The big challenge for BoJo is that Starmer isn’t Corbyn – politicalbetting.com

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

The revealing bit of that Boris interview was what he said about this being a transition. We are about to destructively test the drive of the last 20 years where consumers actively choose British products. Frankly a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign is the obvious thing missing from the government's strategy - why aren't they doing so?

Instead we are going to see our stuff get a lot more expensive, making imports more appealing than ever. People want to buy local but if they can't because it costs too much then the choice of import vs nothing will push import for many.

Which will literally fuck farming to death. Philip and some free market ideologues may welcome this, most people won't. The government will try and blame farmers until as with all the other "lets blame industry" attempts the actual numbers get published and the minister is shown up to be an absolute spanner. At which point the government caves in.

Exactly, I can't work out if the government are autarkists (like Germany in 1930s) or free range marketeers (like the UK in the C19 and early C20, which wrecked farming also).

Why the heck should the government get involved in a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign? How is that the government's responsibility? Advertising and marketing is not the government's responsibility, that's not what we pay our taxes for.

Buying British when its economically competitive so why not buy British is easy to do. Buying British when it costs a premium ... that's actually then up to the consumers to make their choice.

If British farming gets fucked to death, then quite frankly I don't see why we should care - any more than when British mining got fucked to death. How are farmers any different to miners?

Farming takes up 70% of this countries land, but agriculture represents 0.59% of GDP. I'm not sure if that includes the 0.1% of GDP that the fisheries represent.

If we import more, we import more, but what we should not be importing is slaves serfs peasants minimum wage employees.

That's what the Tories and free market liberals said until the Great War. Which the UK very nearly lost if the Germans hadn't been so pusillanimous with the U-boats.

Amazing the Brexiters love to go on about Spitfires but forget the Battle of the Atlantic.

Indeed. "just import it" is fine until you can't. Or the price increases 300%.

What you don't seem to understand is that sovereignty is all about making the choice to be held hostage by foreign beef and poultry farmers.

Yes it is.

Though if the world's foreign beef and poultry farmers ever chose to hold us to hostage that would be rather surprising considering they're not OPEC they're diverse across the entire planet. If any one nation's beef and poultry farmers chose to hold us to hostage, why would we not import from a different one?

I don't think pricing their products robustly constitutes holding us hostage. If foreign producers thought that we were forced buyers then you know what would happen to prices. Or would we all switch to Quorn instead?

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

The revealing bit of that Boris interview was what he said about this being a transition. We are about to destructively test the drive of the last 20 years where consumers actively choose British products. Frankly a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign is the obvious thing missing from the government's strategy - why aren't they doing so?

Instead we are going to see our stuff get a lot more expensive, making imports more appealing than ever. People want to buy local but if they can't because it costs too much then the choice of import vs nothing will push import for many.

Which will literally fuck farming to death. Philip and some free market ideologues may welcome this, most people won't. The government will try and blame farmers until as with all the other "lets blame industry" attempts the actual numbers get published and the minister is shown up to be an absolute spanner. At which point the government caves in.

Exactly, I can't work out if the government are autarkists (like Germany in 1930s) or free range marketeers (like the UK in the C19 and early C20, which wrecked farming also).

Why the heck should the government get involved in a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign? How is that the government's responsibility? Advertising and marketing is not the government's responsibility, that's not what we pay our taxes for.

Buying British when its economically competitive so why not buy British is easy to do. Buying British when it costs a premium ... that's actually then up to the consumers to make their choice.

If British farming gets fucked to death, then quite frankly I don't see why we should care - any more than when British mining got fucked to death. How are farmers any different to miners?

Farming takes up 70% of this countries land, but agriculture represents 0.59% of GDP. I'm not sure if that includes the 0.1% of GDP that the fisheries represent.

If we import more, we import more, but what we should not be importing is slaves serfs peasants minimum wage employees.

That's what the Tories and free market liberals said until the Great War. Which the UK very nearly lost if the Germans hadn't been so pusillanimous with the U-boats.

Amazing the Brexiters love to go on about Spitfires but forget the Battle of the Atlantic.

Yes and the liberals were right then and even more right now.

We didn't lose the war and we're not at any real risk in the 21st century of being blockaded so get real. We are a wealthy nation, especially if we stop deflating our economy by importing from the third world, or dedicating 70% of land to 0.49% of GDP.

We spent decades relying upon imported coal for our electricity and we didn't get impoverished as a nation or blockaded by U-Boats when that happened. Special pleading by vested interests should be treated with the same amount of respect as the NUM got in the 80s.

Plenty of hostages to fortune there.

Why was it OK to import coal for our electricity but not import meat?

In the modern world electricity is just as important as food.

Known and unknown unknowns is your friend here.

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

The revealing bit of that Boris interview was what he said about this being a transition. We are about to destructively test the drive of the last 20 years where consumers actively choose British products. Frankly a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign is the obvious thing missing from the government's strategy - why aren't they doing so?

Instead we are going to see our stuff get a lot more expensive, making imports more appealing than ever. People want to buy local but if they can't because it costs too much then the choice of import vs nothing will push import for many.

Which will literally fuck farming to death. Philip and some free market ideologues may welcome this, most people won't. The government will try and blame farmers until as with all the other "lets blame industry" attempts the actual numbers get published and the minister is shown up to be an absolute spanner. At which point the government caves in.

Exactly, I can't work out if the government are autarkists (like Germany in 1930s) or free range marketeers (like the UK in the C19 and early C20, which wrecked farming also).

Why the heck should the government get involved in a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign? How is that the government's responsibility? Advertising and marketing is not the government's responsibility, that's not what we pay our taxes for.

Buying British when its economically competitive so why not buy British is easy to do. Buying British when it costs a premium ... that's actually then up to the consumers to make their choice.

If British farming gets fucked to death, then quite frankly I don't see why we should care - any more than when British mining got fucked to death. How are farmers any different to miners?

Farming takes up 70% of this countries land, but agriculture represents 0.59% of GDP. I'm not sure if that includes the 0.1% of GDP that the fisheries represent.

If we import more, we import more, but what we should not be importing is slaves serfs peasants minimum wage employees.

That's what the Tories and free market liberals said until the Great War. Which the UK very nearly lost if the Germans hadn't been so pusillanimous with the U-boats.

Amazing the Brexiters love to go on about Spitfires but forget the Battle of the Atlantic.

Yes and the liberals were right then and even more right now.

We didn't lose the war and we're not at any real risk in the 21st century of being blockaded so get real. We are a wealthy nation, especially if we stop deflating our economy by importing from the third world, or dedicating 70% of land to 0.49% of GDP.

We spent decades relying upon imported coal for our electricity and we didn't get impoverished as a nation or blockaded by U-Boats when that happened. Special pleading by vested interests should be treated with the same amount of respect as the NUM got in the 80s.

Plenty of hostages to fortune there.

Why was it OK to import coal for our electricity but not import meat?

In the modern world electricity is just as important as food.

eek said:

MattW said:

Carnyx said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

The revealing bit of that Boris interview was what he said about this being a transition. We are about to destructively test the drive of the last 20 years where consumers actively choose British products. Frankly a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign is the obvious thing missing from the government's strategy - why aren't they doing so?

Instead we are going to see our stuff get a lot more expensive, making imports more appealing than ever. People want to buy local but if they can't because it costs too much then the choice of import vs nothing will push import for many.

Which will literally fuck farming to death. Philip and some free market ideologues may welcome this, most people won't. The government will try and blame farmers until as with all the other "lets blame industry" attempts the actual numbers get published and the minister is shown up to be an absolute spanner. At which point the government caves in.

Exactly, I can't work out if the government are autarkists (like Germany in 1930s) or free range marketeers (like the UK in the C19 and early C20, which wrecked farming also).

Why the heck should the government get involved in a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign? How is that the government's responsibility? Advertising and marketing is not the government's responsibility, that's not what we pay our taxes for.

Buying British when its economically competitive so why not buy British is easy to do. Buying British when it costs a premium ... that's actually then up to the consumers to make their choice.

If British farming gets fucked to death, then quite frankly I don't see why we should care - any more than when British mining got fucked to death. How are farmers any different to miners?

Farming takes up 70% of this countries land, but agriculture represents 0.59% of GDP. I'm not sure if that includes the 0.1% of GDP that the fisheries represent.

If we import more, we import more, but what we should not be importing is slaves serfs peasants minimum wage employees.

That's what the Tories and free market liberals said until the Great War. Which the UK very nearly lost if the Germans hadn't been so pusillanimous with the U-boats.

Amazing the Brexiters love to go on about Spitfires but forget the Battle of the Atlantic.

That I think, was another Hitler f-up. He told them "no war for x years", then started after one . I'm not really aware of the Battle of the Atlantic being de-emphasized.

I think calling minimum wage employees "slaves" or "serfs" is absurd. UK has one of the highest minimum wage levels in Europe - on a level with France, Germany etc. Luxembourg and Switzerland and Norway are higher - we need to learn some lessons from there.

Not quite so sure about Labour mobility - there's a balance to be struck, and people earning more here then returning home helps poorer countries develop. Which is actually what we need for long term peace.

A buy British campaign is great - we have very high standards (especially eg for numbers of pigs grown outdoors) and should shout about it.

We also have some vociferous animal rights types with their heads in the clouds, who are sometimes locked into "misery UK" narratives, which are overdone. It's like Greens pretending that the UK has done nothing eg for emissions reduction, or insulation.

A better measure than minimum wage levels would be the percentage of the population on the minimum wage - I suspect that would be very revealing and show that been using labour rather than investment to solve problems for the past 10 years.

NickyBreakspear said:

Constituency swings

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

The revealing bit of that Boris interview was what he said about this being a transition. We are about to destructively test the drive of the last 20 years where consumers actively choose British products. Frankly a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign is the obvious thing missing from the government's strategy - why aren't they doing so?

Instead we are going to see our stuff get a lot more expensive, making imports more appealing than ever. People want to buy local but if they can't because it costs too much then the choice of import vs nothing will push import for many.

Which will literally fuck farming to death. Philip and some free market ideologues may welcome this, most people won't. The government will try and blame farmers until as with all the other "lets blame industry" attempts the actual numbers get published and the minister is shown up to be an absolute spanner. At which point the government caves in.

Exactly, I can't work out if the government are autarkists (like Germany in 1930s) or free range marketeers (like the UK in the C19 and early C20, which wrecked farming also).

Why the heck should the government get involved in a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign? How is that the government's responsibility? Advertising and marketing is not the government's responsibility, that's not what we pay our taxes for.

Buying British when its economically competitive so why not buy British is easy to do. Buying British when it costs a premium ... that's actually then up to the consumers to make their choice.

If British farming gets fucked to death, then quite frankly I don't see why we should care - any more than when British mining got fucked to death. How are farmers any different to miners?

Farming takes up 70% of this countries land, but agriculture represents 0.59% of GDP. I'm not sure if that includes the 0.1% of GDP that the fisheries represent.

If we import more, we import more, but what we should not be importing is slaves serfs peasants minimum wage employees.

That's what the Tories and free market liberals said until the Great War. Which the UK very nearly lost if the Germans hadn't been so pusillanimous with the U-boats.

Amazing the Brexiters love to go on about Spitfires but forget the Battle of the Atlantic.

Indeed. "just import it" is fine until you can't. Or the price increases 300%.

What you don't seem to understand is that sovereignty is all about making the choice to be held hostage by foreign beef and poultry farmers.

Yes it is.

Though if the world's foreign beef and poultry farmers ever chose to hold us to hostage that would be rather surprising considering they're not OPEC they're diverse across the entire planet. If any one nation's beef and poultry farmers chose to hold us to hostage, why would we not import from a different one?

I don't think pricing their products robustly constitutes holding us hostage. If foreign producers thought that we were forced buyers then you know what would happen to prices. Or would we all switch to Quorn instead?

Why would we be forced buyers?

If I want to buy chicken from the Netherlands and they think we're a forced buyer then why wouldn't we buy from Thailand? Or Brazil? Or the USA? Or Poland? Or Turkey? Or . . .

We're not a forced buyer, because there's no monopoly supplier.

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

The revealing bit of that Boris interview was what he said about this being a transition. We are about to destructively test the drive of the last 20 years where consumers actively choose British products. Frankly a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign is the obvious thing missing from the government's strategy - why aren't they doing so?

Instead we are going to see our stuff get a lot more expensive, making imports more appealing than ever. People want to buy local but if they can't because it costs too much then the choice of import vs nothing will push import for many.

Which will literally fuck farming to death. Philip and some free market ideologues may welcome this, most people won't. The government will try and blame farmers until as with all the other "lets blame industry" attempts the actual numbers get published and the minister is shown up to be an absolute spanner. At which point the government caves in.

Exactly, I can't work out if the government are autarkists (like Germany in 1930s) or free range marketeers (like the UK in the C19 and early C20, which wrecked farming also).

Why the heck should the government get involved in a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign? How is that the government's responsibility? Advertising and marketing is not the government's responsibility, that's not what we pay our taxes for.

Buying British when its economically competitive so why not buy British is easy to do. Buying British when it costs a premium ... that's actually then up to the consumers to make their choice.

If British farming gets fucked to death, then quite frankly I don't see why we should care - any more than when British mining got fucked to death. How are farmers any different to miners?

Farming takes up 70% of this countries land, but agriculture represents 0.59% of GDP. I'm not sure if that includes the 0.1% of GDP that the fisheries represent.

If we import more, we import more, but what we should not be importing is slaves serfs peasants minimum wage employees.

That's what the Tories and free market liberals said until the Great War. Which the UK very nearly lost if the Germans hadn't been so pusillanimous with the U-boats.

Amazing the Brexiters love to go on about Spitfires but forget the Battle of the Atlantic.

Indeed. "just import it" is fine until you can't. Or the price increases 300%.

What you don't seem to understand is that sovereignty is all about making the choice to be held hostage by foreign beef and poultry farmers.

Yes it is.

Though if the world's foreign beef and poultry farmers ever chose to hold us to hostage that would be rather surprising considering they're not OPEC they're diverse across the entire planet. If any one nation's beef and poultry farmers chose to hold us to hostage, why would we not import from a different one?

I don't think pricing their products robustly constitutes holding us hostage. If foreign producers thought that we were forced buyers then you know what would happen to prices. Or would we all switch to Quorn instead?

Why would we be forced buyers?

If I want to buy chicken from the Netherlands and they think we're a forced buyer then why wouldn't we buy from Thailand? Or Brazil? Or the USA? Or Poland? Or Turkey? Or . . .

We're not a forced buyer, because there's no monopoly supplier.

Absolutely but at the same time if it is perceived (by all suppliers - we live in a world where Thai and Dutch chicken producers read the same analysis) that we are forced buyers then there will be a shift in pricing.

Will it send us to meat substitutes? Probably not. Will it result in higher prices? Probably.

At which point one has to ask what the aim of govt is. To put our farmers out of business and raise prices for consumers doesn't sit well in a GE manifesto.

eek said:

RochdalePioneers said:

NickyBreakspear said:

Constituency swings

Blimey. Stockton South back into toss-up territory? Matt Vickers will have have to do more than social media posts whilst pissed and writing to the Palace of Westminster catering teams to get Parmo on the menu.

TBH to Matt I think he is a decent human being. Its just that punters in Stockton are fickle, they turned out in large numbers to vote for him and expect delivery. He hasn't done much yet.

Also worth saying - Redcar is always going to be a toss-up seat, unless you deliver.

North West Durham should be being used by SKS to show the reason why Corbyn died - a left wing loony only works as a candidate in a few constituencies...

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

The revealing bit of that Boris interview was what he said about this being a transition. We are about to destructively test the drive of the last 20 years where consumers actively choose British products. Frankly a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign is the obvious thing missing from the government's strategy - why aren't they doing so?

Instead we are going to see our stuff get a lot more expensive, making imports more appealing than ever. People want to buy local but if they can't because it costs too much then the choice of import vs nothing will push import for many.

Which will literally fuck farming to death. Philip and some free market ideologues may welcome this, most people won't. The government will try and blame farmers until as with all the other "lets blame industry" attempts the actual numbers get published and the minister is shown up to be an absolute spanner. At which point the government caves in.

Exactly, I can't work out if the government are autarkists (like Germany in 1930s) or free range marketeers (like the UK in the C19 and early C20, which wrecked farming also).

Why the heck should the government get involved in a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign? How is that the government's responsibility? Advertising and marketing is not the government's responsibility, that's not what we pay our taxes for.

Buying British when its economically competitive so why not buy British is easy to do. Buying British when it costs a premium ... that's actually then up to the consumers to make their choice.

If British farming gets fucked to death, then quite frankly I don't see why we should care - any more than when British mining got fucked to death. How are farmers any different to miners?

Farming takes up 70% of this countries land, but agriculture represents 0.59% of GDP. I'm not sure if that includes the 0.1% of GDP that the fisheries represent.

If we import more, we import more, but what we should not be importing is slaves serfs peasants minimum wage employees.

That's what the Tories and free market liberals said until the Great War. Which the UK very nearly lost if the Germans hadn't been so pusillanimous with the U-boats.

Amazing the Brexiters love to go on about Spitfires but forget the Battle of the Atlantic.

Yes and the liberals were right then and even more right now.

We didn't lose the war and we're not at any real risk in the 21st century of being blockaded so get real. We are a wealthy nation, especially if we stop deflating our economy by importing from the third world, or dedicating 70% of land to 0.49% of GDP.

We spent decades relying upon imported coal for our electricity and we didn't get impoverished as a nation or blockaded by U-Boats when that happened. Special pleading by vested interests should be treated with the same amount of respect as the NUM got in the 80s.

Plenty of hostages to fortune there.

Why was it OK to import coal for our electricity but not import meat?

In the modern world electricity is just as important as food.

We benefited from massive subsidies in Brazil and Venezuela to make coal cheap. Alternately they could have banged the price up and we'd have been screwed. Point is that being reliant on someone else means you aren't in control - they are.

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

Is this person arguing in favour of the UK being self-sufficient in food?

The key question is whether UKG is in favour of self sufficiency in food. Their actions suggest otherwise, as they prioritise imports over home production. Which is what this person is saying.

I don't think it's remotely possible for the UK to be self sufficient in food. It's not a question of what anyone is in favour of, it's a question of reality.

OK. To reiterate my point. UKG by its actions is making the UK less sufficient in food by prioritising imports over home production.

Why is that a bad thing?

Was it a bad thing we were less sufficient in coal?

It isn't necessarily a bad thing if you believe immigration is bad per se, and less important than maintaining home industries. But the consequence of restricting the means to profitably produce food at market prices, while you don't restrict imports of competitor products, is to see imports replace home production.

I don't think immigration is bad whatsoever. I support as much high-skilled, high-wage immigration as possible.

I think immigration for minimum wage jobs, deflating our economy and driving up costs combined with giving those who come here for minimum wages jobs housing benefit, universal credit etc because minimum wage isn't enough to live in this nation is bad. Don't you?

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

Is this person arguing in favour of the UK being self-sufficient in food?

The key question is whether UKG is in favour of self sufficiency in food. Their actions suggest otherwise, as they prioritise imports over home production. Which is what this person is saying.

I don't think it's remotely possible for the UK to be self sufficient in food. It's not a question of what anyone is in favour of, it's a question of reality.

OK. To reiterate my point. UKG by its actions is making the UK less sufficient in food by prioritising imports over home production.

Why is that a bad thing?

Was it a bad thing we were less sufficient in coal?

It isn't necessarily a bad thing if you believe immigration is bad per se, and less important than maintaining home industries. But the consequence of restricting the means to profitably produce food at market prices, while you don't restrict imports of competitor products, is to see imports replace home production.

I don't think immigration is bad whatsoever. I support as much high-skilled, high-wage immigration as possible.

I think immigration for minimum wage jobs, deflating our economy and driving up costs combined with giving those who come here for minimum wages jobs housing benefit, universal credit etc because minimum wage isn't enough to live in this nation is bad. Don't you?

I don't think this, no. Because it ignores market reality. Not an expert, but I don't think slaughtermen were working at minimum wage under FoM anyway.

tlg86 said:

NickyBreakspear said:

Constituency swings

Newcastle-under-Lyme...

eek said:

RochdalePioneers said:

NickyBreakspear said:

Constituency swings

Blimey. Stockton South back into toss-up territory? Matt Vickers will have have to do more than social media posts whilst pissed and writing to the Palace of Westminster catering teams to get Parmo on the menu.

TBH to Matt I think he is a decent human being. Its just that punters in Stockton are fickle, they turned out in large numbers to vote for him and expect delivery. He hasn't done much yet.

Also worth saying - Redcar is always going to be a toss-up seat, unless you deliver.

North West Durham should be being used by SKS to show the reason why Corbyn died - a left wing loony only works as a candidate in a few constituencies...

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

Is this person arguing in favour of the UK being self-sufficient in food?

The key question is whether UKG is in favour of self sufficiency in food. Their actions suggest otherwise, as they prioritise imports over home production. Which is what this person is saying.

I don't think it's remotely possible for the UK to be self sufficient in food. It's not a question of what anyone is in favour of, it's a question of reality.

OK. To reiterate my point. UKG by its actions is making the UK less sufficient in food by prioritising imports over home production.

Why is that a bad thing?

Was it a bad thing we were less sufficient in coal?

It isn't necessarily a bad thing if you believe immigration is bad per se, and less important than maintaining home industries. But the consequence of restricting the means to profitably produce food at market prices, while you don't restrict imports of competitor products, is to see imports replace home production.

I don't think immigration is bad whatsoever. I support as much high-skilled, high-wage immigration as possible.

I think immigration for minimum wage jobs, deflating our economy and driving up costs combined with giving those who come here for minimum wages jobs housing benefit, universal credit etc because minimum wage isn't enough to live in this nation is bad. Don't you?

I don't think this, no. Because it ignores market reality. Not an expert, but I don't think slaughtermen were working at minimum wage under FoM anyway.

Actually they were. We had job details being shared here saying that night shifts in an abattoir in South East England were being paid £9.12 per hour.

Do you think its feasible or productive to be working for £9.12 per hour for overnight shifts in South East England? Or to be frank anywhere in the UK.

Glassdoor has average slaughtermen salaries at £31 000, which is about twice minimum wage. I'm sure when you drill down there are big variations. But those apparently reasonably paid jobs will go if we import the products instead, thanks to the government immigration and trade policies.

Mexicanpete said:

Casino_Royale said:

Mexicanpete said:

Casino_Royale said:

On topic (ish) Keir Starmer is an uninspiring product but that won't matter if the economy stagflates - Labour could simply win by default anyway.

Remember 1974.

I have always agreed with the notion that Governments lose, oppositions don't win.

Your boy can win despite stagflation. And if winning is all that matters. starting ulture wars and scapegoating minorities are meat and drink to Johnson's current audience. Even if the economy is on its knees, my long held view that incumbency takes the hit has been proven wrong by the fuel crisis.

It is not the crisis, but who gets the blame for the crisis. Previous governments, Remainers, woke lefties, foreigners, foreign governments are all fair game, and Johnson is winning at that game.

Your lot have already started a culture war - your objection is that a resistance is finally being put up to it: https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/07/12/political-discrimination-as-civil-rights-struggle/

Wrong country mate.

tlg86 said:

NickyBreakspear said:

Constituency swings

Newcastle-under-Lyme...

Benpointer said:

eek said:

Casino_Royale said:

JosiasJessop said:

Fishing said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

franklyn said:

A high wage economy, says Boris.
So nurses are given a 3% pay rise for working through Covid with inadequate PPE and then 1% is taken back in national insurance, and the rest in higher petrol prices and electricity costs, leaving most of them poorer that before. You could say the same for lots of people, not to mention the Ponzi scheme of student loans which will burden most high achieving school leavers as soon as they graduate.
We need lower taxes, so that people retain a decent proportion of what they earn.

And nurses, like everybody else need to increase their productivity so they can be paid higher wages.

In practical terms, what does that mean? Is a single staff nurse looking after a ward of 30 patients more productive? Or one who has enough time with each patient that they don't catch a hospital acquired infection, that their vital signs are monitored and acted on, and the patient leaves the hospital alive and expeditiously?

It means using fewer inputs to get the same output. So a staff nurse looking after 30 patients would be more productive than one looking after 29, provided she gives them the same quality of care. Of course it's difficult to measure in the service sector. And still more difficult to improve. But it is the key to higher pay.

Productivity increases in the service sector, which is by far the biggest bit of the economy, are inherently limited by the nature of those services. People value the time and personal input of much of these, whether healthcare, dining out or getting a beauty treatment.

Stagnant productivity is a feature of a post industrial economy. Demand may have pushed up HGV wages, but it hasn't made them more productive. Some individuals have benefited, but as an economy there has been no gain.

Eventually what we might see in the HGV sector is automated driving, which will be a spectacular increase in labour productivity.

We already have it - it's called railways. Thirty lorries in one train.

(runs for cover)

But the problem with automated lorries is the same as it is for trains: the last mile. It's fine saying you can drive along the motorways, or even to the depots, but somewhat pointless if you need drivers for the rest of it.

I've been bearish on automated driving for years. There hasn't been much progress to make me change my mind. If anything, the lack of progress cements it: it's an incredibly tricky problem, as Tesla, Waymo and others are finding out to their cost.

Automation works on some urban railways *because* you take out some of the unpredictability and risk that would otherwise have to be taken into account by a human driver. That's why it's feasible on the jubilee line extension, DLR or Crossrail (central section) as you separate the platform-train interface, and automate everything else.

You can't do that everywhere across the whole country.

It's the same problem as self driving cars - unless everything is fully automated, human beings have a nasty habit of accidently creating serious issues..

Driverless cars are only 5 years away. And will be for many years to come.

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

Is this person arguing in favour of the UK being self-sufficient in food?

The key question is whether UKG is in favour of self sufficiency in food. Their actions suggest otherwise, as they prioritise imports over home production. Which is what this person is saying.

I don't think it's remotely possible for the UK to be self sufficient in food. It's not a question of what anyone is in favour of, it's a question of reality.

OK. To reiterate my point. UKG by its actions is making the UK less sufficient in food by prioritising imports over home production.

Why is that a bad thing?

Was it a bad thing we were less sufficient in coal?

It isn't necessarily a bad thing if you believe immigration is bad per se, and less important than maintaining home industries. But the consequence of restricting the means to profitably produce food at market prices, while you don't restrict imports of competitor products, is to see imports replace home production.

I don't think immigration is bad whatsoever. I support as much high-skilled, high-wage immigration as possible.

I think immigration for minimum wage jobs, deflating our economy and driving up costs combined with giving those who come here for minimum wages jobs housing benefit, universal credit etc because minimum wage isn't enough to live in this nation is bad. Don't you?

I don't think this, no. Because it ignores market reality. Not an expert, but I don't think slaughtermen were working at minimum wage under FoM anyway.

Actually they were. We had job details being shared here saying that night shifts in an abattoir in South East England were being paid £9.12 per hour.

Do you think its feasible or productive to be working for £9.12 per hour for overnight shifts in South East England? Or to be frank anywhere in the UK.

Glassdoor has average slaughtermen salaries at £31 000, which is about twice minimum wage. I'm sure when you drill down there are big variations. But those apparently reasonably paid jobs will go if we import the products instead, thanks to the government immigration and trade policies.

No they won't, if they're productive they'll stay.

What will go is the £9.12 per hour jobs being advertised.

Do you think its acceptable to expect a night shift job for difficult work to be filled for £9.12 per hour?

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

Is this person arguing in favour of the UK being self-sufficient in food?

The key question is whether UKG is in favour of self sufficiency in food. Their actions suggest otherwise, as they prioritise imports over home production. Which is what this person is saying.

I don't think it's remotely possible for the UK to be self sufficient in food. It's not a question of what anyone is in favour of, it's a question of reality.

OK. To reiterate my point. UKG by its actions is making the UK less sufficient in food by prioritising imports over home production.

Why is that a bad thing?

Was it a bad thing we were less sufficient in coal?

It isn't necessarily a bad thing if you believe immigration is bad per se, and less important than maintaining home industries. But the consequence of restricting the means to profitably produce food at market prices, while you don't restrict imports of competitor products, is to see imports replace home production.

I don't think immigration is bad whatsoever. I support as much high-skilled, high-wage immigration as possible.

I think immigration for minimum wage jobs, deflating our economy and driving up costs combined with giving those who come here for minimum wages jobs housing benefit, universal credit etc because minimum wage isn't enough to live in this nation is bad. Don't you?

I don't think this, no. Because it ignores market reality. Not an expert, but I don't think slaughtermen were working at minimum wage under FoM anyway.

Actually they were. We had job details being shared here saying that night shifts in an abattoir in South East England were being paid £9.12 per hour.

Do you think its feasible or productive to be working for £9.12 per hour for overnight shifts in South East England? Or to be frank anywhere in the UK.

Glassdoor has average slaughtermen salaries at £31 000, which is about twice minimum wage. I'm sure when you drill down there are big variations. But those apparently reasonably paid jobs will go if we import the products instead, thanks to the government immigration and trade policies.

No they won't, if they're productive they'll stay.

What will go is the £9.12 per hour jobs being advertised.

Do you think its acceptable to expect a night shift job for difficult work to be filled for £9.12 per hour?

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

Is this person arguing in favour of the UK being self-sufficient in food?

The key question is whether UKG is in favour of self sufficiency in food. Their actions suggest otherwise, as they prioritise imports over home production. Which is what this person is saying.

I don't think it's remotely possible for the UK to be self sufficient in food. It's not a question of what anyone is in favour of, it's a question of reality.

OK. To reiterate my point. UKG by its actions is making the UK less sufficient in food by prioritising imports over home production.

Why is that a bad thing?

Was it a bad thing we were less sufficient in coal?

It isn't necessarily a bad thing if you believe immigration is bad per se, and less important than maintaining home industries. But the consequence of restricting the means to profitably produce food at market prices, while you don't restrict imports of competitor products, is to see imports replace home production.

I don't think immigration is bad whatsoever. I support as much high-skilled, high-wage immigration as possible.

I think immigration for minimum wage jobs, deflating our economy and driving up costs combined with giving those who come here for minimum wages jobs housing benefit, universal credit etc because minimum wage isn't enough to live in this nation is bad. Don't you?

I don't think this, no. Because it ignores market reality. Not an expert, but I don't think slaughtermen were working at minimum wage under FoM anyway.

Actually they were. We had job details being shared here saying that night shifts in an abattoir in South East England were being paid £9.12 per hour.

Do you think its feasible or productive to be working for £9.12 per hour for overnight shifts in South East England? Or to be frank anywhere in the UK.

Glassdoor has average slaughtermen salaries at £31 000, which is about twice minimum wage. I'm sure when you drill down there are big variations. But those apparently reasonably paid jobs will go if we import the products instead, thanks to the government immigration and trade policies.

No they won't, if they're productive they'll stay.

What will go is the £9.12 per hour jobs being advertised.

Do you think its acceptable to expect a night shift job for difficult work to be filled for £9.12 per hour?

You really aren't understanding the market forces at play here. Point is, British meat is competitive against imports at whatever the average salary is - stated to be £31 000. As they can't get sufficient staff at that salary, abbatoirs could increase the offer but then they would no longer be competitive with imports. In effect the £31 000, or whatever it is, is the ceiling.

That's the system devised by the government. They could restrict imports of goods through quotas and tariffs. That would have consequences. Restrictions on imports of labour and of goods are really two sides of the same coin. The government has chosen to restrict the first but not the second. That's the market environment.

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

Is this person arguing in favour of the UK being self-sufficient in food?

The key question is whether UKG is in favour of self sufficiency in food. Their actions suggest otherwise, as they prioritise imports over home production. Which is what this person is saying.

I don't think it's remotely possible for the UK to be self sufficient in food. It's not a question of what anyone is in favour of, it's a question of reality.

OK. To reiterate my point. UKG by its actions is making the UK less sufficient in food by prioritising imports over home production.

Why is that a bad thing?

Was it a bad thing we were less sufficient in coal?

It isn't necessarily a bad thing if you believe immigration is bad per se, and less important than maintaining home industries. But the consequence of restricting the means to profitably produce food at market prices, while you don't restrict imports of competitor products, is to see imports replace home production.

I don't think immigration is bad whatsoever. I support as much high-skilled, high-wage immigration as possible.

I think immigration for minimum wage jobs, deflating our economy and driving up costs combined with giving those who come here for minimum wages jobs housing benefit, universal credit etc because minimum wage isn't enough to live in this nation is bad. Don't you?

I don't think this, no. Because it ignores market reality. Not an expert, but I don't think slaughtermen were working at minimum wage under FoM anyway.

Actually they were. We had job details being shared here saying that night shifts in an abattoir in South East England were being paid £9.12 per hour.

Do you think its feasible or productive to be working for £9.12 per hour for overnight shifts in South East England? Or to be frank anywhere in the UK.

Glassdoor has average slaughtermen salaries at £31 000, which is about twice minimum wage. I'm sure when you drill down there are big variations. But those apparently reasonably paid jobs will go if we import the products instead, thanks to the government immigration and trade policies.

No they won't, if they're productive they'll stay.

What will go is the £9.12 per hour jobs being advertised.

Do you think its acceptable to expect a night shift job for difficult work to be filled for £9.12 per hour?

Glassdoor really isn't accurate when looking at wages for UK jobs...

HYUFD said:

Furious motorists and a paramedic pull 'Insulate Britain' activists out of the road at Wandsworth Bridge

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1444967088448282625?s=20

FF43 said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

Is this person arguing in favour of the UK being self-sufficient in food?

The key question is whether UKG is in favour of self sufficiency in food. Their actions suggest otherwise, as they prioritise imports over home production. Which is what this person is saying.

I don't think it's remotely possible for the UK to be self sufficient in food. It's not a question of what anyone is in favour of, it's a question of reality.

OK. To reiterate my point. UKG by its actions is making the UK less sufficient in food by prioritising imports over home production.

Why is that a bad thing?

Was it a bad thing we were less sufficient in coal?

It isn't necessarily a bad thing if you believe immigration is bad per se, and less important than maintaining home industries. But the consequence of restricting the means to profitably produce food at market prices, while you don't restrict imports of competitor products, is to see imports replace home production.

I don't think immigration is bad whatsoever. I support as much high-skilled, high-wage immigration as possible.

I think immigration for minimum wage jobs, deflating our economy and driving up costs combined with giving those who come here for minimum wages jobs housing benefit, universal credit etc because minimum wage isn't enough to live in this nation is bad. Don't you?

I don't think this, no. Because it ignores market reality. Not an expert, but I don't think slaughtermen were working at minimum wage under FoM anyway.

Actually they were. We had job details being shared here saying that night shifts in an abattoir in South East England were being paid £9.12 per hour.

Do you think its feasible or productive to be working for £9.12 per hour for overnight shifts in South East England? Or to be frank anywhere in the UK.

Glassdoor has average slaughtermen salaries at £31 000, which is about twice minimum wage. I'm sure when you drill down there are big variations. But those apparently reasonably paid jobs will go if we import the products instead, thanks to the government immigration and trade policies.

No they won't, if they're productive they'll stay.

What will go is the £9.12 per hour jobs being advertised.

Do you think its acceptable to expect a night shift job for difficult work to be filled for £9.12 per hour?

Glassdoor really isn't accurate when looking at wages for UK jobs...

I agree, but at least a proportion of people will be paid that. £9 an hour isn't the average salary either. The market forces principle still applies, regardless of what the actual average salary is.

HYUFD said:

Andy_JS said:

eek said:

NickyBreakspear said:

Constituency swings

Remarkable that Darlington with significant investment and Treasury North is a swing seat while Sedgefield and Bishop Auckland are still firmly Tory...

Probably because Darlington is an urban seat whereas Sedgefield and Bishop Auckland are both fairly rural.

Yes, in the US and the rest of the Anglosphere and most of continental Europe Sedgefield and Bishop Auckland would be pretty safe conservative areas. Both mainly rural, market town areas.

Brexit was the final push they needed to go Tory. Blair's Sedgefield could now be as lost to Labour going forward as Bill Clinton's Arkansas now is to the Democrats.

Taz said:

HYUFD said:

Andy_JS said:

eek said:

NickyBreakspear said:

Constituency swings

Remarkable that Darlington with significant investment and Treasury North is a swing seat while Sedgefield and Bishop Auckland are still firmly Tory...

Probably because Darlington is an urban seat whereas Sedgefield and Bishop Auckland are both fairly rural.

Yes, in the US and the rest of the Anglosphere and most of continental Europe Sedgefield and Bishop Auckland would be pretty safe conservative areas. Both mainly rural, market town areas.

Brexit was the final push they needed to go Tory. Blair's Sedgefield could now be as lost to Labour going forward as Bill Clinton's Arkansas now is to the Democrats.

I suspect Bishop Auckland is lost too. The town itself is only a small part of the seat and there are lots of new housing estates being thrown up. All nice 3/4 bed houses. It’s the sort of place I look at and am surprised it was labour for so long.

SandyRentool said:

Taz said:

HYUFD said:

Andy_JS said:

eek said:

NickyBreakspear said:

Constituency swings

Remarkable that Darlington with significant investment and Treasury North is a swing seat while Sedgefield and Bishop Auckland are still firmly Tory...

Probably because Darlington is an urban seat whereas Sedgefield and Bishop Auckland are both fairly rural.

Yes, in the US and the rest of the Anglosphere and most of continental Europe Sedgefield and Bishop Auckland would be pretty safe conservative areas. Both mainly rural, market town areas.

Brexit was the final push they needed to go Tory. Blair's Sedgefield could now be as lost to Labour going forward as Bill Clinton's Arkansas now is to the Democrats.

I suspect Bishop Auckland is lost too. The town itself is only a small part of the seat and there are lots of new housing estates being thrown up. All nice 3/4 bed houses. It’s the sort of place I look at and am surprised it was labour for so long.

And Teesdale has always been a solid Tory area. I suspect when we left Bish, the people who bought our nice 4 bed house are Tory voters.

FF43 said:

isam said:

FF43 said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

Is this person arguing in favour of the UK being self-sufficient in food?

The key question is whether UKG is in favour of self sufficiency in food. Their actions suggest otherwise, as they prioritise imports over home production. Which is what this person is saying.

I don't think it's remotely possible for the UK to be self sufficient in food. It's not a question of what anyone is in favour of, it's a question of reality.

OK. To reiterate my point. UKG by its actions is making the UK less sufficient in food by prioritising imports over home production.

Why is that a bad thing?

Was it a bad thing we were less sufficient in coal?

It isn't necessarily a bad thing if you believe immigration is bad per se, and less important than maintaining home industries. But the consequence of restricting the means to profitably produce food at market prices, while you don't restrict imports of competitor products, is to see imports replace home production.

I don't think immigration is bad whatsoever. I support as much high-skilled, high-wage immigration as possible.

I think immigration for minimum wage jobs, deflating our economy and driving up costs combined with giving those who come here for minimum wages jobs housing benefit, universal credit etc because minimum wage isn't enough to live in this nation is bad. Don't you?

I don't think this, no. Because it ignores market reality. Not an expert, but I don't think slaughtermen were working at minimum wage under FoM anyway.

Actually they were. We had job details being shared here saying that night shifts in an abattoir in South East England were being paid £9.12 per hour.

Do you think its feasible or productive to be working for £9.12 per hour for overnight shifts in South East England? Or to be frank anywhere in the UK.

Glassdoor has average slaughtermen salaries at £31 000, which is about twice minimum wage. I'm sure when you drill down there are big variations. But those apparently reasonably paid jobs will go if we import the products instead, thanks to the government immigration and trade policies.

No they won't, if they're productive they'll stay.

What will go is the £9.12 per hour jobs being advertised.

Do you think its acceptable to expect a night shift job for difficult work to be filled for £9.12 per hour?

Glassdoor really isn't accurate when looking at wages for UK jobs...

I agree, but at least a proportion of people will be paid that. £9 an hour isn't the average salary either. The market forces principle still applies, regardless of what the actual average salary is.

The £9.12ph jobs are now £10.57ph

Yeah but not all jobs are at that rate. The more skilled jobs get paid higher and is the way of the world, those jobs are more likely to be indigenous workers. Abbatoirs will be looking at their wage bill in the round. If the average wage is uncompetitive, all those jobs will go, including the higher paid ones.

IshmaelZ said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Benpointer said:

eek said:

Casino_Royale said:

JosiasJessop said:

Fishing said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

franklyn said:

A high wage economy, says Boris.
So nurses are given a 3% pay rise for working through Covid with inadequate PPE and then 1% is taken back in national insurance, and the rest in higher petrol prices and electricity costs, leaving most of them poorer that before. You could say the same for lots of people, not to mention the Ponzi scheme of student loans which will burden most high achieving school leavers as soon as they graduate.
We need lower taxes, so that people retain a decent proportion of what they earn.

And nurses, like everybody else need to increase their productivity so they can be paid higher wages.

In practical terms, what does that mean? Is a single staff nurse looking after a ward of 30 patients more productive? Or one who has enough time with each patient that they don't catch a hospital acquired infection, that their vital signs are monitored and acted on, and the patient leaves the hospital alive and expeditiously?

It means using fewer inputs to get the same output. So a staff nurse looking after 30 patients would be more productive than one looking after 29, provided she gives them the same quality of care. Of course it's difficult to measure in the service sector. And still more difficult to improve. But it is the key to higher pay.

Productivity increases in the service sector, which is by far the biggest bit of the economy, are inherently limited by the nature of those services. People value the time and personal input of much of these, whether healthcare, dining out or getting a beauty treatment.

Stagnant productivity is a feature of a post industrial economy. Demand may have pushed up HGV wages, but it hasn't made them more productive. Some individuals have benefited, but as an economy there has been no gain.

Eventually what we might see in the HGV sector is automated driving, which will be a spectacular increase in labour productivity.

We already have it - it's called railways. Thirty lorries in one train.

(runs for cover)

But the problem with automated lorries is the same as it is for trains: the last mile. It's fine saying you can drive along the motorways, or even to the depots, but somewhat pointless if you need drivers for the rest of it.

I've been bearish on automated driving for years. There hasn't been much progress to make me change my mind. If anything, the lack of progress cements it: it's an incredibly tricky problem, as Tesla, Waymo and others are finding out to their cost.

Automation works on some urban railways *because* you take out some of the unpredictability and risk that would otherwise have to be taken into account by a human driver. That's why it's feasible on the jubilee line extension, DLR or Crossrail (central section) as you separate the platform-train interface, and automate everything else.

You can't do that everywhere across the whole country.

It's the same problem as self driving cars - unless everything is fully automated, human beings have a nasty habit of accidently creating serious issues..

Driverless cars are only 5 years away. And will be for many years to come.

Unfair.
Driverless cars will be coming on stream just at the point that ‘the North’ will be levelled up.

They'll happen. They will start with motorways, and - this is the key point - they will be centrally controlled, via 8g and AI superdupercomputers. That eliminates the main problem of their misconstruing each others' intentions, cos they won't have individual intentions.

With of course heaps of onboard computing power so you can make them autonomous, but limit their speed to 30 mph, in case of outages.

SandyRentool said:

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

The revealing bit of that Boris interview was what he said about this being a transition. We are about to destructively test the drive of the last 20 years where consumers actively choose British products. Frankly a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign is the obvious thing missing from the government's strategy - why aren't they doing so?

Instead we are going to see our stuff get a lot more expensive, making imports more appealing than ever. People want to buy local but if they can't because it costs too much then the choice of import vs nothing will push import for many.

Which will literally fuck farming to death. Philip and some free market ideologues may welcome this, most people won't. The government will try and blame farmers until as with all the other "lets blame industry" attempts the actual numbers get published and the minister is shown up to be an absolute spanner. At which point the government caves in.

Exactly, I can't work out if the government are autarkists (like Germany in 1930s) or free range marketeers (like the UK in the C19 and early C20, which wrecked farming also).

Why the heck should the government get involved in a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign? How is that the government's responsibility? Advertising and marketing is not the government's responsibility, that's not what we pay our taxes for.

Buying British when its economically competitive so why not buy British is easy to do. Buying British when it costs a premium ... that's actually then up to the consumers to make their choice.

If British farming gets fucked to death, then quite frankly I don't see why we should care - any more than when British mining got fucked to death. How are farmers any different to miners?

Farming takes up 70% of this countries land, but agriculture represents 0.59% of GDP. I'm not sure if that includes the 0.1% of GDP that the fisheries represent.

If we import more, we import more, but what we should not be importing is slaves serfs peasants minimum wage employees.

That's what the Tories and free market liberals said until the Great War. Which the UK very nearly lost if the Germans hadn't been so pusillanimous with the U-boats.

Amazing the Brexiters love to go on about Spitfires but forget the Battle of the Atlantic.

Yes and the liberals were right then and even more right now.

We didn't lose the war and we're not at any real risk in the 21st century of being blockaded so get real. We are a wealthy nation, especially if we stop deflating our economy by importing from the third world, or dedicating 70% of land to 0.49% of GDP.

We spent decades relying upon imported coal for our electricity and we didn't get impoverished as a nation or blockaded by U-Boats when that happened. Special pleading by vested interests should be treated with the same amount of respect as the NUM got in the 80s.

Plenty of hostages to fortune there.

Why was it OK to import coal for our electricity but not import meat?

In the modern world electricity is just as important as food.

Miners voted Labour.

Farmers vote Conservative. And put bloody big signs in their fields during election campaigns.

FF43 said:

..

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

isam said:

FF43 said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

Is this person arguing in favour of the UK being self-sufficient in food?

The key question is whether UKG is in favour of self sufficiency in food. Their actions suggest otherwise, as they prioritise imports over home production. Which is what this person is saying.

I don't think it's remotely possible for the UK to be self sufficient in food. It's not a question of what anyone is in favour of, it's a question of reality.

OK. To reiterate my point. UKG by its actions is making the UK less sufficient in food by prioritising imports over home production.

Why is that a bad thing?

Was it a bad thing we were less sufficient in coal?

It isn't necessarily a bad thing if you believe immigration is bad per se, and less important than maintaining home industries. But the consequence of restricting the means to profitably produce food at market prices, while you don't restrict imports of competitor products, is to see imports replace home production.

I don't think immigration is bad whatsoever. I support as much high-skilled, high-wage immigration as possible.

I think immigration for minimum wage jobs, deflating our economy and driving up costs combined with giving those who come here for minimum wages jobs housing benefit, universal credit etc because minimum wage isn't enough to live in this nation is bad. Don't you?

I don't think this, no. Because it ignores market reality. Not an expert, but I don't think slaughtermen were working at minimum wage under FoM anyway.

Actually they were. We had job details being shared here saying that night shifts in an abattoir in South East England were being paid £9.12 per hour.

Do you think its feasible or productive to be working for £9.12 per hour for overnight shifts in South East England? Or to be frank anywhere in the UK.

Glassdoor has average slaughtermen salaries at £31 000, which is about twice minimum wage. I'm sure when you drill down there are big variations. But those apparently reasonably paid jobs will go if we import the products instead, thanks to the government immigration and trade policies.

No they won't, if they're productive they'll stay.

What will go is the £9.12 per hour jobs being advertised.

Do you think its acceptable to expect a night shift job for difficult work to be filled for £9.12 per hour?

Glassdoor really isn't accurate when looking at wages for UK jobs...

I agree, but at least a proportion of people will be paid that. £9 an hour isn't the average salary either. The market forces principle still applies, regardless of what the actual average salary is.

The £9.12ph jobs are now £10.57ph

Yeah but not all jobs are at that rate. The more skilled jobs get paid higher and is the way of the world, those jobs are more likely to be indigenous workers. Abbatoirs will be looking at their wage bill in the round. If the average wage is uncompetitive, all those jobs will go, including the higher paid ones.

So you back a teensy tiny minority ggetting merely OK wages on the back of a lot of people getting absolutely shit wages?

I didn't invent the capitalist system, as implemented by this government.

I must off.

Theuniondivvie said:

IshmaelZ said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Benpointer said:

eek said:

Casino_Royale said:

JosiasJessop said:

Fishing said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

Foxy said:

Fishing said:

franklyn said:

A high wage economy, says Boris.
So nurses are given a 3% pay rise for working through Covid with inadequate PPE and then 1% is taken back in national insurance, and the rest in higher petrol prices and electricity costs, leaving most of them poorer that before. You could say the same for lots of people, not to mention the Ponzi scheme of student loans which will burden most high achieving school leavers as soon as they graduate.
We need lower taxes, so that people retain a decent proportion of what they earn.

And nurses, like everybody else need to increase their productivity so they can be paid higher wages.

In practical terms, what does that mean? Is a single staff nurse looking after a ward of 30 patients more productive? Or one who has enough time with each patient that they don't catch a hospital acquired infection, that their vital signs are monitored and acted on, and the patient leaves the hospital alive and expeditiously?

It means using fewer inputs to get the same output. So a staff nurse looking after 30 patients would be more productive than one looking after 29, provided she gives them the same quality of care. Of course it's difficult to measure in the service sector. And still more difficult to improve. But it is the key to higher pay.

Productivity increases in the service sector, which is by far the biggest bit of the economy, are inherently limited by the nature of those services. People value the time and personal input of much of these, whether healthcare, dining out or getting a beauty treatment.

Stagnant productivity is a feature of a post industrial economy. Demand may have pushed up HGV wages, but it hasn't made them more productive. Some individuals have benefited, but as an economy there has been no gain.

Eventually what we might see in the HGV sector is automated driving, which will be a spectacular increase in labour productivity.

We already have it - it's called railways. Thirty lorries in one train.

(runs for cover)

But the problem with automated lorries is the same as it is for trains: the last mile. It's fine saying you can drive along the motorways, or even to the depots, but somewhat pointless if you need drivers for the rest of it.

I've been bearish on automated driving for years. There hasn't been much progress to make me change my mind. If anything, the lack of progress cements it: it's an incredibly tricky problem, as Tesla, Waymo and others are finding out to their cost.

Automation works on some urban railways *because* you take out some of the unpredictability and risk that would otherwise have to be taken into account by a human driver. That's why it's feasible on the jubilee line extension, DLR or Crossrail (central section) as you separate the platform-train interface, and automate everything else.

You can't do that everywhere across the whole country.

It's the same problem as self driving cars - unless everything is fully automated, human beings have a nasty habit of accidently creating serious issues..

Driverless cars are only 5 years away. And will be for many years to come.

Unfair.
Driverless cars will be coming on stream just at the point that ‘the North’ will be levelled up.

They'll happen. They will start with motorways, and - this is the key point - they will be centrally controlled, via 8g and AI superdupercomputers. That eliminates the main problem of their misconstruing each others' intentions, cos they won't have individual intentions.

With of course heaps of onboard computing power so you can make them autonomous, but limit their speed to 30 mph, in case of outages.

No doubt, but I can’t see them becoming prevalent and/or affordable in my time, I expect to be worrying about whatever shagged out old Alfa I have passing its mot until I cark it or am judged too senile to be allowed on the road. Not to sound too ‘I’m a driver not a passenger’ wanky they don’t appeal, I’ve never even switched on cruise control on any car I’ve had except by accident.

HYUFD said:

SandyRentool said:

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

The revealing bit of that Boris interview was what he said about this being a transition. We are about to destructively test the drive of the last 20 years where consumers actively choose British products. Frankly a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign is the obvious thing missing from the government's strategy - why aren't they doing so?

Instead we are going to see our stuff get a lot more expensive, making imports more appealing than ever. People want to buy local but if they can't because it costs too much then the choice of import vs nothing will push import for many.

Which will literally fuck farming to death. Philip and some free market ideologues may welcome this, most people won't. The government will try and blame farmers until as with all the other "lets blame industry" attempts the actual numbers get published and the minister is shown up to be an absolute spanner. At which point the government caves in.

Exactly, I can't work out if the government are autarkists (like Germany in 1930s) or free range marketeers (like the UK in the C19 and early C20, which wrecked farming also).

Why the heck should the government get involved in a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign? How is that the government's responsibility? Advertising and marketing is not the government's responsibility, that's not what we pay our taxes for.

Buying British when its economically competitive so why not buy British is easy to do. Buying British when it costs a premium ... that's actually then up to the consumers to make their choice.

If British farming gets fucked to death, then quite frankly I don't see why we should care - any more than when British mining got fucked to death. How are farmers any different to miners?

Farming takes up 70% of this countries land, but agriculture represents 0.59% of GDP. I'm not sure if that includes the 0.1% of GDP that the fisheries represent.

If we import more, we import more, but what we should not be importing is slaves serfs peasants minimum wage employees.

That's what the Tories and free market liberals said until the Great War. Which the UK very nearly lost if the Germans hadn't been so pusillanimous with the U-boats.

Amazing the Brexiters love to go on about Spitfires but forget the Battle of the Atlantic.

Yes and the liberals were right then and even more right now.

We didn't lose the war and we're not at any real risk in the 21st century of being blockaded so get real. We are a wealthy nation, especially if we stop deflating our economy by importing from the third world, or dedicating 70% of land to 0.49% of GDP.

We spent decades relying upon imported coal for our electricity and we didn't get impoverished as a nation or blockaded by U-Boats when that happened. Special pleading by vested interests should be treated with the same amount of respect as the NUM got in the 80s.

Plenty of hostages to fortune there.

Why was it OK to import coal for our electricity but not import meat?

In the modern world electricity is just as important as food.

Miners voted Labour.

Farmers vote Conservative. And put bloody big signs in their fields during election campaigns.

I think PT has forgotten the Tory Party was the party who introduced the Corn Laws in 1815.

Peel was only able to repeal them with the support of the Whigs. Most of his party still backed them and so his fellow free trading Peelites who were a minority in the Tory party ended up forming the Liberal party with the Whigs and Radicals in the 1850s

HYUFD said:

Theuniondivvie said:

SandyRentool said:

Philip_Thompson said:

TOPPING said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

The revealing bit of that Boris interview was what he said about this being a transition. We are about to destructively test the drive of the last 20 years where consumers actively choose British products. Frankly a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign is the obvious thing missing from the government's strategy - why aren't they doing so?

Instead we are going to see our stuff get a lot more expensive, making imports more appealing than ever. People want to buy local but if they can't because it costs too much then the choice of import vs nothing will push import for many.

Which will literally fuck farming to death. Philip and some free market ideologues may welcome this, most people won't. The government will try and blame farmers until as with all the other "lets blame industry" attempts the actual numbers get published and the minister is shown up to be an absolute spanner. At which point the government caves in.

Exactly, I can't work out if the government are autarkists (like Germany in 1930s) or free range marketeers (like the UK in the C19 and early C20, which wrecked farming also).

Why the heck should the government get involved in a "buy British, eat British, build British" campaign? How is that the government's responsibility? Advertising and marketing is not the government's responsibility, that's not what we pay our taxes for.

Buying British when its economically competitive so why not buy British is easy to do. Buying British when it costs a premium ... that's actually then up to the consumers to make their choice.

If British farming gets fucked to death, then quite frankly I don't see why we should care - any more than when British mining got fucked to death. How are farmers any different to miners?

Farming takes up 70% of this countries land, but agriculture represents 0.59% of GDP. I'm not sure if that includes the 0.1% of GDP that the fisheries represent.

If we import more, we import more, but what we should not be importing is slaves serfs peasants minimum wage employees.

That's what the Tories and free market liberals said until the Great War. Which the UK very nearly lost if the Germans hadn't been so pusillanimous with the U-boats.

Amazing the Brexiters love to go on about Spitfires but forget the Battle of the Atlantic.

Yes and the liberals were right then and even more right now.

We didn't lose the war and we're not at any real risk in the 21st century of being blockaded so get real. We are a wealthy nation, especially if we stop deflating our economy by importing from the third world, or dedicating 70% of land to 0.49% of GDP.

We spent decades relying upon imported coal for our electricity and we didn't get impoverished as a nation or blockaded by U-Boats when that happened. Special pleading by vested interests should be treated with the same amount of respect as the NUM got in the 80s.

Plenty of hostages to fortune there.

Why was it OK to import coal for our electricity but not import meat?

In the modern world electricity is just as important as food.

Miners voted Labour.

Farmers vote Conservative. And put bloody big signs in their fields during election campaigns.

New election slogan: We got rid of the miners and we’ll get rid of the farmers*!

*Kulaks

Farmers have been more loyal to the Conservatives over the decades than the former New Labour voting libertarian PT.

kle4 said:

NickyBreakspear said:

Constituency swings

Redcar is all over the place. They went LD in a massive swing because of the steel plant going under, and that may have given them a taste for big changes, having swung back to Labour and then to Con.

On the wider point, the Tories will not like losing any seats of course, but they can afford to lose quite a few Red Wall seats so long as they don't suffer a mass problem in the South, so expect some pivoting (hence the planning retreat recently).

Ratters said:

For many years we've had talk of "productivity crisis" in the UK, whereby output per hour worked has been relatively stagnant.

It is becoming clear that part of this was many industries relying on the open tap of cheap immigrant labour that worked under terrible conditions at or below minimum wage.

This will have to lead to improved wages or better working conditions to attract domestic workers, which will result in one of the following in the long-run:

1) Higher costs feed into higher price of foods - i.e. inflation

2) Higher costs reduce corporate profitability

3) Businesses wind up or fail, such that we increase imports. While this sounds bad, almost by definition we are stopping some of the least productive areas of the economy that can't survive on paying decent wages and working conditions.

In the short-run, disruption will reign supreme as businesses adjust.

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

..

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

isam said:

FF43 said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

Is this person arguing in favour of the UK being self-sufficient in food?

The key question is whether UKG is in favour of self sufficiency in food. Their actions suggest otherwise, as they prioritise imports over home production. Which is what this person is saying.

I don't think it's remotely possible for the UK to be self sufficient in food. It's not a question of what anyone is in favour of, it's a question of reality.

OK. To reiterate my point. UKG by its actions is making the UK less sufficient in food by prioritising imports over home production.

Why is that a bad thing?

Was it a bad thing we were less sufficient in coal?

It isn't necessarily a bad thing if you believe immigration is bad per se, and less important than maintaining home industries. But the consequence of restricting the means to profitably produce food at market prices, while you don't restrict imports of competitor products, is to see imports replace home production.

I don't think immigration is bad whatsoever. I support as much high-skilled, high-wage immigration as possible.

I think immigration for minimum wage jobs, deflating our economy and driving up costs combined with giving those who come here for minimum wages jobs housing benefit, universal credit etc because minimum wage isn't enough to live in this nation is bad. Don't you?

I don't think this, no. Because it ignores market reality. Not an expert, but I don't think slaughtermen were working at minimum wage under FoM anyway.

Actually they were. We had job details being shared here saying that night shifts in an abattoir in South East England were being paid £9.12 per hour.

Do you think its feasible or productive to be working for £9.12 per hour for overnight shifts in South East England? Or to be frank anywhere in the UK.

Glassdoor has average slaughtermen salaries at £31 000, which is about twice minimum wage. I'm sure when you drill down there are big variations. But those apparently reasonably paid jobs will go if we import the products instead, thanks to the government immigration and trade policies.

No they won't, if they're productive they'll stay.

What will go is the £9.12 per hour jobs being advertised.

Do you think its acceptable to expect a night shift job for difficult work to be filled for £9.12 per hour?

Glassdoor really isn't accurate when looking at wages for UK jobs...

I agree, but at least a proportion of people will be paid that. £9 an hour isn't the average salary either. The market forces principle still applies, regardless of what the actual average salary is.

The £9.12ph jobs are now £10.57ph

Yeah but not all jobs are at that rate. The more skilled jobs get paid higher and is the way of the world, those jobs are more likely to be indigenous workers. Abbatoirs will be looking at their wage bill in the round. If the average wage is uncompetitive, all those jobs will go, including the higher paid ones.

So you back a teensy tiny minority ggetting merely OK wages on the back of a lot of people getting absolutely shit wages?

I didn't invent the capitalist system, as implemented by this government.

I must off.

But importing people from the developing world to devalue the efforts of others isn't being implemented by this government. Its what you're advocating not them.

kjh said:

kinabalu said:

Casino_Royale said:

Mexicanpete said:

Casino_Royale said:

On topic (ish) Keir Starmer is an uninspiring product but that won't matter if the economy stagflates - Labour could simply win by default anyway.

Remember 1974.

I have always agreed with the notion that Governments lose, oppositions don't win.

Your boy can win despite stagflation. And if winning is all that matters. starting culture wars and scapegoating minorities are meat and drink to Johnson's current audience. Even if the economy is on its knees, my long held view that incumbency takes the hit has been proven wrong by the fuel crisis.

It is not the crisis, but who gets the blame for the crisis. Previous governments, Remainers, woke lefties, foreigners, foreign governments are all fair game, and Johnson is winning at that game.

Your lot have already started a culture war - your objection is that a resistance is finally being put up to it: https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/07/12/political-discrimination-as-civil-rights-struggle/

The article seems offended that 94% of Ivy League female students wouldn't date a Trumper. But why? That ought to be a high figure and it's good to see it is. It shows the right sort of young women, those with both brains and high personal standards, are getting into top colleges over there. Trump supporters are likely to be thick and bigoted. Who wants to date somebody like that if they can avoid it? It's not prejudiced to say this, it's the plain and simple truth. They like Donald Trump, ffs. I mean, c'mon, that's a 'tell' if ever there was one, and you have to draw the line somewhere. Some Trumpers will be ok, of course, and it's important to say so, but it makes perfect sense to screen them out if you're time limited (which I'm guessing these Ivy League types will be).

Not that anyone cares anymore but I am sure we all have a list of no-no's. In my case:

a) Trump supporters obviously
b) Religious zealots
c) Conspiracy cranks
d) Fascists
e) Communists
f) Those with no views
g) Those who are just a bit too weird
h) Those who are irrational except in the heat of an argument

and the list goes on.

kinabalu said:

kjh said:

kinabalu said:

Casino_Royale said:

Mexicanpete said:

Casino_Royale said:

On topic (ish) Keir Starmer is an uninspiring product but that won't matter if the economy stagflates - Labour could simply win by default anyway.

Remember 1974.

I have always agreed with the notion that Governments lose, oppositions don't win.

Your boy can win despite stagflation. And if winning is all that matters. starting culture wars and scapegoating minorities are meat and drink to Johnson's current audience. Even if the economy is on its knees, my long held view that incumbency takes the hit has been proven wrong by the fuel crisis.

It is not the crisis, but who gets the blame for the crisis. Previous governments, Remainers, woke lefties, foreigners, foreign governments are all fair game, and Johnson is winning at that game.

Your lot have already started a culture war - your objection is that a resistance is finally being put up to it: https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/07/12/political-discrimination-as-civil-rights-struggle/

The article seems offended that 94% of Ivy League female students wouldn't date a Trumper. But why? That ought to be a high figure and it's good to see it is. It shows the right sort of young women, those with both brains and high personal standards, are getting into top colleges over there. Trump supporters are likely to be thick and bigoted. Who wants to date somebody like that if they can avoid it? It's not prejudiced to say this, it's the plain and simple truth. They like Donald Trump, ffs. I mean, c'mon, that's a 'tell' if ever there was one, and you have to draw the line somewhere. Some Trumpers will be ok, of course, and it's important to say so, but it makes perfect sense to screen them out if you're time limited (which I'm guessing these Ivy League types will be).

Not that anyone cares anymore but I am sure we all have a list of no-no's. In my case:

a) Trump supporters obviously
b) Religious zealots
c) Conspiracy cranks
d) Fascists
e) Communists
f) Those with no views
g) Those who are just a bit too weird
h) Those who are irrational except in the heat of an argument

and the list goes on.

Pretty much with you on all bar (h). Not quite sure what you mean there.

kinabalu said:

kjh said:

kinabalu said:

Casino_Royale said:

Mexicanpete said:

Casino_Royale said:

On topic (ish) Keir Starmer is an uninspiring product but that won't matter if the economy stagflates - Labour could simply win by default anyway.

Remember 1974.

I have always agreed with the notion that Governments lose, oppositions don't win.

Your boy can win despite stagflation. And if winning is all that matters. starting culture wars and scapegoating minorities are meat and drink to Johnson's current audience. Even if the economy is on its knees, my long held view that incumbency takes the hit has been proven wrong by the fuel crisis.

It is not the crisis, but who gets the blame for the crisis. Previous governments, Remainers, woke lefties, foreigners, foreign governments are all fair game, and Johnson is winning at that game.

Your lot have already started a culture war - your objection is that a resistance is finally being put up to it: https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/07/12/political-discrimination-as-civil-rights-struggle/

The article seems offended that 94% of Ivy League female students wouldn't date a Trumper. But why? That ought to be a high figure and it's good to see it is. It shows the right sort of young women, those with both brains and high personal standards, are getting into top colleges over there. Trump supporters are likely to be thick and bigoted. Who wants to date somebody like that if they can avoid it? It's not prejudiced to say this, it's the plain and simple truth. They like Donald Trump, ffs. I mean, c'mon, that's a 'tell' if ever there was one, and you have to draw the line somewhere. Some Trumpers will be ok, of course, and it's important to say so, but it makes perfect sense to screen them out if you're time limited (which I'm guessing these Ivy League types will be).

Not that anyone cares anymore but I am sure we all have a list of no-no's. In my case:

a) Trump supporters obviously
b) Religious zealots
c) Conspiracy cranks
d) Fascists
e) Communists
f) Those with no views
g) Those who are just a bit too weird
h) Those who are irrational except in the heat of an argument

and the list goes on.

Pretty much with you on all bar (h). Not quite sure what you mean there.

Nigelb said:

Selebian said:

Casino_Royale said:

Selebian said:

Casino_Royale said:

Mexicanpete said:

Casino_Royale said:

On topic (ish) Keir Starmer is an uninspiring product but that won't matter if the economy stagflates - Labour could simply win by default anyway.

Remember 1974.

I have always agreed with the notion that Governments lose, oppositions don't win.

Your boy can win despite stagflation. And if winning is all that matters. starting ulture wars and scapegoating minorities are meat and drink to Johnson's current audience. Even if the economy is on its knees, my long held view that incumbency takes the hit has been proven wrong by the fuel crisis.

It is not the crisis, but who gets the blame for the crisis. Previous governments, Remainers, woke lefties, foreigners, foreign governments are all fair game, and Johnson is winning at that game.

Your lot have already started a culture war - your objection is that a resistance is finally being put up to it: https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/07/12/political-discrimination-as-civil-rights-struggle/

Is it shocking that only a small minority women would date someone who (presumably, if supporting Trump) think it is ok to "grab them by the pussy"?

How would you feel about a poll finding that few women of Jewish heritage would date a Corbynista? Would that be shocking evidence of the the 'rise of regressive authoritarianism'?

If you want to shape the world, then get out there and do it, whether left, right or centre. US conservatives need to stop being such snowflakes.

You haven't read the article, have you?

I have. I don't have time to go through each of the points raised or the issues with many of the dubious studies quoted (they tend to be surveys with carefully worded questions and samples and no comparison group - how many elite Trumpers would date a Sanders supporter?) so I focused on the claim that the article leads with.

I fully support the First... and Second... paragraphs towards the end of the article. They are statements of common sense. Only an imagined woke bogeyman is fighting against those.

Kaufmann mentions the Forstater case - which she won (belatedly, after appeal, but she won). It established her right to have her views and to express them, the opposite of what Kaufmann is claiming.

I don't know how to explain this. There will be people with leftist/woke views who try and impose those on others and employ them in recruitment or promotion. Those people should be sacked. They are a tiny minority - I don't believe I have ever met one. There were in the past (and likely now) those who tried to impose their racism/sexism on employment/promotion or wouldn't hire the person who was a union rep or whatever (also a tiny minority, but I have met them). They should have been sacked too.

In the UK, at least, there are protections. Those apparently hated ethnic group/ sexual orientation/gender forms from HR on recruitment? Guess what, they're there to pick up on white straight men not getting a fair deal too. As long as the white straight men bother to fill them it, that is. I recruit in a university, we never get to see those forms in recruitment and nor should we.

"Precisely the same manner..."
...Among their male counterparts, 90 percent would date a Clinton supporter but only 33 percent would date a Trump supporter. Spencer Case argues that those who politically discriminate are acting in precisely the same manner as those who justify prejudice against Muslims or Jews...

JosiasJessop said:

Phil said:

IshmaelZ said:

Phil said:

JosiasJessop said:

IshmaelZ said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Fishing, got to say I still think automated driving is like flying cars - something technically possible that won't be practical for almost anything.

You get slow burns though. Look at video calls. "Vidphones" were a staple of c20th Sci fi. Then there were 15 years when they were possible via Skype and facetime but nobody saw the point. Then lockdown and kaboom.

Same thing happened with faxes, actually. The technology was there since ww2, the legal profession had them from the 70s, but it took a postal strike in the 80s before they caught on.

Faxes and video calls don't immediately stop you paying for something else, though, except relatively cheap stamps. Automation saves wages. It'll catch on fine.

25 years ago, Acorn did a lot of work on Video-on-Demand technology. Set Top Boxes were needed, as PC graphics cards and processors were generally not powerful enough to decode the video streams.

Apparently there was a certain amount of negativity in the market, because few people saw the possibility that the Internet could handle the traffic from everyone, and the boxes were restricted to certain cable providers.

I could see the Internet having the bandwidth; what I never guessed was that phones would, within a decade, be able to stream videos at high quality. The rate the technology increased at was massive.

But it involved no fundamental new technology; only improvements on what was existing.

People are very bad at accepting the implications of exponential changes.

In this case, the exponential increase in computing power / £ was going to turn available radio bandwidth & video compression from expensive impossibilities to trivialities in single digit years.

You see similar "unpossible!" thinking around lots of exponential processes - the delayed response to the Covid pandemic is one obvious recent example. Unless you’ve had the kind of mathematical training that lets you trust a model of an exponential process, your gut feeling just doesn’t line up with reality & that leads to making bad decisions.

I am overawed at the thought how rich you must be.

Hah. If only...

Although I did tell everyone I knew to buy Acorn stock because they would get 1/2 of ARM back in the 90s. Sadly none of them believed me & I had no capital at the time...

I have (on the other hand) managed to stay out of the way of various inevitable bubble crashes however. So it’s not all bad.

Heh. I bought a bit of Acorn stock in the early 90s, then got share options when I joined the company. When ARM was sold a while back, it kept me going for a few years.

Between us, Mrs J and I have worked directly for probably a dozen companies. They have all offered stock options. Acorn were the only options that has got us any appreciable sums of money. The stories of grunts making life-changing sums of money from options are mostly myths, designed to enchant naive young engineers ...

Aslan said:

FF43 said:

isam said:

FF43 said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

Is this person arguing in favour of the UK being self-sufficient in food?

The key question is whether UKG is in favour of self sufficiency in food. Their actions suggest otherwise, as they prioritise imports over home production. Which is what this person is saying.

I don't think it's remotely possible for the UK to be self sufficient in food. It's not a question of what anyone is in favour of, it's a question of reality.

OK. To reiterate my point. UKG by its actions is making the UK less sufficient in food by prioritising imports over home production.

Why is that a bad thing?

Was it a bad thing we were less sufficient in coal?

It isn't necessarily a bad thing if you believe immigration is bad per se, and less important than maintaining home industries. But the consequence of restricting the means to profitably produce food at market prices, while you don't restrict imports of competitor products, is to see imports replace home production.

I don't think immigration is bad whatsoever. I support as much high-skilled, high-wage immigration as possible.

I think immigration for minimum wage jobs, deflating our economy and driving up costs combined with giving those who come here for minimum wages jobs housing benefit, universal credit etc because minimum wage isn't enough to live in this nation is bad. Don't you?

I don't think this, no. Because it ignores market reality. Not an expert, but I don't think slaughtermen were working at minimum wage under FoM anyway.

Actually they were. We had job details being shared here saying that night shifts in an abattoir in South East England were being paid £9.12 per hour.

Do you think its feasible or productive to be working for £9.12 per hour for overnight shifts in South East England? Or to be frank anywhere in the UK.

Glassdoor has average slaughtermen salaries at £31 000, which is about twice minimum wage. I'm sure when you drill down there are big variations. But those apparently reasonably paid jobs will go if we import the products instead, thanks to the government immigration and trade policies.

No they won't, if they're productive they'll stay.

What will go is the £9.12 per hour jobs being advertised.

Do you think its acceptable to expect a night shift job for difficult work to be filled for £9.12 per hour?

Glassdoor really isn't accurate when looking at wages for UK jobs...

I agree, but at least a proportion of people will be paid that. £9 an hour isn't the average salary either. The market forces principle still applies, regardless of what the actual average salary is.

The £9.12ph jobs are now £10.57ph

Yeah but not all jobs are at that rate. The more skilled jobs get paid higher and is the way of the world, those jobs are more likely to be indigenous workers. Abbatoirs will be looking at their wage bill in the round. If the average wage is uncompetitive, all those jobs will go, including the higher paid ones.

That's not true. Some abattoirs will go under, others will increase automation/management practices for the basic tasks, and survive. The idea that we should maintain low wage work for the sake of protecting slightly higher paid jobs is a curious one for the left. It never applies to arguments over the minimum wage strangely.

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

..

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

isam said:

FF43 said:

eek said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

FF43 said:

Andy_JS said:

Carnyx said:

Graun feed just now:


'In a separate interview, Nick Allen, the chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, told Sky News that while the government criticised producers for paying low wages, it was happy for meat to be imported from countries that paid low wages. He said:

"What’s interesting is [the government is] happy to ban the import of non-UK labour in this country, but they continue to actually aid and abet imported food from countries that have got access to this labour.

At the end of the day someone has to pay for these increased wages and they somewhat get in the way of that by aiding and abetting imported food."'

Is this person arguing in favour of the UK being self-sufficient in food?

The key question is whether UKG is in favour of self sufficiency in food. Their actions suggest otherwise, as they prioritise imports over home production. Which is what this person is saying.

I don't think it's remotely possible for the UK to be self sufficient in food. It's not a question of what anyone is in favour of, it's a question of reality.

OK. To reiterate my point. UKG by its actions is making the UK less sufficient in food by prioritising imports over home production.

Why is that a bad thing?

Was it a bad thing we were less sufficient in coal?

It isn't necessarily a bad thing if you believe immigration is bad per se, and less important than maintaining home industries. But the consequence of restricting the means to profitably produce food at market prices, while you don't restrict imports of competitor products, is to see imports replace home production.

I don't think immigration is bad whatsoever. I support as much high-skilled, high-wage immigration as possible.

I think immigration for minimum wage jobs, deflating our economy and driving up costs combined with giving those who come here for minimum wages jobs housing benefit, universal credit etc because minimum wage isn't enough to live in this nation is bad. Don't you?

I don't think this, no. Because it ignores market reality. Not an expert, but I don't think slaughtermen were working at minimum wage under FoM anyway.

Actually they were. We had job details being shared here saying that night shifts in an abattoir in South East England were being paid £9.12 per hour.

Do you think its feasible or productive to be working for £9.12 per hour for overnight shifts in South East England? Or to be frank anywhere in the UK.

Glassdoor has average slaughtermen salaries at £31 000, which is about twice minimum wage. I'm sure when you drill down there are big variations. But those apparently reasonably paid jobs will go if we import the products instead, thanks to the government immigration and trade policies.

No they won't, if they're productive they'll stay.

What will go is the £9.12 per hour jobs being advertised.

Do you think its acceptable to expect a night shift job for difficult work to be filled for £9.12 per hour?

Glassdoor really isn't accurate when looking at wages for UK jobs...

I agree, but at least a proportion of people will be paid that. £9 an hour isn't the average salary either. The market forces principle still applies, regardless of what the actual average salary is.

The £9.12ph jobs are now £10.57ph

Yeah but not all jobs are at that rate. The more skilled jobs get paid higher and is the way of the world, those jobs are more likely to be indigenous workers. Abbatoirs will be looking at their wage bill in the round. If the average wage is uncompetitive, all those jobs will go, including the higher paid ones.

So you back a teensy tiny minority ggetting merely OK wages on the back of a lot of people getting absolutely shit wages?

I didn't invent the capitalist system, as implemented by this government.

I must off.

But importing people from the developing world to devalue the efforts of others isn't being implemented by this government. Its what you're advocating not them.

Farooq said:

Nigelb said:

Selebian said:

Casino_Royale said:

Selebian said:

Casino_Royale said:

Mexicanpete said:

Casino_Royale said:

On topic (ish) Keir Starmer is an uninspiring product but that won't matter if the economy stagflates - Labour could simply win by default anyway.

Remember 1974.

I have always agreed with the notion that Governments lose, oppositions don't win.

Your boy can win despite stagflation. And if winning is all that matters. starting ulture wars and scapegoating minorities are meat and drink to Johnson's current audience. Even if the economy is on its knees, my long held view that incumbency takes the hit has been proven wrong by the fuel crisis.

It is not the crisis, but who gets the blame for the crisis. Previous governments, Remainers, woke lefties, foreigners, foreign governments are all fair game, and Johnson is winning at that game.

Your lot have already started a culture war - your objection is that a resistance is finally being put up to it: https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/07/12/political-discrimination-as-civil-rights-struggle/

Is it shocking that only a small minority women would date someone who (presumably, if supporting Trump) think it is ok to "grab them by the pussy"?

How would you feel about a poll finding that few women of Jewish heritage would date a Corbynista? Would that be shocking evidence of the the 'rise of regressive authoritarianism'?

If you want to shape the world, then get out there and do it, whether left, right or centre. US conservatives need to stop being such snowflakes.

You haven't read the article, have you?

I have. I don't have time to go through each of the points raised or the issues with many of the dubious studies quoted (they tend to be surveys with carefully worded questions and samples and no comparison group - how many elite Trumpers would date a Sanders supporter?) so I focused on the claim that the article leads with.

I fully support the First... and Second... paragraphs towards the end of the article. They are statements of common sense. Only an imagined woke bogeyman is fighting against those.

Kaufmann mentions the Forstater case - which she won (belatedly, after appeal, but she won). It established her right to have her views and to express them, the opposite of what Kaufmann is claiming.

I don't know how to explain this. There will be people with leftist/woke views who try and impose those on others and employ them in recruitment or promotion. Those people should be sacked. They are a tiny minority - I don't believe I have ever met one. There were in the past (and likely now) those who tried to impose their racism/sexism on employment/promotion or wouldn't hire the person who was a union rep or whatever (also a tiny minority, but I have met them). They should have been sacked too.

In the UK, at least, there are protections. Those apparently hated ethnic group/ sexual orientation/gender forms from HR on recruitment? Guess what, they're there to pick up on white straight men not getting a fair deal too. As long as the white straight men bother to fill them it, that is. I recruit in a university, we never get to see those forms in recruitment and nor should we.

"Precisely the same manner..."
...Among their male counterparts, 90 percent would date a Clinton supporter but only 33 percent would date a Trump supporter. Spencer Case argues that those who politically discriminate are acting in precisely the same manner as those who justify prejudice against Muslims or Jews...

I wouldn't date someone who was more than faintly religious. Nothing wrong with that. If someone wants to throw the word "prejudice" around, it's their prerogative to be wrong.