in the real world when demand outstrips supply ?
Prices rise.
So what do you think happens when demand for labour outstrips supply ?
Pay rates rise.
So do you think record vacancies plus 'all the Eastern Europeans have gone home' are having no effect ?
Pay rates for *that particular job* rise. However for anybody doing a different job producing something that has to be carried in a lorry pay rates drop, because the shortage means that less stuff is being produced and taken to buyers. The net effect definitely makes consumers overall poorer, and may well make non-immigrant workers in general poorer.
That really is zero sum gibberish.
Supplier costs have increased to my employer but that hasn't stopped pay rates rising and more workers being employed.
The point I'm making is precisely that the economy *isn't* zero-sum. If you make part of it less efficient, for example by not having enough lorry drivers, you reduce the productivity of everyone whose work relies on something being carried in lorries compared to what it would have been otherwise. Someone has to pay for that loss of productivity; The optimistic case for low-paid workers is that it's all passed on to consumers and higher-paid workers, but there's no necessary reason why that should be how it works out.
is working as designed for our post Brexit labour needs
BoZo just abandoned it
You just do not accept we have left the EU and the visa quota scheme addresses our labour needs with minimum salary of £25,600 and can apply worldwide and is specific
You would rather use cheap EU labour to keep down wages to the detriment of our low paid
It is a disgrace anyone would want that again
I'll ask again, since everyone making this claim seems to go to ground when I've previously asked: where is the evidence that low-paid wages have gone up since Brexit?
I tried a few times recently to get to the bottom of this claim, but all I've seen is a wage slump and rebound due to Covid. I don't know if you're right or wrong, but they way you and others keep dodging the question is making me suspicious.
And now I really do have to go.
Not a single attempt to back that claim up then? I'm now going to work on the assumption that it's a lie.
I think it probably too soon to tell, not until the covid related labour market shakedown is over, but I don't expect it to be a big effect, and may well be nonexistent or negative in terms of purchasing power.
Completely agree. Yet it's repeated multiple times daily as fact.
There is very strong evidence that lower wages in particular are increasing sharply at the moment but the figures are so distorted by Covid that the cause of the increase is uncertain. So, for example, those on low pay suffered disproportionately during furlough and a much greater percentage of them got 80% of their wages rather than having their employers make it up to 100%. As that drops out of the picture it shows that low wages have increased much more rapidly because they are back on 100%, if their jobs still exist. There is a good analysis of these effects here: https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/07/15/far-from-average-how-covid-19-has-impacted-the-average-weekly-earnings-data/
Whether Brexit has a long term effect on low wages has still to be determined. Economic laws of supply and demand suggest that it will but we shall see. At the moment, as I have suggested before, the ripples one way or another caused by Brexit are completely lost in the storms that we have been enduring.
Yes, I came across that excellent piece while trying to dig into this myself, and it's a good overview of the present difficulties in arriving at any firm conclusions. I will just remind everyone, though, that the question was about the lowest paid, not earnings in general. That's the claim that's been made repeatedly on here.
For the reasons I have set out the lowest paid are getting the largest increases at the moment. The fact that we have a very tight employment market with 1m vacancies suggests that we will continue to see an upward pressure on wages and this is likely to be particularly so at the bottom end of the market where the supply of labour was previously almost infinitely elastic. This, along with the real increases in the NLW, meant more and more of the workforce being caught by that level with previous enhancements swept away. We will hopefully see that reverse but it will be at least a couple of years before the other factors shake out and who knows what else will have happened by then?
The FT say
"... we’re just learning how big problems European immigrants were for Britain now that we’re facing a life without it. It could do worse than study our food processing factories to gain insight into how the EU’s free-moving era changed parts of the economy.
Allen says the salaries of new employees are already rising. “Two years ago it was £ 18,000, but now it’s £ 22,000 to advertise beginner-level jobs.” He talks to members about changing the way they work, but warns that it won’t be easy. Eamon O’Hearn, National Officer of GMB Union, has “some sympathy” as employers in this sector are low-margin, high-volume companies and constantly under pressure from strong supermarkets. It states that there is.British meat Cheapest In Western Europe. “I don’t think we can discuss or review what work-life balance means in our community without addressing the market power of retailers,” he says.
It is dishonest for employers to say that British people will never do these jobs. Still, it’s naive to believe that if they simply raise wages and reduce profits, their problems will go away overnight. In this area, the era of free movement has influenced everything from work rhythms, safety and location to familiar prices in stores."
NEW: Keir Starmer has abandoned his controversial electoral college reforms overnight.
A spokesman says he will still bring other measures to "better connect us with working people and re-orient us toward the voters who can take us to power".
But Angela Rayner has plans, and ones that could go down very well with the Brexity workers. She is one canny politician. Never mistake lack of formal education with lack of intelligence.
Listenin’ to her this mornin’ was interestin’. Snobbish point? Maybe. Thatcher took voice lessons to improve her chances, I wonder if Rayner might consider it, or if she feels the way she speaks is part of who she is?
I think that it is part of who she is and she won't change it, any more than she would change her dress sense. She is a bit of a rarity in the Labour Party, a conviction politician with a plan.
I would love to agree; Angela Rayner has really good qualities. Her interview on R4 Today just now was a good display of this. But there are two difficulties when looking at electability and image at GE or next leader time.
Her simple clarity and conviction are great. But this makes it all the more obvious, and toe curling, when, as this morning, she goes into evasion mode.
And it is obvious that she wants to answer, with conviction, simplicity and clarity, every single question except the ones the interviewer, and listener, want her to answer. The top flight political geniuses hide this better.
A more general Labour difficulty; by this point Blair could answer policy questions with: I have a better one than the Tories and here it is. Labour is not anywhere close yet to that position.
To me.. she comes across as thick as two short planks..how she got where she us is a matter for comjecture.
Never confuse lack of formal education with lack of intelligence. snip
I am increasingly coming to see formal education as almost meaningless. My wife and I had a long discussion about this recently. We are both very highly educated (to postgraduate level) but have come to find educated people we encounter as full of themselves and stupid. By contrast people with little formal post compulsory education or vocational qualifications only are actually more civilised on a day to day level and much easier to get along with.
The worst example of this in a full maternity ward, over capacity, under pressure - with a queue of expectant mothers waiting to be induced. A woman came in and demanded that she could jump the que because she got a first from university - completely ridiculous.
I am not a fan of Rayner, but don't hold her lack of educational achievement against her in any way.
If we have already wasted enough money putting her through university, then she has used up her entitlement. Put her to the back of the queue until she gains a First in humility.
is working as designed for our post Brexit labour needs
BoZo just abandoned it
You just do not accept we have left the EU and the visa quota scheme addresses our labour needs with minimum salary of £25,600 and can apply worldwide and is specific
You would rather use cheap EU labour to keep down wages to the detriment of our low paid
It is a disgrace anyone would want that again
I'll ask again, since everyone making this claim seems to go to ground when I've previously asked: where is the evidence that low-paid wages have gone up since Brexit?
I tried a few times recently to get to the bottom of this claim, but all I've seen is a wage slump and rebound due to Covid. I don't know if you're right or wrong, but they way you and others keep dodging the question is making me suspicious.
And now I really do have to go.
Not a single attempt to back that claim up then? I'm now going to work on the assumption that it's a lie.
What do you think happens in the real world when demand outstrips supply ?
Prices rise.
So what do you think happens when demand for labour outstrips supply ?
Pay rates rise.
So do you think record vacancies plus 'all the Eastern Europeans have gone home' are having no effect ?
Pay rates for *that particular job* rise. However for anybody doing a different job producing something that has to be carried in a lorry pay rates drop, because the shortage means that less stuff is being produced and taken to buyers. The net effect definitely makes consumers overall poorer, and may well make non-immigrant workers in general poorer.
That really is zero sum gibberish.
Supplier costs have increased to my employer but that hasn't stopped pay rates rising and more workers being employed.
The point I'm making is precisely that the economy *isn't* zero-sum. If you make part of it less efficient, for example by not having enough lorry drivers, you reduce the productivity of everyone whose work relies on something being carried in lorries compared to what it would have been otherwise. Someone has to pay for that loss of productivity; The optimistic case for low-paid workers is that it's all passed on to consumers and higher-paid workers, but there's no necessary reason why that should be how it works out.
The gains will be spread throughout the working population.
The costs will be spread among the users of the relevant output.
There will be variation in the winners and losers.
In general it will be a wealth transfer from non-workers to workers.
So the government wants to relax rules for EU drivers to save Bozos skin after he led a campaign which told those same drivers to get lost and go back home.
And then the visas are time limited and the message will then be get lost now .
So the government wants to relax rules for EU drivers to save Bozos skin after he led a campaign which told those same drivers to get lost and go back home.
And then the visas are time limited and the message will then be get lost now .
Good morning
HMG new visa quota scheme was brought in post Brexit and applies worldwide, not just to the EU
It applies to specific need and has a minimum salary of £25,600
This is the brexit dividend which would not have been permissible under the EU freedom of movement and is working as designed for our post Brexit labour needs
As predicted the cheerleaders who supported the government not allowing foreign lorry drivers in, now support the allowing the foreign lorry drivers in.
It is almost as if the policies don't matter, just the colour of the rosette.
This has been the conservative policy throughout and is now being applied to the need
I see is as complete vindication for Brexit and it is working as designed
I must congratulate you. You’ve got the Comical Ali tribute off to a tee!
I have to say, with the greatest of respect, those trying to dismiss this are those who have not accepted brexit and think this is a way to undermine it, with the vain hope we will rejoin
Just so we're clear...
Is there any degree of Brexit fallout which would make it legitimate to say "hey guys, this may be something we need to reverse"?
Is there any degree of swing in public opinion where it would be legitimate for a UK government to reverse Brexit?
I don't think we're anywhere near either of those conditions right now, and those on the fringes who are arguing for a quick rejoin are probably doing more harm than good to their cause. And there's plenty of prickles that the UK could remove.
But to say "this policy is irreversible, permanent for all time" flies in the face of history, doesn't it? Governments of all colours have thought they had changed things forever and proved wrong.
It also takes away agency and sovereignty from future generations, which is a pretty selfish thing for this generation of voters to be doing.
If the policy of the Johnson government succeeds, it will deservedly stick. If it fails, it equally deservedly won't. That's democracy, and trying to shut down inconvenient voices isn't.
I am far from saying that brexit is not reversible
I am not @HYUFD telling the Scots they cannot have indyref2 in 40 years and opinions do change and every 5 years or so governments face the electorate
My main argument is that the visa quota scheme that Boris is about to announce is the one designed and legislated for post Brexit
The world is changing and as we have seen with AUKUS and our application to join CPTPP that we are seeking global influence and new markets and of course that does make rejoining the EU far more complex and distant
I also expect the EU, and France specifically, to agree a mutually beneficial European defence and security pact and I understand Boris spoke to Macron yesteday and this was the subject of the meeting 10 days ago with Rutte at no 10
I therefore do not see a path to rejoin the EU and we need to make this work and move on
However, it may come about sometime in the future that we are able to agree a closer relationship with the EU and that would be excellent
Yes, akin to sawing off your arms and legs before the Olympic 100m final thinking you have a chance of winning.
That's the madness we are all facing. I just feel sorry for the young - continually shafted by the oldies.
Why do you feel sorry for the young? There's now 100,000 trucking vacancies available over the next few years which will pay a better wage. We just need to legislate to stop insurance companies discriminating against young drivers.
So you think that insurance companies can’t price based on risk? That’s kind a fundamental to the business model
is working as designed for our post Brexit labour needs
BoZo just abandoned it
You just do not accept we have left the EU and the visa quota scheme addresses our labour needs with minimum salary of £25,600 and can apply worldwide and is specific
You would rather use cheap EU labour to keep down wages to the detriment of our low paid
It is a disgrace anyone would want that again
I'll ask again, since everyone making this claim seems to go to ground when I've previously asked: where is the evidence that low-paid wages have gone up since Brexit?
I tried a few times recently to get to the bottom of this claim, but all I've seen is a wage slump and rebound due to Covid. I don't know if you're right or wrong, but they way you and others keep dodging the question is making me suspicious.
And now I really do have to go.
Not a single attempt to back that claim up then? I'm now going to work on the assumption that it's a lie.
I think it probably too soon to tell, not until the covid related labour market shakedown is over, but I don't expect it to be a big effect, and may well be nonexistent or negative in terms of purchasing power.
Completely agree. Yet it's repeated multiple times daily as fact.
There is very strong evidence that lower wages in particular are increasing sharply at the moment but the figures are so distorted by Covid that the cause of the increase is uncertain. So, for example, those on low pay suffered disproportionately during furlough and a much greater percentage of them got 80% of their wages rather than having their employers make it up to 100%. As that drops out of the picture it shows that low wages have increased much more rapidly because they are back on 100%, if their jobs still exist. There is a good analysis of these effects here: https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/07/15/far-from-average-how-covid-19-has-impacted-the-average-weekly-earnings-data/
Whether Brexit has a long term effect on low wages has still to be determined. Economic laws of supply and demand suggest that it will but we shall see. At the moment, as I have suggested before, the ripples one way or another caused by Brexit are completely lost in the storms that we have been enduring.
Yes, I came across that excellent piece while trying to dig into this myself, and it's a good overview of the present difficulties in arriving at any firm conclusions. I will just remind everyone, though, that the question was about the lowest paid, not earnings in general. That's the claim that's been made repeatedly on here.
For the reasons I have set out the lowest paid are getting the largest increases at the moment. The fact that we have a very tight employment market with 1m vacancies suggests that we will continue to see an upward pressure on wages and this is likely to be particularly so at the bottom end of the market where the supply of labour was previously almost infinitely elastic. This, along with the real increases in the NLW, meant more and more of the workforce being caught by that level with previous enhancements swept away. We will hopefully see that reverse but it will be at least a couple of years before the other factors shake out and who knows what else will have happened by then?
The FT say
"... we’re just learning how big problems European immigrants were for Britain now that we’re facing a life without it. It could do worse than study our food processing factories to gain insight into how the EU’s free-moving era changed parts of the economy.
Allen says the salaries of new employees are already rising. “Two years ago it was £ 18,000, but now it’s £ 22,000 to advertise beginner-level jobs.” He talks to members about changing the way they work, but warns that it won’t be easy. Eamon O’Hearn, National Officer of GMB Union, has “some sympathy” as employers in this sector are low-margin, high-volume companies and constantly under pressure from strong supermarkets. It states that there is.British meat Cheapest In Western Europe. “I don’t think we can discuss or review what work-life balance means in our community without addressing the market power of retailers,” he says.
It is dishonest for employers to say that British people will never do these jobs. Still, it’s naive to believe that if they simply raise wages and reduce profits, their problems will go away overnight. In this area, the era of free movement has influenced everything from work rhythms, safety and location to familiar prices in stores."
IIRC the actual data was that immigrants (outside London) were not a majority of these workforces. There were, in fact, plenty of Britons doing these jobs. Which is why there are labour shortages, rather than industries just stopping.
The thing I always found gobsmacking was that Tesco built a "negotiating centre" where, in carefully designed rooms, teams of Tesco negotiators would er... negotiate with a single representative of the suppliers. Said centre was designed using information from police and other interrogation centres.
The response to this.... crickets.
And people wonder why conditions at the suppliers got a bit bad....
Is there anything to stop Rishi putting a tax on electricity from public charge points to continue to pivot away from petrol / diesel taxes?
They must all have meters, surely?
The problem with taxing electricity is that there is so much of it about. Plug you car into a wall socket at home and it will charge overnight - enough for many uses. Minor bit of electrical work and you can pull 32A, no problem. and then you are really off to the races......
This is why civil servants were briefing about how a hydrogen economy would be better from the late 90s onwards.
I was working for an oil company that took the green revolution quite seriously. At one point, if you bought solar cells in Europe, you were probably buying from us. They were quite clear internally, and in various briefings that a big advantage for government of the hydrogen economy would be control and taxation.
That's true, but public charge points get use even now - even though the cost is approx. 40-250% more than home charging.
And if it makes more people install their own, then that is also a massive plus, and takes the load off the public network.
Win-win?
Say, 2-4p tax per unit, which could subsequently be increased?
Trouble is that this just stiffs those unfortunate enough to both own an EV and not have home parking where they can install a charger. If the government keeps pushing EVs, that's going to be a lot of (mostly poorer) people.
Running an EV from the public charging network is about as expensive as running an ICE vehicle now, despite the fact that 2/3rds of the ICE fuel cost is tax. Its also massively more inconvenient.
If you wanted an approximation to fuel duty for EVs, one could possibly heavily tax new tyres fitted to them, given that the approximate mileage a tyre lasts is a pretty known quantity. This does come with a few drawbacks - we wouldn't want to incentivse people to run round on bald tyres, and paying for your "fuel duty" in 10-20k miles increments might sting a bit. Also, we'd have to find some way to identify tyres fitted to EVs vs ICEs so people didn't take to having tyres fitted to ICE vehicles then swapping them over (unless we made this change universal, and abolished fuel duty at the same time).
Holyrood should have the power to ban arm sales and block wars involving Scottish troops, according to a left-wing Labour MSP.
Katy Clark believes devolving powers over foreign affairs and defence should be part of a package of measures designed to boost the parliament’s powers.
Is Edmund King, the AA bloke, angling for a knighthood? He heads a glorified insurance firm that is crippled with debt, yet everywhere I turn I hear him spouting pro-government propaganda. He should have other things to concentrate on.
NEW: Keir Starmer has abandoned his controversial electoral college reforms overnight.
A spokesman says he will still bring other measures to "better connect us with working people and re-orient us toward the voters who can take us to power".
But Angela Rayner has plans, and ones that could go down very well with the Brexity workers. She is one canny politician. Never mistake lack of formal education with lack of intelligence.
Listenin’ to her this mornin’ was interestin’. Snobbish point? Maybe. Thatcher took voice lessons to improve her chances, I wonder if Rayner might consider it, or if she feels the way she speaks is part of who she is?
I think that it is part of who she is and she won't change it, any more than she would change her dress sense. She is a bit of a rarity in the Labour Party, a conviction politician with a plan.
I would love to agree; Angela Rayner has really good qualities. Her interview on R4 Today just now was a good display of this. But there are two difficulties when looking at electability and image at GE or next leader time.
Her simple clarity and conviction are great. But this makes it all the more obvious, and toe curling, when, as this morning, she goes into evasion mode.
And it is obvious that she wants to answer, with conviction, simplicity and clarity, every single question except the ones the interviewer, and listener, want her to answer. The top flight political geniuses hide this better.
A more general Labour difficulty; by this point Blair could answer policy questions with: I have a better one than the Tories and here it is. Labour is not anywhere close yet to that position.
To me.. she comes across as thick as two short planks..how she got where she us is a matter for comjecture.
Never confuse lack of formal education with lack of intelligence. snip
I am increasingly coming to see formal education as almost meaningless. My wife and I had a long discussion about this recently. We are both very highly educated (to postgraduate level) but have come to find educated people we encounter as full of themselves and stupid. By contrast people with little formal post compulsory education or vocational qualifications only are actually more civilised on a day to day level and much easier to get along with.
The worst example of this in a full maternity ward, over capacity, under pressure - with a queue of expectant mothers waiting to be induced. A woman came in and demanded that she could jump the que because she got a first from university - completely ridiculous.
I am not a fan of Rayner, but don't hold her lack of educational achievement against her in any way.
I generally agree with that. However in defence of that woman, a maternity ward can be a stressful environment, and people can react oddly to stress. Many don't think clearly, or even act rationally. It might be that she has quite the opposite demeanour in normal life.
I remember when we had our little 'un, Mrs J would have done anything to get more pain relief. If it's a first child, then there's a whole host of emotions: fear, joy, pain, tiredness, fatigue, all interplaying.
NEW: Keir Starmer has abandoned his controversial electoral college reforms overnight.
A spokesman says he will still bring other measures to "better connect us with working people and re-orient us toward the voters who can take us to power".
But Angela Rayner has plans, and ones that could go down very well with the Brexity workers. She is one canny politician. Never mistake lack of formal education with lack of intelligence.
Listenin’ to her this mornin’ was interestin’. Snobbish point? Maybe. Thatcher took voice lessons to improve her chances, I wonder if Rayner might consider it, or if she feels the way she speaks is part of who she is?
I think that it is part of who she is and she won't change it, any more than she would change her dress sense. She is a bit of a rarity in the Labour Party, a conviction politician with a plan.
I would love to agree; Angela Rayner has really good qualities. Her interview on R4 Today just now was a good display of this. But there are two difficulties when looking at electability and image at GE or next leader time.
Her simple clarity and conviction are great. But this makes it all the more obvious, and toe curling, when, as this morning, she goes into evasion mode.
And it is obvious that she wants to answer, with conviction, simplicity and clarity, every single question except the ones the interviewer, and listener, want her to answer. The top flight political geniuses hide this better.
A more general Labour difficulty; by this point Blair could answer policy questions with: I have a better one than the Tories and here it is. Labour is not anywhere close yet to that position.
To me.. she comes across as thick as two short planks..how she got where she us is a matter for comjecture.
Never confuse lack of formal education with lack of intelligence. snip
I am increasingly coming to see formal education as almost meaningless. My wife and I had a long discussion about this recently. We are both very highly educated (to postgraduate level) but have come to find educated people we encounter as full of themselves and stupid. By contrast people with little formal post compulsory education or vocational qualifications only are actually more civilised on a day to day level and much easier to get along with.
The worst example of this in a full maternity ward, over capacity, under pressure - with a queue of expectant mothers waiting to be induced. A woman came in and demanded that she could jump the que because she got a first from university - completely ridiculous.
I am not a fan of Rayner, but don't hold her lack of educational achievement against her in any way.
Bloody hell, that is utterly unbelievable.
Everybody knows that graduates of the University of Oxford get induced first irrespective of the class of degree awarded.
Holyrood should have the power to ban arm sales and block wars involving Scottish troops, according to a left-wing Labour MSP.
Katy Clark believes devolving powers over foreign affairs and defence should be part of a package of measures designed to boost the parliament’s powers.
NEW: Keir Starmer has abandoned his controversial electoral college reforms overnight.
A spokesman says he will still bring other measures to "better connect us with working people and re-orient us toward the voters who can take us to power".
But Angela Rayner has plans, and ones that could go down very well with the Brexity workers. She is one canny politician. Never mistake lack of formal education with lack of intelligence.
Listenin’ to her this mornin’ was interestin’. Snobbish point? Maybe. Thatcher took voice lessons to improve her chances, I wonder if Rayner might consider it, or if she feels the way she speaks is part of who she is?
I think that it is part of who she is and she won't change it, any more than she would change her dress sense. She is a bit of a rarity in the Labour Party, a conviction politician with a plan.
I would love to agree; Angela Rayner has really good qualities. Her interview on R4 Today just now was a good display of this. But there are two difficulties when looking at electability and image at GE or next leader time.
Her simple clarity and conviction are great. But this makes it all the more obvious, and toe curling, when, as this morning, she goes into evasion mode.
And it is obvious that she wants to answer, with conviction, simplicity and clarity, every single question except the ones the interviewer, and listener, want her to answer. The top flight political geniuses hide this better.
A more general Labour difficulty; by this point Blair could answer policy questions with: I have a better one than the Tories and here it is. Labour is not anywhere close yet to that position.
To me.. she comes across as thick as two short planks..how she got where she us is a matter for comjecture.
Never confuse lack of formal education with lack of intelligence. snip
I am increasingly coming to see formal education as almost meaningless. My wife and I had a long discussion about this recently. We are both very highly educated (to postgraduate level) but have come to find educated people we encounter as full of themselves and stupid. By contrast people with little formal post compulsory education or vocational qualifications only are actually more civilised on a day to day level and much easier to get along with.
The worst example of this in a full maternity ward, over capacity, under pressure - with a queue of expectant mothers waiting to be induced. A woman came in and demanded that she could jump the que because she got a first from university - completely ridiculous.
I am not a fan of Rayner, but don't hold her lack of educational achievement against her in any way.
I generally agree with that. However in defence of that woman, a maternity ward can be a stressful environment, and people can react oddly to stress. Many don't think clearly, or even act rationally. It might be that she has quite the opposite demeanour in normal life.
I remember when we had our little 'un, Mrs J would have done anything to get more pain relief. If it's a first child, then there's a whole host of emotions: fear, joy, pain, tiredness, fatigue, all interplaying.
On the basis of the new 20% threshold requirement being proposed by Starmer - and now approved by the NEC - re- MP nominations needed to be a leadership candidate, Starmer would have been elected unopposed in Spring 2020. Not sure that looks democratic.
The other thing I have noticed from the last few days in and out of central London is a big move back to the office, led by young people who are DONE with WFH
General opinion: "WFH was fun for a while, but it's lonely, humourless and boring, and you don't meet any new friends or lovers"
They'd quite like the option of a day or two at home a week, but they are now keen to resume normal working life, despite the commute
I have wfh for years and, when I used to go into the city to meet people, I must admit it made me feel like I’d been missing out. Doesn’t matter now as a happily almost married man, but if I were 20 years younger and single, it would be no fun
Quite. If you're 23 or 27 and single and living in outer London who the F wants to stay at home all week?! Where's the fun in traipsing to the local Aldi for a sandwich? Then home again
38 or 45 with kids, spouse and a garden, entirely different, but even then some will want the escape of the office, city life, bars and restaurants, cool shops and a cheeky lunch
I spoke to a WeWork executive tonight (I had a sociable evening) and he said the attitude for them has entirely changed, WFH is not gonna last, on the scale we anticipated, because those who don't go in to the office will miss out on those chance meetings/opportunities/promotions
Those who go in will simply appear keener, and develop helpful human relationships, and they will get ahead. It is so much easier to sack someone you have never actually met. It is so much easier to promote someone you have actually met who has made you laugh, or told you some decent gossip. Someone you LIKE, because you've known them, touched them, had a drink with them. We are social animals
There will be more flexibility re commuting, but this person (whose very job depends on predicting work/life patterns) thinks WFH will wither, certainly for young people
Yes, tend to agree. I worked in London most of 94-09 and was single for a lot of it, so done my bit and don’t mind the quieter life now.
Also, how many young fathers really want to stay home 24/7 with a squalling brat or two? How many see the office as a blissful escape from the utter tedium of early parenting?
A lot. Not a happy fact. But a lot
I have 3 kids aged 12, 8 and 3. I have spent the last 18 months WFH included a job change a year ago. I have not met anyone from work face to face in that time.
What I find the hardest is the instant switch between work and kids with no break. The moment I get the last kid off in the morning it is the few minutes back home and then straight to work. Then at the end of the day you close your laptop screen and straight into kids meals, activities etc. There is no time at all to yourself when not working. I am quite exhausted by it and there isn't much end in sight for me. My role is European and until I can travel properly again then things won't change.
I would like to see some work colleagues again in the flesh but wouldn't ever want to go back to being in 4 or 5 days/week. I completely understand it being different for the young workers. What will be interesting is how it is balanced between the (older) management wanting to be at home a few days each week and the youngsters who are in most days.
I have a v similar issue in that I used to wfh, but live alone - when I have had a day of bad results/losing money, I used to have a little chill out before getting on with my plans for the evening. Now I walk straight into the front room and my missus is stressed after looking after our son all day, he is excited to see me ( ) and I dont want to be narky with him. But it wouldnt do for me to say "I'm just popping out for a walk round the block for half an hour" when my gf needs a break from parenting
Walked past the petrol station near my parents on the way there just now, a tanker was in the station (Esso) already a queue building on the main road. People are idiots. I wonder how many days this one will take to pass. I'm guessing by Tuesday when people see that the petrol pumps are still running they'll give up the idiotic panic buying.
Look on the bright side - we've created a strategic petrol/diesel reserve, in 31,700,000 individual fuel tanks.
And think of the unexpected tax-take bonanza …
Not really, the spending is only being brought forwards. People aren't suddenly going to drive more.
But brought forward from an infinite time in the future. It’s a stock & flow question
No, brought forwards from the immediate future. In a couple of weeks forecourts will be watching tumbleweed in between the few commuters and Uber drivers fill up.
Nah - most people drive a bit, so there will be a smoothing flow.
It’s not like TP where you buy a bulk load and then usage is slow
NEW: Keir Starmer has abandoned his controversial electoral college reforms overnight.
A spokesman says he will still bring other measures to "better connect us with working people and re-orient us toward the voters who can take us to power".
But Angela Rayner has plans, and ones that could go down very well with the Brexity workers. She is one canny politician. Never mistake lack of formal education with lack of intelligence.
Listenin’ to her this mornin’ was interestin’. Snobbish point? Maybe. Thatcher took voice lessons to improve her chances, I wonder if Rayner might consider it, or if she feels the way she speaks is part of who she is?
I think that it is part of who she is and she won't change it, any more than she would change her dress sense. She is a bit of a rarity in the Labour Party, a conviction politician with a plan.
I would love to agree; Angela Rayner has really good qualities. Her interview on R4 Today just now was a good display of this. But there are two difficulties when looking at electability and image at GE or next leader time.
Her simple clarity and conviction are great. But this makes it all the more obvious, and toe curling, when, as this morning, she goes into evasion mode.
And it is obvious that she wants to answer, with conviction, simplicity and clarity, every single question except the ones the interviewer, and listener, want her to answer. The top flight political geniuses hide this better.
A more general Labour difficulty; by this point Blair could answer policy questions with: I have a better one than the Tories and here it is. Labour is not anywhere close yet to that position.
To me.. she comes across as thick as two short planks..how she got where she us is a matter for comjecture.
Never confuse lack of formal education with lack of intelligence. snip
I am increasingly coming to see formal education as almost meaningless. My wife and I had a long discussion about this recently. We are both very highly educated (to postgraduate level) but have come to find educated people we encounter as full of themselves and stupid. By contrast people with little formal post compulsory education or vocational qualifications only are actually more civilised on a day to day level and much easier to get along with.
The worst example of this in a full maternity ward, over capacity, under pressure - with a queue of expectant mothers waiting to be induced. A woman came in and demanded that she could jump the que because she got a first from university - completely ridiculous.
I am not a fan of Rayner, but don't hold her lack of educational achievement against her in any way.
I generally agree with that. However in defence of that woman, a maternity ward can be a stressful environment, and people can react oddly to stress. Many don't think clearly, or even act rationally. It might be that she has quite the opposite demeanour in normal life.
I remember when we had our little 'un, Mrs J would have done anything to get more pain relief. If it's a first child, then there's a whole host of emotions: fear, joy, pain, tiredness, fatigue, all interplaying.
Undefendable, an obnoxious rear end
If you want to be uncharitable, perhaps.
An anecdote: a relative of mine is a nurse in private industry. One day she had to deal with a patient who she knew: a pleasant lady, the sort who nobody had anything bad to say about. But when in pain, she was apparently like a wild banshee, in voice and violence.
My relative had had no indication the lady had anything like it in her.
People put under stress can behave very oddly. It's important to look at our own behaviour, realise this, and try to counter it when placed under stress. And a maternity ward is a strange worrying and stressful place for many of us, perhaps especially for first time mothers. A place of hope and joy, but also concern.
We need a worst-case scenario plan for the death of American democracy.
There's going to be a lot of violence during 2024 and after. A hell of a lot. If Trump engineers a win then I expect some states to leave the union and there will be blood.
Maybe it's my hangover but I am feeling very bleak today about American's prospects of remaining a stable democracy. It is just incredible that so many GOP members and voters don't want to live in a democracy; they want to live in a Trump monarchy dictatorship and they are prepared to work to undermine democracy to get that result. Seems all this love of the constitution and their way of life as free citizens in a republic was all bullshit.
Many are happy with a golf club semi fascist state; the better choice to (what they see as) a communist dictatorship under the democrats. Both sides are completely crazy. Maybe the answer is to split the country in to two.
In what way are the Democrats “completely crazy”. None of their politics seems particularly out of line with (say) European norms.
There’s only one party that’s gone completely batshit in the US & that’s the one questioning the results of legitimately held elections.
(Putting the obviously rejoinder that all politicians are slightly mad because it’s a necessary pre-requisite for wanting the job aside for the moment...)
The short answer is.... As much as I would like to, I don't have time to explain. I need to do something productive with my day. I am unhealthy, and need to go to the gym, and time is running out for this.
However, if you think everything is back to post war democratic norms under Biden and the democrats, I can only suggest that you read the article below, and consider the question further.
The claim in the article is that the police officer who was filmed kneeling on a suspect's neck until the suspect died was unjustly convicted, because you may have a reasonable doubt that the death was caused by the kneeling on his neck, rather than an unrelated heart attack. You can agree with this if you like, but for many decades people have been routinely convicted of murder on far weaker grounds than that, so it's fairly ridiculous to think that it suddenly shows justice going off the rails.
It's gibberish. If Floyd hadn't been so unhealthy he might well have survived, but there's a very clear principle in English law called the eggshell skull rule, or taking your victim as you find him, which says tough, that's irrelevant.
On the basis of the new 20% threshold requirement being proposed by Starmer - and now approved by the NEC - re- MP nominations needed to be a leadership candidate, Starmer would have been elected unopposed in Spring 2020. Not sure that looks democratic.
Maybe, but the election of Corbyn, who had absolutely minimal support in the PLP, casts a long shadow. I do think that the Tories have this right. The final candidates for the membership have got to be acceptable to the MPs they are going to lead.
Have backed Usyk. And the draw. Not only because I hate short odds on favourites in a boxing match. Or because I signed up to bet Victor with a promotional 50/1 (for a pound) offer on AJ to win which is a decent hedge to say the least.
No doubt that Usyk is by far the better boxer and despite AJ having slimmed down and therefore being (a bit) less likely to gas I don't think AJ is going to be able to match him.
He has a choice. Steamroll to start and hope to get the ko early before he gasses or fight behind the jab a la Ruiz II. But Usyk is trickier than Ruiz and a better technician. So he might find he doesn't get the opening he would be waiting for. Which would leave him trying to move forward in the late rounds but that is where his stamina might be suspect despite the weight loss.
I mean AJ is AJ and if he lands then it will be goodnight Kyiv.
But I still fancy Usyk or for them to fight it out to the end with rounds even.
Is there anything to stop Rishi putting a tax on electricity from public charge points to continue to pivot away from petrol / diesel taxes?
They must all have meters, surely?
The problem with taxing electricity is that there is so much of it about. Plug you car into a wall socket at home and it will charge overnight - enough for many uses. Minor bit of electrical work and you can pull 32A, no problem. and then you are really off to the races......
This is why civil servants were briefing about how a hydrogen economy would be better from the late 90s onwards.
I was working for an oil company that took the green revolution quite seriously. At one point, if you bought solar cells in Europe, you were probably buying from us. They were quite clear internally, and in various briefings that a big advantage for government of the hydrogen economy would be control and taxation.
That's true, but public charge points get use even now - even though the cost is approx. 40-250% more than home charging.
And if it makes more people install their own, then that is also a massive plus, and takes the load off the public network.
Win-win?
Say, 2-4p tax per unit, which could subsequently be increased?
Trouble is that this just stiffs those unfortunate enough to both own an EV and not have home parking where they can install a charger. If the government keeps pushing EVs, that's going to be a lot of (mostly poorer) people.
Running an EV from the public charging network is about as expensive as running an ICE vehicle now, despite the fact that 2/3rds of the ICE fuel cost is tax. Its also massively more inconvenient.
If you wanted an approximation to fuel duty for EVs, one could possibly heavily tax new tyres fitted to them, given that the approximate mileage a tyre lasts is a pretty known quantity. This does come with a few drawbacks - we wouldn't want to incentivse people to run round on bald tyres, and paying for your "fuel duty" in 10-20k miles increments might sting a bit. Also, we'd have to find some way to identify tyres fitted to EVs vs ICEs so people didn't take to having tyres fitted to ICE vehicles then swapping them over (unless we made this change universal, and abolished fuel duty at the same time).
The other day it was strongly argued on PB that electric cars were too expensive to be afforded by poorer people, so I am not sure about that aspect.
Also, I wonder if a little pressure on the margins of charging network providers would be such a bad thing.
In the UK the number of people without off street parking is actually quite small - something like a third only.
I don't think a special tyre tax would work, as it would be safety affecting.
At the costs mentioned above, it is an amount lower than or equivalent to the VED on a normal, small ICE car..
On the fuel thing - pretty soon everyone inclined to panic buy will have a full tank. Then demand will be lower than normal for a few days - it's harder for domestic households to stockpile fuel than bog roll - and so the fuel stations will all be full of fuel again.
There's a limit to how far this crisis can escalate. It's very different to 2000.
It depends whether the shortages are temporary or permanent. Note the government is not doing anything effective to address the shortages nor seems to have the will to prioritise measures that would ease shortages. I that sense it is different from 2000 when drivers only had to return to work for the issue to go away. OTOH I don't think it will continue as a crisis. More likely endemic inefficiency .
I am glad I ignored the "what crisis?" brigade on PB last night and filled up in Calais. On the way home fuel stations either had "no fuel - shop only" signs or long queues, which on the A3 extended back onto the road itself. And the M25 gantries are full of warnings of upcoming services with no fuel.
Is there anything to stop Rishi putting a tax on electricity from public charge points to continue to pivot away from petrol / diesel taxes?
They must all have meters, surely?
The problem with taxing electricity is that there is so much of it about. Plug you car into a wall socket at home and it will charge overnight - enough for many uses. Minor bit of electrical work and you can pull 32A, no problem. and then you are really off to the races......
This is why civil servants were briefing about how a hydrogen economy would be better from the late 90s onwards.
I was working for an oil company that took the green revolution quite seriously. At one point, if you bought solar cells in Europe, you were probably buying from us. They were quite clear internally, and in various briefings that a big advantage for government of the hydrogen economy would be control and taxation.
That's true, but public charge points get use even now - even though the cost is approx. 40-250% more than home charging.
And if it makes more people install their own, then that is also a massive plus, and takes the load off the public network.
Win-win?
Say, 2-4p tax per unit, which could subsequently be increased?
Trouble is that this just stiffs those unfortunate enough to both own an EV and not have home parking where they can install a charger. If the government keeps pushing EVs, that's going to be a lot of (mostly poorer) people.
Running an EV from the public charging network is about as expensive as running an ICE vehicle now, despite the fact that 2/3rds of the ICE fuel cost is tax. Its also massively more inconvenient.
If you wanted an approximation to fuel duty for EVs, one could possibly heavily tax new tyres fitted to them, given that the approximate mileage a tyre lasts is a pretty known quantity. This does come with a few drawbacks - we wouldn't want to incentivse people to run round on bald tyres, and paying for your "fuel duty" in 10-20k miles increments might sting a bit. Also, we'd have to find some way to identify tyres fitted to EVs vs ICEs so people didn't take to having tyres fitted to ICE vehicles then swapping them over (unless we made this change universal, and abolished fuel duty at the same time).
The other day it was strongly argued on PB that electric cars were too expensive to be afforded by poorer people, so I am not sure about that aspect.
Also, I wonder if a little pressure on the margins of charging network providers would be such a bad thing.
In the UK the number of people without off street parking is actually quite small - something like a third only.
I don't think a special tyre tax would work, as it would be safety affecting.
At the costs mentioned above, it is an amount lower than or equivalent to the VED on a normal, small ICE car..
My tongue was somewhat in my cheek as I suggested taxing tyres.
Motoring for poor (and tight fisted) people looks likely to be very expensive when they are lumbered with EVs, because it seems unlikely that those being built currently will be any good as old bangers changing hands for sub £1500 in 10 - 15 years time.
These sorts of people disproportionatly tend to live in places without off road parking. Going "it's only a third of the country" kind of misses that this is an awful lot of people! Hitting those (and pretty much just those) people with an extra cost over their (already overpriced) charging seems particularly unfair.
I've no idea what margins one makes as charger operators, but I'd guess not a lot. I think typically they are getting earning £10-20 an hour with a car connected, from which the electricity costs need deducting. A lot depends on the utilisation, but the ones I know of round here seem mostly empty. 10% utilisation is probably optimistic (given that they will almost certainly only have one car attached all night at best), so maybe net earnings of £20-40 a day, from which they have to pay for the initial installation, maintenance, repairing vandalism etc... It's not a business model I'd be rushing to invest in, let's put it that way!
On the fuel thing - pretty soon everyone inclined to panic buy will have a full tank. Then demand will be lower than normal for a few days - it's harder for domestic households to stockpile fuel than bog roll - and so the fuel stations will all be full of fuel again.
There's a limit to how far this crisis can escalate. It's very different to 2000.
It depends whether the shortages are temporary or permanent. Note the government is not doing anything effective to address the shortages nor seems to have the will to prioritise measures that would ease shortages. I that sense it is different from 2000 when drivers only had to return to work for the issue to go away. OTOH I don't think it will continue as a crisis. More likely endemic inefficiency .
But the point is the shortages are minimal, it's just been massively blown out of proportion.
Get in Lando! McLaren are back, and Lando won't be easy to overtake tomorrow. Lewis will get past George and Carlos pretty rapidly, the McLaren won't be as easy a mark.
On the fuel thing - pretty soon everyone inclined to panic buy will have a full tank. Then demand will be lower than normal for a few days - it's harder for domestic households to stockpile fuel than bog roll - and so the fuel stations will all be full of fuel again.
There's a limit to how far this crisis can escalate. It's very different to 2000.
It depends whether the shortages are temporary or permanent. Note the government is not doing anything effective to address the shortages nor seems to have the will to prioritise measures that would ease shortages. I that sense it is different from 2000 when drivers only had to return to work for the issue to go away. OTOH I don't think it will continue as a crisis. More likely endemic inefficiency .
Stephen Bush @stephenkb · 17m Breakthrough at Tulo: MP nominations threshold for leadership election and challenge raised, registered supporters ditched, deselection made harder. Electoral college: dead.
Yes, Starmer will be happy with all of that. I'm not sure why his manoeuvres have attracted such opprobrium on here. He was always unlikely to get changes to the electoral college through Conference, so it isn't coming to Conference. We try to do a bit of democratic decision making in Labour. It would have been much worse to proceed with this, as it would dominate Conference and he'd probably have lost. The TUs have apparently said no, so he's pulled it. It's really not some great defeat. But he's had a very significant victory in the changes outlined above. He's strengthened his grip on the party.
You say it’s democratic. And then celebrate the leader “strengthening his grip” by changing the rules… seems a bit of a philosophical disconnect
Not at all. You don't understand, but I should have been clearer. The rule changes Starmer wants will have to be democratically approved by Conference; they could, of course, be rejected. But in my post I assumed that he will win the votes to bring about his desired changes and hence strengthen his grip.
I got that - I just find it ironic that people vote democratically to make things less democratic.
On the fuel thing - pretty soon everyone inclined to panic buy will have a full tank. Then demand will be lower than normal for a few days - it's harder for domestic households to stockpile fuel than bog roll - and so the fuel stations will all be full of fuel again.
There's a limit to how far this crisis can escalate. It's very different to 2000.
It depends whether the shortages are temporary or permanent. Note the government is not doing anything effective to address the shortages nor seems to have the will to prioritise measures that would ease shortages. I that sense it is different from 2000 when drivers only had to return to work for the issue to go away. OTOH I don't think it will continue as a crisis. More likely endemic inefficiency .
A couple of folk got on my tip of a value bet of Catalans Dragons at 3-1 to win RL Grand Final a few weeks ago. Good news! The odds are still bizarrely skewed. For the semi they are at home to Hull KR, who finished sixth. They are 1-3 to win this game against a team who had nine first teamers out last night, while Les Dracs had the week off in the South of France. Win this and they are in the GF. Their odds to win the GF are still 11/4. Which I don't have to tell you is equivalent c 9/5 to win a one off game at a neutral ground. Remember Catalans finished top of the league. So really ought to be favourites, or close to. 6-4 is generous imho. As ever, DYOR.
Odds from Paddy Power. Oddschecker hasn't updated as of yet.
Mr. Max, partly agree. Sainz may be tricky for Hamilton.
That assumes he doesn't get a penalty for changing bits and pieces, if that's necessary.
I always make a preliminary list of bets to check, and Norris winning is one of them.
If Hamilton starts behind Riccardo for changing bits on the car then he's in trouble. It's Mercedes power vs Mercedes power and the McLaren is faster in a straight line. Even with DRS Hamilton will have to use a lot of tyre to make a pass so by the time he gets to Lando he might not be able to make the overtake.
On the fuel thing - pretty soon everyone inclined to panic buy will have a full tank. Then demand will be lower than normal for a few days - it's harder for domestic households to stockpile fuel than bog roll - and so the fuel stations will all be full of fuel again.
There's a limit to how far this crisis can escalate. It's very different to 2000.
It depends whether the shortages are temporary or permanent. Note the government is not doing anything effective to address the shortages nor seems to have the will to prioritise measures that would ease shortages. I that sense it is different from 2000 when drivers only had to return to work for the issue to go away. OTOH I don't think it will continue as a crisis. More likely endemic inefficiency .
On the fuel thing - pretty soon everyone inclined to panic buy will have a full tank. Then demand will be lower than normal for a few days - it's harder for domestic households to stockpile fuel than bog roll - and so the fuel stations will all be full of fuel again.
There's a limit to how far this crisis can escalate. It's very different to 2000.
It depends whether the shortages are temporary or permanent. Note the government is not doing anything effective to address the shortages nor seems to have the will to prioritise measures that would ease shortages. I that sense it is different from 2000 when drivers only had to return to work for the issue to go away. OTOH I don't think it will continue as a crisis. More likely endemic inefficiency .
But the point is the shortages are minimal, it's just been massively blown out of proportion.
I suspect that's the case. People will learn to live with shortages, if they do continue. Supermarket shortages, which are real enough in my part of Scotland, don't significantly affect my lifestyle. If you go into a supermarket that's almost run out of meat, you can go to another one that does have it. Or stock up with things when they are available.
So the government wants to relax rules for EU drivers to save Bozos skin after he led a campaign which told those same drivers to get lost and go back home.
And then the visas are time limited and the message will then be get lost now .
So the government wants to relax rules for EU drivers to save Bozos skin after he led a campaign which told those same drivers to get lost and go back home.
And then the visas are time limited and the message will then be get lost now .
Good morning
HMG new visa quota scheme was brought in post Brexit and applies worldwide, not just to the EU
It applies to specific need and has a minimum salary of £25,600
This is the brexit dividend which would not have been permissible under the EU freedom of movement and is working as designed for our post Brexit labour needs
As predicted the cheerleaders who supported the government not allowing foreign lorry drivers in, now support the allowing the foreign lorry drivers in.
It is almost as if the policies don't matter, just the colour of the rosette.
This has been the conservative policy throughout and is now being applied to the need
I see is as complete vindication for Brexit and it is working as designed
I must congratulate you. You’ve got the Comical Ali tribute off to a tee!
I have to say, with the greatest of respect, those trying to dismiss this are those who have not accepted brexit and think this is a way to undermine it, with the vain hope we will rejoin
Just so we're clear...
Is there any degree of Brexit fallout which would make it legitimate to say "hey guys, this may be something we need to reverse"?
Is there any degree of swing in public opinion where it would be legitimate for a UK government to reverse Brexit?
I don't think we're anywhere near either of those conditions right now, and those on the fringes who are arguing for a quick rejoin are probably doing more harm than good to their cause. And there's plenty of prickles that the UK could remove.
But to say "this policy is irreversible, permanent for all time" flies in the face of history, doesn't it? Governments of all colours have thought they had changed things forever and proved wrong.
It also takes away agency and sovereignty from future generations, which is a pretty selfish thing for this generation of voters to be doing.
If the policy of the Johnson government succeeds, it will deservedly stick. If it fails, it equally deservedly won't. That's democracy, and trying to shut down inconvenient voices isn't.
Indeed, this is a government of U turns, so what is implausible about the biggest U turn of all?
In the last months we have decided that the NI protocol is unworkable, that we cannot run inbound customs at the Channel, and now that we need to import European workers.
I don't think Rejoin is on the agenda yet for a major party (celtic nationalists apart) but I can see that it won't just be the LDs wanting much closer alignment to the Single Market.
After the way we have shit the bed in the last 5 years the most I hope for in my lifetime is a rejoin to the SM and CU with some sort of face saving way of us having some sort of influence on the rules. Unless there is a wholesale change in UK politics I don't think we would ever be fully readmitted (and without electoral reform that's not coming) . We have to remember it took some pleading to get membership in the first place.....
NEW: Keir Starmer has abandoned his controversial electoral college reforms overnight.
A spokesman says he will still bring other measures to "better connect us with working people and re-orient us toward the voters who can take us to power".
But Angela Rayner has plans, and ones that could go down very well with the Brexity workers. She is one canny politician. Never mistake lack of formal education with lack of intelligence.
Listenin’ to her this mornin’ was interestin’. Snobbish point? Maybe. Thatcher took voice lessons to improve her chances, I wonder if Rayner might consider it, or if she feels the way she speaks is part of who she is?
I think that it is part of who she is and she won't change it, any more than she would change her dress sense. She is a bit of a rarity in the Labour Party, a conviction politician with a plan.
I would love to agree; Angela Rayner has really good qualities. Her interview on R4 Today just now was a good display of this. But there are two difficulties when looking at electability and image at GE or next leader time.
Her simple clarity and conviction are great. But this makes it all the more obvious, and toe curling, when, as this morning, she goes into evasion mode.
And it is obvious that she wants to answer, with conviction, simplicity and clarity, every single question except the ones the interviewer, and listener, want her to answer. The top flight political geniuses hide this better.
A more general Labour difficulty; by this point Blair could answer policy questions with: I have a better one than the Tories and here it is. Labour is not anywhere close yet to that position.
To me.. she comes across as thick as two short planks..how she got where she us is a matter for comjecture.
Never confuse lack of formal education with lack of intelligence. snip
I am increasingly coming to see formal education as almost meaningless. My wife and I had a long discussion about this recently. We are both very highly educated (to postgraduate level) but have come to find educated people we encounter as full of themselves and stupid. By contrast people with little formal post compulsory education or vocational qualifications only are actually more civilised on a day to day level and much easier to get along with.
The worst example of this in a full maternity ward, over capacity, under pressure - with a queue of expectant mothers waiting to be induced. A woman came in and demanded that she could jump the que because she got a first from university - completely ridiculous.
I am not a fan of Rayner, but don't hold her lack of educational achievement against her in any way.
I generally agree with that. However in defence of that woman, a maternity ward can be a stressful environment, and people can react oddly to stress. Many don't think clearly, or even act rationally. It might be that she has quite the opposite demeanour in normal life.
I remember when we had our little 'un, Mrs J would have done anything to get more pain relief. If it's a first child, then there's a whole host of emotions: fear, joy, pain, tiredness, fatigue, all interplaying.
@JosiasJessop Not in this case, unfortunately. I thought the same originally. Later on, same woman (and group of obnoxious friends) turned up at a mother and baby group organised by a neighbour of ours. Report from my wife was that the first class degree woman drank free coffee and cake, made a massive mess, let the other siblings run wild and then disappeared without clearing up or saying thanks.
I can think of other examples from the public realm. Can't find it, but there was a university lecturer complaining on twitter that her daughters reception teacher was referring to her as "mum" at the end of the school day, rather than by her actual first name. Thought that it was somehow dehumanising for her. How is a reception teacher meant to memorise the first names of all the childrens parents? They've got more important things to do.
Just had surgery cancelled for the 2nd time. Only found out about it when I went for the pre-surgery Covid swab.
Really sick of it now.
Sorry to hear that. Hope it gets resolved soon.
Husband got called in to ENT yesterday morning. Consultant wants to give him a barium meal as thinks there may be something else going on with his throat. So the worry scale has been turned up a notch again. Still, at least the hospital seems to be working a bit more effectively now.
Sounds wise to look into it further, it sounds a rather minor insult to set off so severe symptoms. Best wishes to Mr @Cyclefree
is working as designed for our post Brexit labour needs
BoZo just abandoned it
You just do not accept we have left the EU and the visa quota scheme addresses our labour needs with minimum salary of £25,600 and can apply worldwide and is specific
You would rather use cheap EU labour to keep down wages to the detriment of our low paid
It is a disgrace anyone would want that again
I'll ask again, since everyone making this claim seems to go to ground when I've previously asked: where is the evidence that low-paid wages have gone up since Brexit?
I tried a few times recently to get to the bottom of this claim, but all I've seen is a wage slump and rebound due to Covid. I don't know if you're right or wrong, but they way you and others keep dodging the question is making me suspicious.
And now I really do have to go.
Not a single attempt to back that claim up then? I'm now going to work on the assumption that it's a lie.
What do you think happens in the real world when demand outstrips supply ?
Prices rise.
So what do you think happens when demand for labour outstrips supply ?
Pay rates rise.
So do you think record vacancies plus 'all the Eastern Europeans have gone home' are having no effect ?
Pay rates for *that particular job* rise. However for anybody doing a different job producing something that has to be carried in a lorry pay rates drop, because the shortage means that less stuff is being produced and taken to buyers. The net effect definitely makes consumers overall poorer, and may well make non-immigrant workers in general poorer.
That really is zero sum gibberish.
Supplier costs have increased to my employer but that hasn't stopped pay rates rising and more workers being employed.
The point I'm making is precisely that the economy *isn't* zero-sum. If you make part of it less efficient, for example by not having enough lorry drivers, you reduce the productivity of everyone whose work relies on something being carried in lorries compared to what it would have been otherwise. Someone has to pay for that loss of productivity; The optimistic case for low-paid workers is that it's all passed on to consumers and higher-paid workers, but there's no necessary reason why that should be how it works out.
You know the economy has to be zero sum. However what matters is the activity in the economy. In the past a average person spent perhaps a couple of handfuls of wheat a day - now it's more like a couple of hundred kg. (Making these numbers up, but you get the point)
Comments
Apart from kneeling on a bloke's neck for 9 minutes till he died.
That a white man in authority is not given a ludicrously generous definition of "reasonable doubt", in the same way that doubtless Black men are afforded every single day, is a sure sign of a Woke society rampantly oppressing its majority population.
Umpteen elements of vaccines, resolving the USA Airbus / Scotch Whisky dispute, trade deals with Australia, ambitious green targets, stopping using peat, and now they are all rabbiting on about how they will do their own "tilt to the Indo-Pacific".
If they let us continue to allow us to set their agenda, the EU is going nowhere.
It needs to start by ditching the butthurt vanity, and setting its own agenda.
Holyrood should have the power to ban arm sales and block wars involving Scottish troops, according to a left-wing Labour MSP.
Katy Clark believes devolving powers over foreign affairs and defence should be part of a package of measures designed to boost the parliament’s powers.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/holyrood-should-veto-uk-defence-25066498
Why don't they focus on using the powers they already have, rather than bleating about new ones?
And if it makes more people install their own, then that is also a massive plus, and takes the load off the public network.
Win-win?
Say, 2-4p tax per unit, which could subsequently be increased?
Supplier costs have increased to my employer but that hasn't stopped pay rates rising and more workers being employed.
It's not fair! This is not cuddly Boris' fault!
It is the fault of 24hour news, the tabloids and the entire voting public who are panic buying fuel!
Once again. It is not Boris' fault...or Brexit...
And how much of an effect that had is unknown but we do know that the school restrictions had economic, educational and social costs.
"... we’re just learning how big problems European immigrants were for Britain now that we’re facing a life without it. It could do worse than study our food processing factories to gain insight into how the EU’s free-moving era changed parts of the economy.
Allen says the salaries of new employees are already rising. “Two years ago it was £ 18,000, but now it’s £ 22,000 to advertise beginner-level jobs.” He talks to members about changing the way they work, but warns that it won’t be easy. Eamon O’Hearn, National Officer of GMB Union, has “some sympathy” as employers in this sector are low-margin, high-volume companies and constantly under pressure from strong supermarkets. It states that there is.British meat Cheapest In Western Europe. “I don’t think we can discuss or review what work-life balance means in our community without addressing the market power of retailers,” he says.
It is dishonest for employers to say that British people will never do these jobs. Still, it’s naive to believe that if they simply raise wages and reduce profits, their problems will go away overnight. In this area, the era of free movement has influenced everything from work rhythms, safety and location to familiar prices in stores."
https://londonnewstime.com/the-end-of-eu-immigration-will-reshape-the-uk-economy/337062/
The costs will be spread among the users of the relevant output.
There will be variation in the winners and losers.
In general it will be a wealth transfer from non-workers to workers.
Something which is long overdue IMO.
The thing I always found gobsmacking was that Tesco built a "negotiating centre" where, in carefully designed rooms, teams of Tesco negotiators would er... negotiate with a single representative of the suppliers. Said centre was designed using information from police and other interrogation centres.
The response to this.... crickets.
And people wonder why conditions at the suppliers got a bit bad....
Running an EV from the public charging network is about as expensive as running an ICE vehicle now, despite the fact that 2/3rds of the ICE fuel cost is tax. Its also massively more inconvenient.
If you wanted an approximation to fuel duty for EVs, one could possibly heavily tax new tyres fitted to them, given that the approximate mileage a tyre lasts is a pretty known quantity.
This does come with a few drawbacks - we wouldn't want to incentivse people to run round on bald tyres, and paying for your "fuel duty" in 10-20k miles increments might sting a bit. Also, we'd have to find some way to identify tyres fitted to EVs vs ICEs so people didn't take to having tyres fitted to ICE vehicles then swapping them over (unless we made this change universal, and abolished fuel duty at the same time).
I remember when we had our little 'un, Mrs J would have done anything to get more pain relief. If it's a first child, then there's a whole host of emotions: fear, joy, pain, tiredness, fatigue, all interplaying.
Everybody knows that graduates of the University of Oxford get induced first irrespective of the class of degree awarded.
Do they… do they know what weekend it is?
https://twitter.com/Geri_E_L_Scott/status/1441718101301608462?s=20
It’s not like TP where you buy a bulk load and then usage is slow
An anecdote: a relative of mine is a nurse in private industry. One day she had to deal with a patient who she knew: a pleasant lady, the sort who nobody had anything bad to say about. But when in pain, she was apparently like a wild banshee, in voice and violence.
My relative had had no indication the lady had anything like it in her.
People put under stress can behave very oddly. It's important to look at our own behaviour, realise this, and try to counter it when placed under stress. And a maternity ward is a strange worrying and stressful place for many of us, perhaps especially for first time mothers. A place of hope and joy, but also concern.
AJ/Usyk.
Have backed Usyk. And the draw. Not only because I hate short odds on favourites in a boxing match. Or because I signed up to bet Victor with a promotional 50/1 (for a pound) offer on AJ to win which is a decent hedge to say the least.
No doubt that Usyk is by far the better boxer and despite AJ having slimmed down and therefore being (a bit) less likely to gas I don't think AJ is going to be able to match him.
He has a choice. Steamroll to start and hope to get the ko early before he gasses or fight behind the jab a la Ruiz II. But Usyk is trickier than Ruiz and a better technician. So he might find he doesn't get the opening he would be waiting for. Which would leave him trying to move forward in the late rounds but that is where his stamina might be suspect despite the weight loss.
I mean AJ is AJ and if he lands then it will be goodnight Kyiv.
But I still fancy Usyk or for them to fight it out to the end with rounds even.
Also, I wonder if a little pressure on the margins of charging network providers would be such a bad thing.
In the UK the number of people without off street parking is actually quite small - something like a third only.
I don't think a special tyre tax would work, as it would be safety affecting.
At the costs mentioned above, it is an amount lower than or equivalent to the VED on a normal, small ICE car..
Who'd have thought it?
Edit: Ha, bloody ha.
Motoring for poor (and tight fisted) people looks likely to be very expensive when they are lumbered with EVs, because it seems unlikely that those being built currently will be any good as old bangers changing hands for sub £1500 in 10 - 15 years time.
These sorts of people disproportionatly tend to live in places without off road parking. Going "it's only a third of the country" kind of misses that this is an awful lot of people!
Hitting those (and pretty much just those) people with an extra cost over their (already overpriced) charging seems particularly unfair.
I've no idea what margins one makes as charger operators, but I'd guess not a lot. I think typically they are getting earning £10-20 an hour with a car connected, from which the electricity costs need deducting. A lot depends on the utilisation, but the ones I know of round here seem mostly empty. 10% utilisation is probably optimistic (given that they will almost certainly only have one car attached all night at best), so maybe net earnings of £20-40 a day, from which they have to pay for the initial installation, maintenance, repairing vandalism etc... It's not a business model I'd be rushing to invest in, let's put it that way!
That assumes he doesn't get a penalty for changing bits and pieces, if that's necessary.
I always make a preliminary list of bets to check, and Norris winning is one of them.
A couple of folk got on my tip of a value bet of Catalans Dragons at 3-1 to win RL Grand Final a few weeks ago.
Good news! The odds are still bizarrely skewed.
For the semi they are at home to Hull KR, who finished sixth. They are 1-3 to win this game against a team who had nine first teamers out last night, while Les Dracs had the week off in the South of France. Win this and they are in the GF.
Their odds to win the GF are still 11/4. Which I don't have to tell you is equivalent c 9/5 to win a one off game at a neutral ground.
Remember Catalans finished top of the league. So really ought to be favourites, or close to. 6-4 is generous imho.
As ever, DYOR.
Odds from Paddy Power. Oddschecker hasn't updated as of yet.
I take it he passed the Australian style points system.
I can think of other examples from the public realm. Can't find it, but there was a university lecturer complaining on twitter that her daughters reception teacher was referring to her as "mum" at the end of the school day, rather than by her actual first name. Thought that it was somehow dehumanising for her. How is a reception teacher meant to memorise the first names of all the childrens parents? They've got more important things to do.