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

rottenborough said:

squareroot2 said:

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

Well, we can be sure the world did not stop while he was away. Certainly the Taliban did not stop.

The Foreign Office has how many staff.????. and they couldn't do anything.???

squareroot2 said:

rottenborough said:

squareroot2 said:

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

Well, we can be sure the world did not stop while he was away. Certainly the Taliban did not stop.

The Forein Office has how many staff.????. and they couldn't do anything.???

Isn't the story that the Foreign Office was banned from speaking to various parties without Big Dom's approval? Or something like that anyway.

tlg86 said:

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

BoZo was also on holiday

justin124 said:

IanB2 said:

GIN1138 said:

justin124 said:

Gallowgate said:

Scott_xP said:

Westminster voting intention:

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

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

Noise

Very much Hung Parliament territory.

Yeah but in the circumstances you'd probably expect Labour to be like 10-15% ahead?

Labour's just not doing well enough to withstand swingbaaaaaaaaaack before GE

Tories losing 3 is just about significant. Other parties gaining 1 each is not significant, but Labour not gaining 3 might be.

On the other hand, 36% matches Labour's GB share under Blair in 2005 - despite circa 2% having been chipped off its national vote share by the 2015 collapse in Scotland. On that basis Labour is now polling better in England & Wales than was the case in 2005.

That is a good point. However how much of that vote share increase is inefficient? Piling up the votes in places where it is not needed.

Gallowgate said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Gallowgate said:

another_richard said:

Scott_xP said:

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

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

The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

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

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

As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.

It depends upon your circumstances of course, but there's no reason why a real terms pay rise should be entirely cancelled out by increased everyday costs since the cost of labour is just a fraction of the cost of items.

Of course, but I was merely highlighting that the issue isn't so black and white.

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

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

Unless labour shortages cause the care home to pay care home workers more than minimum wage of course.

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

Gallowgate said:

another_richard said:

Scott_xP said:

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

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

The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

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

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

As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.

Pay rises all around for the working class might lead to higher prices but the working class are getting pay rises to more than make up for it.

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

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

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

BigRich said:

MrEd said:

Apologies if commented on before:

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

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

That's not the big 8PM poll we have been tolled about is it?

That poll is from the 19th, so no.

tlg86 said:

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

Somerset

Gallowgate said:

another_richard said:

Scott_xP said:

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

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

The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

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

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

As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.

You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.

justin124 said:

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

Is that before or after boundary changes?

another_richard said:

Scott_xP said:

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

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

The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

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

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

Especially since many of the workers benefiting from the wage rises will be EU immigrants. Not only do these people hate nasty british workers getting pay rises, they don’t want it to happen to EU citizens who, in other sitiations, they fawn over.

carnforth said:

Gallowgate said:

another_richard said:

Scott_xP said:

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

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

The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

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

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

As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.

You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.

Not necessarily, no. But a minimum wage working class worker in another industry is certainly not going to be happy with increased costs, nor are they a 'middle class whiner'.

Aslan said:

carnforth said:

Gallowgate said:

another_richard said:

Scott_xP said:

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

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

The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

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

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

As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.

You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.

This is obvious as soon as you realize that low wage jobs are only a small proportion of the cost of most household items.

I'm looking forward to continuing low inflation then, if you are all so confident.

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

Raab 'defied orders to cut short Crete holiday' as Taliban seized Afghanistan https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15930633/raab-defied-orders-crete-holiday/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=sunpoliticstwitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1629574316

rcs1000 said:

carnforth said:

Gallowgate said:

another_richard said:

Scott_xP said:

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

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

The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

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

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

As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.

You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.

Some goods are dense and valuable, meaning transport costs are a negligible portion of end price.
Other goods are not-dense (can't think of the right word...) and cheap, and therefore transport is a big portion of their costs.

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

By contrast, if you're pulling one of those petrol/gasoline tanks around, then you're hauling round tens of thousands of pounds of product and it'll make bugger all difference.

Light?

Soubs getting nifty with the old Photoshop

justin124 said:

RobD said:

justin124 said:

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

Although a GE held in the next six months does seem pretty fanciful.

Very unlikely I agree - though it is far from clear that any return to normal politics as as we move into 2022 will be to the Government's advantage. I suspect it will prove not to be so.

At the end of the day, there is currently very little reason for people who voted Tory in 2019 to now vote Labour.

Until that changes, the Tories will continue to hover around 40%.

rcs1000 said:

carnforth said:

Gallowgate said:

another_richard said:

Scott_xP said:

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

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

The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

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

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

As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.

You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.

Some goods are dense and valuable, meaning transport costs are a negligible portion of end price.
Other goods are not-dense (can't think of the right word...) and cheap, and therefore transport is a big portion of their costs.

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

By contrast, if you're pulling one of those petrol/gasoline tanks around, then you're hauling round tens of thousands of pounds of product and it'll make bugger all difference.

Do you know what a typical labour/fuel/depreciation split of the total transport cost is?

tlg86 said:

Scott_xP said:

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

Surely there's a non-negligible chance that an attack happens and the US reverse ferrets and it becomes all out war. I'd have thought the smarter elements of the Taliban are aware of this, but there's always some who want to kick off.

Yep. Surely all it will take is one itchy trigger finger?

carnforth said:

rcs1000 said:

carnforth said:

Gallowgate said:

another_richard said:

Scott_xP said:

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

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

The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

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

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

As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.

You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.

Some goods are dense and valuable, meaning transport costs are a negligible portion of end price.
Other goods are not-dense (can't think of the right word...) and cheap, and therefore transport is a big portion of their costs.

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

By contrast, if you're pulling one of those petrol/gasoline tanks around, then you're hauling round tens of thousands of pounds of product and it'll make bugger all difference.

Do you know what a typical labour/fuel/depreciation split of the total transport cost is?

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

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

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

Theuniondivvie said:

Soubs getting nifty with the old Photoshop

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

Strasbourg Syndrome. Just like Scott

Leon said:

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

:...

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

That's the point.

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

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

Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.

Dominic Raab found time to pick up the phone to the Prime Minister to extend his own holiday, but refused to call the Afghan Gov hours before Kabul fell to the Taliban.

Their negligence is unforgivable. https://twitter.com/lisanandy/status/1429168461889089542

.

squareroot2 said:

rottenborough said:

squareroot2 said:

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

Well, we can be sure the world did not stop while he was away. Certainly the Taliban did not stop.

The Foreign Office has how many staff.????. and they couldn't do anything.???

That isn't the point, but at it doesn't worry 40% of the voters it really doesn't matter.

Leon said:

Scott_xP said:

Raab 'defied orders to cut short Crete holiday' as Taliban seized Afghanistan https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15930633/raab-defied-orders-crete-holiday/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=sunpoliticstwitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1629574316

WHO GIVES A FUCK

Is this a kind of dissonance-avoiding technique?

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

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

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

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

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

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

FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad

I basically said that about 2 hours ago... though not with your flourish for the English language obviously...

Scott_xP said:

Leon said:

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

:...

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

That's the point.

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

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

Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.

You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that

I mean, maybe the reason he couldn’t phone the Afghan minister was because he was working harder than anybody else phoning the PM asking for a couple more days in Crete
https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1429171287323287556

Scott_xP said:

Leon said:

You have become a wholly tragic figure

Maybe I should regenerate, 7 times

Just once might help you

Leon said:

Scott_xP said:

Leon said:

You have become a wholly tragic figure

Maybe I should regenerate, 7 times

Just once might help you

What's up, Leon? Withdrawal symptoms from your holiday?

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Mexicanpete said:

GIN1138 said:

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

Oh yeah, the Andrew Lincoln thing that Allin -Khan plageurised the week before.

Bob Dylan just texted from a recent thread to say he done it first.
Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick Blues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0

So Dylan plageurised Boris in 1965?

IshmaelZ said:

Leon said:

Scott_xP said:

Raab 'defied orders to cut short Crete holiday' as Taliban seized Afghanistan https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15930633/raab-defied-orders-crete-holiday/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=sunpoliticstwitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1629574316

WHO GIVES A FUCK

Is this a kind of dissonance-avoiding technique?

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

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

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

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

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

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

FWIW if Leave had narrowly lost I have no doubt there would be passionate lifelong eurosceptics who would have then spent the next ten years targetting "Jolyon Maugham" even as the world collapsed. just because. Doesn't make it any less sad

You are dead wrong about this, because the more of a fuck I give about Afghanistan, the more of a fuck I give about how little of a fuck the sleazy lazy self regarding fuckers who represent my country give about it .

Then you are diverting necessary energy. I too am deeply exercised by Afghanistan and the disaster - moral, military, political, geopolitical, demographic, psycho-intellectual - it represents for the West. But rather down on my list is the way the UK poodled the USA into conflict and much much much further down the list are the holidaying habits of Raab and Boris

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

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

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

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

Now, we realise, NO. The Vandals gather

Gallowgate said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Gallowgate said:

another_richard said:

Scott_xP said:

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

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

The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

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

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

As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.

It depends upon your circumstances of course, but there's no reason why a real terms pay rise should be entirely cancelled out by increased everyday costs since the cost of labour is just a fraction of the cost of items.

Of course, but I was merely highlighting that the issue isn't so black and white.

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

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

You are forgetting that the minimum wage care worker is also likely to be seeing pay raises as their labour is also in short supply. Food increasing in cost by even 10% isn't as big an issue as you believe. Even in the poorest decile the amount spent on food is still only 14% of budget. It rising to 15.4% is easily offset by even an inflation level pay rise.

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

Leon said:

Scott_xP said:

Leon said:

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

:...

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

That's the point.

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

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

Then BoZo should fuck off, and maybe, just maybe, we can find a grown up who can meet the scale of the challenge.

You have become a wholly tragic figure, within the tiny, trivial, necessary tragicomedy of PB. Perhaps reflect on that

He's kinda got a point though, hasn't he?

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

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

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

Completely off topic, here's A Washington Post article about the Biden/Trump/Taliban withdrawal from Afghanistan.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/20/trump-peace-deal-taliban/

That Southern Brave (Irish?) batsman Paul Stirling is a unit. He looks like a retired prop.

DavidL said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Mexicanpete said:

GIN1138 said:

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

Oh yeah, the Andrew Lincoln thing that Allin -Khan plageurised the week before.

Bob Dylan just texted from a recent thread to say he done it first.
Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick Blues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0

Utter genius.

Snap. That was a handful.

Scott_xP said:

Stuartinromford said:

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

We said BoZo was a Clown.

We said he would be terrible.

They voted for him anyway.

Now they wail about how terrible it is...

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

It baffles me that any Cabinet member can look at their colleagues and not have similar thoughts.

GIN1138 said:

kle4 said:

solarflare said:

rottenborough said:

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

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

Ministerial purposes?

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

Don't forget JRM

To make the rest of them appear to be in touch with ordinary people.

Gallowgate said:

carnforth said:

Gallowgate said:

another_richard said:

Scott_xP said:

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

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

The British Retail Consortium and the freight trade group Logistics UK have written to Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, to warn that a shortfall of about 90,000 HGV drivers is “placing increasingly unsustainable pressure on retailers and their supply chains”. The situation is likely to get worse with children returning to school and workers returning to offices in September, they wrote on Friday.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shops-farms-and-restaurants-turn-to-prisons-to-fill-staff-shortages-j2qgd38td

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

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

As I explained in the other thread, the 'working classes' getting a pay rise is all well and good but not if said 'pay rise' is cancelled out by increased costs of everyday items.

Of course it's the comfortably well off who would be unaffected by such price rises.

You really think an HGV driver getting 20% pay increase will see it cancelled out by rising prices? I’d be surprised if it put the cost of supermarket goods up by 1%.

Not necessarily, no. But a minimum wage working class worker in another industry is certainly not going to be happy with increased costs, nor are they a 'middle class whiner'.

Sighs if there is a shortage of workers it will be a shortage over all minimum wage positions in all industries, these are jobs it is reasonably easy to move to, so for example if hospitality staff start earning more than minimum wage and people start moving to do it from other minimum wage jobs that causes a shortage in other industries

I’m not saying this Raab chap is an

Scott_xP said:

Leon said:

Anyway we have to deal with Now.

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

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

It's a tragedy that some of those who voted for them can't let go...

You have expressed explicitly your contempt for the current Government, one I share TBF, but your problem is you have no idea what you want to replace it. Which is why your posts are so wearisome. How do ‘we’ remove the current Government? I would suggest that a suitable alternative beating it in an election might be a good way. So big up your suitable alternative.

Scott_xP said:

Working harder than anyone in government

=

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

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

Repost of the repost of the repost of the repost of the repost...