Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
That's the point that the current "Brexit means pay rises" commentary seems to miss.
What we're seeing at the moment is the equivalent of Uber Surge pricing. Fun while it lasts for those getting it, but unlikely to last. When these spikes dissipate, the new equilibrium will be somewhere between the old one and the current spike. Prediction is difficult, but I reckon the new equilibrium will be not far off the old one. After all, transport post-Brexit is going to be less efficient than before. You can't make the trucks bigger, you can't really make drivers work longer hours and route and load planning has less flexibility.
And in the meantime, we have a tranche of jobs which don't really respond to automation. How are you going to make social care more efficient?
So as things stand, we're set to export manufacturing jobs and import the products, so we can drive each other around and get each other out of bed.
There are plenty of ways this could go wrong.
Not only that. What happens when there is restiveness/ militancy in sectors not getting a rise? Doesn't trumpeting higher wages lead to, er, demands for higher wages? Join a Union.
Unions are completely counterproductive, just let the market set the wage. If there's a labour shortage in your sector because you're offering something skilled and in demand then that justifies a pay rise. Or if its a really difficult and unpleasant job or doing unsociable hours etc.
If there's no labour shortage, because its an unskilled job which is relatively fun and easy to do, in sociable hours, for which there's a queue of people happy to take the same job within this country, it doesn't.
Does this apply to, say, teaching?
Why shouldn't it?
I can see the purpose of unions to provide support for resources for within the sector, eg to represent a teacher who is facing a dispute. That's the productive bit unions can do.
But if there's a surplus of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers real salaries to go down - and if there's a shortage of teachers then yes competition should allow teachers salaries to go up.
And if there's a shortage of eg STEM teachers but a surplus of other teachers, then the STEM teachers should get a higher pay than other teachers which would encourage more teachers to convert to be STEM teachers if that's where the shortage is.
Yes. But it isn't a free market. Children have a statutory right to be educated.
There's never going to be an entirely free market, but the more free the better in general.
While children have do a right and obligation to be educated, potential teachers exist within a labour market that doesn't mean they're required to be teachers. Teacher's salaries will need to compete with comparable other sectors in order to fulfil vacancies. If teacher's salaries are too bad then teachers will quit the sector and salaries will need to rise to fill the vacancies.
So the market does even affect teachers.
You're onto something here, but there are some other factors to consider.
For a start, the amount that schools can pay is capped by the funding they get from central government. Even if they wanted to use the pay flexibility that academies have, it doesn't get them far.
Second, most teachers aren't that motivated by cash in the first place. If they were, they wouldn't be doing the job. Obviously money talks, but it would need to be an awful lot of money... and then many teachers would respond like doctors and just do fewer days. Because they're generally knackered. And that's why getting existing teachers to retrain in shortage subjects hasn't taken off, despite the encouragement. Teaching something new is way harder than something you've taught for a decade.
Finally, all this would cost more, and there's zero sign of the government being willing to stump up the cash. Because, deep down, we all want high pay and low costs for us.
Yes. If my pay went up to a market rate, I would cut my hours to two days a week instead of the 3-4 I’m planning on.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
Course, that was before the "y" was used as a vowel. In my day, we made do with just the five vowels. But try telling children these days..
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
Except. As I have pointed out, in the only bit they are directly responsible for, the Public Sector. Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes. Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
I might have missed it, but your point - a very reasonable one - was not raised by Marr. It’s almost as though the media have forgotten about monetary policy.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
Course, that was before the "y" was used as a vowel. In my day, we made do with just the five vowels. But try telling children these days..
Just as well for you you’re not Welsh. We have seven vowels.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
Course, that was before the "y" was used as a vowel. In my day, we made do with just the five vowels. But try telling children these days..
Just as well for you you’re not Welsh. We have seven vowels.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
Course, that was before the "y" was used as a vowel. In my day, we made do with just the five vowels. But try telling children these days..
Just as well for you you’re not Welsh. We have seven vowels.
"w" I assume? As in "cwrw"?
W and y, yes.
Intrigued that the first thing you think of when talking in or about Welsh is beer.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
Course, that was before the "y" was used as a vowel. In my day, we made do with just the five vowels. But try telling children these days..
Just as well for you you’re not Welsh. We have seven vowels.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
For appeal purposes the rules still expect those over 8 to be able to walk three miles to school. I doubt many do. I walked a mile and that was a lot compared to most.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
Course, that was before the "y" was used as a vowel. In my day, we made do with just the five vowels. But try telling children these days..
Just as well for you you’re not Welsh. We have seven vowels.
"w" I assume? As in "cwrw"?
W and y, yes.
Intrigued that the first thing you think of when talking in or about Welsh is beer.
I've been to Cardiff. I know there is a fondness there.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
Course, that was before the "y" was used as a vowel. In my day, we made do with just the five vowels. But try telling children these days..
Just as well for you you’re not Welsh. We have seven vowels.
Rampant vowel inflation. I blame the Labour government.
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
Except. As I have pointed out, in the only bit they are directly responsible for, the Public Sector. Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes. Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
Never put down to malice what can be explained by stupidity, I guess.
But someone needs to ask the government if the "high wage" thing applies to people employed by the government.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
Those households that have two or more cars: do they concentrate their fuel hoarding worries on one car or do they multiply them by a factor??
We have 2 cars but my wife only does about 160 miles a year !!!!!
When I grew up we had one car (renewed every ten years or so) and we three boys could use it too as we got our licenses. He never cleaned it having better things to do and knowing full well that it was just a tool and anyway rotting from inside and underneath.
P/S We walked to school. I believe many kids still do there.
From secondary, many children in London take public transport, if they can't walk to school.
There is a whole thing about arranging with friends, who is going to be in which Tube carriage...
Around half, including First School, are bussed in round here. Quite a number walk.
Near me, there is a small park. In the mornings, there is a whole row of mini buses/min coaches (5 or 6 of them( taking children to the various private schools. Some are quite a distance away.
Yet, I remember people saying that school buses were impossible in this country.....
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
Except. As I have pointed out, in the only bit they are directly responsible for, the Public Sector. Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes. Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
Never put down to malice what can be explained by stupidity, I guess.
But someone needs to ask the government if the "high wage" thing applies to people employed by the government.
Radio 4 news is talking to voters in the Chipping Barnet constituency, and the reporter visited the Bayleaf Restaurant in Whetstone to talk to the owner, which happens to be number 12 out of 17,239 places in London according to TripAdvisor.
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
Except. As I have pointed out, in the only bit they are directly responsible for, the Public Sector. Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes. Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
Never put down to malice what can be explained by stupidity, I guess.
But someone needs to ask the government if the "high wage" thing applies to people employed by the government.
It would help public sector workers if they were a bit more keen to vote with their feet.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
The biggest news from the interview is that thousands of pigs face culling and incineration within the next two weeks unless the government gets its act together to respond to the next crisis in line, and that Johnson had no answer.
Why does this matter? They've spent their entire lives in squalid purgatory and would have been killed anyway.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
Course, that was before the "y" was used as a vowel. In my day, we made do with just the five vowels. But try telling children these days..
Just as well for you you’re not Welsh. We have seven vowels.
"w" I assume? As in "cwrw"?
W and y, yes.
Intrigued that the first thing you think of when talking in or about Welsh is beer.
I've been to Cardiff. I know there is a fondness there.
Felinfoel of happy memory. And I learnt to pronounce Cwm Llwch properly in the Brecons. Though I wondered why Llwybr Cyhoeddus was such a popular placename on signposts.
The biggest news from the interview is that thousands of pigs face culling and incineration within the next two weeks unless the government gets its act together to respond to the next crisis in line, and that Johnson had no answer.
Why does this matter? They've spent their entire lives in squalid purgatory and would have been killed anyway.
Pork this week, turkeys next month - Mr Johnson doesn't want to end up in history as the wrong kind of Scrooge when it comes to the great patriotic British dinner. He feels very vulnerable to the remotest hint that he might be a Christmas party pooper. Vide covid regs last year.
The biggest news from the interview is that thousands of pigs face culling and incineration within the next two weeks unless the government gets its act together to respond to the next crisis in line, and that Johnson had no answer.
Why does this matter? They've spent their entire lives in squalid purgatory and would have been killed anyway.
Bluntly, it might be a waste, but it isn't a tragedy given that.
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
Except. As I have pointed out, in the only bit they are directly responsible for, the Public Sector. Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes. Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
Never put down to malice what can be explained by stupidity, I guess.
But someone needs to ask the government if the "high wage" thing applies to people employed by the government.
It would help public sector workers if they were a bit more keen to vote with their feet.
That's never the case though, I've heard the bullshit so many times from public sector workers I know that they would "earn significantly more in the private sector" but amazingly few of them ever do it despite this mythical mega wage increase they could easily get. In reality the ones I know that did cross over took title and wage losses to make the jump and then had a very difficult adjustment to private sector working.
In reality I think too many public sector workers are incapable of private sector work. They are institutionalised by the public sector straitjacket and struggle to adjust to the mentality of just making it work and rapid iteration.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
Those households that have two or more cars: do they concentrate their fuel hoarding worries on one car or do they multiply them by a factor??
We have 2 cars but my wife only does about 160 miles a year !!!!!
When I grew up we had one car (renewed every ten years or so) and we three boys could use it too as we got our licenses. He never cleaned it having better things to do and knowing full well that it was just a tool and anyway rotting from inside and underneath.
P/S We walked to school. I believe many kids still do there.
From secondary, many children in London take public transport, if they can't walk to school.
There is a whole thing about arranging with friends, who is going to be in which Tube carriage...
Around half, including First School, are bussed in round here. Quite a number walk.
Near me, there is a small park. In the mornings, there is a whole row of mini buses/min coaches (5 or 6 of them( taking children to the various private schools. Some are quite a distance away.
Yet, I remember people saying that school buses were impossible in this country.....
Is there possibily some confusion with the specialist school bus as seen in the States, which does not occur in the UK AFAIK, rather than the bog standard Personenkraftwagen used for everything from OAPs to Glasgow Rangers fans?
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
I think it was 1968, when I walked into school, a good mile away, through snow drifts taller than I was....
We must be a similar age. I have memories of walking a mile to school in a blizzard in short trousers in the late 60s. I would have been 6 in 1968 so about right...
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
I might have missed it, but your point - a very reasonable one - was not raised by Marr. It’s almost as though the media have forgotten about monetary policy.
I think the country as a whole has forgotten the economic lessons that Mrs Thatcher taught it very painfully in the 1980s, not just monetary policy, but also supply side. In particular, the only way to prosperity is higher productivity, and the best way to higher productivity is competitive markets.
Partly it's a generational thing, partly it's a very left wing academic establishment and broadcast media, and partly it's an increased focus on trivia like trans rights or statues ffs.
Either way, we'll have to have a new Mrs Thatcher in a few years, when our decline, as opposed to stagnation, becomes even more obvious than it already is.
The Tories’ remarkable ideological flexibility is allowing for an interesting experiment here. (Ideological flexibility on economic matters at least).
I have seen erstwhile free marketeers go on quite a journey in the last few years. We are going to have a go at a bit of Autarky and of will be interesting to watch. There will be winners and losers.
We know that when you expand international trade and cross border migration you tend to see overall greater economic growth, low inflation, technical innovation and consumer choice. But at the same time you create a left behind class - in the 18th C it was the old skilled artisans - and you tend to see increasing inequality as well as suppression of wages.
A move towards Autarky with inhibited migration and greater trade barriers as we’re now seeing should all things being equal give us some of the opposite: slower growth, higher inflation, reduced consumer choice but better conditions for workers and protection for some domestic producers. That will only work of course if the UK imposes proper barriers to imports (at the moment the barriers are rather asymmetrical).
We’ve seen from Russia (e.g. Belarusian “Camembert”) that import substitution can be a boon to some producers. Likewise despite repeated exchange crises countries like Argentina still function, just about. The Soviet bloc obviously took things a lot further in the 20th century and ultimately paid the price, but it’s interesting to see the journey our erstwhile right of centre party is taking, largely opportunistically, towards something perhaps more akin to Latin American trade policy.
Latin American economics. Latin American politics, too.
See, on one hand, plans to stifle the Electoral Commission, clip the wings of the judiciary etc, and on the other the notable increase in cronyism and petty corruption.
If restricting low wage immigration is fascist autarkism, why is restricting house building to point of insane property price inflation not fascist autarkism?
I think you’re rather putting words in my mouth there. I think Britain is some way off a “fascist autarky”.
As for the house building restrictions, in my more flippant moods I happen to think the term “soviet” is more apposite.
In any case, house price rises have mostly been about low interest rates, somewhat about planning dysfunction (as opposed to restriction per se), and some way off that increased demand.
Ha.
Housing construction has been 100Ks less than population growth for a very considerable number of years. During that time, house prices rose. Almost as if the scarcity of the vital commodity......
The restriction of the building of properties is official policy of the state. Phone the police in rural Britain to report a crime. They will barely bother. Imply that someone is building a house without permission - blue lights*
We have people paying literally £1 million pounds to live in cottages that the Edwardians built for the workers in a brick factory, not far from where I live.
*A farmer friend demonstrated this perfectly. The usual robberies from his farm over the years. Crickets. Then one day, he decides to put a roof on an old stone, abandoned building - as a secure store. He had the planners, the cops etc round the day he started....
To be fair, there have been instances of town planners being murdered in these situations.
...and a 20mm cannon modified to be attached to one of his vehicles...
WTF - this isn't Texas.
My friend the farmer wasn't even annoyed at the whole proceedings. Though they insisted on him shutting down work for the day, despite him presenting to the planner officers the reasons why he didn't need planning permission to do what he was doing.
He figured it was one of those things where they were a bit embarrassed by having turned up mob handed and simply driving off would have made them feel foolish.
So he made them all a round of builders tea. And phoned his lawyer.
I sympathise with your friend. However, planning enforcement is a statutory duty. Where someone complains, the Council has to investigate it; as the laws (which are indeed restrictive in the Countryside) have to be seen to be applied fairly to everyone. If they fail to do this, then it ends up very badly for Councils; such a position is politically impossible. Not investigating at all is not an option. So they might as well do it straight away, particularly if it turns out that your friend is doing illegal work, then they will know before they incur significant costs.
I don't know why the Police don't take the same approach to rural property crime, but I suspect it is simply a case that other crimes are given a higher priority. It is an interesting comparison.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
Those households that have two or more cars: do they concentrate their fuel hoarding worries on one car or do they multiply them by a factor??
We have 2 cars but my wife only does about 160 miles a year !!!!!
When I grew up we had one car (renewed every ten years or so) and we three boys could use it too as we got our licenses. He never cleaned it having better things to do and knowing full well that it was just a tool and anyway rotting from inside and underneath.
P/S We walked to school. I believe many kids still do there.
From secondary, many children in London take public transport, if they can't walk to school.
There is a whole thing about arranging with friends, who is going to be in which Tube carriage...
Around half, including First School, are bussed in round here. Quite a number walk.
Near me, there is a small park. In the mornings, there is a whole row of mini buses/min coaches (5 or 6 of them( taking children to the various private schools. Some are quite a distance away.
Yet, I remember people saying that school buses were impossible in this country.....
Is there possibily some confusion with the specialist school bus as seen in the States, which does not occur in the UK AFAIK, rather than the bog standard Personenkraftwagen used for everything from OAPs to Glasgow Rangers fans?
Well, people used the conflation with US school busses to argue against them. Which seemed mental - every parent has seen their child go off to something or the other in a school (or sports club) hired vehicle...
I've heard it suggested that the bus companies hate the idea, because of loss of business.
The Tories’ remarkable ideological flexibility is allowing for an interesting experiment here. (Ideological flexibility on economic matters at least).
I have seen erstwhile free marketeers go on quite a journey in the last few years. We are going to have a go at a bit of Autarky and of will be interesting to watch. There will be winners and losers.
We know that when you expand international trade and cross border migration you tend to see overall greater economic growth, low inflation, technical innovation and consumer choice. But at the same time you create a left behind class - in the 18th C it was the old skilled artisans - and you tend to see increasing inequality as well as suppression of wages.
A move towards Autarky with inhibited migration and greater trade barriers as we’re now seeing should all things being equal give us some of the opposite: slower growth, higher inflation, reduced consumer choice but better conditions for workers and protection for some domestic producers. That will only work of course if the UK imposes proper barriers to imports (at the moment the barriers are rather asymmetrical).
We’ve seen from Russia (e.g. Belarusian “Camembert”) that import substitution can be a boon to some producers. Likewise despite repeated exchange crises countries like Argentina still function, just about. The Soviet bloc obviously took things a lot further in the 20th century and ultimately paid the price, but it’s interesting to see the journey our erstwhile right of centre party is taking, largely opportunistically, towards something perhaps more akin to Latin American trade policy.
Latin American economics. Latin American politics, too.
See, on one hand, plans to stifle the Electoral Commission, clip the wings of the judiciary etc, and on the other the notable increase in cronyism and petty corruption.
If restricting low wage immigration is fascist autarkism, why is restricting house building to point of insane property price inflation not fascist autarkism?
I think you’re rather putting words in my mouth there. I think Britain is some way off a “fascist autarky”.
As for the house building restrictions, in my more flippant moods I happen to think the term “soviet” is more apposite.
In any case, house price rises have mostly been about low interest rates, somewhat about planning dysfunction (as opposed to restriction per se), and some way off that increased demand.
Ha.
Housing construction has been 100Ks less than population growth for a very considerable number of years. During that time, house prices rose. Almost as if the scarcity of the vital commodity......
The restriction of the building of properties is official policy of the state. Phone the police in rural Britain to report a crime. They will barely bother. Imply that someone is building a house without permission - blue lights*
We have people paying literally £1 million pounds to live in cottages that the Edwardians built for the workers in a brick factory, not far from where I live.
*A farmer friend demonstrated this perfectly. The usual robberies from his farm over the years. Crickets. Then one day, he decides to put a roof on an old stone, abandoned building - as a secure store. He had the planners, the cops etc round the day he started....
To be fair, there have been instances of town planners being murdered in these situations.
...and a 20mm cannon modified to be attached to one of his vehicles...
WTF - this isn't Texas.
My friend the farmer wasn't even annoyed at the whole proceedings. Though they insisted on him shutting down work for the day, despite him presenting to the planner officers the reasons why he didn't need planning permission to do what he was doing.
He figured it was one of those things where they were a bit embarrassed by having turned up mob handed and simply driving off would have made them feel foolish.
So he made them all a round of builders tea. And phoned his lawyer.
I sympathise with your friend. However, planning enforcement is a statutory duty. Where someone complains, the Council has to investigate it; as the laws (which are indeed restrictive in the Countryside) have to be seen to be applied fairly to everyone. If they fail to do this, then it ends up very badly for Councils; such a position is politically impossible. Not investigating at all is not an option. So they might as well do it straight away, particularly if it turns out that your friend is doing illegal work, then they will know before they incur significant costs.
I don't know why the Police don't take the same approach to rural property crime, but I suspect it is simply a case that other crimes are given a higher priority. It is an interesting comparison.
Oh sure.
The police don't investigate rural crime because there is no upside for them. The criminals involved are generally well known, but they are a lot of trouble to arrest, have alibis from their friends etc etc.
Mind you, the police did attend a neighbouring farm, sharpish. A quad bike got stolen, and the idiot stealing it crashed and hurt himself. The police were trying to accuse the farmer of leaving an unsafe vehicle about, possibly a booby trap!
He pointed out the the vehicle in question was un-plated and for use on the farm only. And to fuck off.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
Except. As I have pointed out, in the only bit they are directly responsible for, the Public Sector. Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes. Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
Never put down to malice what can be explained by stupidity, I guess.
But someone needs to ask the government if the "high wage" thing applies to people employed by the government.
It would help public sector workers if they were a bit more keen to vote with their feet.
That's never the case though, I've heard the bullshit so many times from public sector workers I know that they would "earn significantly more in the private sector" but amazingly few of them ever do it despite this mythical mega wage increase they could easily get. In reality the ones I know that did cross over took title and wage losses to make the jump and then had a very difficult adjustment to private sector working.
In reality I think too many public sector workers are incapable of private sector work. They are institutionalised by the public sector straitjacket and struggle to adjust to the mentality of just making it work and rapid iteration.
There is a lot of truth in this. I've heard it from colleagues throughout my long public sector career, I know for a fact they are wrong because I previously worked in the private sector and saw how it really was.
However, the real difference in take home pay is between self employment/owning your own business and being employed; because of the tax advantages of the former.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
Those households that have two or more cars: do they concentrate their fuel hoarding worries on one car or do they multiply them by a factor??
We have 2 cars but my wife only does about 160 miles a year !!!!!
When I grew up we had one car (renewed every ten years or so) and we three boys could use it too as we got our licenses. He never cleaned it having better things to do and knowing full well that it was just a tool and anyway rotting from inside and underneath.
P/S We walked to school. I believe many kids still do there.
From secondary, many children in London take public transport, if they can't walk to school.
There is a whole thing about arranging with friends, who is going to be in which Tube carriage...
Around half, including First School, are bussed in round here. Quite a number walk.
Near me, there is a small park. In the mornings, there is a whole row of mini buses/min coaches (5 or 6 of them( taking children to the various private schools. Some are quite a distance away.
Yet, I remember people saying that school buses were impossible in this country.....
Yes. As noted earlier, 3 miles "safe"walking is the statutory limit. Safe refers to pavemented and lit. If you attend the closest school and it is three miles or more, you get a free bus. Regardless of income. A bus which can also be paid for if you don't qualify. Both my kids had free transport to and from school. Pretty much the entire village uses it. A great deal of Northumberland does. Now youngest is in Sixth Form we chose to pay. It is cheap, efficient, predictable, safe and reliable. Can't imagine why we'd choose any other system. Although the neighbours on one side choose to make their life more difficult by ferrying their kid there and back themselves.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
The important figure probably is that the backlog of being added to at a rate of 12 000, such implies a capacity shortfall of about 7%. Once the initial culls are over, which will be grim, the equilibrium will be found by pig farmers cutting production, as already happened with turkeys. It will be cut by more than 7% however. Farmers can't risk raising pigs they can't sell.
No-one of this will help improve conditions for abattoir workers.
One of the funniest comedians I've ever seen live. One of the only funny ventriloquists.
He certainly seems to be a good ventriloquist.
If you don't know him then he's got a few of his shows on Netflix and Prime Video and lots of clips on YouTube. He's got a great cast of characters he uses, my personal favourite is Achmed the Dead Terrorist.
57% of our electricity currently generated by wind and solar.
Even though I presume domestic gas use is rising substantially as the weather turns colder, that should ease the pressure on electricity prices somewhat.
Hopefully it will be kept up for a few days looking at the forecast.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
If the climate change activists have their way pig production for meat consumptions will be banned
If God didn’t want us to eat pigs, why did He make them out of bacon?
It has so many nitrates and nitrites in it that it's basically poison. Group 1 carcinogen. You might as well smerk tabs.
Finding bacon, chorizo, etc that isn't full of chemicals is a challenge.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
Course, that was before the "y" was used as a vowel. In my day, we made do with just the five vowels. But try telling children these days..
Just as well for you you’re not Welsh. We have seven vowels.
Russian is still wining with 10 vowels plus one reduced rounded vowel (tvyordiy znak) and one reduced fronted vowel (myagkiy znak). Three other vowels were eliminated as bourgeois in the 1917-18 reform of the Russian language.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
57% of our electricity currently generated by wind and solar.
Even though I presume domestic gas use is rising substantially as the weather turns colder, that should ease the pressure on electricity prices somewhat.
Hopefully it will be kept up for a few days looking at the forecast.
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
Except. As I have pointed out, in the only bit they are directly responsible for, the Public Sector. Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes. Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
Never put down to malice what can be explained by stupidity, I guess.
But someone needs to ask the government if the "high wage" thing applies to people employed by the government.
It would help public sector workers if they were a bit more keen to vote with their feet.
That's never the case though, I've heard the bullshit so many times from public sector workers I know that they would "earn significantly more in the private sector" but amazingly few of them ever do it despite this mythical mega wage increase they could easily get. In reality the ones I know that did cross over took title and wage losses to make the jump and then had a very difficult adjustment to private sector working.
In reality I think too many public sector workers are incapable of private sector work. They are institutionalised by the public sector straitjacket and struggle to adjust to the mentality of just making it work and rapid iteration.
There is a lot of truth in this. I've heard it from colleagues throughout my long public sector career, I know for a fact they are wrong because I previously worked in the private sector and saw how it really was.
However, the real difference in take home pay is between self employment/owning your own business and being employed; because of the tax advantages of the former.
"Public sector" is quite wide ranging though isn't it? Teachers don't seem to have much of an issue. Hence why there are more not teaching than teaching. And no private sector job has a "just make it work and rapid iteration" situation quite like having to face down 30 plus hormonal six foot sixteen year olds for 50 minutes when they are determined to kick off. "Pitches" to groups of besuited business people, having had a full week to prepare, are understandably a bit of a piece of piss to say the least in comparison.
57% of our electricity currently generated by wind and solar.
Even though I presume domestic gas use is rising substantially as the weather turns colder, that should ease the pressure on electricity prices somewhat.
Hopefully it will be kept up for a few days looking at the forecast.
Scotland is much higher than 57%
Unless you have left the UK energy market when I wasn’t looking that isn’t relevant.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
Yes, actually be far better than the rip off junk they build here. Smart looking houses.
If I accidentally become a billionaire, I have a day dream of secretly stockpiling Huf houses and then launching a massive terrorist house building campaign......
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
Except. As I have pointed out, in the only bit they are directly responsible for, the Public Sector. Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes. Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
Never put down to malice what can be explained by stupidity, I guess.
But someone needs to ask the government if the "high wage" thing applies to people employed by the government.
It would help public sector workers if they were a bit more keen to vote with their feet.
That's never the case though, I've heard the bullshit so many times from public sector workers I know that they would "earn significantly more in the private sector" but amazingly few of them ever do it despite this mythical mega wage increase they could easily get. In reality the ones I know that did cross over took title and wage losses to make the jump and then had a very difficult adjustment to private sector working.
In reality I think too many public sector workers are incapable of private sector work. They are institutionalised by the public sector straitjacket and struggle to adjust to the mentality of just making it work and rapid iteration.
There is a lot of truth in this. I've heard it from colleagues throughout my long public sector career, I know for a fact they are wrong because I previously worked in the private sector and saw how it really was.
However, the real difference in take home pay is between self employment/owning your own business and being employed; because of the tax advantages of the former.
"Public sector" is quite wide ranging though isn't it? Teachers don't seem to have much of an issue. Hence why there are more not teaching than teaching. And no private sector job has a "just make it work and rapid iteration" situation quite like having to face down 30 plus hormonal six foot sixteen year olds for 50 minutes when they are determined to kick off. "Pitches" to groups of besuited business people, having had a full week to prepare, are understandably a bit of a piece of piss to say the least in comparison.
Particularly when it’s once a week not five times a day.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
I'm so old I remember when kids walked to school on their own.
Incredible I know.
{Yorkshire Accent Loading....}
Riiiiiiiiiight!
{Opens bottle of Chateau de Chassilier}
When I was a lad......
Were.
Please.
We was too poor to afford the word "were" - vowels was extra.
Course, that was before the "y" was used as a vowel. In my day, we made do with just the five vowels. But try telling children these days..
Just as well for you you’re not Welsh. We have seven vowels.
Russian is still wining with 10 vowels plus one reduced rounded vowel (tvyordiy znak) and one reduced fronted vowel (myagkiy znak). Three other vowels were eliminated as bourgeois in the 1917-18 reform of the Russian language.
Cossacks stole all the vowels for their Russian masters. Hence all the people from the Shtetl who are vowel deprived, for their surnames.
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
Except. As I have pointed out, in the only bit they are directly responsible for, the Public Sector. Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes. Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
Never put down to malice what can be explained by stupidity, I guess.
But someone needs to ask the government if the "high wage" thing applies to people employed by the government.
It would help public sector workers if they were a bit more keen to vote with their feet.
That's never the case though, I've heard the bullshit so many times from public sector workers I know that they would "earn significantly more in the private sector" but amazingly few of them ever do it despite this mythical mega wage increase they could easily get. In reality the ones I know that did cross over took title and wage losses to make the jump and then had a very difficult adjustment to private sector working.
In reality I think too many public sector workers are incapable of private sector work. They are institutionalised by the public sector straitjacket and struggle to adjust to the mentality of just making it work and rapid iteration.
There is a lot of truth in this. I've heard it from colleagues throughout my long public sector career, I know for a fact they are wrong because I previously worked in the private sector and saw how it really was.
However, the real difference in take home pay is between self employment/owning your own business and being employed; because of the tax advantages of the former.
"Public sector" is quite wide ranging though isn't it? Teachers don't seem to have much of an issue. Hence why there are more not teaching than teaching. And no private sector job has a "just make it work and rapid iteration" situation quite like having to face down 30 plus hormonal six foot sixteen year olds for 50 minutes when they are determined to kick off. "Pitches" to groups of besuited business people, having had a full week to prepare, are understandably a bit of a piece of piss to say the least in comparison.
Particularly when it’s once a week not five times a day.
Yes indeed. Teachings so cushy. Couldn't cope in the private sector. Except the majority of teachers actually are doing.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
Except. As I have pointed out, in the only bit they are directly responsible for, the Public Sector. Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes. Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
Never put down to malice what can be explained by stupidity, I guess.
But someone needs to ask the government if the "high wage" thing applies to people employed by the government.
It would help public sector workers if they were a bit more keen to vote with their feet.
The Nursing and support worker shortage in my Trust suggests that they have voted with their feet...
Fun that the loudest shouts for needing fuel are coming from London and SE England. You know, that place where they have a vast tube, railway, bus, taxi and Uber network.
Those households that have two or more cars: do they concentrate their fuel hoarding worries on one car or do they multiply them by a factor??
We have 2 cars but my wife only does about 160 miles a year !!!!!
When I grew up we had one car (renewed every ten years or so) and we three boys could use it too as we got our licenses. He never cleaned it having better things to do and knowing full well that it was just a tool and anyway rotting from inside and underneath.
P/S We walked to school. I believe many kids still do there.
From secondary, many children in London take public transport, if they can't walk to school.
There is a whole thing about arranging with friends, who is going to be in which Tube carriage...
Around half, including First School, are bussed in round here. Quite a number walk.
Near me, there is a small park. In the mornings, there is a whole row of mini buses/min coaches (5 or 6 of them( taking children to the various private schools. Some are quite a distance away.
Yet, I remember people saying that school buses were impossible in this country.....
Yes. As noted earlier, 3 miles "safe"walking is the statutory limit. Safe refers to pavemented and lit. If you attend the closest school and it is three miles or more, you get a free bus. Regardless of income. A bus which can also be paid for if you don't qualify. Both my kids had free transport to and from school. Pretty much the entire village uses it. A great deal of Northumberland does. Now youngest is in Sixth Form we chose to pay. It is cheap, efficient, predictable, safe and reliable. Can't imagine why we'd choose any other system. Although the neighbours on one side choose to make their life more difficult by ferrying their kid there and back themselves.
Down in Cornwall I came across the following - the local school wasn't that far. But, the roads are a real pain, incredibly narrow so easily blocked. So a local taxis driver noted that he was getting asked to drive a lot of children to school - at which point he said "I only have one pair of hands to drive with"... So rented a minibus, and signed up a number of parents. Now owns a vehicle outright and is looking at a second.
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
Except. As I have pointed out, in the only bit they are directly responsible for, the Public Sector. Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes. Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
Never put down to malice what can be explained by stupidity, I guess.
But someone needs to ask the government if the "high wage" thing applies to people employed by the government.
It would help public sector workers if they were a bit more keen to vote with their feet.
That's never the case though, I've heard the bullshit so many times from public sector workers I know that they would "earn significantly more in the private sector" but amazingly few of them ever do it despite this mythical mega wage increase they could easily get. In reality the ones I know that did cross over took title and wage losses to make the jump and then had a very difficult adjustment to private sector working.
In reality I think too many public sector workers are incapable of private sector work. They are institutionalised by the public sector straitjacket and struggle to adjust to the mentality of just making it work and rapid iteration.
There is a lot of truth in this. I've heard it from colleagues throughout my long public sector career, I know for a fact they are wrong because I previously worked in the private sector and saw how it really was.
However, the real difference in take home pay is between self employment/owning your own business and being employed; because of the tax advantages of the former.
"Public sector" is quite wide ranging though isn't it? Teachers don't seem to have much of an issue. Hence why there are more not teaching than teaching. And no private sector job has a "just make it work and rapid iteration" situation quite like having to face down 30 plus hormonal six foot sixteen year olds for 50 minutes when they are determined to kick off. "Pitches" to groups of besuited business people, having had a full week to prepare, are understandably a bit of a piece of piss to say the least in comparison.
Particularly when it’s once a week not five times a day.
Yes indeed. Teachings so cushy. Couldn't cope in the private sector. Except the majority of teachers actually are doing.
I’ve worked in both the private and the public sector. Neither is perfect, but on the whole I found private easier.
Admittedly, for much of the time I was my own boss and the pay was shit.
The message I got from the Boris interview is that the government are actively creating inflation. Higher wages,higher taxes on employment, companies, lots of new taxes, more spending by government.
This would also indicate higher interest rates.
Will this hit prior to the next general election?
Except. As I have pointed out, in the only bit they are directly responsible for, the Public Sector. Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes. Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
Never put down to malice what can be explained by stupidity, I guess.
But someone needs to ask the government if the "high wage" thing applies to people employed by the government.
It would help public sector workers if they were a bit more keen to vote with their feet.
The Nursing and support worker shortage in my Trust suggests that they have voted with their feet...
57% of our electricity currently generated by wind and solar.
Even though I presume domestic gas use is rising substantially as the weather turns colder, that should ease the pressure on electricity prices somewhat.
Hopefully it will be kept up for a few days looking at the forecast.
Scotland is much higher than 57%
Unless you have left the UK energy market when I wasn’t looking that isn’t relevant.
@ydoethur, your imperial colonial response highlights why we need independence. As a colony we provide the cheap electricity for The Imperial Masters and yet pay the most for it.
57% of our electricity currently generated by wind and solar.
Even though I presume domestic gas use is rising substantially as the weather turns colder, that should ease the pressure on electricity prices somewhat.
Hopefully it will be kept up for a few days looking at the forecast.
Scotland is much higher than 57%
Unless you have left the UK energy market when I wasn’t looking that isn’t relevant.
@ydoethur, your imperial colonial response highlights why we need independence. As a colony we provide the cheap electricity for The Imperial Masters and yet pay the most for it.
Astonishing comments by Bozo re pigs . Jaw dropping .
Marr approached it from the wrong angle. He should have approached it from a food shortage POV.
What did he say?
Marr complained 120,000 pigs are going to be slaughtered because of a shortage of labour in abattoirs
Boris said (paraphrase) (a) the food industry kills a lot of pigs and (b) the most important thing to do is fix the labour shortages through addressing pay & automation
I hold Johnson to be of less worth than any one of those 120,000 pigs but that doesn't seem like an unreasonable answer.
Marr somewhat playing shlock! horror! games here.
Putting this in context. Telltale the actual number from the National Pig Association is 100k-120k, and tabloid Marr chose the upper limit for sensation, as often happens.
Putting this into context, 120,000 pigs is about 3-4 days of production in the UK. That is, about 1% of annual production.
Not really a "mass culling".
Foot and Mouth was a "mass culling". Or mink in Denmark.
Overall, another blood-curdling story from an industry lobby that does not quite match the reality.
Rather like the Food Trade Federations misleading "disaster" narrative.
Even so, throwing out half a week's worth of supply is bad economics. What would Mrs T have said?
Also - if things don't get better then it will happen again.
@DavidL has repeatedly made the point that the Single Market has been bad for Britain because it has resulted in too many imports. He usually posts the figures.
If so, why is it a good thing to have more imports (of pig meat, say) because we can't slaughter our own and have to throw them away? I don't get it. If his analysis is correct we should be making it easier for domestic sectors not harder. But the uber-keen Brexiteers like @Philip_Thompson seem not to be worried by increasing imports.
???
If its not economical to produce pigs in the UK then the land, labour and capital should be used on something it is economical to produce.
A use well always be found for the land. However stopping pig production doesn't mean a substitution by higher value production. That's illogical. The higher value production would be happening anyway in that case. Stopping production just means we will collectively be a bit poorer and the pig farmer a lot poorer.
If the climate change activists have their way pig production for meat consumptions will be banned
If God didn’t want us to eat pigs, why did He make them out of bacon?
It has so many nitrates and nitrites in it that it's basically poison. Group 1 carcinogen. You might as well smerk tabs.
Finding bacon, chorizo, etc that isn't full of chemicals is a challenge.
If you find any food at all that isn’t made of chemicals there is probably a Nobel Prize waiting for you.
Comments
Burn. Ham.
Never mind..
There are other MPs who were aware that 30% of its readers voted Labour in 2017. Their task is to increase that proportion.
Here, they are intent on enforcing well below inflation rises. With higher taxes.
Is a wave of strikes the next Culture War plan? Cos it seems likely.
Intrigued that the first thing you think of when talking in or about Welsh is beer.
But someone needs to ask the government if the "high wage" thing applies to people employed by the government.
Yet, I remember people saying that school buses were impossible in this country.....
Radio 4 news is talking to voters in the Chipping Barnet constituency, and the reporter visited the Bayleaf Restaurant in Whetstone to talk to the owner, which happens to be number 12 out of 17,239 places in London according to TripAdvisor.
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186338-d5856902-Reviews-Bayleaf_Restaurant-London_England.html
One of the funniest comedians I've ever seen live. One of the only funny ventriloquists.
In reality I think too many public sector workers are incapable of private sector work. They are institutionalised by the public sector straitjacket and struggle to adjust to the mentality of just making it work and rapid iteration.
Partly it's a generational thing, partly it's a very left wing academic establishment and broadcast media, and partly it's an increased focus on trivia like trans rights or statues ffs.
Either way, we'll have to have a new Mrs Thatcher in a few years, when our decline, as opposed to stagnation, becomes even more obvious than it already is.
I don't know why the Police don't take the same approach to rural property crime, but I suspect it is simply a case that other crimes are given a higher priority. It is an interesting comparison.
I've heard it suggested that the bus companies hate the idea, because of loss of business.
The police don't investigate rural crime because there is no upside for them. The criminals involved are generally well known, but they are a lot of trouble to arrest, have alibis from their friends etc etc.
Mind you, the police did attend a neighbouring farm, sharpish. A quad bike got stolen, and the idiot stealing it crashed and hurt himself. The police were trying to accuse the farmer of leaving an unsafe vehicle about, possibly a booby trap!
He pointed out the the vehicle in question was un-plated and for use on the farm only. And to fuck off.
However, the real difference in take home pay is between self employment/owning your own business and being employed; because of the tax advantages of the former.
Both my kids had free transport to and from school. Pretty much the entire village uses it. A great deal of Northumberland does.
Now youngest is in Sixth Form we chose to pay. It is cheap, efficient, predictable, safe and reliable. Can't imagine why we'd choose any other system.
Although the neighbours on one side choose to make their life more difficult by ferrying their kid there and back themselves.
57% of our electricity currently generated by wind and solar.
Even though I presume domestic gas use is rising substantially as the weather turns colder, that should ease the pressure on electricity prices somewhat.
Hopefully it will be kept up for a few days looking at the forecast.
Reason gov't has been unable to compensate for these shortages is *quite fucking literally* that they require highly skilled people.
https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1444644388794159105
And no private sector job has a "just make it work and rapid iteration" situation quite like having to face down 30 plus hormonal six foot sixteen year olds for 50 minutes when they are determined to kick off.
"Pitches" to groups of besuited business people, having had a full week to prepare, are understandably a bit of a piece of piss to say the least in comparison.
NEW THREAD
Admittedly, for much of the time I was my own boss and the pay was shit.
(And in answer to the public-private thing, there are plenty of managers who have moved each way and died on their arse.
Different challenges. In particular, how do you motivate people who aren't that interested in money and you have no money to splash anyway?)