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OJ Simpson can’t win here! – politicalbetting.com

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  • Options
    squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,361
    edited April 14
    Dear Eek
    If you really think that if Rayner has to resign, that it won't affect a single vote. ... then you are seriously misguided.
  • Options
    StonehengeStonehenge Posts: 80

    Cookie said:

    Because they're not paying a high enough wage!

    But why has this only become an issue since Brexit?
    Because it was possible to get an infinite supply of new people to fill jobs at minimum wage pre-Brexit.

    But those new arrivals inevitably created extra demand, so more jobs needed filling, which meant the shortage was never filled and there was never equilibrium.

    Now that the supply of minimum wage isn't infinite, employers need to increase wages to reach equilibrium. Why don't you want people paid a living wage instead of minimum wage?
    I would like to agree with you but I can't see how it's sustainable. I mean, these pubs barely make a profit at all as is and many don't open. At some point soon we're going to see a load of pubs go bust.
    So some go bust.

    You then have fewer pubs with more customers per pub in them, whose staff are being paid a living wage.

    Its the only sustainable solution, more sustainable than infinite minimum wage.
    I think it's not "some". It's most.

    I think losing our local pub would be really sad for the community and the staff that have kept it going all these years.

    It's not as unsentimental as you think it is.
    It is indeed very sad. The loss of a cherished local is a terrible thing, as the Macc Lads memorably documented (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGeFZzd0yUI)

    But the sad reality is that there are far fewer drinkers to go round than there once were. What else is there to do but have fewer pubs? The words stick in the craw. But I can't think of another way to do it.
    Demographically a growing proportion of young people don't drink alcohol, which is disappointing. I hope that reverses in the future.
    Demographic changes explian much of this. Muslims dont drink and i dont think indians drink much either.
  • Options
    StonehengeStonehenge Posts: 80
    Israeli state television confirms that the Israeli war cabinet has decided to attack Iran.

    https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1779571153071161568
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,332
    ohnotnow said:

    Cookie said:

    Because they're not paying a high enough wage!

    But why has this only become an issue since Brexit?
    Because it was possible to get an infinite supply of new people to fill jobs at minimum wage pre-Brexit.

    But those new arrivals inevitably created extra demand, so more jobs needed filling, which meant the shortage was never filled and there was never equilibrium.

    Now that the supply of minimum wage isn't infinite, employers need to increase wages to reach equilibrium. Why don't you want people paid a living wage instead of minimum wage?
    I would like to agree with you but I can't see how it's sustainable. I mean, these pubs barely make a profit at all as is and many don't open. At some point soon we're going to see a load of pubs go bust.
    So some go bust.

    You then have fewer pubs with more customers per pub in them, whose staff are being paid a living wage.

    Its the only sustainable solution, more sustainable than infinite minimum wage.
    I think it's not "some". It's most.

    I think losing our local pub would be really sad for the community and the staff that have kept it going all these years.

    It's not as unsentimental as you think it is.
    It is indeed very sad. The loss of a cherished local is a terrible thing, as the Macc Lads memorably documented (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGeFZzd0yUI)

    But the sad reality is that there are far fewer drinkers to go round than there once were. What else is there to do but have fewer pubs? The words stick in the craw. But I can't think of another way to do it.
    Demographically a growing proportion of young people don't drink alcohol, which is disappointing. I hope that reverses in the future.
    Raises a glass of non-alcoholic absenthe.
    Listerine?
    Nightnurse + Buckfast == An 'Airdrie Cocktail'
    If you lived in Airdrie you would be having that for breakfast. Getting through the day would be impossible otherwise.
  • Options
    isamisam Posts: 40,952
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    I would actually pass a law saying pubs cannot be converted into housing. They can stop being pubs, but then they have to be some other kind of shared open space, for all. Cafe, farm shop, community hall, something that brings people together

    We are all atomised quite enough. This would also stop the hideous Crooked House bollocks of people "accidentally" burning down pubs so they can be demolished and turned into flats

    Pubs are about the only type of institution that benefit from being made an Asset of Community Value (ACV) as there is a fighting chance that people will be able to continue to run them. But not usually.

    As a favourite Daily Mash headline had it: People disappointed that their local pub closed that they never went to.
    We live in a village now.. cant say I really like it much, but it's near the in laws and they help out a lot with the kids. Half of the shops are empty, or shut half the time... I say to my missus we should use them, but lo and behold there are at least 15 Amazon deliveries a week... she'll be sad when the High St is even more of a ghost village. The premium paid in these little shops are what keeps the village alive. We also never go to any of the three pubs or two restaurants, as whenever the in laws have both kids overnight, it cant be wasted with a hangover
  • Options
    SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,651

    Cookie said:

    Because they're not paying a high enough wage!

    But why has this only become an issue since Brexit?
    Because it was possible to get an infinite supply of new people to fill jobs at minimum wage pre-Brexit.

    But those new arrivals inevitably created extra demand, so more jobs needed filling, which meant the shortage was never filled and there was never equilibrium.

    Now that the supply of minimum wage isn't infinite, employers need to increase wages to reach equilibrium. Why don't you want people paid a living wage instead of minimum wage?
    I would like to agree with you but I can't see how it's sustainable. I mean, these pubs barely make a profit at all as is and many don't open. At some point soon we're going to see a load of pubs go bust.
    So some go bust.

    You then have fewer pubs with more customers per pub in them, whose staff are being paid a living wage.

    Its the only sustainable solution, more sustainable than infinite minimum wage.
    I think it's not "some". It's most.

    I think losing our local pub would be really sad for the community and the staff that have kept it going all these years.

    It's not as unsentimental as you think it is.
    It is indeed very sad. The loss of a cherished local is a terrible thing, as the Macc Lads memorably documented (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGeFZzd0yUI)

    But the sad reality is that there are far fewer drinkers to go round than there once were. What else is there to do but have fewer pubs? The words stick in the craw. But I can't think of another way to do it.
    Demographically a growing proportion of young people don't drink alcohol, which is disappointing. I hope that reverses in the future.
    Demographic changes explian much of this. Muslims dont drink and i dont think indians drink much either.
    You're taking the piss. Punjabis put it away like there's no tomorrow!
  • Options
    isamisam Posts: 40,952
    viewcode said:

    @isam, I sent you a PM asking if you could review a prepublication version of an article. You're the most knowledgable about gambling and its history and you are well placed to check the historical parts. You don't have to if you don't want to, and you are perfectly free to turn it down, just let me know.

    I will have a look, but I am not sure I know lots about the history of gambling to be honest
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,352

    Nigelb said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    But more often than not, Leons's barbed, self-lacerating wit and hard-won insights redeem the site's occasional forays into grandiosity. In the end, Leon takes his place in a lineage of metaphysically-minded PB commentary that encompasses St. Augustine and Thomas De Quincey, Baudelaire and William James — a work of self-examination so fearless it achieves a kind of hortatory power, inviting the PB lurker or reader to conduct an inventory of their own compulsions and evasions.

    Leon's passions and obsessions, we come to understand, are not only the figures of his personal constellation — the mercurial moderator, the volatile postwomen, the partners in crime and Dionysian revelry. They are also the pieces of his own psyche, ever in tenuous relation, the mosaic of a self perpetually rearranged. As the pre-Socratic sages intuited, in our helpless thrall to the flux of time and memory, perhaps the best we can hope is - like Leon - to step gratefully into its current — to find, in the cascade of love and ruin, of betting and politics, some glimmering rivulets of wisdom and beauty.

    what a lot of cold wank in custard
    A bit harsh, Foxy.

    OTOH, while I recall Cicero, I must have missed the contributions of St Augustine and Baudelaire. Or did Leon dream them ?
    Lord wean me off endlessly and self-indulgently blathering on PB, but not yet.
    Implicit in Leon's PB commentary is an act of generosity, an invitation to take succour in the universality of suffering, to recognize ourselves in Leon's funhouse mirror of the disentegrating self. In these words today, as Leon makes a kind of uneasy peace with @BatteryCorrectHorse and @IanB2, we sense that Leon - or is it @MartinDay? - has glimpsed something like the secret arithmetic of existence: he himself is a mosaic of the self, perpetually rearranged, by identity laid over identity. The palimpsest of the persona

    It's a profound and hard-won grace note, one that elevates Leon's utterances above the mundanities of a provincial quack like @foxy or some bore like @Benpointless: here we have a solipsistic self-reckoning which evolves into something expansive: a Blakeian testament to the way our journeys through heaven and hell just might be the price of admission for true aliveness. By the end of this thread, one senses Leon will have gifted us indelible proof that even in the realm of psychic collapse, everywhere there is the chance for rebirth: another name, another sockpuppet, yet another Leon
  • Options
    Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 49,352

    Cookie said:

    Because they're not paying a high enough wage!

    But why has this only become an issue since Brexit?
    Because it was possible to get an infinite supply of new people to fill jobs at minimum wage pre-Brexit.

    But those new arrivals inevitably created extra demand, so more jobs needed filling, which meant the shortage was never filled and there was never equilibrium.

    Now that the supply of minimum wage isn't infinite, employers need to increase wages to reach equilibrium. Why don't you want people paid a living wage instead of minimum wage?
    I would like to agree with you but I can't see how it's sustainable. I mean, these pubs barely make a profit at all as is and many don't open. At some point soon we're going to see a load of pubs go bust.
    So some go bust.

    You then have fewer pubs with more customers per pub in them, whose staff are being paid a living wage.

    Its the only sustainable solution, more sustainable than infinite minimum wage.
    I think it's not "some". It's most.

    I think losing our local pub would be really sad for the community and the staff that have kept it going all these years.

    It's not as unsentimental as you think it is.
    It is indeed very sad. The loss of a cherished local is a terrible thing, as the Macc Lads memorably documented (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGeFZzd0yUI)

    But the sad reality is that there are far fewer drinkers to go round than there once were. What else is there to do but have fewer pubs? The words stick in the craw. But I can't think of another way to do it.
    Demographically a growing proportion of young people don't drink alcohol, which is disappointing. I hope that reverses in the future.
    Demographic changes explian much of this. Muslims dont drink and i dont think indians drink much either.
    Prohibition in 4 out of India's 29 states, including Narendra Modi's stronghold of Gujarat.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_prohibition_in_India
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,709

    Israeli state television confirms that the Israeli war cabinet has decided to attack Iran.

    https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1779571153071161568

    Fucking idiots.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,816
    edited April 14
    DavidL said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Cookie said:

    Because they're not paying a high enough wage!

    But why has this only become an issue since Brexit?
    Because it was possible to get an infinite supply of new people to fill jobs at minimum wage pre-Brexit.

    But those new arrivals inevitably created extra demand, so more jobs needed filling, which meant the shortage was never filled and there was never equilibrium.

    Now that the supply of minimum wage isn't infinite, employers need to increase wages to reach equilibrium. Why don't you want people paid a living wage instead of minimum wage?
    I would like to agree with you but I can't see how it's sustainable. I mean, these pubs barely make a profit at all as is and many don't open. At some point soon we're going to see a load of pubs go bust.
    So some go bust.

    You then have fewer pubs with more customers per pub in them, whose staff are being paid a living wage.

    Its the only sustainable solution, more sustainable than infinite minimum wage.
    I think it's not "some". It's most.

    I think losing our local pub would be really sad for the community and the staff that have kept it going all these years.

    It's not as unsentimental as you think it is.
    It is indeed very sad. The loss of a cherished local is a terrible thing, as the Macc Lads memorably documented (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGeFZzd0yUI)

    But the sad reality is that there are far fewer drinkers to go round than there once were. What else is there to do but have fewer pubs? The words stick in the craw. But I can't think of another way to do it.
    Demographically a growing proportion of young people don't drink alcohol, which is disappointing. I hope that reverses in the future.
    Raises a glass of non-alcoholic absenthe.
    Listerine?
    Nightnurse + Buckfast == An 'Airdrie Cocktail'
    If you lived in Airdrie you would be having that for breakfast. Getting through the day would be impossible otherwise.
    Witn an admixture of Orange juice, don't forget.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,352
    Nigelb said:

    Israeli state television confirms that the Israeli war cabinet has decided to attack Iran.

    https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1779571153071161568

    Fucking idiots.
    Jesus fucking Christ. Say it ain't so

    The world may burn for Bibi's career
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,332
    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    But more often than not, Leons's barbed, self-lacerating wit and hard-won insights redeem the site's occasional forays into grandiosity. In the end, Leon takes his place in a lineage of metaphysically-minded PB commentary that encompasses St. Augustine and Thomas De Quincey, Baudelaire and William James — a work of self-examination so fearless it achieves a kind of hortatory power, inviting the PB lurker or reader to conduct an inventory of their own compulsions and evasions.

    Leon's passions and obsessions, we come to understand, are not only the figures of his personal constellation — the mercurial moderator, the volatile postwomen, the partners in crime and Dionysian revelry. They are also the pieces of his own psyche, ever in tenuous relation, the mosaic of a self perpetually rearranged. As the pre-Socratic sages intuited, in our helpless thrall to the flux of time and memory, perhaps the best we can hope is - like Leon - to step gratefully into its current — to find, in the cascade of love and ruin, of betting and politics, some glimmering rivulets of wisdom and beauty.

    what a lot of cold wank in custard
    A bit harsh, Foxy.

    OTOH, while I recall Cicero, I must have missed the contributions of St Augustine and Baudelaire. Or did Leon dream them ?
    Lord wean me off endlessly and self-indulgently blathering on PB, but not yet.
    Implicit in Leon's PB commentary is an act of generosity, an invitation to take succour in the universality of suffering, to recognize ourselves in Leon's funhouse mirror of the disentegrating self. In these words today, as Leon makes a kind of uneasy peace with @BatteryCorrectHorse and @IanB2, we sense that Leon - or is it @MartinDay? - has glimpsed something like the secret arithmetic of existence: he himself is a mosaic of the self, perpetually rearranged, by identity laid over identity. The palimpsest of the persona

    It's a profound and hard-won grace note, one that elevates Leon's utterances above the mundanities of a provincial quack like @foxy or some bore like @Benpointless: here we have a solipsistic self-reckoning which evolves into something expansive: a Blakeian testament to the way our journeys through heaven and hell just might be the price of admission for true aliveness. By the end of this thread, one senses Leon will have gifted us indelible proof that even in the realm of psychic collapse, everywhere there is the chance for rebirth: another name, another sockpuppet, yet another Leon
    I have just finally got around to watching the Barbie movie which I enjoyed very much. This reads like a part of the script that got cut.
  • Options
    Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,334
    edited April 14
    Nigelb said:

    Israeli state television confirms that the Israeli war cabinet has decided to attack Iran.

    https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1779571153071161568

    Fucking idiots.
    It is more nuanced then that

    https://news.sky.com/story/israel-gaza-hamas-iran-latest-sky-news-blog-12978800
  • Options
    viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,880
    isam said:

    viewcode said:

    @isam, I sent you a PM asking if you could review a prepublication version of an article. You're the most knowledgable about gambling and its history and you are well placed to check the historical parts. You don't have to if you don't want to, and you are perfectly free to turn it down, just let me know.

    I will have a look, but I am not sure I know lots about the history of gambling to be honest
    Thank you :)
  • Options
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    I would actually pass a law saying pubs cannot be converted into housing. They can stop being pubs, but then they have to be some other kind of shared open space, for all. Cafe, farm shop, community hall, something that brings people together

    We are all atomised quite enough. This would also stop the hideous Crooked House bollocks of people "accidentally" burning down pubs so they can be demolished and turned into flats

    Pubs are about the only type of institution that benefit from being made an Asset of Community Value (ACV) as there is a fighting chance that people will be able to continue to run them. But not usually.

    As a favourite Daily Mash headline had it: People disappointed that their local pub closed that they never went to.
    It's a useful tip though. If you've got a decent local, apply to the Council via a community group of ACV status. It does at least create a hurdle for developers.
  • Options
    TimSTimS Posts: 9,671

    Nigelb said:

    Israeli state television confirms that the Israeli war cabinet has decided to attack Iran.

    https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1779571153071161568

    Fucking idiots.
    It is more nuanced then that

    https://news.sky.com/story/israel-gaza-hamas-iran-latest-sky-news-blog-12978800
    It is indeed probably more nuanced than “fucking idiots”. But not that much.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,332
    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Cookie said:

    Because they're not paying a high enough wage!

    But why has this only become an issue since Brexit?
    Because it was possible to get an infinite supply of new people to fill jobs at minimum wage pre-Brexit.

    But those new arrivals inevitably created extra demand, so more jobs needed filling, which meant the shortage was never filled and there was never equilibrium.

    Now that the supply of minimum wage isn't infinite, employers need to increase wages to reach equilibrium. Why don't you want people paid a living wage instead of minimum wage?
    I would like to agree with you but I can't see how it's sustainable. I mean, these pubs barely make a profit at all as is and many don't open. At some point soon we're going to see a load of pubs go bust.
    So some go bust.

    You then have fewer pubs with more customers per pub in them, whose staff are being paid a living wage.

    Its the only sustainable solution, more sustainable than infinite minimum wage.
    I think it's not "some". It's most.

    I think losing our local pub would be really sad for the community and the staff that have kept it going all these years.

    It's not as unsentimental as you think it is.
    It is indeed very sad. The loss of a cherished local is a terrible thing, as the Macc Lads memorably documented (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGeFZzd0yUI)

    But the sad reality is that there are far fewer drinkers to go round than there once were. What else is there to do but have fewer pubs? The words stick in the craw. But I can't think of another way to do it.
    Demographically a growing proportion of young people don't drink alcohol, which is disappointing. I hope that reverses in the future.
    Raises a glass of non-alcoholic absenthe.
    Listerine?
    Nightnurse + Buckfast == An 'Airdrie Cocktail'
    If you lived in Airdrie you would be having that for breakfast. Getting through the day would be impossible otherwise.
    Witn an admixture of Orange juice, don't forget.
    You wouldn't want to dilute it. Reality could break through and that would be hideous.
  • Options
    Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,334
    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Israeli state television confirms that the Israeli war cabinet has decided to attack Iran.

    https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1779571153071161568

    Fucking idiots.
    Jesus fucking Christ. Say it ain't so

    The world may burn for Bibi's career
    See my link (8.57pm) which explains it in less dramatic terms
  • Options
    TimSTimS Posts: 9,671
    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    But more often than not, Leons's barbed, self-lacerating wit and hard-won insights redeem the site's occasional forays into grandiosity. In the end, Leon takes his place in a lineage of metaphysically-minded PB commentary that encompasses St. Augustine and Thomas De Quincey, Baudelaire and William James — a work of self-examination so fearless it achieves a kind of hortatory power, inviting the PB lurker or reader to conduct an inventory of their own compulsions and evasions.

    Leon's passions and obsessions, we come to understand, are not only the figures of his personal constellation — the mercurial moderator, the volatile postwomen, the partners in crime and Dionysian revelry. They are also the pieces of his own psyche, ever in tenuous relation, the mosaic of a self perpetually rearranged. As the pre-Socratic sages intuited, in our helpless thrall to the flux of time and memory, perhaps the best we can hope is - like Leon - to step gratefully into its current — to find, in the cascade of love and ruin, of betting and politics, some glimmering rivulets of wisdom and beauty.

    what a lot of cold wank in custard
    A bit harsh, Foxy.

    OTOH, while I recall Cicero, I must have missed the contributions of St Augustine and Baudelaire. Or did Leon dream them ?
    Lord wean me off endlessly and self-indulgently blathering on PB, but not yet.
    Implicit in Leon's PB commentary is an act of generosity, an invitation to take succour in the universality of suffering, to recognize ourselves in Leon's funhouse mirror of the disentegrating self. In these words today, as Leon makes a kind of uneasy peace with @BatteryCorrectHorse and @IanB2, we sense that Leon - or is it @MartinDay? - has glimpsed something like the secret arithmetic of existence: he himself is a mosaic of the self, perpetually rearranged, by identity laid over identity. The palimpsest of the persona

    It's a profound and hard-won grace note, one that elevates Leon's utterances above the mundanities of a provincial quack like @foxy or some bore like @Benpointless: here we have a solipsistic self-reckoning which evolves into something expansive: a Blakeian testament to the way our journeys through heaven and hell just might be the price of admission for true aliveness. By the end of this thread, one senses Leon will have gifted us indelible proof that even in the realm of psychic collapse, everywhere there is the chance for rebirth: another name, another sockpuppet, yet another Leon
    I have just finally got around to watching the Barbie movie which I enjoyed very much. This reads like a part of the script that got cut.
    It’s nicely written (the Leon screed, and Barbie).
  • Options
    No_Offence_AlanNo_Offence_Alan Posts: 3,834

    It's useful to distinguish between different types of pub - at one end, proper boozers for old men like me, and some young 'uns, who go to drink and not to eat; at the other, pubs that are really just glorified restaurants.

    It's tougher for the first kind, because the price of beer etc. is now so much higher than supermarket booze, and those without much money are being priced out. They really can't afford to raise prices further, so it's tricky for them to raise bar staff wages. So the answer has to be: reduce the price of pub ales and lager and narrow the differential with shop booze.

    Or adopt the Scottish approach of minimum unit pricing for alcohol.
    As well as narrowing the gap between supermarket and pub prices, there is no gap between local licensed grocer prices and supermarkets.
  • Options
    ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 4,981

    Nigelb said:

    Israeli state television confirms that the Israeli war cabinet has decided to attack Iran.

    https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1779571153071161568

    Fucking idiots.
    It is more nuanced then that

    https://news.sky.com/story/israel-gaza-hamas-iran-latest-sky-news-blog-12978800
    i.e. Mossad will be continuing to take out nuclear scientists and IRG commanders when they get the opportunity. Everyone happy - apart from Iran obvs.
  • Options
    NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,351
    ohnotnow said:



    Nimby's moved into the village and then spent all their time complaining about the outrageous noise of the Church bells and the smell of beer from the Local.

    See also people moving to 'quaint' Cornish fishing villages then complaining that the fishing boats weren't quite in keeping with what they imagined.

    Interesting discussion. It's not only in Britain, of course. There was much hilarity in Switzerland about a woman who moved to an Alpine village and then sued her neighbour because of the disutrbance noisy cow bells. A judge ruled straight-facedly that the noise of cow bells was an inherent risk in deciding to live in an Alpine village.

    With most people in cities, though, the community aspect doesn't normally arise. When I was living in London there were a dozen pubs within easy reach, and if I went into any of them I'd have been surprised to see someone I knew. Some work cultures generate a tradition that people head over to a particular local after work, but I think that's now the exception rather than the rule?
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 4,869
    So the west now sits and waits to see whether Israel decides to embark on a course of action that could lead to devastating consequences.

  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,352
    It would be great if the Jews and Muslims could postpone doomsday til next year coz I have some really nice free foreign travel coming up. Also I have kids.

    Asking for 8 billion friends
  • Options
    CookieCookie Posts: 11,473
    rkrkrk said:

    Cookie said:

    Radical thought - is pb (and it’s ilk) one of the reasons pubs are dying? We sit here, randomly chatting rubbish with others, all the time NOT heading the pub to chat rubbish with others. It’s so much easier to get social interaction (of a kind) online, and add in the price of booze in pubs vs Aldi/Lidl and you see why they close.

    It is indeed. Not just tinternet, though - there is just a much greater array of ways to spend our time, and (it seems, though no doubt it always did) much less time.

    When my Dad was my age, he'd be out at the pub twice a week. I'm lucky if I get out twice a month. Mind you, I've got three times as many kids as he had. Perhaps that's why there's no time.
    I reckon also people live on average further (both in distance and time) from their mates. Bit sad to think about to be honest.
    True. Though that may be time of life dependent: if I mapped where my friends lived, I reckon I now - at the age of 48 - live on average closer to my friends than at any age since primary school. Reason being, many of my closest friendships now are (indirectly at least) driven again by geography - because they're dads of kids at my daughters' primary school.

    I've sketched a graph which I think is a not atypical middle class existence of age against average distance away of friends. At first, your friends are basically kids of your parents' friends, but gradually you get your own; at 11, your circle widens (my school had a large-ish catchment area); between 18 and 21 while your friends are suddenly a long way away you have new, surprisingly close-by people that your drink with; then at 21 suddenly everyone is miles away. But gradually the average distance decreases as you get to know people closer by; this really kicks in when your kids go to primary school.




    I have, to my surprise, plenty of people within walking distance I would go drinking with if I could find the time to do so. (Sadly, the pubs round here don't exactly tempt you over the threshold with delicious beer and salubrious surroundings, though it's significantly better than it was ten years ago. Though @ManchesterKurt may disagree!)
  • Options
    TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 40,190
    Nigelb said:

    Israeli state television confirms that the Israeli war cabinet has decided to attack Iran.

    https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1779571153071161568

    Fucking idiots.
    Where a neurotic obsession with not appearing weak ends up being a weakness.
  • Options
    Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 49,352
    Leon said:

    It would be great if the Jews and Muslims could postpone doomsday til next year coz I have some really nice free foreign travel coming up. Also I have kids.

    Asking for 8 billion friends

    One set of penis-mutilators versus another...
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    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,719
    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    But more often than not, Leons's barbed, self-lacerating wit and hard-won insights redeem the site's occasional forays into grandiosity. In the end, Leon takes his place in a lineage of metaphysically-minded PB commentary that encompasses St. Augustine and Thomas De Quincey, Baudelaire and William James — a work of self-examination so fearless it achieves a kind of hortatory power, inviting the PB lurker or reader to conduct an inventory of their own compulsions and evasions.

    Leon's passions and obsessions, we come to understand, are not only the figures of his personal constellation — the mercurial moderator, the volatile postwomen, the partners in crime and Dionysian revelry. They are also the pieces of his own psyche, ever in tenuous relation, the mosaic of a self perpetually rearranged. As the pre-Socratic sages intuited, in our helpless thrall to the flux of time and memory, perhaps the best we can hope is - like Leon - to step gratefully into its current — to find, in the cascade of love and ruin, of betting and politics, some glimmering rivulets of wisdom and beauty.

    what a lot of cold wank in custard
    A bit harsh, Foxy.

    OTOH, while I recall Cicero, I must have missed the contributions of St Augustine and Baudelaire. Or did Leon dream them ?
    Lord wean me off endlessly and self-indulgently blathering on PB, but not yet.
    Implicit in Leon's PB commentary is an act of generosity, an invitation to take succour in the universality of suffering, to recognize ourselves in Leon's funhouse mirror of the disentegrating self. In these words today, as Leon makes a kind of uneasy peace with @BatteryCorrectHorse and @IanB2, we sense that Leon - or is it @MartinDay? - has glimpsed something like the secret arithmetic of existence: he himself is a mosaic of the self, perpetually rearranged, by identity laid over identity. The palimpsest of the persona

    It's a profound and hard-won grace note, one that elevates Leon's utterances above the mundanities of a provincial quack like @foxy or some bore like @Benpointless: here we have a solipsistic self-reckoning which evolves into something expansive: a Blakeian testament to the way our journeys through heaven and hell just might be the price of admission for true aliveness. By the end of this thread, one senses Leon will have gifted us indelible proof that even in the realm of psychic collapse, everywhere there is the chance for rebirth: another name, another sockpuppet, yet another Leon
    I have just finally got around to watching the Barbie movie which I enjoyed very much. This reads like a part of the script that got cut.
    You can see why they cut it tbf.
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    CookieCookie Posts: 11,473

    ohnotnow said:



    Nimby's moved into the village and then spent all their time complaining about the outrageous noise of the Church bells and the smell of beer from the Local.

    See also people moving to 'quaint' Cornish fishing villages then complaining that the fishing boats weren't quite in keeping with what they imagined.

    Interesting discussion. It's not only in Britain, of course. There was much hilarity in Switzerland about a woman who moved to an Alpine village and then sued her neighbour because of the disutrbance noisy cow bells. A judge ruled straight-facedly that the noise of cow bells was an inherent risk in deciding to live in an Alpine village.

    With most people in cities, though, the community aspect doesn't normally arise. When I was living in London there were a dozen pubs within easy reach, and if I went into any of them I'd have been surprised to see someone I knew. Some work cultures generate a tradition that people head over to a particular local after work, but I think that's now the exception rather than the rule?
    My wife's uncle, in his early fifties, moved from inner London to Suffolk. He chose the small town based on the pub. Decided it was going to be important to him. With his usual cheery approach to things, on his first night, went round introducing himself to everyone in the pub. Figured a few would think him a loony but who cares? He was right; within months, the drinkers in this pub were his closest friends.

    I rather envy him both the situation and the confidence to make it happen.
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    Israeli state television confirms that the Israeli war cabinet has decided to attack Iran.

    https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1779571153071161568

    If it were an existing poster saying this, then I'd say good. Hope it's all out war and regime change in Iran.

    Since it's someone with 9 posts to their name registering on the weekend, then I'm sorry but I'm sceptical. Will wait for a legit news source to confirm the good news.
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    nico679 said:

    So the west now sits and waits to see whether Israel decides to embark on a course of action that could lead to devastating consequences.

    If Israel hadn't been attacked first, none of this would be happening.
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    nico679nico679 Posts: 4,869
    The west are gullible idiots . Netenyahu has played them .
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    RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,263
    Remember folks - Israel has no problem with an Operation Samson scenario if that's what it takes. And when I say "Israel" I really mean Bibi. There is real pressure on him to plan an election later this year where (a) he will lose and (b) he will go to jail. Better to push over the pillars and bring destruction down on everyone...
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    nico679 said:

    The west are gullible idiots . Netenyahu has played them .

    Netanyahu is leading a country that was attacked first.

    But all you do is insult him and his nation.

    What should he have done instead? Turn the other cheek? Invite another attack?
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    StonehengeStonehenge Posts: 80
    Leon said:

    It would be great if the Jews and Muslims could postpone doomsday til next year coz I have some really nice free foreign travel coming up. Also I have kids.

    Asking for 8 billion friends

    If you were a jew surrounded by enemies on all sides with seemingly most of the world against you you would be liable to do some pretty irrational things.
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    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,709
    If we all survive that long, this has the potential to trash Trump’s reputation with a fair number of his supporters.

    Small-time investors in Trump’s Truth Social reckon with stock collapse
    Some Trump supporters who invested in his social media company have seen their share values plunge -— and see it as a test of faith
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/14/truth-social-investors-faith-trump/
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    StonehengeStonehenge Posts: 80

    Israeli state television confirms that the Israeli war cabinet has decided to attack Iran.

    https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1779571153071161568

    If it were an existing poster saying this, then I'd say good. Hope it's all out war and regime change in Iran.

    Since it's someone with 9 posts to their name registering on the weekend, then I'm sorry but I'm sceptical. Will wait for a legit news source to confirm the good news.
    Ok hows this.

    Hebrew Channel 14: The cabinet decided to attack Iran tonight
    https://x.com/WarMonitors/status/1779602928858239078
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    nico679nico679 Posts: 4,869

    nico679 said:

    The west are gullible idiots . Netenyahu has played them .

    Netanyahu is leading a country that was attacked first.

    But all you do is insult him and his nation.

    What should he have done instead? Turn the other cheek? Invite another attack?
    I’m not insulting Israel . But Netenyahu is a nutjob who will do anything to remain in post.
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    Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 2,764

    Israeli state television confirms that the Israeli war cabinet has decided to attack Iran.

    https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1779571153071161568

    If it were an existing poster saying this, then I'd say good. Hope it's all out war and regime change in Iran.

    Since it's someone with 9 posts to their name registering on the weekend, then I'm sorry but I'm sceptical. Will wait for a legit news source to confirm the good news.
    Ok hows this.

    Hebrew Channel 14: The cabinet decided to attack Iran tonight
    https://x.com/WarMonitors/status/1779602928858239078
    No doubt Iran's many friends and allies will spring to their defence.
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    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,308
    edited April 14

    Radical thought - is pb (and it’s ilk) one of the reasons pubs are dying? We sit here, randomly chatting rubbish with others, all the time NOT heading the pub to chat rubbish with others. It’s so much easier to get social interaction (of a kind) online, and add in the price of booze in pubs vs Aldi/Lidl and you see why they close.

    And we have our own in-house boor, slumped half-cut at the virtual bar, vomiting a never-ending stream of drunken drivel about whatever is his latest obsession over anyone foolish enough to look in his direction. How more authentic could we get?
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    RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,263
    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    The west are gullible idiots . Netenyahu has played them .

    Netanyahu is leading a country that was attacked first.

    But all you do is insult him and his nation.

    What should he have done instead? Turn the other cheek? Invite another attack?
    I’m not insulting Israel . But Netenyahu is a nutjob who will do anything to remain in post.
    THIS. Netanyahu is a gangster. He is not Israel. I absolutely support their right to live in peace and security as a nation. That is not remotely the same thing as giving Bibi a free pass to do whatever it takes to keep his criminal arse out of jail.
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    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,472
    a

    ohnotnow said:



    Nimby's moved into the village and then spent all their time complaining about the outrageous noise of the Church bells and the smell of beer from the Local.

    See also people moving to 'quaint' Cornish fishing villages then complaining that the fishing boats weren't quite in keeping with what they imagined.

    Interesting discussion. It's not only in Britain, of course. There was much hilarity in Switzerland about a woman who moved to an Alpine village and then sued her neighbour because of the disutrbance noisy cow bells. A judge ruled straight-facedly that the noise of cow bells was an inherent risk in deciding to live in an Alpine village.

    With most people in cities, though, the community aspect doesn't normally arise. When I was living in London there were a dozen pubs within easy reach, and if I went into any of them I'd have been surprised to see someone I knew. Some work cultures generate a tradition that people head over to a particular local after work, but I think that's now the exception rather than the rule?
    IIRC she kept going until the locals voted that she couldn’t have citizenship.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/01/14/swiss-citizenship-woman-denied-cowbells/96398518/
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    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,723

    Israeli state television confirms that the Israeli war cabinet has decided to attack Iran.

    https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1779571153071161568

    If it were an existing poster saying this, then I'd say good. Hope it's all out war and regime change in Iran.

    Since it's someone with 9 posts to their name registering on the weekend, then I'm sorry but I'm sceptical. Will wait for a legit news source to confirm the good news.
    Ok hows this.

    Hebrew Channel 14: The cabinet decided to attack Iran tonight
    https://x.com/WarMonitors/status/1779602928858239078
    No doubt Iran's many friends and allies will spring to their defence.
    It's a bit difficult to sympathise with either side IMO.
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    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,723
    IanB2 said:

    Radical thought - is pb (and it’s ilk) one of the reasons pubs are dying? We sit here, randomly chatting rubbish with others, all the time NOT heading the pub to chat rubbish with others. It’s so much easier to get social interaction (of a kind) online, and add in the price of booze in pubs vs Aldi/Lidl and you see why they close.

    And we have our own in-house boor, slumped half-cut at the virtual bar, vomiting a never-ending stream of drunken drivel about whatever is his latest obsession over anyone foolish enough to look in his direction. How more authentic could we get?
    Every village has its idiot. It's an old tradition.
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    LeonLeon Posts: 47,352
    IanB2 said:

    Radical thought - is pb (and it’s ilk) one of the reasons pubs are dying? We sit here, randomly chatting rubbish with others, all the time NOT heading the pub to chat rubbish with others. It’s so much easier to get social interaction (of a kind) online, and add in the price of booze in pubs vs Aldi/Lidl and you see why they close.

    And we have our own in-house boor, slumped half-cut at the virtual bar, vomiting a never-ending stream of drunken drivel about whatever is his latest obsession over anyone foolish enough to look in his direction. How more authentic could we get?
    If there’s one thing more astonishing than my endless capacity for narcissism it’s your endless capacity for pathetic friendless whining, like a slapped and lonely four year old
  • Options
    No_Offence_AlanNo_Offence_Alan Posts: 3,834
    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    The west are gullible idiots . Netenyahu has played them .

    Netanyahu is leading a country that was attacked first.

    But all you do is insult him and his nation.

    What should he have done instead? Turn the other cheek? Invite another attack?
    I’m not insulting Israel . But Netenyahu is a nutjob who will do anything to remain in post.
    So what is Palestine's excuse for not recognising Israel's right to security before Bibi came to power?
  • Options
    .

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    The west are gullible idiots . Netenyahu has played them .

    Netanyahu is leading a country that was attacked first.

    But all you do is insult him and his nation.

    What should he have done instead? Turn the other cheek? Invite another attack?
    I’m not insulting Israel . But Netenyahu is a nutjob who will do anything to remain in post.
    THIS. Netanyahu is a gangster. He is not Israel. I absolutely support their right to live in peace and security as a nation. That is not remotely the same thing as giving Bibi a free pass to do whatever it takes to keep his criminal arse out of jail.
    I know you're not doing this, but others are, Israel and Bibi should not be conflated.

    Supporting Israel is not the same as supporting Bibi.

    The UK in WWII was led by a national unity government and ended the war with an election that saw those who were opposition prior to the war win the election.

    Israel is led by a national unity government and hopefully the next election sees Bibi defeated and then imprisoned.

    But first things first. Israel needs to win it's war. Hamas needs to be completely destroyed. Iran needs regime change and the destruction of their nuclear program.
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    CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,216

    Another twist to the wfh controversies. A friend has started working for a private fee-paying school which has no premises at all. Both staff and pupils are online from home. The pupils are a mixture of people who for some reason cannot attend a physical class - either mental or physical health issues or simply highly mobile parents - and the teacher:pupil ratio is amazing, for a relatively modest £7K/year. The teachers love it as they can combine it with a full home life. Obviously lack of social interaction is a big snag for the kids, which they may or may not be able to make up in their home environment, but as they literally *can't* attend a school it offers an alternative to home lessons from parents. The school has 1000 pupils and aims to recruit 2000 more - the model is basically scalable.

    Should the public sector offer something like this?

    What about sport? Drama? Music? Technology? Chemistry experiments? And so on.

    The curriculum must necessarily be restricted. If it is the only option to no schooling at all for certain types of pupils, I can see some value. But why would you want to expand it beyond such a cohort. Pupils will be missing out on an awful lot.
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    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,332
    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Radical thought - is pb (and it’s ilk) one of the reasons pubs are dying? We sit here, randomly chatting rubbish with others, all the time NOT heading the pub to chat rubbish with others. It’s so much easier to get social interaction (of a kind) online, and add in the price of booze in pubs vs Aldi/Lidl and you see why they close.

    And we have our own in-house boor, slumped half-cut at the virtual bar, vomiting a never-ending stream of drunken drivel about whatever is his latest obsession over anyone foolish enough to look in his direction. How more authentic could we get?
    Every village has its idiot. It's an old tradition.
    Used to be one of @malcolmg's favourite lines, that some village was missing its idiot when he got a post he disapproved of. But @Leon is not an idiot.
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    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Radical thought - is pb (and it’s ilk) one of the reasons pubs are dying? We sit here, randomly chatting rubbish with others, all the time NOT heading the pub to chat rubbish with others. It’s so much easier to get social interaction (of a kind) online, and add in the price of booze in pubs vs Aldi/Lidl and you see why they close.

    And we have our own in-house boor, slumped half-cut at the virtual bar, vomiting a never-ending stream of drunken drivel about whatever is his latest obsession over anyone foolish enough to look in his direction. How more authentic could we get?
    Every village has its idiot. It's an old tradition.
    Used to be one of @malcolmg's favourite lines, that some village was missing its idiot when he got a post he disapproved of. But @Leon is not an idiot.
    No, he's a village instead.
  • Options
    MattWMattW Posts: 18,626

    Another twist to the wfh controversies. A friend has started working for a private fee-paying school which has no premises at all. Both staff and pupils are online from home. The pupils are a mixture of people who for some reason cannot attend a physical class - either mental or physical health issues or simply highly mobile parents - and the teacher:pupil ratio is amazing, for a relatively modest £7K/year. The teachers love it as they can combine it with a full home life. Obviously lack of social interaction is a big snag for the kids, which they may or may not be able to make up in their home environment, but as they literally *can't* attend a school it offers an alternative to home lessons from parents. The school has 1000 pupils and aims to recruit 2000 more - the model is basically scalable.

    Should the public sector offer something like this?

    I wouldn't be surprised if it did already, not widely known to many of us.

    The public sector offers boarding schools, for example. My niece (with a statement) went to a weekly boarding school for a couple of years after having gone to a private day school, after she was bullied in a state school which could not deal with it.

    Attending a school a couple of hours away was a crucial element in her gaining self-reliance and an appropriate measure of independence.
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    DonkeysDonkeys Posts: 567
    edited April 14

    nico679 said:

    nico679 said:

    The west are gullible idiots . Netenyahu has played them .

    Netanyahu is leading a country that was attacked first.

    But all you do is insult him and his nation.

    What should he have done instead? Turn the other cheek? Invite another attack?
    I’m not insulting Israel . But Netenyahu is a nutjob who will do anything to remain in post.
    So what is Palestine's excuse for not recognising Israel's right to security before Bibi came to power?
    What was the ANC's excuse for not recognising white supremacy's right to security in South Africa?

    And of course the ethnic supremacist occupation regime in Palestine has always recognised Palestine's right to exist, to be secure, to defend itself. They bend over backwards to help, because they love peace and ethnic co-existence so much. Listen to "Hallelujah" from Eurovision - it's so peaceful.

    The only arguments Israel has in support of itself are obvious lying shit.

    Netanyahu is a distraction. If it wasn't him, it would be some other leader.

    As for calling him "Bibi", maybe call Ariel Sharon "Arik", and why not refer to "Addy" and "Benny"?

    PS Anyone who thinks Netanyahu will ever be locked up in a jail cell is living in cloud cuckoo land.
  • Options
    Evening all. First post in a few weeks after another sojourn in hospital. Catching up on 'events' and have seen the discussion between @TOPPING @StillWaters et al re. Rayner.

    As it stands, I don't see what laws Rayner has broken. She's in a position similar to (but not exactly the same as) that in which my brother found himself. I'll explain:

    My brother was married with 3 children. He and his wife separated and divorced. He bought a flat which became his home and which was his children's home when they were with him.

    >> Rayner's argument has always been that her circumstances were different because she had a child from a previous relationship and it was his home as much as it was her own.

    My brother met somebody and they began a relationship. They settled down and divided their time between their respective properties. My brother's home was a his flat. That's where he was registered to vote. That's where he paid his bills, etc.

    >> Again, no different here from Rayner in her arguments.

    My brother and his partner had a child. The child was registered at his partner's address (because when you register a birth it asks for the mother's address at the time of birth.

    >> Given that Rayner went on to re-register the birth at her husband's address, one assumes that she gave her own address at the time. It would make no sense to not include the father's details but to use his address.

    My brother and his partner didn't live together full time. As he had his 3 children from his first marriage for three days every week, he spent time in his flat.

    My brother and his partner got married. It's a legal requirement to re-register a birth to include the father's details if the parents either marry or enter into a civil partnership.

    My brother and his new wife reregistered the birth to include his details. The addresses remained the same. My brother's legal/electoral/tax address was his flat. My new sister-in-law's legal/electoral/tax address remained her home. All above board and completely legal.

    They maintained two properties and spent time at both (not least of all because it took time for my brother's first 3 children to get used to the new arrangements). When my brother sold his flat, no CGT was payable. At the same time, my sister-in-law sold her house. No CGT was payable.

    It is possible that Rayner's circumstances were similar to (but not identical to) those of my brother.

    As to the electoral law issue... the point remains. If it was her legal home for tax and electoral purposes, there may not be an issue at all.
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    MattWMattW Posts: 18,626
    Cyclefree said:

    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    Taz said:

    Are you always this obnoxious.

    Yes - he's by far the worst part of this site. But hopefully he will have another flounce soon and we'll have some peace.

    Welcome BTW.
    Talking of flouncing arent we due your next one anytime soon?
    I didn't flounce though. I used a bad word some time ago (that I should have just starred out - I was not advocating the word and I wasn't using it as an insult, it was basically paraphrasing) and was banned for it. You're clearly very wound up again. Take a chill pill brother
    You’ve flounced a few times too.
    I left in protest at Sean being a member here which I stand by, I think he brings down this site in every possible way and whenever he isn't here it's better.

    But my ask was ignored so after a long period away I returned. I believe it was the right thing to do.

    So in answer to your question, unless you want to try and get me banned, I don't plan to go anywhere, don't you feel lucky!
    Why don't you just ignore me, if I push your buttons so easily? It's not like I ever personally attack you. Quite strange
    Because of you I was inspired to create an extension to block people on this site.

    I do until you are rude to people. Then I call you out.

    Just as others call me out when I've been rude, you deserve nothing more and nothing less.

    This site would be so much better if you just posted 85% less than you do.
    It's not your site.

    It's the variety which makes this site worthwhile.
    One could argue that the @Leon End of the Pier Show qualifies as "variety".

    Where's his all the right words, but in the wrong order?
  • Options
    dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,989
    Cyclefree said:

    Another twist to the wfh controversies. A friend has started working for a private fee-paying school which has no premises at all. Both staff and pupils are online from home. The pupils are a mixture of people who for some reason cannot attend a physical class - either mental or physical health issues or simply highly mobile parents - and the teacher:pupil ratio is amazing, for a relatively modest £7K/year. The teachers love it as they can combine it with a full home life. Obviously lack of social interaction is a big snag for the kids, which they may or may not be able to make up in their home environment, but as they literally *can't* attend a school it offers an alternative to home lessons from parents. The school has 1000 pupils and aims to recruit 2000 more - the model is basically scalable.

    Should the public sector offer something like this?

    What about sport? Drama? Music? Technology? Chemistry experiments? And so on.

    The curriculum must necessarily be restricted. If it is the only option to no schooling at all for certain types of pupils, I can see some value. But why would you want to expand it beyond such a cohort. Pupils will be missing out on an awful lot.
    We already offer a similar service.
    However. If it's sport, drama, music or chemistry experiments, well, you don't get them even if you come to school these days.
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    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,126
    After my concerns about JFK immigration (last time: 2.5 hours) this time it took about 5 minutes. Reelect Joe Biden!
  • Options
    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,126
    Leon said:

    This whole grotesque Israel/Muslim neurosis-turned-world-war reminds me what a remarkable thing was achieved in Northern Ireland. There we had the same endless centuries-old grievances, the same embittered generations, decade after decade, 300 years of violence. Famine and bombs, murders and Black and Tans, Bloody Sunday and Warrington

    Yet it DID end. Humans woke up and said, This doesn't have to be. And now Ireland and Britain are at peace. it is sometimes grumpy, but it is peace

    Well done to all that did that

    It certainly didn't involve the British Army declaring it would wipe out the IRA even if that involved killing 30,000 innocent Catholic civilians...
  • Options
    DonkeysDonkeys Posts: 567
    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Radical thought - is pb (and it’s ilk) one of the reasons pubs are dying? We sit here, randomly chatting rubbish with others, all the time NOT heading the pub to chat rubbish with others. It’s so much easier to get social interaction (of a kind) online, and add in the price of booze in pubs vs Aldi/Lidl and you see why they close.

    And we have our own in-house boor, slumped half-cut at the virtual bar, vomiting a never-ending stream of drunken drivel about whatever is his latest obsession over anyone foolish enough to look in his direction. How more authentic could we get?
    Every village has its idiot. It's an old tradition.
    Used to be one of @malcolmg's favourite lines, that some village was missing its idiot when he got a post he disapproved of. But @Leon is not an idiot.
    A village idiot isn't necessarily an idiot:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhDJxEPRDek
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    MattWMattW Posts: 18,626
    edited April 14
    Interesting BBC piece on Iran's various proxy wars on Israel and other countries via terror groups, and directly.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68811276

    They don't go so far as to point out that Iran is a far more significant contributor to Middle East instability than Israel and that the Iranian Govt cannot accept peace in the ME, but unusually clear.
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,273

    Evening all. First post in a few weeks after another sojourn in hospital. Catching up on 'events' and have seen the discussion between @TOPPING @StillWaters et al re. Rayner.

    As it stands, I don't see what laws Rayner has broken. She's in a position similar to (but not exactly the same as) that in which my brother found himself. I'll explain:

    My brother was married with 3 children. He and his wife separated and divorced. He bought a flat which became his home and which was his children's home when they were with him.

    >> Rayner's argument has always been that her circumstances were different because she had a child from a previous relationship and it was his home as much as it was her own.

    My brother met somebody and they began a relationship. They settled down and divided their time between their respective properties. My brother's home was a his flat. That's where he was registered to vote. That's where he paid his bills, etc.

    >> Again, no different here from Rayner in her arguments.

    My brother and his partner had a child. The child was registered at his partner's address (because when you register a birth it asks for the mother's address at the time of birth.

    >> Given that Rayner went on to re-register the birth at her husband's address, one assumes that she gave her own address at the time. It would make no sense to not include the father's details but to use his address.

    My brother and his partner didn't live together full time. As he had his 3 children from his first marriage for three days every week, he spent time in his flat.

    My brother and his partner got married. It's a legal requirement to re-register a birth to include the father's details if the parents either marry or enter into a civil partnership.

    My brother and his new wife reregistered the birth to include his details. The addresses remained the same. My brother's legal/electoral/tax address was his flat. My new sister-in-law's legal/electoral/tax address remained her home. All above board and completely legal.

    They maintained two properties and spent time at both (not least of all because it took time for my brother's first 3 children to get used to the new arrangements). When my brother sold his flat, no CGT was payable. At the same time, my sister-in-law sold her house. No CGT was payable.

    It is possible that Rayner's circumstances were similar to (but not identical to) those of my brother.

    As to the electoral law issue... the point remains. If it was her legal home for tax and electoral purposes, there may not be an issue at all.

    The electoral law thing is irrelevant anyway as there is a 12 month limit on prosecutions.
  • Options
    Fffs said:

    Because they're not paying a high enough wage!

    But why has this only become an issue since Brexit?
    Because it was possible to get an infinite supply of new people to fill jobs at minimum wage pre-Brexit.

    But those new arrivals inevitably created extra demand, so more jobs needed filling, which meant the shortage was never filled and there was never equilibrium.

    Now that the supply of minimum wage isn't infinite, employers need to increase wages to reach equilibrium. Why don't you want people paid a living wage instead of minimum wage?
    I would like to agree with you but I can't see how it's sustainable. I mean, these pubs barely make a profit at all as is and many don't open. At some point soon we're going to see a load of pubs go bust.
    So some go bust.

    You then have fewer pubs with more customers per pub in them, whose staff are being paid a living wage.

    Its the only sustainable solution, more sustainable than infinite minimum wage.
    Hang on…

    New arrivals creating extra demand also leads to more customers per pub. Why was that unsustainable? The number of pubs certainly didn't increase - it's been falling steadily since about 2002.
    Not if the new arrivals don't like pubs.

    They'll increase other demand, but not pub-demand.
  • Options

    Evening all. First post in a few weeks after another sojourn in hospital. Catching up on 'events' and have seen the discussion between @TOPPING @StillWaters et al re. Rayner.

    As it stands, I don't see what laws Rayner has broken. She's in a position similar to (but not exactly the same as) that in which my brother found himself. I'll explain:

    My brother was married with 3 children. He and his wife separated and divorced. He bought a flat which became his home and which was his children's home when they were with him.

    >> Rayner's argument has always been that her circumstances were different because she had a child from a previous relationship and it was his home as much as it was her own.

    My brother met somebody and they began a relationship. They settled down and divided their time between their respective properties. My brother's home was a his flat. That's where he was registered to vote. That's where he paid his bills, etc.

    >> Again, no different here from Rayner in her arguments.

    My brother and his partner had a child. The child was registered at his partner's address (because when you register a birth it asks for the mother's address at the time of birth.

    >> Given that Rayner went on to re-register the birth at her husband's address, one assumes that she gave her own address at the time. It would make no sense to not include the father's details but to use his address.

    My brother and his partner didn't live together full time. As he had his 3 children from his first marriage for three days every week, he spent time in his flat.

    My brother and his partner got married. It's a legal requirement to re-register a birth to include the father's details if the parents either marry or enter into a civil partnership.

    My brother and his new wife reregistered the birth to include his details. The addresses remained the same. My brother's legal/electoral/tax address was his flat. My new sister-in-law's legal/electoral/tax address remained her home. All above board and completely legal.

    They maintained two properties and spent time at both (not least of all because it took time for my brother's first 3 children to get used to the new arrangements). When my brother sold his flat, no CGT was payable. At the same time, my sister-in-law sold her house. No CGT was payable.

    It is possible that Rayner's circumstances were similar to (but not identical to) those of my brother.

    As to the electoral law issue... the point remains. If it was her legal home for tax and electoral purposes, there may not be an issue at all.

    The electoral law thing is irrelevant anyway as there is a 12 month limit on prosecutions.
    Quite. I read that earlier but didn't bother mentioning it. Cheers @rottenborough
  • Options
    DonkeysDonkeys Posts: 567
    edited April 14
    MattW said:

    Interesting BBC piece on Iran's various proxy wars on Israel and other countries via terror groups, and directly.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68811276

    They don't go so far as to point out that Iran is a far more significant contributor to Middle East instability than Israel and that the Iranian Govt cannot accept peace in the ME, but unusually clear.

    First Rottenborough says Trump seems to be a Hamas supporter, and now you moan that the BBC is insufficiently pro-Israeli.

    It's probably Clintonian pizza eaters and Kenyan-born Muslim Barack Obama, all in the pay of ISIS, who are behind it all - stabbing peace-loving Israel in the back.

    In Gaza, they're only dropping peppermints and daisychains:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3bVJAe8xVY

    Tip: genocide is wrong.
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 25,005

    Dear Eek
    If you really think that if Rayner has to resign, that it won't affect a single vote. ... then you are seriously misguided.

    Rayner won't have to resign - exactly what crime has see committed.

    And you have to remember that Rayner is the same as Two Jags - there to attract a particular set of voters...
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,709
    Serbia to buy French fighter jets in pivot away from Russia

    One of Moscow’s strongest allies in the Balkans is purchasing more European and US weapons
    https://www.ft.com/content/fa26d185-6b54-481a-b5b8-1ff41a0ab724

    Not wire sure what to make of this.
    Other than that Russia doesn't have the capacity to export new fighters.
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,845
    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
  • Options

    After my concerns about JFK immigration (last time: 2.5 hours) this time it took about 5 minutes. Reelect Joe Biden!

    Told you!
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,845

    On immigration, I do not see the current settlement as sustainable. I think we are going to inevitably end up having to liberalise immigration again to fill the shortfall. I cannot see any government enjoying a load of pubs and high street shops going bust.

    What shortfall? We have net inwards migration of about half a million people, there's no shortfall.

    Trying to fill an employment shortage by adding more people is like trying to solve a traffic jam by adding more cars.

    More people creates more demand, which creates more employer demand, which means more jobs need filling.

    The only thing that balances employment levels is supply and demand. Increase prices (wages) until supply = demand.
    If there's no shortfall, why are the pubs even around here in London constantly short staffed? This has only become an issue since Brexit.
    Perhaps is because no one wishes to deal with the rude barbarity of the london clientele?
  • Options
    MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 50,125
    Nigelb said:

    Serbia to buy French fighter jets in pivot away from Russia

    One of Moscow’s strongest allies in the Balkans is purchasing more European and US weapons
    https://www.ft.com/content/fa26d185-6b54-481a-b5b8-1ff41a0ab724

    Not wire sure what to make of this.
    Other than that Russia doesn't have the capacity to export new fighters.

    Russia's military exports have been destroyed by its Ukraine adventure. They have, for the most part, been shown to be very poor performers versus other alternatives out there. They have also had their delivery dates turned into "whenever we can" - which effectively means only when they have stopped sending kit to its doom in Ukraine.

    Why would you buy Russian unless they were stupidly cheap?
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 25,005
    edited April 14
    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,845
    IanB2 said:

    Radical thought - is pb (and it’s ilk) one of the reasons pubs are dying? We sit here, randomly chatting rubbish with others, all the time NOT heading the pub to chat rubbish with others. It’s so much easier to get social interaction (of a kind) online, and add in the price of booze in pubs vs Aldi/Lidl and you see why they close.

    And we have our own in-house boor, slumped half-cut at the virtual bar, vomiting a never-ending stream of drunken drivel about whatever is his latest obsession over anyone foolish enough to look in his direction. How more authentic could we get?
    Well every pub has a lib dem
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,352
    Fuckola. I think Israel is going to do something daft
  • Options
    StonehengeStonehenge Posts: 80
    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Radical thought - is pb (and it’s ilk) one of the reasons pubs are dying? We sit here, randomly chatting rubbish with others, all the time NOT heading the pub to chat rubbish with others. It’s so much easier to get social interaction (of a kind) online, and add in the price of booze in pubs vs Aldi/Lidl and you see why they close.

    And we have our own in-house boor, slumped half-cut at the virtual bar, vomiting a never-ending stream of drunken drivel about whatever is his latest obsession over anyone foolish enough to look in his direction. How more authentic could we get?
    Every village has its idiot. It's an old tradition.
    One mans idiot is another mans savant.
  • Options
    DavidLDavidL Posts: 51,332
    Excellent piece in the Atlantic Magazine about the Iranian attack and how Netanyahu is very likely to screw up the advantages that it has given him: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/what-will-netanyahu-do-now/ar-BB1lBbs0

    As President Biden said: take the win.
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,273

    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    Growing drumbeat around July election in Westminster this evening.*

    * I’m actually in Blackheath . But you get the drift

    https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1779578114189722096
  • Options
    maxhmaxh Posts: 826

    Another twist to the wfh controversies. A friend has started working for a private fee-paying school which has no premises at all. Both staff and pupils are online from home. The pupils are a mixture of people who for some reason cannot attend a physical class - either mental or physical health issues or simply highly mobile parents - and the teacher:pupil ratio is amazing, for a relatively modest £7K/year. The teachers love it as they can combine it with a full home life. Obviously lack of social interaction is a big snag for the kids, which they may or may not be able to make up in their home environment, but as they literally *can't* attend a school it offers an alternative to home lessons from parents. The school has 1000 pupils and aims to recruit 2000 more - the model is basically scalable.

    Should the public sector offer something like this?

    Whilst it is probably a good alternative to home schooling I think the lack of socialisation would be huge - the aftermath of the pandemic and the (anecdotal) unworldliness of home-schooled kids show us this.

    But yes, for those who cannot or will not attend school physically it would be a good offer.

  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,845
    edited April 14
    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
    I have applied for jobs where they have for various reasons required forms to be filled in. Guess what they interviewed first and then said fill in the forms. There is absolutely no reason stopping the public sector doing the same unless they are so anal retentive that everyone has to fill in a form before we can even decide to interview them in which case they are wasteful arseholes.....interview first then even if you decide on a shortlist before final decision then you can interview a 100 decide on 5.

    This is just short sighted public sector wankery masquerading as a relevant process and why most of the private sector treats you with the withering scorn you deserve and thinks you waste our taxes for absolutely no reason
  • Options
    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,126
    Leon said:

    I would actually pass a law saying pubs cannot be converted into housing. They can stop being pubs, but then they have to be some other kind of shared open space, for all. Cafe, farm shop, community hall, something that brings people together

    We are all atomised quite enough. This would also stop the hideous Crooked House bollocks of people "accidentally" burning down pubs so they can be demolished and turned into flats

    My cycle to work takes me past the pub that was used to film the outside of the Winchester in Shaun of the Dead. It's been flats for over 15 years. On the other hand, I live a few minutes from London's #1 rated pub by Time Out, and it and several other local hostelries are absolutely thriving. I'm pretty much guaranteed to run into someone I know at them, too.
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,482


    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    Growing drumbeat around July election in Westminster this evening.*

    * I’m actually in Blackheath . But you get the drift

    https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1779578114189722096

    Desperation from Team Sunk.
  • Options
    StonehengeStonehenge Posts: 80
    Leon said:

    Fuckola. I think Israel is going to do something daft

    Breaking: Israel Minister of Diaspora
    @AmichaiChikli
    suggests that Israel will retaliate by launching hundreds of missiles on Iran:

    “We will treat every missile fired on Israel as if it hit the intended target, and we will retaliate accordingly.”
    10:08 PM · Apr 14, 2024
    ·
    6,265
    Views

    https://x.com/DrEliDavid/status/1779617645282603479
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,053
    edited April 14
    Leon said:

    It would be great if the Jews and Muslims could postpone doomsday til next year coz I have some really nice free foreign travel coming up. Also I have kids.

    Asking for 8 billion friends

    Iran and Israel will largely just fight it out amongst themselves, sending potshots of drones, missiles and bombs over to each other for a few weeks
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,273


    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    Growing drumbeat around July election in Westminster this evening.*

    * I’m actually in Blackheath . But you get the drift

    https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1779578114189722096

    Desperation from Team Sunk.
    Basically: don't come after me on 3rd May because the election will only be eight weeks away so you dont have time.
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 25,005
    edited April 14
    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
    I have applied for jobs where they have for various reasons required forms to be filled in. Guess what they interviewed first and then said fill in the forms. There is absolutely no reason stopping the public sector doing the same unless they are so anal retentive that everyone has to fill in a form before we can even decide to interview them in which case they are wasteful arseholes.....interview first then even if you decide on a shortlist before final decision then you can interview a 100 decide on 5.

    This is just short sighted public sector wankery masquerading as a relevant process and why most of the private sector treats you with the withering scorn you deserve and thinks you waste our taxes for absolutely no reason
    So I'm right - you haven't had a public sector job and haven't got a clue why things are done the way they are in the public sector.

    You may not like it but this Tory Government has been in power 14 years (heck the Tories have been in power 32 of the last 45 years) and the one thing that no Government has done is change the way public sector recruitment is done.

    So

    1) I wonder why they do things the way they do?
    2) Why do you think even this Government hasn't changed the approach?
    3) Yet you know better even though you've provided no evidence to back that up...
  • Options
    tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,191

    Evening all. First post in a few weeks after another sojourn in hospital. Catching up on 'events' and have seen the discussion between @TOPPING @StillWaters et al re. Rayner.

    As it stands, I don't see what laws Rayner has broken. She's in a position similar to (but not exactly the same as) that in which my brother found himself. I'll explain:

    My brother was married with 3 children. He and his wife separated and divorced. He bought a flat which became his home and which was his children's home when they were with him.

    >> Rayner's argument has always been that her circumstances were different because she had a child from a previous relationship and it was his home as much as it was her own.

    My brother met somebody and they began a relationship. They settled down and divided their time between their respective properties. My brother's home was a his flat. That's where he was registered to vote. That's where he paid his bills, etc.

    >> Again, no different here from Rayner in her arguments.

    My brother and his partner had a child. The child was registered at his partner's address (because when you register a birth it asks for the mother's address at the time of birth.

    >> Given that Rayner went on to re-register the birth at her husband's address, one assumes that she gave her own address at the time. It would make no sense to not include the father's details but to use his address.

    My brother and his partner didn't live together full time. As he had his 3 children from his first marriage for three days every week, he spent time in his flat.

    My brother and his partner got married. It's a legal requirement to re-register a birth to include the father's details if the parents either marry or enter into a civil partnership.

    My brother and his new wife reregistered the birth to include his details. The addresses remained the same. My brother's legal/electoral/tax address was his flat. My new sister-in-law's legal/electoral/tax address remained her home. All above board and completely legal.

    They maintained two properties and spent time at both (not least of all because it took time for my brother's first 3 children to get used to the new arrangements). When my brother sold his flat, no CGT was payable. At the same time, my sister-in-law sold her house. No CGT was payable.

    It is possible that Rayner's circumstances were similar to (but not identical to) those of my brother.

    As to the electoral law issue... the point remains. If it was her legal home for tax and electoral purposes, there may not be an issue at all.

    Interesting anecdote, thanks for sharing. I am anything but an expert, but this seems to contradict the Dan Neidle view that a married couple has to have one home for tax purposes.
  • Options
    williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 48,092
    DavidL said:

    Excellent piece in the Atlantic Magazine about the Iranian attack and how Netanyahu is very likely to screw up the advantages that it has given him: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/what-will-netanyahu-do-now/ar-BB1lBbs0

    As President Biden said: take the win.

    The author is preaching to the converted but doesn't really make much of a case against Netanyahu.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,352

    Leon said:

    Fuckola. I think Israel is going to do something daft

    Breaking: Israel Minister of Diaspora
    @AmichaiChikli
    suggests that Israel will retaliate by launching hundreds of missiles on Iran:

    “We will treat every missile fired on Israel as if it hit the intended target, and we will retaliate accordingly.”
    10:08 PM · Apr 14, 2024
    ·
    6,265
    Views

    https://x.com/DrEliDavid/status/1779617645282603479
    If Israel literally does that, then I think it guarantees a massive regional war
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 25,005
    edited April 14
    tlg86 said:

    Evening all. First post in a few weeks after another sojourn in hospital. Catching up on 'events' and have seen the discussion between @TOPPING @StillWaters et al re. Rayner.

    As it stands, I don't see what laws Rayner has broken. She's in a position similar to (but not exactly the same as) that in which my brother found himself. I'll explain:

    My brother was married with 3 children. He and his wife separated and divorced. He bought a flat which became his home and which was his children's home when they were with him.

    >> Rayner's argument has always been that her circumstances were different because she had a child from a previous relationship and it was his home as much as it was her own.

    My brother met somebody and they began a relationship. They settled down and divided their time between their respective properties. My brother's home was a his flat. That's where he was registered to vote. That's where he paid his bills, etc.

    >> Again, no different here from Rayner in her arguments.

    My brother and his partner had a child. The child was registered at his partner's address (because when you register a birth it asks for the mother's address at the time of birth.

    >> Given that Rayner went on to re-register the birth at her husband's address, one assumes that she gave her own address at the time. It would make no sense to not include the father's details but to use his address.

    My brother and his partner didn't live together full time. As he had his 3 children from his first marriage for three days every week, he spent time in his flat.

    My brother and his partner got married. It's a legal requirement to re-register a birth to include the father's details if the parents either marry or enter into a civil partnership.

    My brother and his new wife reregistered the birth to include his details. The addresses remained the same. My brother's legal/electoral/tax address was his flat. My new sister-in-law's legal/electoral/tax address remained her home. All above board and completely legal.

    They maintained two properties and spent time at both (not least of all because it took time for my brother's first 3 children to get used to the new arrangements). When my brother sold his flat, no CGT was payable. At the same time, my sister-in-law sold her house. No CGT was payable.

    It is possible that Rayner's circumstances were similar to (but not identical to) those of my brother.

    As to the electoral law issue... the point remains. If it was her legal home for tax and electoral purposes, there may not be an issue at all.

    Interesting anecdote, thanks for sharing. I am anything but an expert, but this seems to contradict the Dan Neidle view that a married couple has to have one home for tax purposes.
    It depends how many years they kept both houses going, when they first bought them and how many years they lived in them before marriage - there is not enough information in the anecdote to work out whether tax would be due or not...
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,845
    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
    I have applied for jobs where they have for various reasons required forms to be filled in. Guess what they interviewed first and then said fill in the forms. There is absolutely no reason stopping the public sector doing the same unless they are so anal retentive that everyone has to fill in a form before we can even decide to interview them in which case they are wasteful arseholes.....interview first then even if you decide on a shortlist before final decision then you can interview a 100 decide on 5.

    This is just short sighted public sector wankery masquerading as a relevant process and why most of the private sector treats you with the withering scorn you deserve and thinks you waste our taxes for absolutely no reason
    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
    I have applied for jobs where they have for various reasons required forms to be filled in. Guess what they interviewed first and then said fill in the forms. There is absolutely no reason stopping the public sector doing the same unless they are so anal retentive that everyone has to fill in a form before we can even decide to interview them in which case they are wasteful arseholes.....interview first then even if you decide on a shortlist before final decision then you can interview a 100 decide on 5.

    This is just short sighted public sector wankery masquerading as a relevant process and why most of the private sector treats you with the withering scorn you deserve and thinks you waste our taxes for absolutely no reason
    So I'm right - you haven't had a public sector job and haven't got a clue why things are done the way they are in the public sector.

    You may not like it but this Tory Government has been in power 14 years (heck the Tories have been in power 32 of the last 45 years) and the one thing that no Government has done is change the way public sector recruitment is done.

    So

    1) I wonder why they do things the way they do?
    2) Why do you think even this Government hasn't changed the approach?
    3) Yet you know better even though you've provided no evidence to back that up...
    I have worked on public sector projects certainly and they were always the worst ones to work on because civil servants were in charge and didn't to be frank know their arse from their elbows

    However on the recruitment front

    explain to me why all applicants for a job have to fill out a form first before applying rather than narrowing down a couple of hundred applicants down to "These five we really like the look of" to progress to final interview you need to fill out this form?

    I have worked for firms where to get the job you needed developed vetting...guess what they didnt require all applicants to go through it, just the final few
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,472
    Leon said:

    This whole grotesque Israel/Muslim neurosis-turned-world-war reminds me what a remarkable thing was achieved in Northern Ireland. There we had the same endless centuries-old grievances, the same embittered generations, decade after decade, 300 years of violence. Famine and bombs, murders and Black and Tans, Bloody Sunday and Warrington

    Yet it DID end. Humans woke up and said, This doesn't have to be. And now Ireland and Britain are at peace. it is sometimes grumpy, but it is peace

    Well done to all that did that

    What actually happened was

    1) the war wasn’t going anywhere. The Men Of Peace were kinda ignored, but present.
    2) British intelligence tried infiltrating the factions to create supergrasses to send the Men Of Violence to prison
    3) 2) was shot down by the lawyers.
    4) Bi used 2) to take control of the “anti-informer* operations on both sides
    5) shortly after, it became clear on both sides that the traitors to each side, strangely were those most wanting to continue the war. Weird but, hey. Shoot them in the head and move on.
    6) with lots of the MoVs dead, the MoPs were increasingly listened to.
    7) the final touch was that as long as the remaining MoVs keep quiet(ish) they get 6 figure salaries and multiple jobs. This is an order of magnitude better than most of them did out of protection and drug dealing.
    8) as a result of 7) a return to violence is hard. How else do you pay the mortgage?
  • Options
    nico679nico679 Posts: 4,869
    Iran could effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz . Causing oil prices to spike dramatically . Bad news for the west .
  • Options
    TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 40,190
    Watching Scoop, the Prince Andrew thing on Netflix. Not my usual cup of tea but pretty good so far, great cast and Rufus Sewell putting in an uncanny shift as the great man.

    ‘I don’t know why everyone is making such a fuss about my friendship with Epstein, I knew Jimmy Savile much better, haw, haw!’
  • Options
    eekeek Posts: 25,005
    edited April 14
    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
    I have applied for jobs where they have for various reasons required forms to be filled in. Guess what they interviewed first and then said fill in the forms. There is absolutely no reason stopping the public sector doing the same unless they are so anal retentive that everyone has to fill in a form before we can even decide to interview them in which case they are wasteful arseholes.....interview first then even if you decide on a shortlist before final decision then you can interview a 100 decide on 5.

    This is just short sighted public sector wankery masquerading as a relevant process and why most of the private sector treats you with the withering scorn you deserve and thinks you waste our taxes for absolutely no reason
    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
    I have applied for jobs where they have for various reasons required forms to be filled in. Guess what they interviewed first and then said fill in the forms. There is absolutely no reason stopping the public sector doing the same unless they are so anal retentive that everyone has to fill in a form before we can even decide to interview them in which case they are wasteful arseholes.....interview first then even if you decide on a shortlist before final decision then you can interview a 100 decide on 5.

    This is just short sighted public sector wankery masquerading as a relevant process and why most of the private sector treats you with the withering scorn you deserve and thinks you waste our taxes for absolutely no reason
    So I'm right - you haven't had a public sector job and haven't got a clue why things are done the way they are in the public sector.

    You may not like it but this Tory Government has been in power 14 years (heck the Tories have been in power 32 of the last 45 years) and the one thing that no Government has done is change the way public sector recruitment is done.

    So

    1) I wonder why they do things the way they do?
    2) Why do you think even this Government hasn't changed the approach?
    3) Yet you know better even though you've provided no evidence to back that up...
    I have worked on public sector projects certainly and they were always the worst ones to work on because civil servants were in charge and didn't to be frank know their arse from their elbows

    However on the recruitment front

    explain to me why all applicants for a job have to fill out a form first before applying rather than narrowing down a couple of hundred applicants down to "These five we really like the look of" to progress to final interview you need to fill out this form?

    I have worked for firms where to get the job you needed developed vetting...guess what they didnt require all applicants to go through it, just the final few
    Yet more anecdotes that show you haven't got a clue how other things work and put in useless information for the sake of it (so you've worked on public sector projects - I think 80% of my work from 2000 to 2015 was public sector, doesn't really mean much)..

    As for why its a form that's because the application process is based on questions -

    Identical questions on the form
    Identical questions at the interview

    The person who scores best across the form and the interview gets the job...
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,845
    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
    I have applied for jobs where they have for various reasons required forms to be filled in. Guess what they interviewed first and then said fill in the forms. There is absolutely no reason stopping the public sector doing the same unless they are so anal retentive that everyone has to fill in a form before we can even decide to interview them in which case they are wasteful arseholes.....interview first then even if you decide on a shortlist before final decision then you can interview a 100 decide on 5.

    This is just short sighted public sector wankery masquerading as a relevant process and why most of the private sector treats you with the withering scorn you deserve and thinks you waste our taxes for absolutely no reason
    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
    I have applied for jobs where they have for various reasons required forms to be filled in. Guess what they interviewed first and then said fill in the forms. There is absolutely no reason stopping the public sector doing the same unless they are so anal retentive that everyone has to fill in a form before we can even decide to interview them in which case they are wasteful arseholes.....interview first then even if you decide on a shortlist before final decision then you can interview a 100 decide on 5.

    This is just short sighted public sector wankery masquerading as a relevant process and why most of the private sector treats you with the withering scorn you deserve and thinks you waste our taxes for absolutely no reason
    So I'm right - you haven't had a public sector job and haven't got a clue why things are done the way they are in the public sector.

    You may not like it but this Tory Government has been in power 14 years (heck the Tories have been in power 32 of the last 45 years) and the one thing that no Government has done is change the way public sector recruitment is done.

    So

    1) I wonder why they do things the way they do?
    2) Why do you think even this Government hasn't changed the approach?
    3) Yet you know better even though you've provided no evidence to back that up...
    I have worked on public sector projects certainly and they were always the worst ones to work on because civil servants were in charge and didn't to be frank know their arse from their elbows

    However on the recruitment front

    explain to me why all applicants for a job have to fill out a form first before applying rather than narrowing down a couple of hundred applicants down to "These five we really like the look of" to progress to final interview you need to fill out this form?

    I have worked for firms where to get the job you needed developed vetting...guess what they didnt require all applicants to go through it, just the final few
    Yet more anecdotes that show you haven't got a clue how other things work and put in useless information for the sake of it.

    As for why its a form that's because the application process is based on questions -

    Identical questions on the form
    Identical questions at the interview

    The person who scores best across the form and the interview gets the job...
    No its the public sector that really doesn't have a clue, if I am replying to a job advert I know I am one of probably a hundred or more. Ask me to fill out a form to apply yeah not going to bother. Perhaps why as you say you have zero applicants....do a first interview then say you are on the short list of 5 fill out this form yes I will bother.

    The public sector acts like it is a privilege to working for them when they really are just another bunch of idiots
  • Options
    SteveSSteveS Posts: 50
    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
    I have applied for jobs where they have for various reasons required forms to be filled in. Guess what they interviewed first and then said fill in the forms. There is absolutely no reason stopping the public sector doing the same unless they are so anal retentive that everyone has to fill in a form before we can even decide to interview them in which case they are wasteful arseholes.....interview first then even if you decide on a shortlist before final decision then you can interview a 100 decide on 5.

    This is just short sighted public sector wankery masquerading as a relevant process and why most of the private sector treats you with the withering scorn you deserve and thinks you waste our taxes for absolutely no reason
    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
    I have applied for jobs where they have for various reasons required forms to be filled in. Guess what they interviewed first and then said fill in the forms. There is absolutely no reason stopping the public sector doing the same unless they are so anal retentive that everyone has to fill in a form before we can even decide to interview them in which case they are wasteful arseholes.....interview first then even if you decide on a shortlist before final decision then you can interview a 100 decide on 5.

    This is just short sighted public sector wankery masquerading as a relevant process and why most of the private sector treats you with the withering scorn you deserve and thinks you waste our taxes for absolutely no reason
    So I'm right - you haven't had a public sector job and haven't got a clue why things are done the way they are in the public sector.

    You may not like it but this Tory Government has been in power 14 years (heck the Tories have been in power 32 of the last 45 years) and the one thing that no Government has done is change the way public sector recruitment is done.

    So

    1) I wonder why they do things the way they do?
    2) Why do you think even this Government hasn't changed the approach?
    3) Yet you know better even though you've provided no evidence to back that up...
    I have worked on public sector projects certainly and they were always the worst ones to work on because civil servants were in charge and didn't to be frank know their arse from their elbows

    However on the recruitment front

    explain to me why all applicants for a job have to fill out a form first before applying rather than narrowing down a couple of hundred applicants down to "These five we really like the look of" to progress to final interview you need to fill out this form?

    I have worked for firms where to get the job you needed developed vetting...guess what they didnt require all applicants to go through it, just the final few
    Yet more anecdotes that show you haven't got a clue how other things work and put in useless information for the sake of it.

    As for why its a form that's because the application process is based on questions -

    Identical questions on the form
    Identical questions at the interview

    The person who scores best across the form and the interview gets the job...
    No its the public sector that really doesn't have a clue, if I am replying to a job advert I know I am one of probably a hundred or more. Ask me to fill out a form to apply yeah not going to bother. Perhaps why as you say you have zero applicants....do a first interview then say you are on the short list of 5 fill out this form yes I will bother.

    The public sector acts like it is a privilege to working for them when they really are just another bunch of idiots
    So you ask 100 people to first interview, then ask the chosen five to fill out a form? And you’d do this for every public sector job?

    S
  • Options
    Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 8,845
    edited April 14
    SteveS said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
    I have applied for jobs where they have for various reasons required forms to be filled in. Guess what they interviewed first and then said fill in the forms. There is absolutely no reason stopping the public sector doing the same unless they are so anal retentive that everyone has to fill in a form before we can even decide to interview them in which case they are wasteful arseholes.....interview first then even if you decide on a shortlist before final decision then you can interview a 100 decide on 5.

    This is just short sighted public sector wankery masquerading as a relevant process and why most of the private sector treats you with the withering scorn you deserve and thinks you waste our taxes for absolutely no reason
    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
    I have applied for jobs where they have for various reasons required forms to be filled in. Guess what they interviewed first and then said fill in the forms. There is absolutely no reason stopping the public sector doing the same unless they are so anal retentive that everyone has to fill in a form before we can even decide to interview them in which case they are wasteful arseholes.....interview first then even if you decide on a shortlist before final decision then you can interview a 100 decide on 5.

    This is just short sighted public sector wankery masquerading as a relevant process and why most of the private sector treats you with the withering scorn you deserve and thinks you waste our taxes for absolutely no reason
    So I'm right - you haven't had a public sector job and haven't got a clue why things are done the way they are in the public sector.

    You may not like it but this Tory Government has been in power 14 years (heck the Tories have been in power 32 of the last 45 years) and the one thing that no Government has done is change the way public sector recruitment is done.

    So

    1) I wonder why they do things the way they do?
    2) Why do you think even this Government hasn't changed the approach?
    3) Yet you know better even though you've provided no evidence to back that up...
    I have worked on public sector projects certainly and they were always the worst ones to work on because civil servants were in charge and didn't to be frank know their arse from their elbows

    However on the recruitment front

    explain to me why all applicants for a job have to fill out a form first before applying rather than narrowing down a couple of hundred applicants down to "These five we really like the look of" to progress to final interview you need to fill out this form?

    I have worked for firms where to get the job you needed developed vetting...guess what they didnt require all applicants to go through it, just the final few
    Yet more anecdotes that show you haven't got a clue how other things work and put in useless information for the sake of it.

    As for why its a form that's because the application process is based on questions -

    Identical questions on the form
    Identical questions at the interview

    The person who scores best across the form and the interview gets the job...
    No its the public sector that really doesn't have a clue, if I am replying to a job advert I know I am one of probably a hundred or more. Ask me to fill out a form to apply yeah not going to bother. Perhaps why as you say you have zero applicants....do a first interview then say you are on the short list of 5 fill out this form yes I will bother.

    The public sector acts like it is a privilege to working for them when they really are just another bunch of idiots
    So you ask 100 people to first interview, then ask the chosen five to fill out a form? And you’d do this for every public sector job?

    S
    It wasnt me saying they had zero applicants for the jobs they advertised, I was merely saying that to me fill out this form to apply would result in a fuck off not bothering, I suspect it puts off a lot of applicants. We have a cv we can send....yeah your form for a job where there might be a 100 other applicants not worth my time and effort

    Eek is claiming all 100 must fill out the form
  • Options
    StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,515
    Pagan2 said:

    SteveS said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
    I have applied for jobs where they have for various reasons required forms to be filled in. Guess what they interviewed first and then said fill in the forms. There is absolutely no reason stopping the public sector doing the same unless they are so anal retentive that everyone has to fill in a form before we can even decide to interview them in which case they are wasteful arseholes.....interview first then even if you decide on a shortlist before final decision then you can interview a 100 decide on 5.

    This is just short sighted public sector wankery masquerading as a relevant process and why most of the private sector treats you with the withering scorn you deserve and thinks you waste our taxes for absolutely no reason
    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Taz said:

    CatMan said:

    eek said:

    stodge said:

    isam said:

    WillG said:

    isam said:

    If you read the article it has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit

    It’s the government policy on the minimum salary you have to earn to get a visa plus the cost of living.

    So valid concerns but just to say “because Brexit” makes it much harder to address the causes of the issue
    Er, without Brexit the Italian waiters wouldn't need visas!
    You are looking at the proximate issue not the underlying cause

    Given the prices London restaurants charge they should be able to pay a decent wage. Or they can find employees from the local population and/or the settled Italian community if they insist.

    But your solution is unlimited immigration rather than improving wages for the local population.

    I get it. I understand why you might like that. I also understand why the local population might not.

    (Now there is a specific topic on wait staff where the UK culture sees it as a transitory job while many European cultures see it as a career. But that should be reflected in wages restaurants are prepared to pay).
    80% of restaurants fail within the first 5 years. Higher wages probably would work at the top end of the market with better retention improving service, but for the middle and lower end of the market margins seem too tight. That the prices seem high to customers doesn't mean owners can just pay a lot more.
    Also, the implicit deal used to be "Young Europeans- come and work in the UK for a bit. The pay won't be great, but there's minimal admin, you can improve your English, which will pay off well for you in the future. And it's a fun place to pass through." See also au pair-ing.

    The recompense for the job wasn't just the cash, it was the experience. It's not as if young Brits wanted to do the work.

    We've chucked that away, because of an obsession with control and total numbers of bodies. Brexit didn't have to be like this (and doesn't now.) But it was always a plausible outcome, especially after the campaign of 2016.
    I doubt many people would mind there being an exemption on FOM for under 21s, or maybe under 23s. They’re equivalent to students really. I think problem people had, which led to Leave winning, was immigrants undercutting the market on jobs that grown men were used to supporting their families by. I suppose it is hard to replicate implicit deals in practice
    But the reality is that a bunch of young Europeans doing poorly paid jobs for "the experience" is what enables those jobs to be poorly paid in the first place. It supplies a massive excess of labour supply which sinks pay and conditions. That had knock on effects for less skilled Britons.
    Yes I suppose so.
    But they didn’t want the waiting jobs before or after.
    They didn’t want them AT THE WAGES THE EMPLOYERS WERE OFFERING
    Outside London (and even inside most of it) the vast majority of the low paid jobs in question are actually done by U.K. residents. And always were.

    It may surprise Londoners, but there are an awful lot of Britons in Britain.
    Yes, the notion that Brits don't do jobs in Britain is a completely alien one. There isn't a job that people don't do. Overwhelming majority of waiters, care staff or any other job role in the UK are British.

    If businesses in London can't hire enough staff at the wages they're offering, they need to increase the wages. That's supply and demand in action. Maybe their staff can afford to pay London house prices then, what's wrong with that?

    No, it just means that there are fewer restaurants and bars, and the ones that remain become more expensive and are open for shorter periods. That's what is happening. It's happening here in the South West too. All the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants in Sidmouth are now advertising for summer staff, just as they did last summer. And as was the case last summer the supply of labour will not meet the demand. So, as was the case last summer, a few places will close others will restrict their opening hours and others will stop serving food. No-one wins.

    What is happening, I think, is a reversion to an older structure of work. Because of rising wages at the very low end, the number of jobs in certain occupations will shrink, as the overall prices rise.

    The cost of personal service will go up. The days when a bunch of teenagers in a park will get pizza delivered to the tree they are sitting under is numbered.

    Something similar is being seen in much of the developed world. One suggestion is that COVID pushed the long term low paid out of the jobs they were in and forced them to look around. Another is that rising housing costs have finally broken something - even hideous HMOs are becoming expensive.

    Near where I live, Amazon are offering pay way above minimum wage to deliver the last mile. You get to drive the same van each day - your space. Sit in a comfortable cab - clean and dry. Deliver packages - with a low maximum weight. With that about - why would anyone want to wait tables?
    There are demographic trends at work here as well. Under employment is the big economic story no one wants to talk about. I know many local councils who are struggling to find staff at all levels - they can't compete financially with the private sector in the professions but the problem is now organisation-wide. Even filling low grade admin jobs is a problem and mnay are carrying 15-20% vacancies which impinges in areas like social work.
    And yet when South Cambridgeshire council tried to fix the problem with a 4 day week it was stamped upon immediately..
    Like working from home, they view it as a culture war issue
    Fixing the problem by moving to a four day week, working fewer hours, for no loss of pay and only for some workers.

    😂😂😂😂

    Was the difference between finding replacement workers or wasting £x000 advertising for jobs that got zero applications...
    Also have to say if you are spend £x000 advertising jobs then perhaps you are part of the problem. When companies I have worked for have needed workers they goto an agency. The agency then gets paid a percentage of the first years salary....when and only when they have supplied an applicant the company accept and employ. You don't need to put ads in the guardian and pay for no applicants you know.
    It's local Government.

    Spend £10,000 on an agency to find a member of staff and you are going to have awkward conversations with your voters...
    The point you seem to miss however that you only pay if they provide you a successful applicant and it is unlikely to be 10k, the average rate is usually 15 to 20% of first year salary. So to pay 10k you would have to be placing a 50k employee minimum. You seem to prefer to spend £x000 advertising and getting zero applicants instead.

    May be just me but isn't only spending when you get a successful applicant better than blowing £x000 for no applicants
    It's not a point I miss - its something I know would be used to attack the councillor next time round and your argument would simply result in the comment "your mate (the recruitment consultant) did well..

    Now I'm not arguing that using agencies to recruit staff is a bad idea, just that politically it's incredibly problematic...
    So define what you mean by £x000 which was in your first post? To me as a voter that would just say we wasted the money and got no one. Money down the drain
    Do you have the first idea who local Government / Civil service works. You know that to get a job an application form is required and needs to be completed by the applicant...
    You don't think agencies will do application forms?
    Well they can but as the applicant won't have filled it in, the form isn't valid....
    Dont talk bollocks I have applied via agencies where a form is required.....they want to interview me after the agency has put my cv in front of them I fill in the form and sign it digitally....it really isnt rocket science unless you are a public sector person
    For a permanent local authority or civil servant job?

    I don't believe you and remember I have always been talking about public sector work here...
    I have applied for jobs where they have for various reasons required forms to be filled in. Guess what they interviewed first and then said fill in the forms. There is absolutely no reason stopping the public sector doing the same unless they are so anal retentive that everyone has to fill in a form before we can even decide to interview them in which case they are wasteful arseholes.....interview first then even if you decide on a shortlist before final decision then you can interview a 100 decide on 5.

    This is just short sighted public sector wankery masquerading as a relevant process and why most of the private sector treats you with the withering scorn you deserve and thinks you waste our taxes for absolutely no reason
    So I'm right - you haven't had a public sector job and haven't got a clue why things are done the way they are in the public sector.

    You may not like it but this Tory Government has been in power 14 years (heck the Tories have been in power 32 of the last 45 years) and the one thing that no Government has done is change the way public sector recruitment is done.

    So

    1) I wonder why they do things the way they do?
    2) Why do you think even this Government hasn't changed the approach?
    3) Yet you know better even though you've provided no evidence to back that up...
    I have worked on public sector projects certainly and they were always the worst ones to work on because civil servants were in charge and didn't to be frank know their arse from their elbows

    However on the recruitment front

    explain to me why all applicants for a job have to fill out a form first before applying rather than narrowing down a couple of hundred applicants down to "These five we really like the look of" to progress to final interview you need to fill out this form?

    I have worked for firms where to get the job you needed developed vetting...guess what they didnt require all applicants to go through it, just the final few
    Yet more anecdotes that show you haven't got a clue how other things work and put in useless information for the sake of it.

    As for why its a form that's because the application process is based on questions -

    Identical questions on the form
    Identical questions at the interview

    The person who scores best across the form and the interview gets the job...
    No its the public sector that really doesn't have a clue, if I am replying to a job advert I know I am one of probably a hundred or more. Ask me to fill out a form to apply yeah not going to bother. Perhaps why as you say you have zero applicants....do a first interview then say you are on the short list of 5 fill out this form yes I will bother.

    The public sector acts like it is a privilege to working for them when they really are just another bunch of idiots
    So you ask 100 people to first interview, then ask the chosen five to fill out a form? And you’d do this for every public sector job?

    S
    It wasnt me saying they had zero applicants for the jobs they advertised, I was merely saying that to me fill out this form to apply would result in a fuck off not bothering, I suspect it puts off a lot of applicants. We have a cv we can send....yeah your form for a job where there might be a 100 other applicants not worth my time and effort

    Eek is claiming all 100 must fill out the form
    I thought the public sector was an el Dorado of cushy pay, conditions and pensions?

    Surely that's worth filling out a form for.

    (Which is not to say that creaky HR systems aren't an issue. But they're not the issue.)
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