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Could Bojo be tempted to cash in on current polling by going early? – politicalbetting.com

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  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,296
    dixiedean said:

    Stop fighting it mate. Surrender to your maximum Leaviness. It eats you inside and is utterly futile anyways.
    Accept that it MAY be OK. If it is great, great. If not, wry shrug. Not your fault or mine.
    Oh sure. It will be ok most probably. But I do think those 2 things. 1. It was our lesser side prevailing. 2. It wasn't really close. Most of the on the fencers voted R. Weight by passion and L won by miles. And tbh I'm fine with it now. I just want to GTTO! ✊🙂

    Course these things are related. Brexit makes it hard to GTTO. That 40% base.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 22,110
    Aslan said:

    I don't know about daft in general, but the idea that a lack of HGV drivers is a permanent reality that won't be adapted to is ridiculous. As is the idea that a similar constitutional situation to Japan, Canada and Australia is a "myth".
    Non sequitur alert, plus two straw men.
  • Charles said:

    You don’t remember the November 2021 COVID Protection Suspended Animation Act?
    Yours truly recently preformed a citizen's arrest, enforcing the Seattle Anti-Ukulele Ordinance of 1926.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 22,110
    Roger said:

    Some people are depressingly soulless but I suppose they have the advantage of being oblivious to what's going on around them
    Jaywick is lovely this time of year, Rog.
    You should give it a go.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,912

    You'd think by this point people would have learnt about

    1) reporting delays
    2) weekly cyclic effects created by the.
    3) Reported on vs day of

    Even Pesto is catching up with this, I believe.

    If you go back to the actual comment I made, yesterday, on the odd German numbers, I explicitly asked ‘is this a statistical glitch?’ - because the figures were so out of whack
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Classic Brexsplaining.

    Of course the Finns are too daft to do democracy!
    I thought that calling him an arrogant patronising shit would be offensive
  • RogerRoger Posts: 20,105

    Hey that's not fair!

    I've always been OK with the destruction of British agriculture.

    [Actually I don't think it will be destroyed, I think we should follow the NZ model and have every confidence British agriculture can thrive - but I'm entirely OK with it being destroyed if I happen to be wrong on that opinion]
    I really have to ask you 'ARE YOU A ROBOT'? I mean do you have a job like other people or are you living off an inheritance? You are so insensitive to how working people survive and what work is that it's clearly not something you have ever done.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 22,110
    Charles said:

    I thought that calling him an arrogant patronising shit would be offensive
    It came across as deluded more than anything else.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,912

    Surely number 1 dairy exporter.
    But it worked because we have a comparative advantage in dairy, and we made the most of it.

    Britain doesn’t really have that option.
    For sure. But NZ is still an example of an agricultural sector that lost a huge market (in their case the UK, as we joined the EEC), which then had to go through a painful transition, but has now adapted, and is now thriving.

    And I’m guessing they did it without 100,000s of cheap foreign workers
  • dixiedean said:

    So that's business. And agriculture. And with it the rural communities.
    Any other Tory voters who actually do a day's work to be sacrificed for the pensioners?
    Not for pensioners.

    Businesses that are addicted to the crack cocaine of shipping in people to work for minimum wage while the taxpayer sponsors those people with housing credit, tax credits, universal credit etc to supplement their below living wages . . . they need to be told to fuck right off and pay a market rate.

    Agriculture - same thing.

    Let companies compete in a free market. Bizarre that free marketeers might still believe in a free market, rather than pander to client businesses and agriculture isn't it?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,470
    Leon said:

    If you go back to the actual comment I made, yesterday, on the odd German numbers, I explicitly asked ‘is this a statistical glitch?’ - because the figures were so out of whack
    Before you Scott&Paste things, trying doing a little bit of research.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 22,110
    Leon said:

    For sure. But NZ is still an example of an agricultural sector that lost a huge market (in their case the UK, as we joined the EEC), which then had to go through a painful transition, but has now adapted, and is now thriving.

    And I’m guessing they did it without 100,000s of cheap foreign workers
    This is true.

    Well, we’ve had high immigration, but not to the agricultural sector.

    The transition took around 20 years and was rather bumpy at times.
  • This is true.

    Well, we’ve had high immigration, but not to the agricultural sector.

    The transition took around 20 years and was rather bumpy at times.
    And if post-Brexit transition takes that long but is worth it in the end . . . then it will have been the right thing to do.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,912

    Before you Scott&Paste things, trying doing a little bit of research.
    But those were the figures the Germans themselves pumped out yesterday, I believe. Tho I guess I could have rung their Health Ministry in Berlin to demand an explanation?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Yours truly recently preformed a citizen's arrest, enforcing the Seattle Anti-Ukulele Ordinance of 1926.
    Wasn’t that repealed as part of the Oboe Act of 1963?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    edited October 2021

    It came across as deluded more than anything else.
    Well it comes down to the basic point: I value intangibles that you don’t value. So we have a different calculation as to the merits of Brexit.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 60,284

    Before you Scott&Paste things, trying doing a little bit of research.
    What, twitter doesn't count as research?
  • Charles said:

    Well it comes down to the basic point: I value intangibles that you don’t value. So we have a different calculation as to the merits of Brexit.
    That at the end of the day is the root of most of the disagreements on this site.

    In some ways people talk past each other as they can't wrap the head around that other people simply don't prioritise the things that they do.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,912

    This is true.

    Well, we’ve had high immigration, but not to the agricultural sector.

    The transition took around 20 years and was rather bumpy at times.
    The entire UK economy is about to go through what NZ went through with agriculture in the 70s and 80s.

    It will definitely be ‘bumpy’ tho I think it will be largely over in 10 years, not 20. And at the end I believe we will thrive, as Kiwi butter exporters do today
  • pingping Posts: 3,805
    edited October 2021
    WTF is the point of OFGEM?

    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/oct/08/omni-energy-switched-unprofitable-customers-without-express-consent

    This kind of behaviour should result in them immediately losing their license. Oh and bar the directors. Seriously scummy business practices.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673

    This is true.

    Well, we’ve had high immigration, but not to the agricultural sector.

    The transition took around 20 years and was rather bumpy at times.
    It's not like the UK is stopping high immigration.
  • pingping Posts: 3,805
    edited October 2021
    Czech 2-2 Wales.

    Cracking game
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,674
    Leon said:

    The entire UK economy is about to go through what NZ went through with agriculture in the 70s and 80s.

    It will definitely be ‘bumpy’ tho I think it will be largely over in 10 years, not 20. And at the end I believe we will thrive, as Kiwi butter exporters do today
    Indeed, there are people who say it's impossible but we know from prior examples that it isn't. There's a bumpy ride and agribusiness will have to adjust to the new reality of not having low wage workers other than seasonal work for fruit/vegetable picking in fields.
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362

    Before you Scott&Paste things, trying doing a little bit of research.
    What do you make of this one test says yeah, second says no I first mentioned yesterday, Mal, a bad batch of testing, or new variant or an known unknown?

    https://news.sky.com/story/covid-news-live-uk-latest-coronavirus-daily-cases-rules-travel-updates-12425651?postid=2818806#liveblog-body

    The much vaunted lab for spotting variants have been up to six weeks behind haven’t they?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,818

    I doubt many rural communities would be overly bothered to see the back of intensively reared pig farming and the imported workforce which goes with it.

    As long as the grain fields and meadows with sheep baaing / cattle mooing remain people will be happy with what the British countryside looks like.
    Precisely as I explained. Remove UC and you won't have much upland farming. It's aĺl agriculture round here. None of it intensive, barely any subsidised, barely any profitable. And not a foreign worker to be seen. Nor anyone above minimum wage.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 72,839
    geoffw said:

    1917

    In fact they were never part of Czarist Russia. They were a separate Grand Duchy in a personal union with Russia and Poland. Poland also had a separate parliament and legal system, although there was heavy pressure under Alexander III and Nicholas II to Russify it and bring it under direct imperial control.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,674
    Aslan said:

    It's not like the UK is stopping high immigration.
    No, it's people like me who will have the competition in high wage sectors. People in lower wage sectors will now have very large NTBs protecting their pay rates. Our economy is going to look much closer to Switzerland in 4-7 years.
  • dixiedean said:

    Precisely as I explained. Remove UC and you won't have much upland farming. It's aĺl agriculture round here. None of it intensive, barely any subsidised, barely any profitable. And not a foreign worker to be seen. Nor anyone above minimum wage.
    Then if they can't cope without taxpayer subsidies, what are they doing still trading?

    UC is supposed to be a safety net, not a way of life.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,470
    Leon said:

    But those were the figures the Germans themselves pumped out yesterday, I believe. Tho I guess I could have rung their Health Ministry in Berlin to demand an explanation?
    A raw number is one data point. One data point.

    One data point doesn't mean anything. You have to look at all it's friends and relations. Are they close by or do they live a long long way away?

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,836
    edited October 2021
    Fishing said:

    Shale gas was left in the ground in the UK because the government messed around for years about issuing then suspending licences, and had absurdly and unrealistically tight seismic requirements. That's one important reason why our wholesale gas prices are several times America's, and we're desperately dependent on Russia.

    Yet another example of the government shooting the country in the foot.
    Shale gas is not currently economic in the UK.

    Even before the March 2000 moratorium (which, it should be noted was because the locals were not happy), the data on flow rates was not particularly encouraging. I mean if the land were empty, and if the UK had a large indigenous supply of land drilling rigs (and people to staff them), then it *might* work. But we don't.

    So, an operator would be essentially taking a massive flyer on either future wells being very significantly more productive than the initial ones, or longer term gas prices being $12-14/mmbtu.

    And I don't think any operator is going to do that.

    (The only way I could see it working would be if the UK government guaranteed - say - $12/mmbtu for shale gas for the next five to seven years to encourage development.)
  • Charles said:

    Wasn’t that repealed as part of the Oboe Act of 1963?
    No. As this ugly example of anti-(H)oboe legislation was overturned by the Supreme Court of the Panama Canal Zone the following year.

    In this context, note that Seattle enacted its Anti-Ukulele ordinance at the behest of Native Hawaiians appalled at the expropriation of their rich cultural heritage by tone-deaf Scandinavians.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,470
    gealbhan said:

    What do you make of this one test says yeah, second says no I first mentioned yesterday, Mal, a bad batch of testing, or new variant or an known unknown?

    https://news.sky.com/story/covid-news-live-uk-latest-coronavirus-daily-cases-rules-travel-updates-12425651?postid=2818806#liveblog-body

    The much vaunted lab for spotting variants have been up to six weeks behind haven’t they?
    The PCR testing labs are audited by cross testing between labs using batch samples etc etc.

    So they are very very likely to be right.
  • dixiedean said:

    Precisely as I explained. Remove UC and you won't have much upland farming. It's aĺl agriculture round here. None of it intensive, barely any subsidised, barely any profitable. And not a foreign worker to be seen. Nor anyone above minimum wage.
    Has upland hill farming ever been profitable ?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC5WeuLHUdU

    Now you could subsidise it as part of rural tourism / environment management - pretty baa lambs and dry stone walls etc.

    With a charge on all the second home owners / holiday lets in the area to fund it.
  • rcs1000 said:

    Shale gas is not currently economic in the UK.

    Even before the March 2000 moratorium (which, it should be noted was because the locals were not happy), the data on flow rates was not particularly encouraging. I mean if the land were empty, and if the UK had a large indigenous supply of land drilling rigs (and people to staff them), then it *might* work. But we don't.

    So, an operator would be essentially taking a massive flyer on either future wells being very significantly more productive than the initial ones, or longer term gas prices being $12-14/mmbtu.

    And I don't think any operator is going to do that.

    (The only way I could see it working would be if the UK government guaranteed - say - $12/mmbtu for shale gas for the next five to seven years to encourage development.)
    Shale gas may not be economic but there are other hydrocarbon reserves which are being prevented from being developed because of the Government at both a local and national level. The Government is making it increasingly difficult to exploit gas reserves in the Southern North sea and as a result many companies are abandoning any plans for further exploration and are concentrating on the limited gains from near field development.

    The UK attitude to hydrocarbons is inconsistent, incoherent and will result in more environmental damage rather than less whilst seriously damaging our economy at the same time.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,470

    Has upland hill farming ever been profitable ?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC5WeuLHUdU

    Now you could subsidise it as part of rural tourism / environment management - pretty baa lambs and dry stone walls etc.

    With a charge on all the second home owners / holiday lets in the area to fund it.
    Aren't some of the existing subsidies for this exactly - without sheep grazing, chunks of it would change in character etc?
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673

    Non sequitur alert, plus two straw men.
    Well these vague pompous statements are rather hard to pin down in the precise effects they are describing. Perhaps deliberately.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,818

    Not for pensioners.

    Businesses that are addicted to the crack cocaine of shipping in people to work for minimum wage while the taxpayer sponsors those people with housing credit, tax credits, universal credit etc to supplement their below living wages . . . they need to be told to fuck right off and pay a market rate.

    Agriculture - same thing.

    Let companies compete in a free market. Bizarre that free marketeers might still believe in a free market, rather than pander to client businesses and agriculture isn't it?
    Bizarre that you cling to the belief that Boris Johnson and his crew have any interest in the free market.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,836

    Shale gas may not be economic but there are other hydrocarbon reserves which are being prevented from being developed because of the Government at both a local and national level. The Government is making it increasingly difficult to exploit gas reserves in the Southern North sea and as a result many companies are abandoning any plans for further exploration and are concentrating on the limited gains from near field development.

    The UK attitude to hydrocarbons is inconsistent, incoherent and will result in more environmental damage rather than less whilst seriously damaging our economy at the same time.
    I wouldn't disagree with that at all. Indeed, I would suggest that UK governments (of all hues) have massively hampered North Sea development by regularly pulling the rug out under operators.

    My point was solely that people think that shale gas in the UK is some kind of panacea, where if the UK government was a little bit more relaxed about licenses, we'd have loads of production. And that's simply not true.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,818

    Then if they can't cope without taxpayer subsidies, what are they doing still trading?

    UC is supposed to be a safety net, not a way of life.
    And that’s fine.
    Someone the other day was musing about what Labour would need to do to win back Workington, Copeland and Barrow?
    We now know. Absolutely bugger all. The complete destruction of upland agriculture will do it.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,099
    Leon said:

    The entire UK economy is about to go through what NZ went through with agriculture in the 70s and 80s.

    It will definitely be ‘bumpy’ tho I think it will be largely over in 10 years, not 20. And at the end I believe we will thrive, as Kiwi butter exporters do today
    The entire UK economy is about to go through a bumpy ride that will be 'largely over in 10 years'... so that we can thrive like Kiwi butter exporters?

    Fucking hell - no wonder the Finns are feeling sorry for us!
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,976
    dixiedean said:

    And that’s fine.
    Someone the other day was musing about what Labour would need to do to win back Workington, Copeland and Barrow?
    We now know. Absolutely bugger all. The complete destruction of upland agriculture will do it.
    Hyperbole is much utilised on PB.
  • dixiedean said:

    Bizarre that you cling to the belief that Boris Johnson and his crew have any interest in the free market.
    Can I let you into a little secret?

    I couldn't care less what 'Boris Johnson and his crew' have an interest in.

    What I care about is what I have an interest in - and whether 'Boris Johnson and his crew' live up to my desires or not.

    If they do they can have my vote. If they don't, they can't. And the NI tax rise meant that they lost it already, that mattered far more to me than what happens to agriculture.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,818

    Has upland hill farming ever been profitable ?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC5WeuLHUdU

    Now you could subsidise it as part of rural tourism / environment management - pretty baa lambs and dry stone walls etc.

    With a charge on all the second home owners / holiday lets in the area to fund it.
    Indeed.
    But I'd prefer to live in an area with jobs.
  • dixiedean said:

    And that’s fine.
    Someone the other day was musing about what Labour would need to do to win back Workington, Copeland and Barrow?
    We now know. Absolutely bugger all. The complete destruction of upland agriculture will do it.
    If that happens, it happens. Swings happen.

    If the government isn't going to do the right thing, it doesn't deserve to be re-elected anyway.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,836
    MaxPB said:

    No, it's people like me who will have the competition in high wage sectors. People in lower wage sectors will now have very large NTBs protecting their pay rates. Our economy is going to look much closer to Switzerland in 4-7 years.
    I think you also should note that both Switzerland (and Germany) have very good vocational employment systems, that really help ensure that those young people who won't end up in financial services have the skills needed to thrive.

    We need to make sure that we're not dealing with the symptoms (immigration of people with plumbing skills), rather than the cause (lack of Brits with plumbing skills).
  • dixiedean said:

    Indeed.
    But I'd prefer to live in an area with jobs.
    We have jobs. We have full employment and a million job vacancies, haven't you seen the news?

    What we don't need are jobs that are minimum wage and only viable due to taxpayer subsidies and importing people to be subsidised to do those jobs. Those jobs are redundant and redundancies should be cut out.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,912

    The entire UK economy is about to go through a bumpy ride that will be 'largely over in 10 years'... so that we can thrive like Kiwi butter exporters?

    Fucking hell - no wonder the Finns are feeling sorry for us!
    Did you expect Hard Brexit to be easy? Anyone that said it would be easy - and I’m looking at idiot Brexiteers here - was either stupid or lying or both
  • Farooq said:

    Why not have NTBs protecting high wage sectors too?
    Because high wage sectors are good for the country. We need more high wage sectors, the more the merrier.

    Everyone imported with high skills is improving our productivity and growing the pie, not deflating it.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,099
    Leon said:

    Did you expect Hard Brexit to be easy? Anyone that said it would be easy - and I’m looking at idiot Brexiteers here - was either stupid or lying or both
    I expected Brexit to be an unmitigated disaster. So far, so right.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 20,105

    Jaywick is lovely this time of year, Rog.
    You should give it a go.
    I didn't realise it had been gentrified....

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7507575/Essex-seaside-village-Jaywick-named-Englands-deprived-neighbourhood.html
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 33,910
    Just back from London. Definitely getting more busy.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,470
    Farooq said:

    Why not have NTBs protecting high wage sectors too?
    Worth point out, again, that there is a world wide shortage of the high skilled, credential workers required for such jobs.

    And there will be for the foreseeable future.
  • The entire UK economy is about to go through a bumpy ride that will be 'largely over in 10 years'... so that we can thrive like Kiwi butter exporters?

    Fucking hell - no wonder the Finns are feeling sorry for us!
    Anything worth doing is difficult. Doesn't mean its not worth doing.

    Do you think an elite athlete spending ten years of rigorous training, diet and exercise before they're finally able to shine regrets afterwards undergoing all that effort?

    Why should we not be the same? We've become fat and lazy as a nation relying upon minimum wage people imported to do jobs people here didn't want to do at the wages offered. We're going cold turkey with diet and exercise now which is as much of a shock as an ice bath . . . but the right thing to do.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,559

    Aren't some of the existing subsidies for this exactly - without sheep grazing, chunks of it would change in character etc?
    Yes. You'd end up with wild flowers and pollinating insects. Fewer sheep, better uplands.
  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787
    ydoethur said:

    In fact they were never part of Czarist Russia. They were a separate Grand Duchy in a personal union with Russia and Poland. Poland also had a separate parliament and legal system, although there was heavy pressure under Alexander III and Nicholas II to Russify it and bring it under direct imperial control.
    “Congress Poland”, as it was called, because the Kingdom of Poland in personal union with the Czar was created at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, had its autonomy curtailed after the Poles rebelled in 1830, and was effectively integrated into the Russian Empire proper after a further rebellion in 1863. The Finns never rebelled and more or less maintained their autonomy throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, but at times the Czarist regime really put the screws on them. They adopted a fully democratic franchise, including for women, in the wake of the abortive 1905 Russian revolution.
  • The entire UK economy is about to go through a bumpy ride that will be 'largely over in 10 years'... so that we can thrive like Kiwi butter exporters?

    Fucking hell - no wonder the Finns are feeling sorry for us!
    I'm not quite following how this butter superpower thing will work? Won't the rebalancing mean that all the cows will be long dead because farmers didn't pay £60 an hour?
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,559
    rcs1000 said:

    I wouldn't disagree with that at all. Indeed, I would suggest that UK governments (of all hues) have massively hampered North Sea development by regularly pulling the rug out under operators.

    My point was solely that people think that shale gas in the UK is some kind of panacea, where if the UK government was a little bit more relaxed about licenses, we'd have loads of production. And that's simply not true.
    As I heard stated at a conference a number of years ago:

    The cheapest shale gas in the UK will be LNG from the US.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 50,432

    The entire UK economy is about to go through a bumpy ride that will be 'largely over in 10 years'... so that we can thrive like Kiwi butter exporters?

    Fucking hell - no wonder the Finns are feeling sorry for us!
    Anchor butter is no longer from NZ. The Kiwis sell dairy mostly to the Chinese now, and mutton to the middle East. Hence their foreign policy.

    Is that the future for our agriculture?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,099
    edited October 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    I think you also should note that both Switzerland (and Germany) have very good vocational employment systems, that really help ensure that those young people who won't end up in financial services have the skills needed to thrive.

    We need to make sure that we're not dealing with the symptoms (immigration of people with plumbing skills), rather than the cause (lack of Brits with plumbing skills).

    My brother's a plumber. Sure, to a small degree we can train more plumbers but to be a good, competent, safe plumber you actually need to be quite bright and have reasonably good customer skills.

    Where are all those trainees coming from? What jobs are they doing now and who's going to backfill them?

    Let's not pretend that the sort of people capable of training as a plumber are sat on the dole in their 1000s waiting for a training opportunity.
  • Anything worth doing is difficult. Doesn't mean its not worth doing.

    Do you think an elite athlete spending ten years of rigorous training, diet and exercise before they're finally able to shine regrets afterwards undergoing all that effort?

    Why should we not be the same? We've become fat and lazy as a nation relying upon minimum wage people imported to do jobs people here didn't want to do at the wages offered. We're going cold turkey with diet and exercise now which is as much of a shock as an ice bath . . . but the right thing to do.
    Comrade Stakhanov, is that you?
  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787

    The PCR testing labs are audited by cross testing between labs using batch samples etc etc.

    So they are very very likely to be right.
    AIUI the lateral flow tests were rejected by the CDC/FDA here in the US as being far too inaccurate.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,836
    edited October 2021

    Anything worth doing is difficult. Doesn't mean its not worth doing.

    Do you think an elite athlete spending ten years of rigorous training, diet and exercise before they're finally able to shine regrets afterwards undergoing all that effort?

    Why should we not be the same? We've become fat and lazy as a nation relying upon minimum wage people imported to do jobs people here didn't want to do at the wages offered. We're going cold turkey with diet and exercise now which is as much of a shock as an ice bath . . . but the right thing to do.

    Here you go:



    "Hard Work Pays Off In Time. But Laziness Pays Off Now."
  • rcs1000 said:

    I think you also should note that both Switzerland (and Germany) have very good vocational employment systems, that really help ensure that those young people who won't end up in financial services have the skills needed to thrive.

    We need to make sure that we're not dealing with the symptoms (immigration of people with plumbing skills), rather than the cause (lack of Brits with plumbing skills).
    I find it amazing, indeed depressing, that increasing numbers submit to the financial abuse of university.

    Even with the university experience being negatively affected by covid and increased opportunities in the employment market.
  • Andy_JS said:

    Just back from London. Definitely getting more busy.

    Isn't everywhere ?

    Though perhaps the relative changes have been greater in London than average.

  • My brother's a plumber. Sure, to a small degree we can train more plumbers but to be a good, competent, safe plumber you actually need to be quite bright and have reasonably good customer skills.

    Where are all those trainees coming from? What jobs are they doing now and who's going to backfill them?

    Let's not pretend that the sort of people capapable of trainign to be a plumber are sat on the dole in their 1000s waiting for a training opportunity.
    There is a lump of labour fallacy going on with people who think we need to keep importing people to fill jobs in every sector though.

    Our population after being stable for most of the post-war era has since the turn of the century grown by over ten million people. We've been consistently "short of workers" since the introduction of the minimum wage (which also acted as a maximum wage), Brown massively expanding in-work benefits, and the expansion of the European Union.

    Ten million extra people later and we're still "short of workers". After our population has expanded by hundreds of thousands net every single year, after our population has grown by ten million people, why are we still "short of plumbers, and farm help, and wait staff, and drivers, and baristas, and abattoir workers, and ..."?

    The answer of course is because the idea we're short of workers is a lump of labour fallacy. There is no labour shortage - you bring in more people and the labour market will respond because all of those new people will need their own plumber, their own restaurants to go to, their own goods that need drivers, their own coffee etc too

    Labour shortages can not be filled by immigration. That's a lump of labour fallacy.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,559
    Farooq said:

    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(03)15057-X/fulltext

    Particularly amusing is the aside about Francis Bacon and his chilly poultry, which also fits with your cold turkey analogy.
    On a freezing day in 1626, Francis Bacon ran outside and stuffed a chicken with snow to see if this action would preserve it. His exposure to cold on this day possibly caused him to develop the pneumonia from which he died.
    France is bacon.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 50,432

    I find it amazing, indeed depressing, that increasing numbers submit to the financial abuse of university.

    Even with the university experience being negatively affected by covid and increased opportunities in the employment market.
    Maybe they don't want to pluck turkeys or harvest cabbages for the rest of their days?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,470
    rpjs said:

    AIUI the lateral flow tests were rejected by the CDC/FDA here in the US as being far too inaccurate.
    Yes - because the FDA has an institutional block/bias with respect to quick-but-inaccurate tests.

    In this case, by using lateral tests as a funnel to PCR tests, it has been demonstrated to find more cases, and give warning to potential spreaders.

    To be fair, there is a chunk of the medical establishment, here, that has kittens about false positives, and "screening programs".

  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,470

    Yes. You'd end up with wild flowers and pollinating insects. Fewer sheep, better uplands.
    I was told by someone that quite a few areas might reforest, by themselves.
  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787

    Anything worth doing is difficult. Doesn't mean its not worth doing.

    Do you think an elite athlete spending ten years of rigorous training, diet and exercise before they're finally able to shine regrets afterwards undergoing all that effort?

    Why should we not be the same? We've become fat and lazy as a nation relying upon minimum wage people imported to do jobs people here didn't want to do at the wages offered. We're going cold turkey with diet and exercise now which is as much of a shock as an ice bath . . . but the right thing to do.
    As a general principle, you may be right, but embarking on this experiment when the supply chains are already under unprecedented strain strikes me as “courageous”, in the Yes Minister sense, at best. Security of the food supply chain is something that just isn’t being taken seriously enough, not just in the UK.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,836
    edited October 2021

    Its this sort of comment which baffles me.

    We were continually told that there would be an enormous recession, mass unemployment, the City relocating to Frankfurt.

    All slaveringly pasted onto PB.

    Yet here we are with full employment and rising pay.

    Now its possible to make sensible critiques and point out potential problems.

    But where's the unmitigated disaster ?
    It's in the Elysees. Have you not heard the demented wheezing of Macron?
  • Foxy said:

    Maybe they don't want to pluck turkeys or harvest cabbages for the rest of their days?
    I didn't know Leicestershire was still in the middle ages.

    Elsewhere we now have a wide range of jobs between university educated and agricultural worker.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,470


    My brother's a plumber. Sure, to a small degree we can train more plumbers but to be a good, competent, safe plumber you actually need to be quite bright and have reasonably good customer skills.

    Where are all those trainees coming from? What jobs are they doing now and who's going to backfill them?

    Let's not pretend that the sort of people capable of training as a plumber are sat on the dole in their 1000s waiting for a training opportunity.
    There really needs to be a phrase, similar to "Oriental lassitude" which can be used to be derogatory about British workers in a similar, saloon-bar-racist way. Would save a lot of typing.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 13,664
    Leon said:

    There IS a sadness to Brexit, which I share. The EU has noble origins - the quest for peaceful harmony in Europe. Freedom of Movement was the best thing about it, and I regret the loss. I hope one day a compromise can be found that satisfies all sides and restores it, at least in part

    The great tragedy is that Brexit didn’t have to happen. If only a UK government had offered a referendum much earlier, maybe after Maastricht or Lisbon, we’d have said No to further integration, and that compromise would have been found. And we’d probably be a happy but semi-detached country, still associated with the EU and enjoying some of those benefits. And Nice would still feel a little bit English

    But no, the British europhiles, in their arrogance, kept forcing more and more integration on us, without seeking our explicit democratic consent, stoking greater and greater anger over decades. Until eventually the final total rupture became inevitable

    It is a melancholy story. And the authors are Major, Blair, Heseltine, Brown, Clarke, Cameron, et al. It is the europhiles who created Brexit. Indeed, with their push for a ‘2nd referendum’, they made sure we got the hardest Brexit of all, right at the end. The cherry on their ridiculous cake. It is magnificent irony, fit for the ages
    Exactly right. The roots of Brexit are decades old in the policy disaster of believing that gradual integration without the people being explicitly asked would work always. Once FOM and the Euro were in place there was no chance that could work for ever with the UK population. Even if 2016 had been lost the actual issues would never have gone away.

    And it was extraordinary that every major UK politician and party fell for this mixture of self delusion, denial, and attempt to delude the public for decades when referenda as done in other countries would have sorted it without all this difficulty.

    Only marginal figures of left and right seemed to comprehend any of this, even though it is essentially a centrist issue.

  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,099

    There really needs to be a phrase, similar to "Oriental lassitude" which can be used to be derogatory about British workers in a similar, saloon-bar-racist way. Would save a lot of typing.
    You're accusing me of being derogatory about British workers??
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,674

    'Anything worth doing is difficult' is patent bollocks. Writing a will is worth doing; it's not difficult. Breathing is worth doing; it's not difficult.

    I certainly agree that 'some things worth doing are difficult'. But I sure as hell know there are plenty of very difficult things were never worth doing and shouldn't have been attempted in the first place.

    There is no reliable correlation between 'worth doing' and 'difficult'.

    The point is: you're saying Brexit is worth doing and difficult; I'm saying it was never worth doing and difficult. We're agreed it's difficult. I'd say it wouldn't be worth doing, even if it were easy (which it could have been tbh, if we'd chosen EEA or single market.

    We were of course told it would be 'the easiest thing in the world'.
    Learning to write is bloody difficult. Lots of people never master it!
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 72,839
    Farooq said:

    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(03)15057-X/fulltext

    Particularly amusing is the aside about Francis Bacon and his chilly poultry, which also fits with your cold turkey analogy.
    On a freezing day in 1626, Francis Bacon ran outside and stuffed a chicken with snow to see if this action would preserve it. His exposure to cold on this day possibly caused him to develop the pneumonia from which he died.
    He was stuffed, but he was no sage.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,470

    You're accusing me of being derogatory about British workers??
    Well none of them actually work, do they? I understand that all the jobs are actually done by foreigners.

    Time for a proper government to put a maximum wage in place, as in 1515.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,470
    ydoethur said:

    He was stuffed, but he was no sage.
    But he knew his onions....
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited October 2021
    rpjs said:

    As a general principle, you may be right, but embarking on this experiment when the supply chains are already under unprecedented strain strikes me as “courageous”, in the Yes Minister sense, at best. Security of the food supply chain is something that just isn’t being taken seriously enough, not just in the UK.
    If Margaret Thatcher was never "courageous" in the Yes Minister sense then would we still talk about her? To be truly great, you need to be courageous.

    There's a great quote I remember from The West Wing that goes with that thought.

    Bartlet: Social Security is the third rail of American politics. Touch it, and you die.

    Toby: That's 'cause the third rail's where all the power is.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 50,432

    I didn't know Leicestershire was still in the middle ages.

    Elsewhere we now have a wide range of jobs between university educated and agricultural worker.
    Yes, but the key thing is that University offers the opportunity (not certainty) of more interesting work, and work with prospect of advancement. I don't blame people for looking for it.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 72,839

    But he knew his onions....
    In the sense he took them to his gravy.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,099

    Well none of them actually work, do they? I understand that all the jobs are actually done by foreigners.

    Time for a proper government to put a maximum wage in place, as in 1515.
    Wtaf are you on about?
  • Farooq said:

    Not everybody who talks about Margaret Thatcher remembers her for "greatness".
    Even people who loathe her will recognise she was a transformative PM, even if they think its for the wrong reasons. Even people who loathe her will recognise that she was courageous in the Yes Minister sense.

    You can fail to be courageous and muddle along and keep getting elected, but never actually do anything, and just let Sir Humphrey run the show. That's what Tony Blair did - and how fondly is he remembered now?
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 13,664
    edited October 2021

    There is a lump of labour fallacy going on with people who think we need to keep importing people to fill jobs in every sector though.

    Our population after being stable for most of the post-war era has since the turn of the century grown by over ten million people. We've been consistently "short of workers" since the introduction of the minimum wage (which also acted as a maximum wage), Brown massively expanding in-work benefits, and the expansion of the European Union.

    Ten million extra people later and we're still "short of workers". After our population has expanded by hundreds of thousands net every single year, after our population has grown by ten million people, why are we still "short of plumbers, and farm help, and wait staff, and drivers, and baristas, and abattoir workers, and ..."?

    The answer of course is because the idea we're short of workers is a lump of labour fallacy. There is no labour shortage - you bring in more people and the labour market will respond because all of those new people will need their own plumber, their own restaurants to go to, their own goods that need drivers, their own coffee etc too

    Labour shortages can not be filled by immigration. That's a lump of labour fallacy.
    One thought worth exploring is that 'Work expands (or contracts) to provide for the people available.' Just as there is exactly enough news every day to fill exactly a 30 minute bulletin. Essentially the planet earth is, and had to be, a giant job creation scheme.

    IMHO what has happened, partly through FOM, partly through over educating some quite dim people, is the creation of some millions of non-jobs, many of which should in a sane world vanish, being replaced by sensible ones, like designing and making machinery for picking strawberries and blackcurrants.

    David Graeber is the man for this. See


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

    While the sensible individual needs to pick their way through the minefield ignoring all the time wasters.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 30,581

    Its this sort of comment which baffles me.

    We were continually told that there would be an enormous recession, mass unemployment, the City relocating to Frankfurt.

    All slaveringly pasted onto PB.

    Yet here we are with full employment and rising pay.

    Now its possible to make sensible critiques and point out potential problems.

    But where's the unmitigated disaster ?
    So you don't get TV news on your unicorn grazed sunny uplands?

    The normally antiseptic BBC News at Ten was brutal. Steel crisis, energy crisis, livestock crisis, driver crisis, supply crisis...

    Crisis, what crisis?

    Oh and Brexit, as well as Covid was mentioned in dispatches.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556
    So in short we now, finally, have our PB Brexiters agreeing that those who said Brexit would be a disaster were right. But that it will only be for twenty years.

    And some of those saying this should have a better understanding of discounting and NPV than they are putting on display.
  • Farooq said:

    Not everybody who talks about Margaret Thatcher remembers her for "greatness".
    I actually think Maggie is becoming more of a footnote as time goes on. Boris clearly thought so in his conference speech - he more or less lumped Thatcherism in as just another piece of historical failure for his greatness to rectify.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556
    MaxPB said:

    Learning to write is bloody difficult. Lots of people never master it!
    I'm sure many people would be pushed to write an actual letter now without a screen.

    I was in a bookshop the other day and, staring at the shelves, found myself longing for a Ctrl F function.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556

    So you don't get TV news on your unicorn grazed sunny uplands?

    The normally antiseptic BBC News at Ten was brutal. Steel crisis, energy crisis, livestock crisis, driver crisis, supply crisis...

    Crisis, what crisis?

    Oh and Brexit, as well as Covid was mentioned in dispatches.
    The UK is prospering hadn't you heard.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,099
    algarkirk said:

    One thought worth exploring is that 'Work expands (or contracts) to provide for the people available.' Just as there is exactly enough news every day to fill exactly a 30 minute bulletin.

    IMHO what has happened, partly through FOM, partly through over educating some quite dim people, is the creation of some millions of non-jobs, many of which should in a sane world vanish, being replaced by sensible ones, like designing and making machinery for picking strawberries and blackcurrants.

    David Graeber is the man for this. See

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
    That anthropologist David Gaebner wrote a book called "Bullshit Jobs" brought a wry smile to my lips.

    But of course he may be right. In which case you think a period of labour shortages would begin to eliminate such jobs, as well as causing supply-line issues, empty-shelves and accelerating inflation.

    Maybe this is all part of Johnson's master plan... but somehow I think it just one huge f*ck-up.
  • TOPPING said:

    The UK is prospering hadn't you heard.
    Yes it is. The "crisis" is that we have "too many jobs" supposedly.

    Even if that wasn't a lump of labour fallacy, that's like the late, great @SeanT coming on here and saying he has a crisis of too many hot, nubile, young women throwing themselves at him.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556

    Yes it is. The "crisis" is that we have "too many jobs" supposedly.

    Even if that wasn't a lump of labour fallacy, that's like the late, great @SeanT coming on here and saying he has a crisis of too many hot, nubile, young women throwing themselves at him.
    So the gas prices, pigs, petrol, inflation expectations...

    Oh and did you miss my comment earlier. Was your Embolden yesterday a clue as to how you can manage to be on here all the time?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,099
    MaxPB said:

    Learning to write is bloody difficult. Lots of people never master it!
    Sorry if my post was a little bit to complicated for you to understand.
  • TOPPING said:

    So in short we now, finally, have our PB Brexiters agreeing that those who said Brexit would be a disaster were right. But that it will only be for twenty years.

    And some of those saying this should have a better understanding of discounting and NPV than they are putting on display.

    No I'm saying there will be some upheaval for about ten to twenty years, I never said disaster.

    But you know what: there is always upheaval anyway. Covid brought upheaval. The GFC brought upheaval. The dotcom bubble brought upheaval. Online shopping brought upheaval.

    Brexit is just one more thing on a very, very long list of reasons that there will be disruption. But such disruption is a good thing. That's what Brown failed to understand - it is boom and bust that leads to improved development and living standards. He managed to abolish boom but not bust, its time to reverse that mistake.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,470

    Wtaf are you on about?
    The solution to the various problems with workers is simple to fix

    1) A fixed maximum wage of 4d a day in Summer, 5d in Winter.
    2) Anyone without a job gets branded with V for Vagabond on the face.
  • Foxy said:

    Yes, but the key thing is that University offers the opportunity (not certainty) of more interesting work, and work with prospect of advancement. I don't blame people for looking for it.
    So you think you need to go to university to get 'interesting work' and 'prospects of advancement' ?

    I'll assume there's no casual snobbery but have you considered what might apply for yourself might not apply for some other people ?

    Now I don't criticize anyone for looking into university but what I don't like is that the £10k debt per year is something which will not go away and that's a big risk any teenager is accepting when their experience of the wider world is limited.

    If going to university turns out to be the wrong decision they still have the debt and years have been used (with lost earning potential) on something which might be of no use.

    If getting a job turns out to be the wrong decision then they've still had experience in the workplace, earned some money and perhaps learned that a certain career is not for them but with no debt and still have the opportunity to go to university a year or two afterwards.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,099
    edited October 2021
    TOPPING said:

    So the gas prices, pigs, petrol, inflation expectations...

    Oh and did you miss my comment earlier. Was your Embolden yesterday a clue as to how you can manage to be on here all the time?
    I will wet myself laughing if I eventually find out that I've been arguing on here all these years with a bunch of Russian trollbots, rather than with otherwise intelligent people with unfathomably rightish views. 😂

    I for one believe @Philip_Thompson is a real person!
This discussion has been closed.