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Post conference speech poll looks positive for Starmer – politicalbetting.com
Post conference speech poll looks positive for Starmer – politicalbetting.com
I never know what to make of quickie polls like this but Opinium’s one following yesterday’s Starmer speech look good for the LAB leader especially when compared with first conference speeches from BoJo and Corbyn.
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Be good if he could sort Labour out so I feel I have a positive choice of parties. Tories need to be kept on their toes.
Yep, a real indicator this one....
I've said before that I tend to really respect jobs that need doing, but I wouldn't want to do myself. At uni I had a friend who had worked in one, and his stories were...interesting. I've also been in one on a few occasions (*), and even though clean and bright, there's something heavy about them, spirit-wise.
Hence, even if it is semi-skilled, abattoir workers should be being paid much more than they are. It's an awful, soul-destroying job.
(*) Abattoirs have sumps where... well, you can guess what ends up in them. Every so often these need cleaning out, so we hired a pump to do it. A pump and pipework that was kept for that express purpose, and was kept on a part of the depot well away from anything else as, even after cleaning, it stank. (AFAICR the sump had its own pump, that would often break down and so they had to hire one in to drain the sump, so some poor sod could go down and fix it.)
Whether anything Starmer has said or done has made any difference, I do not know. The left is there ...and will harry Starmer at every turn.it will be the majing or breaking of him.
I don’t have the polls to hand, but those numbers look to be a very significant improvement.
Next year or so the economy is quite likely to piss off a large part of Johnson’s base. A Starmer alternative is starting to seem as though it might be considerably less unpalatable to voters than was Corbyn.
The proximate cause of this is reportedly coal shortages, but energy is energy, and the Asian region is a very large buyer of gas.
In #Suzhou several factories supplying Apple have reportedly suspended production due to electricity cuts.
https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/1443158297268396035
https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/how-euan-blair-tony-blair-son-multiverse-160-million-pounds-b957838.html
I haven't really had enough sleep to get into a big argument with people who always try to disingenuously trash any data that disagrees with their point of view, but a few tweets, which I am sure will be taken out of context...
https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1443300555011600386?s=21
So we have VIP tickets to the movie tonight, first outing to a cinema for more than two years for me!
I'd like to see Dune but she's not up for that either.
But then that begs another question, of course - are people willing to pay the cost of production?
Maybe the new German Chancellor might want to think about how dependent his country now is on Mr Putin, and his ability to keep his people warm and with power over the next few months.
Good for consumers in the short term, but bad for producers (and therefore, as we are finding out, bad for consumers in the long term).
The problem with oligopolies in the supermarket sector is that they are able to set things in their interests, usually in collusion with the state (bear in mind, these problems first arose under Labour, which is one reason why Labour were big on FOM) who find it useful to tickle their tummies. After all, no government has ever become unpopular by trying to keep food and indeed fuel prices low, and in the long run the other lot will be in office.
Which is why they need breaking up - which makes it doubly unfortunate that no government will do so.
Banking is another example, of course.
Have a good morning.
So he’s creating an incentive by pointing out just how much they need his gas…
Having said that: I probably eat too much meat. As a society, we eat too much meat. Meat is a good part of a balanced diet, but it should not become the majority of a diet - and I fear it is for many people.
I'm unsure how to fix this: but eating less meat and paying more for what we do consume might be good for our diet, our animals, and, perversely, our farmers and animal workers.
But I'm not convinced that a fully vegetarian diet is workable for everyone. Sadly.
Perhaps that is why he is driving a taxi...
in 2020 there were 5,224 suicides in England and Wales
There were 6,051 Covid deaths in the first week of January this year in England and Wales.
There is a simple reality here - British workers don't want the work. Whether it is in factories or care homes or a whole stack of jobs, we don't want them. You can say "pay more" but the point where we stopped wanting to do them relative pay was higher.
I have a lot of sympathy for the Tory thinkers who wrote the "British workers are lazy" book. I have worked for various companies with various facilities where it is clear and obviously true. Eastern Europeans became so popular not because they were cheaper, but because they actually turned up to do the job.
I mean when I was a spotty teenager, thrilled by the gadgets and bikini girls, I loved them and recall that my first cinema experience without parents was to see The Spy Who Loved Me with my friend. But as an adult?
The franchise has a reputation for me of lame sets, dodgy acting and banal, implausible script. All-round a bit ... naff.
If you want to watch an action movie then JB films aren't in the same league as, say, the Bourne movies or the awesome and flawless Mad Max Thunder Road are they?
I hope that's not too controversial so as to make you choke on your cornflakes especially on James Bond Day.
Their vision is a cheap labour, low productivity future where skilled, middle class professionals get a lot of services on the cheap, a good standard of living and the flexibility to move if they so want and the opportunity to sell their services into a bigger market so they can justify a higher price. I mean, from the viewpoint of a professional in London doing financial services etc where they UK is more than competitive you can see why this seems a no brainer but from the viewpoint of a former Labour supporter in the red wall its mainly downside. The absolute refusal to see that suggests to me that winning those supporters back is going to be problematic.
Single Glazing and 200 year old granite walls means cold in winter - there are storage heaters everywhere and even wall-mounted heaters in the toilets. Long term project to replace all the windows will have to wait for next summer when resources allow. In the meantime I have an electric radiator on a smart plug that does the job when heat is needed.
She’s also worried about heating bills, the cost of petrol, and her salary not keeping pace with cost of living.
The idea that the ‘red wall’ are going to be happy with abstract ‘pay rises’ is frankly out of touch and insulting.
I guess the proof will be in the pudding. If wages outpace cost of living at the low end then you might be right but that remains to be seen.
I'm a bit sceptical about log burners except where people have free wood, and enjoy chopping. What will the payback period be?
When it is cheaper to commute to work than pay the £1 a day it might cost to heat a room, then perhaps one needs to reflect
Once upon a time they were light hearted, self-parodic, and tremendous and unserious fun.
However, despite their copying Bourne, or trying to, they are now long, lumbering, taking themselves far too seriously with hugely convoluted plots.
Both the Bond films and Doctor Who have fallen victim to the same phenomenon of believing the hype of a few obsessives.
Edit: the obsessives in the case of Bond being the financiers, mainly.
Supposedly people claim that British workers don't want to work in care for instance, and yet 10 of every 12 care staff are British. 1 in 12 are European and 1 in 12 are non-European. Similar figures exist in many other jobs British workers "don't want to do".
There is no job someone won't take if you offer enough money, and there's no reason to run the country for businesses that can't or won't offer enough money to fill their vacancies.
Nursing. Midwifery. HGV Drivers. Carers. Chefs - there are a stack of skilled professions who simply cannot recruit because of a combination of punitive training costs and low pay/crap conditions when you get there. And thats just skilled work, its even worse with unskilled.
As with 2 decades ago where you couldn't find plumbers, joiners, skilled tradespeople at any price we have a choice. Do we blame people and wait an indefinite period of time for people to be trained up and become available for work? Or do we import the workers because the work needs doing now?
To Make Brexit Work (great slogan btw) we need two things. One - make the points-based immigration system functional. Saying "yer barred" to anyone to pacify the red wall is daft. We need a shit ton of people so give them proper visas not a handful of "fuck off at Christmas" ones. Two - properly invest in skills and education so that we will have a pipeline of our own people coming through to replace migrants. As people can't afford their own training and companies won't due to high turnover, we will have to centralise it, a Manpower Services Commission for the 10s.
Like Dr Who, a couple of decades of rest would not go amiss.
Let companies "invest in people". There's ways to do that and people will stick with good employers - or they can use bonus/bond structures etc to ensure people they 'invest in' sticks with them.
They are designed to make the customer think “if they can afford to waste so much money they must be a safe place to leave my cash”
And last week quite a serious report about lack of nutrition in non-dairy milk.
It is on its what, sixth film? All without the bonkers fanfare.
17% vs 51% for the North
21% vs 48% for Midlands/Wales
And an eye watering 11% vs 68% in Scotland
So not just professionals, nor Southerners.
I'm not sure that the Tories making the higher wages argument are quite clear about what the next few years are likely to bring. It's quite possible we'll see something similar to the wage inflationary 70s. That won't do their electoral prospects much good - particularly with the fixed income pensioner vote.
For now, they seem to be glossing over the likely costs of economic dislocation, and looking only at the upside.
Britain's postwar settlement disguised class and employer-employee relations that were still feudal. The union militancy of the 1970's was the flipside of an almost seigneurially abusive attitude from many large employers compared to countries like Germany or Sweden. Thatcher then "solved" this by a scorched-earth victory for the employers. The alienation in the British Labour market is deep-seated and deep-rooted, and I would very strongly reject blaming that just on the employees.
Shaw: Madam, would you sleep with me for a million pounds?
Actress: My goodness. Well, I'd certainly think about it.
Shaw: Would you sleep with me for a pound?
Actress: Certainly not! What kind of woman do you think I am?!
Shaw: Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.
That is a cost to business running at several billion a year, and the last I saw most of it wasn't actually getting claimed back.
I wonder if Blair Junior makes his cash from clipping the supply side of that?
(Compare with iammoving.com)
Anyhoo - the new Jeremy Hunt.
So what's your price?
Perhaps there is an argument for the government to fund training for a role which is then paid back by companies during someone’s first few years in the role? And would move with them to a new employer?
No shortage of wood to burn down here for many a year.
“Workers of the world unite” was a political slogan not an economic one
Brexit "certainly a contributing factor" to fuel issues UK is facing, says Keir Starmer on Today
"Predicted and predictable" says Labour leader
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58740507
Treasury Sec @SimonClarkeMP reckons labour shortages are nothing to do with Brexit, because to accept that would "take us back to what is quite a negative conversation".
So, if it looks bad, it's not happening. This is why we're in crisis. You cannot solve issues you deny exist. https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1443474577557008386/video/1
I can't make sense of the numbers.
It wasn't said at a time when there were considerable differences between standards of living that could be arbitraged.
As an aside, I know a chap whose basic plan is, whenever a new government subsidy is announced, to work out if and how he can set up a company to exploit it. And he does not seem to be the only one. I am not sure it is commendable but then I guess that is what the government wants.
Of particular amusement were the electrics. I removed several runs of sockets (8 or 10 in a line) all of which turned out to split off a single 13a socket on the wall. My sparky was amused! Various other "that's not safe" discoveries.
What they did invest in was data. This place had an substantial data network fed from a leased fibre line. I've ripped out all the (dead and severed) ethernet cables, but the fibre line remains as too messy to remove. A mere £900 a month if I want it reconnecting!