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This look problematic for ministers – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited November 2022 in General
This look problematic for ministers – politicalbetting.com

Breaking news: The UK’s economy is set to be the worst performer in the G20 bar Russia over the next two years, according to the OECD https://t.co/BiGs0rHChn pic.twitter.com/cohlrKKJPt

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    Brexit's going well then? :D
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    Sheikhy start for Argentina.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited November 2022
    Whatever the reason, indeed. Brexit is certainly a considerable part of the reason. Germany is only anywhere near us in decline of GDP because of its much larger, huge dependance on Russian Gas.
  • GIN1138 said:

    Brexit's going well then? :D

    Brexit is the unflushable turd the country voted for.
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    The best thing Sunak and the Tories could do is have an election in the spring and let Labour take over this mess for a few years lol!
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    (posted again FPT)

    I've mentioned a few times on here about the absurd phenomenon of central government trying to use Council's as a whipping boy that gets blamed for what are basically their own bad political decisions.

    What has happened is government have started sending in Commissioners when the financial position of the Council's in question becomes impossible. This has gone on for a while, in Liverpool and Croydon for instance, and what seems to happen is once the Commissioners are in, they tend not to leave, because there is no real way of fixing the problems, because they are rooted in the impossible financial position of local government, which is in turn due to failings in government policy, as well as other things like government creating large new unfunded statutory duties. It is basically all the 'austerity' chickens coming home to roost.

    To address this problem and the increased demand for this work government are now setting up a new department to appoint inspectors to 'turn around' Councils.
    The wage...... £1200 per day.
    So that is the equivalent of £264000 per year (assuming you work for 44 weeks).

    https://dluhc-turnacouncilaround.com/
  • The curse of Leondamus strikes again.

    Argentina surely didn’t score.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Every Falkland Islander is an honorary Saudi today!
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    edited November 2022
    LOLZ
  • FPT - Green shoots?

    Do Britons believe the UK Government is currently taking the right measures to address the cost-of-living crisis? (20 November)

    No 58% (-8)
    Yes 25% (+5)
    Don't know 17% (+2)

    Changes +/- 13 November




    https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1595024411459227648
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,392
    It isn't Brexit. It is the incompetent way that the Tories have managed Brexit.
  • Also FPT - worth a read:

    Forget the idea that Rishi Sunak is a Thatcherite. All his political hopes and fears are embodied in John Major. Sunak desperately wants to emulate Major the general election winner of 1992, rather than the loser of 1997. That's why the Conservatives are already starting to borrow from their successful 1992 campaign playbook - and it's also why Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should study the election that Labour lost in 1992, rather than the party's landslide win in 1997.

    https://www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/news-and-opinion/items/rishi-sunaks-major-dilemma.html
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,210
    Haha. Fantastic game
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,210
    I can’t do that every game, sorry
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695

    GIN1138 said:

    Brexit's going well then? :D

    Brexit is the unflushable turd the country voted for.
    We can always change arrangements (have closer ties) or even rejoin if the people desire it.

    Nothing is forever.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 18,891
    A few more games like that and no one will be talking about the rights and wrongs of transvestite migrant workers
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,210
    That second goal
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    edited November 2022
    Pulpstar said:

    Sheikhy start for Argentina.

    Perhaps the South American teams are going to underperform due to the timing of this after the end of their domestic season? Much like England did most of the time.

    Having said that, how many of their players still play in domestic leagues? Maybe not that many.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,629
    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
  • The Muppet show continues:

    Robison says that amendments which use the phrase ‘for the avoidance of doubt’ “don’t add value to our laws”. #GRRBill

    https://twitter.com/lnmackenzie1/status/1594988624797466626

    Robison saying she will support Pam Duncan Glancy’s amendment 37 on Equality Act which says “For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in this Act modifies the Equality Act 2010.”

    https://twitter.com/lnmackenzie1/status/1595025054576050179
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Roger said:

    A few more games like that and no one will be talking about the rights and wrongs of transvestite migrant workers

    Happened in Russia that way.

    Of course, teams from places with awful regimes is different to being hosted by one.
  • darkage said:

    (posted again FPT)

    I've mentioned a few times on here about the absurd phenomenon of central government trying to use Council's as a whipping boy that gets blamed for what are basically their own bad political decisions.

    What has happened is government have started sending in Commissioners when the financial position of the Council's in question becomes impossible. This has gone on for a while, in Liverpool and Croydon for instance, and what seems to happen is once the Commissioners are in, they tend not to leave, because there is no real way of fixing the problems, because they are rooted in the impossible financial position of local government, which is in turn due to failings in government policy, as well as other things like government creating large new unfunded statutory duties. It is basically all the 'austerity' chickens coming home to roost.

    To address this problem and the increased demand for this work government are now setting up a new department to appoint inspectors to 'turn around' Councils.
    The wage...... £1200 per day.
    So that is the equivalent of £264000 per year (assuming you work for 44 weeks).

    https://dluhc-turnacouncilaround.com/

    And it's going to get worse. So far, the council's that have had the commissioners in have generally been ones that have messed up, responding to the lack of money by doing something dumb.

    The next step will be when prudent councils responding sensibly run out of money. That's pretty much inevitable now.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    The other thing that is going on is that the government are now hell bent on totally destroying the property development industry. They have gone full on NIMBY, to try and save their electoral fortunes.

    Two things to watch in the 'LURB' bill.

    A government amendment for 'street votes'. So basically, instead of having the Council take a planning decision, it is decided instead by way of a referendum by people in the local area. So all the objectors can basically unite to vote down any proposal for development. The planning system gets replaced by direct democracy. This is actually likely to happen, it is going to probably become law.

    Secondly, 46 tory backbenchers have backed an amendment that takes away housing targets, so Councils are under no actual obligation to build new housing. Something like this will happen given the level of support it has.

    This is all absolutely psychotically stupid and insane. It is actually going to end the property development industry and all the jobs and economic growth it creates.



  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522

    Pulpstar said:

    Sheikhy start for Argentina.

    Perhaps the South American teams are going to underperform due to the timing of this after the end of their domestic season? Much like England did most of the time.

    Having said that, how many of their players still play in domestic leagues? Maybe not that many.
    Only one of the back up goalies. They have one young midfielder in MLS and evereyone else is playing in Europe.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_FIFA_World_Cup_squads#Argentina
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited November 2022
    darkage said:

    (posted again FPT)

    I've mentioned a few times on here about the absurd phenomenon of central government trying to use Council's as a whipping boy that gets blamed for what are basically their own bad political decisions.

    What has happened is government have started sending in Commissioners when the financial position of the Council's in question becomes impossible. This has gone on for a while, in Liverpool and Croydon for instance, and what seems to happen is once the Commissioners are in, they tend not to leave, because there is no real way of fixing the problems, because they are rooted in the impossible financial position of local government, which is in turn due to failings in government policy, as well as other things like government creating large new unfunded statutory duties. It is basically all the 'austerity' chickens coming home to roost.

    To address this problem and the increased demand for this work government are now setting up a new department to appoint inspectors to 'turn around' Councils.
    The wage...... £1200 per day.
    So that is the equivalent of £264000 per year (assuming you work for 44 weeks).

    https://dluhc-turnacouncilaround.com/

    Time to apply to be an inspector, clearly.

    No votes in fixing local council funding.

    And planning is even more stupid, when government rules dictate and guidance is about encouraging development, but as you note in desperate efforts to save votes they want to go simultaneously in the other direction on local consent.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    kle4 said:

    darkage said:

    (posted again FPT)

    I've mentioned a few times on here about the absurd phenomenon of central government trying to use Council's as a whipping boy that gets blamed for what are basically their own bad political decisions.

    What has happened is government have started sending in Commissioners when the financial position of the Council's in question becomes impossible. This has gone on for a while, in Liverpool and Croydon for instance, and what seems to happen is once the Commissioners are in, they tend not to leave, because there is no real way of fixing the problems, because they are rooted in the impossible financial position of local government, which is in turn due to failings in government policy, as well as other things like government creating large new unfunded statutory duties. It is basically all the 'austerity' chickens coming home to roost.

    To address this problem and the increased demand for this work government are now setting up a new department to appoint inspectors to 'turn around' Councils.
    The wage...... £1200 per day.
    So that is the equivalent of £264000 per year (assuming you work for 44 weeks).

    https://dluhc-turnacouncilaround.com/

    Time to apply to be an inspector, clearly.

    No votes in fixing local council funding.
    Yes.... Of course, government Planning Inspectors may have something to say about the remuneration on offer - £264,000 P/A is a lot better than their £40k starting salary. No doubt it will become the new public sector benchmark.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    darkage said:

    The other thing that is going on is that the government are now hell bent on totally destroying the property development industry. They have gone full on NIMBY, to try and save their electoral fortunes.

    Two things to watch in the 'LURB' bill.

    A government amendment for 'street votes'. So basically, instead of having the Council take a planning decision, it is decided instead by way of a referendum by people in the local area. So all the objectors can basically unite to vote down any proposal for development. The planning system gets replaced by direct democracy. This is actually likely to happen, it is going to probably become law.

    Secondly, 46 tory backbenchers have backed an amendment that takes away housing targets, so Councils are under no actual obligation to build new housing. Something like this will happen given the level of support it has.

    This is all absolutely psychotically stupid and insane. It is actually going to end the property development industry and all the jobs and economic growth it creates.

    Councils hate planning targets as they get blamed for them, but government has long felt that was the only way to force a minimum level of necessary development to take place.

    I've not yet seen how they think they can force it without them. And certainly they won't manage to simply encourage the required amount to happen.

    MPs are awful on planning - since they are not decision makers they have no reason not to pander even to minority or loony concerns (see Wera Hobhouse - yes I know the official objection was not the 5G health but that was clearly the reason for many objectors), or try to get the Secretary of State to step in, which causes long delays.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,210
    Only football can do that. Mazin
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    Driver said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Sheikhy start for Argentina.

    Perhaps the South American teams are going to underperform due to the timing of this after the end of their domestic season? Much like England did most of the time.

    Having said that, how many of their players still play in domestic leagues? Maybe not that many.
    Only one of the back up goalies. They have one young midfielder in MLS and evereyone else is playing in Europe.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_FIFA_World_Cup_squads#Argentina
    South American teams have performed poorly in recent tournaments, and I think not playing in domestic leagues a major factor in poor team cohesion. They fly back for occasional games, but are really strangers to each other.

    It is always European teams that win nowadays, and a small group of them too. I am on the French to win, Spain too. I don't think this is a good enough German side. England, or Belgium are in as an outside chance.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,764

    Also FPT - worth a read:

    Forget the idea that Rishi Sunak is a Thatcherite. All his political hopes and fears are embodied in John Major. Sunak desperately wants to emulate Major the general election winner of 1992, rather than the loser of 1997. That's why the Conservatives are already starting to borrow from their successful 1992 campaign playbook - and it's also why Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should study the election that Labour lost in 1992, rather than the party's landslide win in 1997.

    https://www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/news-and-opinion/items/rishi-sunaks-major-dilemma.html

    I'm shocked that No. 10 was shocked by the headlines in response to the Autumn Statement.

    Going for tax rises/spending cuts at a time of economic hardship inevitably means that such hardship will be worse than it needs to be.

    Even if the Conservatives did scrape a 1992-type win, in 2024, they'd get slaughtered in subsequent local elections, and the next general election, so what really is the point?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    darkage said:

    The other thing that is going on is that the government are now hell bent on totally destroying the property development industry. They have gone full on NIMBY, to try and save their electoral fortunes.

    Two things to watch in the 'LURB' bill.

    A government amendment for 'street votes'. So basically, instead of having the Council take a planning decision, it is decided instead by way of a referendum by people in the local area. So all the objectors can basically unite to vote down any proposal for development. The planning system gets replaced by direct democracy. This is actually likely to happen, it is going to probably become law.

    Secondly, 46 tory backbenchers have backed an amendment that takes away housing targets, so Councils are under no actual obligation to build new housing. Something like this will happen given the level of support it has.

    This is all absolutely psychotically stupid and insane. It is actually going to end the property development industry and all the jobs and economic growth it creates.



    Would likely boost the Tories in the home counties and help them see off the threat from the LDs and Residents' Associations.

    However removing major planning decisions from local authorities to direct referendum is probably going too far and would lead to most development projects and local plans being voted down
  • Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,160
    https://pharmaphorum.com/news/industry-body-slams-uk-chancellors-rd-tax-credits-plan-for-smes/

    How do we increase productivity and growth? Well, the Govt thinks the answer is to reduce R&D tax credits for start-ups. :(
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598

    Also FPT - worth a read:

    Forget the idea that Rishi Sunak is a Thatcherite. All his political hopes and fears are embodied in John Major. Sunak desperately wants to emulate Major the general election winner of 1992, rather than the loser of 1997. That's why the Conservatives are already starting to borrow from their successful 1992 campaign playbook - and it's also why Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should study the election that Labour lost in 1992, rather than the party's landslide win in 1997.

    https://www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/news-and-opinion/items/rishi-sunaks-major-dilemma.html

    Is there even a shred of evidence that 'pattern matching' works, or is even a thing, in political terms?

    I'd venture that 2024 isn't 1992. Nor is it 1997.

    It's 2024.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited November 2022
    Sean_F said:

    Also FPT - worth a read:

    Forget the idea that Rishi Sunak is a Thatcherite. All his political hopes and fears are embodied in John Major. Sunak desperately wants to emulate Major the general election winner of 1992, rather than the loser of 1997. That's why the Conservatives are already starting to borrow from their successful 1992 campaign playbook - and it's also why Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should study the election that Labour lost in 1992, rather than the party's landslide win in 1997.

    https://www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/news-and-opinion/items/rishi-sunaks-major-dilemma.html

    I'm shocked that No. 10 was shocked by the headlines in response to the Autumn Statement.

    Going for tax rises/spending cuts at a time of economic hardship inevitably means that such hardship will be worse than it needs to be.

    Even if the Conservatives did scrape a 1992-type win, in 2024, they'd get slaughtered in subsequent local elections, and the next general election, so what really is the point?
    Staying in power a few more years even if it means a shellacking later is a reasonable point. You never know what might come up.

    They shouldn't have been surprised, but no one else should either as they were clear what path was being taken. No good options left.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    edited November 2022
    Foxy said:

    Driver said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Sheikhy start for Argentina.

    Perhaps the South American teams are going to underperform due to the timing of this after the end of their domestic season? Much like England did most of the time.

    Having said that, how many of their players still play in domestic leagues? Maybe not that many.
    Only one of the back up goalies. They have one young midfielder in MLS and evereyone else is playing in Europe.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_FIFA_World_Cup_squads#Argentina
    South American teams have performed poorly in recent tournaments, and I think not playing in domestic leagues a major factor in poor team cohesion. They fly back for occasional games, but are really strangers to each other.

    It is always European teams that win nowadays, and a small group of them too. I am on the French to win, Spain too. I don't think this is a good enough German side. England, or Belgium are in as an outside chance.
    A very bold forecast.

    You had England down for a draw against Iran – you have changed your tune somewhat.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Also FPT - worth a read:

    Forget the idea that Rishi Sunak is a Thatcherite. All his political hopes and fears are embodied in John Major. Sunak desperately wants to emulate Major the general election winner of 1992, rather than the loser of 1997. That's why the Conservatives are already starting to borrow from their successful 1992 campaign playbook - and it's also why Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should study the election that Labour lost in 1992, rather than the party's landslide win in 1997.

    https://www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/news-and-opinion/items/rishi-sunaks-major-dilemma.html

    Is there even a shred of evidence that 'pattern matching' works, or is even a thing, in political terms?

    I'd venture that 2024 isn't 1992. Nor is it 1997.

    It's 2024.
    You're right, but naturally people will seek the closest analog they can find.

    Saying it could be 'like' 1992 doesn't mean exact, 'like' is a very flexible word.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    What is the point in being "anti" something which has already happened?
  • FPT - Green shoots?

    Green shirts.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    kle4 said:

    Also FPT - worth a read:

    Forget the idea that Rishi Sunak is a Thatcherite. All his political hopes and fears are embodied in John Major. Sunak desperately wants to emulate Major the general election winner of 1992, rather than the loser of 1997. That's why the Conservatives are already starting to borrow from their successful 1992 campaign playbook - and it's also why Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should study the election that Labour lost in 1992, rather than the party's landslide win in 1997.

    https://www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/news-and-opinion/items/rishi-sunaks-major-dilemma.html

    Is there even a shred of evidence that 'pattern matching' works, or is even a thing, in political terms?

    I'd venture that 2024 isn't 1992. Nor is it 1997.

    It's 2024.
    You're right, but naturally people will seek the closest analog they can find.

    Saying it could be 'like' 1992 doesn't mean exact, 'like' is a very flexible word.
    People find analogs in everything – hence why humans seen animal and human faces in clouds.

    I dare say it's a fool's errand in political terms just as it is in meteorology.
  • Driver said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    What is the point in being "anti" something which has already happened?
    What's the point of being "pro" something that's shit?
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,764
    kle4 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Also FPT - worth a read:

    Forget the idea that Rishi Sunak is a Thatcherite. All his political hopes and fears are embodied in John Major. Sunak desperately wants to emulate Major the general election winner of 1992, rather than the loser of 1997. That's why the Conservatives are already starting to borrow from their successful 1992 campaign playbook - and it's also why Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should study the election that Labour lost in 1992, rather than the party's landslide win in 1997.

    https://www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/news-and-opinion/items/rishi-sunaks-major-dilemma.html

    I'm shocked that No. 10 was shocked by the headlines in response to the Autumn Statement.

    Going for tax rises/spending cuts at a time of economic hardship inevitably means that such hardship will be worse than it needs to be.

    Even if the Conservatives did scrape a 1992-type win, in 2024, they'd get slaughtered in subsequent local elections, and the next general election, so what really is the point?
    Staying in power a few more years even if it means a shellacking later is a reasonable point. You never know what might come up.

    They shouldn't have been surprised, but no one else should either as they were clear what path was being taken. No good options left.
    There are no good options. But, one can try to avoid making things harder.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,820
    edited November 2022

    https://pharmaphorum.com/news/industry-body-slams-uk-chancellors-rd-tax-credits-plan-for-smes/

    How do we increase productivity and growth? Well, the Govt thinks the answer is to reduce R&D tax credits for start-ups. :(

    R & D tax credits for small companies had become a bit of a scam, as anyone familiar with the subject will confirm. I only need to look at the number of emails I get from dodgy 'consultancies' offering to put in applications to get this free money.

    In general, I'm fairly sceptical that these sorts of tax incentives increase R & D in any meaningful sense (and I have taken advantage of them in the past, for genuine R & D). They of course increase the amount of company expenditure which is classified as R & D, but that's a different matter. Even with no fraud or dodgy accounting at all, the dead cost - subsidising R & D which would have been done anyway - must be huge.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,629

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    You though I get the impression think its purely whether the countries economy is better that makes it good for the country. So a serious question for you here for a moment, and the hypothetical is not about reality as we would argue back and forth on that one so just an answer as if its true from you

    a) The economy grows by 3% year on year but half the population has to live on governement handouts such as working tax credits with falling living standards

    b) The economy doesnt grow but everyone can make enough in wages to live reasonably comfortably and while living standards arent improving nor are they getting worse.

    Personally I would choose b) everytime
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,341
    edited November 2022

    The Muppet show continues:

    Robison says that amendments which use the phrase ‘for the avoidance of doubt’ “don’t add value to our laws”. #GRRBill

    https://twitter.com/lnmackenzie1/status/1594988624797466626

    Robison saying she will support Pam Duncan Glancy’s amendment 37 on Equality Act which says “For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in this Act modifies the Equality Act 2010.”

    https://twitter.com/lnmackenzie1/status/1595025054576050179

    BTW the phrase can as a matter of fact add value in resolving difficulties of interpretation of a statute.

    If no statute ever created doubt in the world of legal interpretation there would be a lot fewer lawyers. For example the SC decision due tomorrow (I think) on the Scotland Act would not be needed.

    To me one interpretation of it is obvious and unambiguous; to the SNP the opposite applies.

  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522

    Driver said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    What is the point in being "anti" something which has already happened?
    What's the point of being "pro" something that's shit?
    No answer, then.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,210
    edited November 2022
    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522
    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    "forcing"?
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,341
    kle4 said:

    Also FPT - worth a read:

    Forget the idea that Rishi Sunak is a Thatcherite. All his political hopes and fears are embodied in John Major. Sunak desperately wants to emulate Major the general election winner of 1992, rather than the loser of 1997. That's why the Conservatives are already starting to borrow from their successful 1992 campaign playbook - and it's also why Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should study the election that Labour lost in 1992, rather than the party's landslide win in 1997.

    https://www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/news-and-opinion/items/rishi-sunaks-major-dilemma.html

    Is there even a shred of evidence that 'pattern matching' works, or is even a thing, in political terms?

    I'd venture that 2024 isn't 1992. Nor is it 1997.

    It's 2024.
    You're right, but naturally people will seek the closest analog they can find.

    Saying it could be 'like' 1992 doesn't mean exact, 'like' is a very flexible word.
    Pattern matching doesn't work but it is a thing. PB would be poorer without all the arguments based on X must follow Y because in early Assyrian society X on at least one occasion followed Y.

  • Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    You though I get the impression think its purely whether the countries economy is better that makes it good for the country. So a serious question for you here for a moment, and the hypothetical is not about reality as we would argue back and forth on that one so just an answer as if its true from you

    a) The economy grows by 3% year on year but half the population has to live on governement handouts such as working tax credits with falling living standards

    b) The economy doesnt grow but everyone can make enough in wages to live reasonably comfortably and while living standards arent improving nor are they getting worse.

    Personally I would choose b) everytime
    I would too but (1) I don't think that that is what Brexit will deliver and (2) I think it is a false choice because an economy that doesn't grow is more not less likely to involve declining living standards for the less well off.
  • WillGWillG Posts: 1,993
    Roger said:

    A few more games like that and no one will be talking about the rights and wrongs of transvestite migrant workers

    What a disgusting dismissal of hundreds of people dying to build these stadiums.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,160
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    You though I get the impression think its purely whether the countries economy is better that makes it good for the country. So a serious question for you here for a moment, and the hypothetical is not about reality as we would argue back and forth on that one so just an answer as if its true from you

    a) The economy grows by 3% year on year but half the population has to live on governement handouts such as working tax credits with falling living standards

    b) The economy doesnt grow but everyone can make enough in wages to live reasonably comfortably and while living standards arent improving nor are they getting worse.

    Personally I would choose b) everytime
    So, (b) is socialism and (a) is capitalism? If people want (b), they can vote for parties that focus on the bottom half of the population in terms of the economy, not those who focus on the top half. Polling suggests that will happen at the next general election. I’m not certain this helps resolve the Brexit discussion, however.

  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Sean_F said:

    kle4 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Also FPT - worth a read:

    Forget the idea that Rishi Sunak is a Thatcherite. All his political hopes and fears are embodied in John Major. Sunak desperately wants to emulate Major the general election winner of 1992, rather than the loser of 1997. That's why the Conservatives are already starting to borrow from their successful 1992 campaign playbook - and it's also why Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should study the election that Labour lost in 1992, rather than the party's landslide win in 1997.

    https://www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/news-and-opinion/items/rishi-sunaks-major-dilemma.html

    I'm shocked that No. 10 was shocked by the headlines in response to the Autumn Statement.

    Going for tax rises/spending cuts at a time of economic hardship inevitably means that such hardship will be worse than it needs to be.

    Even if the Conservatives did scrape a 1992-type win, in 2024, they'd get slaughtered in subsequent local elections, and the next general election, so what really is the point?
    Staying in power a few more years even if it means a shellacking later is a reasonable point. You never know what might come up.

    They shouldn't have been surprised, but no one else should either as they were clear what path was being taken. No good options left.
    There are no good options. But, one can try to avoid making things harder.
    And sometimes harder now means less hard later.

    Does this do that? IDK, plenty of decisions and pain deferred, but I don't think the choice was straightforward either.
  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 13,921

    https://pharmaphorum.com/news/industry-body-slams-uk-chancellors-rd-tax-credits-plan-for-smes/

    How do we increase productivity and growth? Well, the Govt thinks the answer is to reduce R&D tax credits for start-ups. :(

    R & D tax credits for small companies had become a bit of a scam, as anyone familiar with the subject will confirm. I only need to look at the number of emails I get from dodgy 'consultancies' offering to put in applications to get this free money.

    In general, I'm fairly sceptical that these sorts of tax incentives increase R & D in any meaningful sense (and I have taken advantage of them in the past, for genuine R & D). They of course increase the amount of company expenditure which is classified as R & D, but that's a different matter. Even with no fraud or dodgy accounting at all, the dead cost - subsidising R & D which would have been done anyway - must be huge.
    One of the reasons I was so anti-Sunak was because of all these clever wheezes from his time as Chancellor. Naive, or badly advised? Either way, I'd prefer someone with more experience of Govt. was First Lord of the Treasury.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,392
    darkage said:

    The other thing that is going on is that the government are now hell bent on totally destroying the property development industry. They have gone full on NIMBY, to try and save their electoral fortunes.

    Two things to watch in the 'LURB' bill.

    A government amendment for 'street votes'. So basically, instead of having the Council take a planning decision, it is decided instead by way of a referendum by people in the local area. So all the objectors can basically unite to vote down any proposal for development. The planning system gets replaced by direct democracy. This is actually likely to happen, it is going to probably become law.

    Secondly, 46 tory backbenchers have backed an amendment that takes away housing targets, so Councils are under no actual obligation to build new housing. Something like this will happen given the level of support it has.

    This is all absolutely psychotically stupid and insane. It is actually going to end the property development industry and all the jobs and economic growth it creates.



    Excellent news. Might help put an end to the wholesale destruction of the countryside.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,732
    Conservative bosses have given their MPs two weeks to decide whether they are standing at the next election.

    Is Chloe Smith's decision to quit politics a sign that the Tories believe they are heading for a wipeout in 2024?

    https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/are-tory-mps-beginning-to-quit-politics-to-avoid-election-routing_uk_637cb72ce4b06d5b60996798
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited November 2022
    Fascinating to see that Alexa is losing 10bn a year and Jeff Bezos has apparently “lost interest in it”.

    I never did understand what the point of it was. There’s very little I want “Alexa” to do except perhaps to unload the dishwasher or take the bins out and she can’t do that.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Fascinating to see that Alexa is losing 10bn a year and Jeff Bezos has apparently “lost interest in it”.

    I never did understand what the point of it was. There’s very little I want “Alexa” to do except perhaps to unload the dishwasher or take the bins out and she can’t do that.

    For a whole lot of items voice control offers you far less in a far more time consuming way than just a screen.
  • Gets worse for Qatar when their political and economic as well as football rivals, Saudi Arabia, beat Argentina in one of the bigger shocks in World Cup history

    https://twitter.com/kevin_maguire/status/1595037077544075269
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    Driver said:

    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    "forcing"?
    Well exactly. Do you think people in China are aware that the rest of the world has long since moved on? Barring a tiny handful of freakish continuity zerocovidians nobody in the west seems scared anymore.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,629

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    You though I get the impression think its purely whether the countries economy is better that makes it good for the country. So a serious question for you here for a moment, and the hypothetical is not about reality as we would argue back and forth on that one so just an answer as if its true from you

    a) The economy grows by 3% year on year but half the population has to live on governement handouts such as working tax credits with falling living standards

    b) The economy doesnt grow but everyone can make enough in wages to live reasonably comfortably and while living standards arent improving nor are they getting worse.

    Personally I would choose b) everytime
    I would too but (1) I don't think that that is what Brexit will deliver and (2) I think it is a false choice because an economy that doesn't grow is more not less likely to involve declining living standards for the less well off.
    Brexit may or may not deliver it but certainly when we were in the EU we were in situation a). We had growth and people were saying isnt the economy great while the bottom half of the population found life harder and harder.

    I also put 0 growth in B) to make a point. A booming economy is only a good thing if it is lifting all boats. It is not an intrinsically good thing in and of itself.

    Now I hope we will get to b with some growth, though maybe not as much as we would have if we were in the eu but its going to be a long slog with many strands needed to be in place.

    Two strands I believe removal of FoM solves.

    First it rebalances the supply and demand nature of the jobs market whereas before we had for all intents infinite supply and that seems to be to an extent working with wage rises for a lot that hadnt seen any for years when you discount legally mandated minimum wage rises.

    Secondly and jury is still out on this one and it will take time to work through. As managers realise they can't just throw more cheap labour at a task they will start thinking about how to increase productivity via automation. An example often cited being a french building site the first thing they set up is a mini crane whereas we hire bodies to carry bricks around.

    There are many other strands we need to work on such as monetising ip generated from universities, encouraging entrepreneurship, encouraging long term thinking in business etc.

    Our main problem now sadly is we are led by pygmies...not only politicians but senior managers

  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited November 2022
    eek said:

    Fascinating to see that Alexa is losing 10bn a year and Jeff Bezos has apparently “lost interest in it”.

    I never did understand what the point of it was. There’s very little I want “Alexa” to do except perhaps to unload the dishwasher or take the bins out and she can’t do that.

    For a whole lot of items voice control offers you far less in a far more time consuming way than just a screen.
    I personally can’t think of a decent use case.
    Perhaps I lack imagination.

    All the stuff I want to do on a screen involves consumption of text or images.
  • Driver said:

    Driver said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    What is the point in being "anti" something which has already happened?
    What's the point of being "pro" something that's shit?
    No answer, then.
    I literally answered your question. Being for or against things rather than simply accepting everything as it is is surely the essence of politics. I'm surprised that this needs spelling out to someone who contributes BTL on a political blog!
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,392

    kle4 said:

    Also FPT - worth a read:

    Forget the idea that Rishi Sunak is a Thatcherite. All his political hopes and fears are embodied in John Major. Sunak desperately wants to emulate Major the general election winner of 1992, rather than the loser of 1997. That's why the Conservatives are already starting to borrow from their successful 1992 campaign playbook - and it's also why Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should study the election that Labour lost in 1992, rather than the party's landslide win in 1997.

    https://www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/news-and-opinion/items/rishi-sunaks-major-dilemma.html

    Is there even a shred of evidence that 'pattern matching' works, or is even a thing, in political terms?

    I'd venture that 2024 isn't 1992. Nor is it 1997.

    It's 2024.
    You're right, but naturally people will seek the closest analog they can find.

    Saying it could be 'like' 1992 doesn't mean exact, 'like' is a very flexible word.
    People find analogs in everything – hence why humans seen animal and human faces in clouds.

    I dare say it's a fool's errand in political terms just as it is in meteorology.
    Not wearing my glasses, I read that as "human faeces".
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    WillG said:

    Roger said:

    A few more games like that and no one will be talking about the rights and wrongs of transvestite migrant workers

    What a disgusting dismissal of hundreds of people dying to build these stadiums.
    Qatar's human rights record is abysmal, but the numbers that died making the stadiums seems to be rather debatable.
  • Ah, Alexa. It confounds me why people pay to voluntarily be put under surveillance.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,629
    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    You though I get the impression think its purely whether the countries economy is better that makes it good for the country. So a serious question for you here for a moment, and the hypothetical is not about reality as we would argue back and forth on that one so just an answer as if its true from you

    a) The economy grows by 3% year on year but half the population has to live on governement handouts such as working tax credits with falling living standards

    b) The economy doesnt grow but everyone can make enough in wages to live reasonably comfortably and while living standards arent improving nor are they getting worse.

    Personally I would choose b) everytime
    This implies you share one of my strongest political beliefs - that the focus of UK governments should be more on reducing our level of inequality than on chasing growth. Despite this intertwining of our very souls you have yet to agree with a single thing I've written in my 31,923 posts! It must be the way I tell em.
    I agree that those at the bottom should be able to live a life of dignity on the fruit of their labour. I don't care if inequality remains as it is now as long as the bottom most can goto work in the knowledge it pays them enough to have shelter, food, warmth with some left over for some of the nicer things in life...a good meal out, a holiday etc.

    I do not think the two are the same thing.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,210

    eek said:

    Fascinating to see that Alexa is losing 10bn a year and Jeff Bezos has apparently “lost interest in it”.

    I never did understand what the point of it was. There’s very little I want “Alexa” to do except perhaps to unload the dishwasher or take the bins out and she can’t do that.

    For a whole lot of items voice control offers you far less in a far more time consuming way than just a screen.
    I personally can’t think of a decent use case.
    Perhaps I lack imagination.

    All the stuff I want to do on a screen involves consumption of text or images.
    I use Alexa all the time. You are lacking imagination

    I have an Alexa in my living room, another in the kitchen, and the Google version in the bedroom

    It is particularly useful in the kitchen when I am generally using my hands. It can play music to accompany the cooking, it can set multiple timers for boiling, frying, roasting, it gives me recipe tips, tells me how many teaspoons in a tablespoon, it offers gastronomic advice (fry kale for 3 minutes!), it tells me the weather, it can phone people, tells me when and which shops are open - and 1000 more things


    I absolutely rely on it. It’s brilliant



  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,160
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    You though I get the impression think its purely whether the countries economy is better that makes it good for the country. So a serious question for you here for a moment, and the hypothetical is not about reality as we would argue back and forth on that one so just an answer as if its true from you

    a) The economy grows by 3% year on year but half the population has to live on governement handouts such as working tax credits with falling living standards

    b) The economy doesnt grow but everyone can make enough in wages to live reasonably comfortably and while living standards arent improving nor are they getting worse.

    Personally I would choose b) everytime
    I would too but (1) I don't think that that is what Brexit will deliver and (2) I think it is a false choice because an economy that doesn't grow is more not less likely to involve declining living standards for the less well off.
    Brexit may or may not deliver it but certainly when we were in the EU we were in situation a). We had growth and people were saying isnt the economy great while the bottom half of the population found life harder and harder.

    I also put 0 growth in B) to make a point. A booming economy is only a good thing if it is lifting all boats. It is not an intrinsically good thing in and of itself.

    Now I hope we will get to b with some growth, though maybe not as much as we would have if we were in the eu but its going to be a long slog with many strands needed to be in place.

    Two strands I believe removal of FoM solves.

    First it rebalances the supply and demand nature of the jobs market whereas before we had for all intents infinite supply and that seems to be to an extent working with wage rises for a lot that hadnt seen any for years when you discount legally mandated minimum wage rises.

    Secondly and jury is still out on this one and it will take time to work through. As managers realise they can't just throw more cheap labour at a task they will start thinking about how to increase productivity via automation. An example often cited being a french building site the first thing they set up is a mini crane whereas we hire bodies to carry bricks around.

    There are many other strands we need to work on such as monetising ip generated from universities, encouraging entrepreneurship, encouraging long term thinking in business etc.

    Our main problem now sadly is we are led by pygmies...not only politicians but senior managers
    There was a big blip associated with COVID-19, but otherwise total immigration to the UK has been pretty unchanged by Brexit. Your argument about the labour market seems to fall down if ending FoM doesn’t actually change the amount of immigration.

    Also, you make a comparison to a French building site. France, of course, is in the EU and has FoM. So, why are the French better at making that sort of investment?

  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,210
    Splendid Arabic commentary on the 2nd Saudi goal

    https://twitter.com/yousaf1788/status/1595030709588168704?s=46&t=i2CCJY004C4dX9W8DFZ7uw

    The scorer is minted for the rest of his life
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522

    Driver said:

    Driver said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    What is the point in being "anti" something which has already happened?
    What's the point of being "pro" something that's shit?
    No answer, then.
    I literally answered your question. Being for or against things rather than simply accepting everything as it is is surely the essence of politics. I'm surprised that this needs spelling out to someone who contributes BTL on a political blog!
    No, you really didn't. Asking a different (albeit related) question is not answering the question!

    The point is: defining yourself as still being "for" or "against" something that has already happened is pointless, and detracts from where you should be, which is being "for" something that can be done in future to improve things. "I wouldn't start from here" is a waste of time.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522
    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    You though I get the impression think its purely whether the countries economy is better that makes it good for the country. So a serious question for you here for a moment, and the hypothetical is not about reality as we would argue back and forth on that one so just an answer as if its true from you

    a) The economy grows by 3% year on year but half the population has to live on governement handouts such as working tax credits with falling living standards

    b) The economy doesnt grow but everyone can make enough in wages to live reasonably comfortably and while living standards arent improving nor are they getting worse.

    Personally I would choose b) everytime
    This implies you share one of my strongest political beliefs - that the main focus of UK governments should be on reducing our level of inequality not on chasing growth. Despite this intertwining of our very souls you have yet to agree with a single thing I've written in my 31,923 posts! It must be the way I tell em.
    Just to clarify: you would rather everyone was worse off as long as the rich lost most than that everyone was better off than better off if the rich were to gain most?
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,160
    Pagan2 said:

    kinabalu said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    You though I get the impression think its purely whether the countries economy is better that makes it good for the country. So a serious question for you here for a moment, and the hypothetical is not about reality as we would argue back and forth on that one so just an answer as if its true from you

    a) The economy grows by 3% year on year but half the population has to live on governement handouts such as working tax credits with falling living standards

    b) The economy doesnt grow but everyone can make enough in wages to live reasonably comfortably and while living standards arent improving nor are they getting worse.

    Personally I would choose b) everytime
    This implies you share one of my strongest political beliefs - that the focus of UK governments should be more on reducing our level of inequality than on chasing growth. Despite this intertwining of our very souls you have yet to agree with a single thing I've written in my 31,923 posts! It must be the way I tell em.
    I agree that those at the bottom should be able to live a life of dignity on the fruit of their labour. I don't care if inequality remains as it is now as long as the bottom most can goto work in the knowledge it pays them enough to have shelter, food, warmth with some left over for some of the nicer things in life...a good meal out, a holiday etc.

    I do not think the two are the same thing.
    I would suggest that good ways to ensure that those at the bottom should be able to live a life of dignity on the fruit of their labour is increasing the minimum wage, strengthening workers’ rights, tackling zero hour contracts, having a robust safety net, increasing council house building, etc. (I am in favour of all these things.)
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    Leon said:

    Splendid Arabic commentary on the 2nd Saudi goal

    https://twitter.com/yousaf1788/status/1595030709588168704?s=46&t=i2CCJY004C4dX9W8DFZ7uw

    The scorer is minted for the rest of his life

    What a belter of a goal.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793
    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    China have utterly fucked up.

    Their last series of lockdowns was to buy time to vaccinate their population. But the amount of vaccine hesitancy in China is really high, especially amongst the older generations (which is especially bad for covid), and they've failed again.
  • Driver said:

    Driver said:

    Driver said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    What is the point in being "anti" something which has already happened?
    What's the point of being "pro" something that's shit?
    No answer, then.
    I literally answered your question. Being for or against things rather than simply accepting everything as it is is surely the essence of politics. I'm surprised that this needs spelling out to someone who contributes BTL on a political blog!
    No, you really didn't. Asking a different (albeit related) question is not answering the question!

    The point is: defining yourself as still being "for" or "against" something that has already happened is pointless, and detracts from where you should be, which is being "for" something that can be done in future to improve things. "I wouldn't start from here" is a waste of time.
    Okay, I am against Brexit and would like to see its negative effects ameliorated in the short term. In the long run I would like to see it reversed. Is that alright?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,210
    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Splendid Arabic commentary on the 2nd Saudi goal

    https://twitter.com/yousaf1788/status/1595030709588168704?s=46&t=i2CCJY004C4dX9W8DFZ7uw

    The scorer is minted for the rest of his life

    What a belter of a goal.

    With a celebration to match. He does a total body flip
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,629
    edited November 2022

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    You though I get the impression think its purely whether the countries economy is better that makes it good for the country. So a serious question for you here for a moment, and the hypothetical is not about reality as we would argue back and forth on that one so just an answer as if its true from you

    a) The economy grows by 3% year on year but half the population has to live on governement handouts such as working tax credits with falling living standards

    b) The economy doesnt grow but everyone can make enough in wages to live reasonably comfortably and while living standards arent improving nor are they getting worse.

    Personally I would choose b) everytime
    I would too but (1) I don't think that that is what Brexit will deliver and (2) I think it is a false choice because an economy that doesn't grow is more not less likely to involve declining living standards for the less well off.
    Brexit may or may not deliver it but certainly when we were in the EU we were in situation a). We had growth and people were saying isnt the economy great while the bottom half of the population found life harder and harder.

    I also put 0 growth in B) to make a point. A booming economy is only a good thing if it is lifting all boats. It is not an intrinsically good thing in and of itself.

    Now I hope we will get to b with some growth, though maybe not as much as we would have if we were in the eu but its going to be a long slog with many strands needed to be in place.

    Two strands I believe removal of FoM solves.

    First it rebalances the supply and demand nature of the jobs market whereas before we had for all intents infinite supply and that seems to be to an extent working with wage rises for a lot that hadnt seen any for years when you discount legally mandated minimum wage rises.

    Secondly and jury is still out on this one and it will take time to work through. As managers realise they can't just throw more cheap labour at a task they will start thinking about how to increase productivity via automation. An example often cited being a french building site the first thing they set up is a mini crane whereas we hire bodies to carry bricks around.

    There are many other strands we need to work on such as monetising ip generated from universities, encouraging entrepreneurship, encouraging long term thinking in business etc.

    Our main problem now sadly is we are led by pygmies...not only politicians but senior managers
    There was a big blip associated with COVID-19, but otherwise total immigration to the UK has been pretty unchanged by Brexit. Your argument about the labour market seems to fall down if ending FoM doesn’t actually change the amount of immigration.

    Also, you make a comparison to a French building site. France, of course, is in the EU and has FoM. So, why are the French better at making that sort of investment?

    France has labour laws which makes companies reluctant to recruit as its difficult to get rid of them is probably one reason.

    As to the immigration remaining the same I would say its not feeding into labour supply for the following reasons

    a ) a lot of non eu immigration is family based and not necessarily here to join the work force whereas most FoM was young people coming to join our work force

    b ) How do you know immigration is the same we had no idea how many were coming in as the home office is useless and didn't count them but relied on some people with clip boards at a few airports and ports asking a random selection of people. Since brexit there have been some huge anomalies between the number the government thought we had and the number applying for leave to stay

    c ) Migration is now points based and the people coming in aren't going into bar work or waiting tables or being a barista
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    Hard not to think that they have completely lost the plot.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793

    Driver said:

    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    "forcing"?
    Well exactly. Do you think people in China are aware that the rest of the world has long since moved on? Barring a tiny handful of freakish continuity zerocovidians nobody in the west seems scared anymore.
    This is what scares the Chinese leaders (graph from John Burn-Murdoch):



    It shows the effect of having enough people scared of vaccines.
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522

    Driver said:

    Driver said:

    Driver said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    What is the point in being "anti" something which has already happened?
    What's the point of being "pro" something that's shit?
    No answer, then.
    I literally answered your question. Being for or against things rather than simply accepting everything as it is is surely the essence of politics. I'm surprised that this needs spelling out to someone who contributes BTL on a political blog!
    No, you really didn't. Asking a different (albeit related) question is not answering the question!

    The point is: defining yourself as still being "for" or "against" something that has already happened is pointless, and detracts from where you should be, which is being "for" something that can be done in future to improve things. "I wouldn't start from here" is a waste of time.
    Okay, I am against Brexit and would like to see its negative effects ameliorated in the short term. In the long run I would like to see it reversed. Is that alright?
    No, because you're still wasting time being "against" something that has already happened.

    "I am against Brexit" is silly.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,210

    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    China have utterly fucked up.

    Their last series of lockdowns was to buy time to vaccinate their population. But the amount of vaccine hesitancy in China is really high, especially amongst the older generations (which is especially bad for covid), and they've failed again.
    It’s disastrous for China. How can they ever exit the cycle of Covid/lockdown? This is three years on and we have really good vaccines - but Xi blunders on


  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    HYUFD said:

    darkage said:

    The other thing that is going on is that the government are now hell bent on totally destroying the property development industry. They have gone full on NIMBY, to try and save their electoral fortunes.

    Two things to watch in the 'LURB' bill.

    A government amendment for 'street votes'. So basically, instead of having the Council take a planning decision, it is decided instead by way of a referendum by people in the local area. So all the objectors can basically unite to vote down any proposal for development. The planning system gets replaced by direct democracy. This is actually likely to happen, it is going to probably become law.

    Secondly, 46 tory backbenchers have backed an amendment that takes away housing targets, so Councils are under no actual obligation to build new housing. Something like this will happen given the level of support it has.

    This is all absolutely psychotically stupid and insane. It is actually going to end the property development industry and all the jobs and economic growth it creates.



    Would likely boost the Tories in the home counties and help them see off the threat from the LDs and Residents' Associations.

    However removing major planning decisions from local authorities to direct referendum is probably going too far and would lead to most development projects and local plans being voted down
    The second one won't get Labour support IMO so has little chance of passing. The first is a bit of bizarre populism. Is there a link to how it would work? If Mr Bloggs down the road wants a conservatory, do I get to vote on it? How close do I have to be that get a say? etc. Moreover, planning is not jjust an instinctive "Do I like the sound of that?" thing - it's a complex business requiring consideration of roads and other infrastructure as well as the impact on the surrounding area. I loathe endless debates about the precise angle of roofs and size of windows, and have stayed off the planning committees ever since I was elected to the council, but even I'd admit that someone with an eye for detail needs to grapple with the issue. It doesn't seem suitable for a yes/no vote on what folk down the road think.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    China have utterly fucked up.

    Their last series of lockdowns was to buy time to vaccinate their population. But the amount of vaccine hesitancy in China is really high, especially amongst the older generations (which is especially bad for covid), and they've failed again.
    It’s disastrous for China. How can they ever exit the cycle of Covid/lockdown? This is three years on and we have really good vaccines - but Xi blunders on


    Why don't they take up the vaccines. They had their own initially, Sinovac, but there are now so many vaccines about and plenty of capacity. Surely they should just crack on and vaccinate and live with it. Like we are doing.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,210

    Driver said:

    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    "forcing"?
    Well exactly. Do you think people in China are aware that the rest of the world has long since moved on? Barring a tiny handful of freakish continuity zerocovidians nobody in the west seems scared anymore.
    This is what scares the Chinese leaders (graph from John Burn-Murdoch):



    It shows the effect of having enough people scared of vaccines.

    A case fatality rate of 4.7% - 1 in 20 dying - suggests the health system broke down in Hong Kong. That’s like the original Wuhan CFR
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    China have utterly fucked up.

    Their last series of lockdowns was to buy time to vaccinate their population. But the amount of vaccine hesitancy in China is really high, especially amongst the older generations (which is especially bad for covid), and they've failed again.
    It’s disastrous for China. How can they ever exit the cycle of Covid/lockdown? This is three years on and we have really good vaccines - but Xi blunders on


    Why don't they take up the vaccines. They had their own initially, Sinovac, but there are now so many vaccines about and plenty of capacity. Surely they should just crack on and vaccinate and live with it. Like we are doing.
    I wonder at the influence of Chinese herbal medicine. The use and adherence to folk remedies is still strong in China, and I wonder if people are put of from modern vaccines in favour of folk remedies?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,210
    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    China have utterly fucked up.

    Their last series of lockdowns was to buy time to vaccinate their population. But the amount of vaccine hesitancy in China is really high, especially amongst the older generations (which is especially bad for covid), and they've failed again.
    It’s disastrous for China. How can they ever exit the cycle of Covid/lockdown? This is three years on and we have really good vaccines - but Xi blunders on


    Why don't they take up the vaccines. They had their own initially, Sinovac, but there are now so many vaccines about and plenty of capacity. Surely they should just crack on and vaccinate and live with it. Like we are doing.
    FT says only 40% of Chinese over-80 are fully jabbed. That’s worse than Hong Kong, so they’d get an even worse outcome if they totally unlocked. Hospitals collapsing etc

    So they can’t ever really Unlockdown. Unless they get those people jabbed

    It’s deeply mysterious. This is a regime which is happy to lock people in homes, or imprison millions

    Yet they don’t make the jabs compulsory 😶



  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,784
    Leon said:

    Driver said:

    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    "forcing"?
    Well exactly. Do you think people in China are aware that the rest of the world has long since moved on? Barring a tiny handful of freakish continuity zerocovidians nobody in the west seems scared anymore.
    This is what scares the Chinese leaders (graph from John Burn-Murdoch):



    It shows the effect of having enough people scared of vaccines.

    A case fatality rate of 4.7% - 1 in 20 dying - suggests the health system broke down in Hong Kong. That’s like the original Wuhan CFR
    That Hong Kong chart is from 9 months ago. What has been done regarding at risk vaccination, and convincing the people to take it up, in the meantime.

    For ultimately, that is China's way out as it was for many other countries, hard ask or not.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    You though I get the impression think its purely whether the countries economy is better that makes it good for the country. So a serious question for you here for a moment, and the hypothetical is not about reality as we would argue back and forth on that one so just an answer as if its true from you

    a) The economy grows by 3% year on year but half the population has to live on governement handouts such as working tax credits with falling living standards

    b) The economy doesnt grow but everyone can make enough in wages to live reasonably comfortably and while living standards arent improving nor are they getting worse.

    Personally I would choose b) everytime
    I would too but (1) I don't think that that is what Brexit will deliver and (2) I think it is a false choice because an economy that doesn't grow is more not less likely to involve declining living standards for the less well off.
    Brexit may or may not deliver it but certainly when we were in the EU we were in situation a). We had growth and people were saying isnt the economy great while the bottom half of the population found life harder and harder.

    I also put 0 growth in B) to make a point. A booming economy is only a good thing if it is lifting all boats. It is not an intrinsically good thing in and of itself.

    Now I hope we will get to b with some growth, though maybe not as much as we would have if we were in the eu but its going to be a long slog with many strands needed to be in place.

    Two strands I believe removal of FoM solves.

    First it rebalances the supply and demand nature of the jobs market whereas before we had for all intents infinite supply and that seems to be to an extent working with wage rises for a lot that hadnt seen any for years when you discount legally mandated minimum wage rises.

    Secondly and jury is still out on this one and it will take time to work through. As managers realise they can't just throw more cheap labour at a task they will start thinking about how to increase productivity via automation. An example often cited being a french building site the first thing they set up is a mini crane whereas we hire bodies to carry bricks around.

    There are many other strands we need to work on such as monetising ip generated from universities, encouraging entrepreneurship, encouraging long term thinking in business etc.

    Our main problem now sadly is we are led by pygmies...not only politicians but senior managers
    There was a big blip associated with COVID-19, but otherwise total immigration to the UK has been pretty unchanged by Brexit. Your argument about the labour market seems to fall down if ending FoM doesn’t actually change the amount of immigration.

    Also, you make a comparison to a French building site. France, of course, is in the EU and has FoM. So, why are the French better at making that sort of investment?

    Labour protection and employment laws on hiring and firing do push up unemployment, but do improve productivity and investment in the employed. Better pay and security of employment is hardly a downside for the average worker.

    There is a fundamental problem in that some peoples labour is just not economic to an employer, producing less output than the input. We choose to subsidise their pay, other nations tolerate higher unemployment for the low skilled. There are advantages to each, but our rivals do get productivity and economic growth as well as higher wages.

    I wouldn't want to go back to the mass unemployment of Thatchers Britain, but an unemployment rate a bit higher might well solve our dependency on immigration.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,154
    edited November 2022

    Fascinating to see that Alexa is losing 10bn a year and Jeff Bezos has apparently “lost interest in it”.

    I never did understand what the point of it was. There’s very little I want “Alexa” to do except perhaps to unload the dishwasher or take the bins out and she can’t do that.

    I use Alexa regularly in the kitchen. If I'm making a roast and want half a dozen timers going to ensure everything's ready at the same time, then I can ask Alexa to set those timers and give them names for which one is which.

    Or controlling music. If I'm washing up dishes I can change the music without having to dry my hands and touch a screen.

    And the kids like to control music with it too, the youngest often speaks gibberish to it and its amusing to see what comes out. My children recently discovered a love of Toto from the 80s, not because they'd heard of it but because "Toto" [toe-toe] was something random my daughter asked Alexa to play and all of a sudden Africa was playing and they loved it. 🤣

    Its not exactly life-changing, but its certainly nice to have.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,210
    Hmm


    “WATCH: Scenes of unrest emerged in China’s Guangzhou as residents knocked over quarantine barriers and flooded the streets after a Covid lockdown was extended.

    This was a rare show of protest against China's zero-Covid policy, which has been in force for nearly three years.”

    https://twitter.com/dwnews/status/1592541685086507008?s=46&t=s3QorvE2IqPllw8NgXB8tA

    https://twitter.com/sara_tassera/status/1595002914635849728?s=46&t=s3QorvE2IqPllw8NgXB8tA

    Not good for Xi
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793
    Leon said:

    Driver said:

    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    "forcing"?
    Well exactly. Do you think people in China are aware that the rest of the world has long since moved on? Barring a tiny handful of freakish continuity zerocovidians nobody in the west seems scared anymore.
    This is what scares the Chinese leaders (graph from John Burn-Murdoch):



    It shows the effect of having enough people scared of vaccines.

    A case fatality rate of 4.7% - 1 in 20 dying - suggests the health system broke down in Hong Kong. That’s like the original Wuhan CFR
    Yeah - that's something a lot of people seem to have issues grasping. The fatality rate is actually secondary to the hospitalisation rate as a cause of crises.
    Pro_Rata said:

    Leon said:

    Driver said:

    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    "forcing"?
    Well exactly. Do you think people in China are aware that the rest of the world has long since moved on? Barring a tiny handful of freakish continuity zerocovidians nobody in the west seems scared anymore.
    This is what scares the Chinese leaders (graph from John Burn-Murdoch):



    It shows the effect of having enough people scared of vaccines.

    A case fatality rate of 4.7% - 1 in 20 dying - suggests the health system broke down in Hong Kong. That’s like the original Wuhan CFR
    That Hong Kong chart is from 9 months ago. What has been done regarding at risk vaccination, and convincing the people to take it up, in the meantime.

    For ultimately, that is China's way out as it was for many other countries, hard ask or not.
    Yeah, but it illustrates the issues of not enough people (especially oldies) jabbed. And those nine months should have provided the time for them to sort it out, but as they're locking down again, it obviously hasn't.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,160
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    FPT

    Pagan2 said:

    On Brexit, I think it's worth stepping back a bit and thinking about why we have ended up with the relationship with the EU that we have, relative to other European countries.
    The most important point is that most European countries are members of the EU. Whatever the pluses and minuses of membership, for most countries in Europe the benefits are seen as outweighing the costs. And many European countries that are not members are desperate to join, including Ukraine.
    Let's look at the European countries that aren't EU members. Ignoring micro states and the countries in Eastern Europe queuing to join we have Turkey, Norway and Switzerland. Turkey isn't a member because the EU doesn't really want it to join.
    Norway isn't a member because it has loads of oil money and the population thinks that it would have to transfer too much of that to the EU. The Norwegian elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close relationship that protects their money.
    Switzerland isn't a member because the public think their banking industry might be at risk if they join, and because they have a long history of localised democracy and distrust of outsiders. The Swiss elite wants to join anyway. They have negotiated a very close if rather complicated relationship that protects their red lines.
    What about us? Our elite also thinks we should be EU members. The public wants (or at least wanted) us outside because of concerns about sovereignty and immigration. The sovereignty issue can be fudged via an EFTA type relationship, although the reality is that while that protects us from ever closer union, in some ways it leaves us with less sovereignty than as an EU member, as it means we will follow rules we have no say in setting. That's just the nature of sovereignty in an interconnected world. I would guess if that were the only issue we would be in an EFTA type set up or heading there.
    The bigger problem is posed by immigration. As long as we won't allow some form of free movement, we won't have as close a trading relationship with the EU as Norway or Switzerland do, where free movement is not seen as a problem and isn't the reason they are not EU members. That is why we now have the least advantageous trading relationship with EU countries of any country in Europe.
    That is doing serious damage to our economy and those costs will increase over time as it cuts investment and we lose out on the dynamic benefits of trade. This is the conversation we need to have as a country. Are we willing to be permanently poorer for the sake of controlling movement of EU citizens to the UK? My view is that we aren't. It's a shame the public couldn't have been persuaded of this argument ex ante, but they are coming around to it ex post. My worry is there aren't any politicians brave enough to have this conversation, though.

    You fail to see the point of view of most of those that voted for brexit. Yes the economy of the country maybe worse of out of the eu however as they weren't getting a slice of that extra economy frankly why should they care. We are now out we still have high employment the only difference now is those at the bottom end of the scale are now finding their pay rising above minimum wage levels for the first time in a couple of decades. I am talking here of hospitality staff, shop workers etc.

    Witter on all you like about fom not depressing wages at the bottom end and causing strain and stress of service.

    The evidence of reality says for all the stats you spout you are wrong because now we no longer have it those wages are rising.

    Perhaps if the dicks who did well out of being in the EU, lord Wolffson I am looking at you... had instead of trousering all the extra economic gains passed some downwards then we wouldn't have told them where they could stick the eu.
    Wages are going up in cash terms but they're not keeping up with inflation so they're going down in real terms, and the OBR expects to see the biggest ever falls in real incomes this year and next. Brexit isn't the main factor but it isn't helping. It's great if low paid people feel like they are getting higher incomes but in real terms most of them aren't and if the economy is permanently smaller then they will feel it ultimately as there will be less money to spend on public services.
    It's not even clear that Brexit has had such a huge impact on net migration, which is still running at over 200k/year thanks to non-EU migration. We issued over 1mn non EU non visitor visas in the last year compared to 600k pre-Brexit.
    Leaving the EU won't help working people get paid more in the long run, and people are at last realising this which is why support for it is going down.
    And if we were still in the eu they wouldn't have gone up as much as they did which would you rather have out of the following options a) minimum wage with the current inflation rate or b) a couple of pounds more than minimum wage with the current inflation rate. I suspect pretty much any one sane is plumping for b). Going on about inflation in this context is disingenuous as we would have had similar inflation rates if we were still in the EU as evidenced by germany and france etc.

    Wages like everything obey the laws of supply and demand which is exactly why Wolffson can't get workers...he still wants to pay minimum wage and with FoM still in place he would be able to and no Brexit isnt the only reason for it. The reason for it is a smaller labour pool. The smaller labour pool has multiple reasons but the ending of FoM is certainly one of them.

    A lot of people I know were minimum wage people in hospitality and before the ending of FoM the standard response if they asked for a rise was if they don't like the wage they can quit as plenty of people to replace them. Where was the economic bonus of the EU for those people? Sure people like you, rochdale and Wolffson did ok from us being in the EU, the bottom half of the country not so much
    I have no idea if Brexit will make me better or worse off to be honest. In the short run worse off like everyone else because of a weaker currency and higher prices for food, energy and other stuff we import. In the long run I might end up getting paid more if the post Brexit policy is to grow the financial sector, as seems likely. I'm anti Brexit because I think it's bad for the country not because I think it is bad for me personally.
    If the EU is to blame for low wages I struggle to understand why the EU is home to so many high wage economies. I think it is much more to do with the Thatcherite economic model we've been pursuing for the last few decades, and which leaving the EU will have no effect on.
    You though I get the impression think its purely whether the countries economy is better that makes it good for the country. So a serious question for you here for a moment, and the hypothetical is not about reality as we would argue back and forth on that one so just an answer as if its true from you

    a) The economy grows by 3% year on year but half the population has to live on governement handouts such as working tax credits with falling living standards

    b) The economy doesnt grow but everyone can make enough in wages to live reasonably comfortably and while living standards arent improving nor are they getting worse.

    Personally I would choose b) everytime
    I would too but (1) I don't think that that is what Brexit will deliver and (2) I think it is a false choice because an economy that doesn't grow is more not less likely to involve declining living standards for the less well off.
    Brexit may or may not deliver it but certainly when we were in the EU we were in situation a). We had growth and people were saying isnt the economy great while the bottom half of the population found life harder and harder.

    I also put 0 growth in B) to make a point. A booming economy is only a good thing if it is lifting all boats. It is not an intrinsically good thing in and of itself.

    Now I hope we will get to b with some growth, though maybe not as much as we would have if we were in the eu but its going to be a long slog with many strands needed to be in place.

    Two strands I believe removal of FoM solves.

    First it rebalances the supply and demand nature of the jobs market whereas before we had for all intents infinite supply and that seems to be to an extent working with wage rises for a lot that hadnt seen any for years when you discount legally mandated minimum wage rises.

    Secondly and jury is still out on this one and it will take time to work through. As managers realise they can't just throw more cheap labour at a task they will start thinking about how to increase productivity via automation. An example often cited being a french building site the first thing they set up is a mini crane whereas we hire bodies to carry bricks around.

    There are many other strands we need to work on such as monetising ip generated from universities, encouraging entrepreneurship, encouraging long term thinking in business etc.

    Our main problem now sadly is we are led by pygmies...not only politicians but senior managers
    There was a big blip associated with COVID-19, but otherwise total immigration to the UK has been pretty unchanged by Brexit. Your argument about the labour market seems to fall down if ending FoM doesn’t actually change the amount of immigration.

    Also, you make a comparison to a French building site. France, of course, is in the EU and has FoM. So, why are the French better at making that sort of investment?

    France has labour laws which makes companies reluctant to recruit as its difficult to get rid of them is probably one reason.

    As to the immigration remaining the same I would say its not feeding into labour supply for the following reasons

    a ) a lot of non eu immigration is family based and not necessarily here to join the work force whereas most FoM was young people coming to join our work force

    b ) How do you know immigration is the same we had no idea how many were coming in as the home office is useless and didn't count them but relied on some people with clip boards at a few airports and ports asking a random selection of people. Since brexit there have been some huge anomalies between the number the government thought we had and the number applying for leave to stay

    c ) Migration is now points based and the people coming in aren't going into bar work or waiting tables or being a barista
    So, maybe what we need is labour laws more like the French?

    a) There was plenty of family-based immigration when we were in the EU. There’s plenty now. I’ve not seen stats showing a major shift in this.

    b) The Home Office is poor at many things (a good reason to vote out the people in charge), but I think the numbers are broadly accurate. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-june-2022 has plenty of details. You misrepresent methods used.

    c) https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-june-2022/why-do-people-come-to-the-uk-to-work “ There were 331,233 work-related visas granted in the year ending June 2022 (including dependants). This was 72% more than in 2019, the last full year prior to the pandemic.

    “ ‘Worker’ visas (previously known as ‘skilled work’) accounted for two-thirds (67%) of all work-related visas granted with 216,450 grants. This is almost double (+96%) when compared to equivalent routes in 2019, with the growth driven by the introduction of the ‘Skilled Worker’ visa in 2020. Grants from ‘Temporary Worker’ routes have also increased by 67% to 72,526, following an increase in the number of visas available through the ‘Seasonal Worker’ route, from 2,500 in 2019 to 40,000 in 2022.”
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004
    Another interesting watch from Russia. Solovyov now seems to be in a minority of 1. He is going mental demanding that Russia use nukes to defend their territory (i.e. the new ones). The other panellists are basically saying that they aren't even really Russian. The fact that they are saying this on TV in Russia is quite something.

    Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov had clearly given up on the idea of defeating Ukraine militarily. In his desperation to scare the West into stopping its support, he resorts to nuclear threats—but even fellow propagandists are sick of it & say he lost all sense of reality.
    https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1594915216026112000
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,606



    Leon said:

    Driver said:

    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    "forcing"?
    Well exactly. Do you think people in China are aware that the rest of the world has long since moved on? Barring a tiny handful of freakish continuity zerocovidians nobody in the west seems scared anymore.
    This is what scares the Chinese leaders (graph from John Burn-Murdoch):



    It shows the effect of having enough people scared of vaccines.

    A case fatality rate of 4.7% - 1 in 20 dying - suggests the health system broke down in Hong Kong. That’s like the original Wuhan CFR
    Yeah - that's something a lot of people seem to have issues grasping. The fatality rate is actually secondary to the hospitalisation rate as a cause of crises.
    Pro_Rata said:

    Leon said:

    Driver said:

    Leon said:

    China is lurching into another Covid Crisis


    "forcing"?
    Well exactly. Do you think people in China are aware that the rest of the world has long since moved on? Barring a tiny handful of freakish continuity zerocovidians nobody in the west seems scared anymore.
    This is what scares the Chinese leaders (graph from John Burn-Murdoch):



    It shows the effect of having enough people scared of vaccines.

    A case fatality rate of 4.7% - 1 in 20 dying - suggests the health system broke down in Hong Kong. That’s like the original Wuhan CFR
    That Hong Kong chart is from 9 months ago. What has been done regarding at risk vaccination, and convincing the people to take it up, in the meantime.

    For ultimately, that is China's way out as it was for many other countries, hard ask or not.
    Yeah, but it illustrates the issues of not enough people (especially oldies) jabbed. And those nine months should have provided the time for them to sort it out, but as they're locking down again, it obviously hasn't.
    Due to propaganda in China, people there, especially the elderly, don't like the Evul Western vaccines. Which happen to be the most effective against the current variants.

    A Chinese colleague, at work, has long calls where he tries to convince the elderly in his family to get Pfizer etc....
This discussion has been closed.