People may despise the man, but they shouldn't think him stupid. He absolutely knew this info going into the press conference, and couldn't resist jumping the gun, which wasn't appropriate, but now he looks 'prescient', and those yelling at him have massive egg on their face.
He was not right and he doesn't now look prescient. The issue was his unseemly haste to politicise this tragedy with speculative pigeon-speak ramblings as to what caused it. It showed (as if it needed more showing) his unfitness for the presidency.
He sticks to the facts, but it looks very much like most of the blame lies with the helicopter pilot or with the protocols in place. The helicopter pilot twice confirmed that he had the plane in sight, and was further told by ATC to pass behind the plane when they appeared to be on a possible collision course. I'm not sure what more ATC could have done in this situation.
It seems he was talking about the wrong plane, so ATC could have tried to confirm it.
If there were two nearly planes, and ATC could see all three aircraft on radar, then it’s a communication failure.
“The conflict aircraft is at your 10 o’clock not your 2 o’clock” does the trick.
Would ATC have known which way the helicopter was facing? In the video, the helicopter appears to be manoevring in various directions before apparently ascending into the path of the plane.
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
People may despise the man, but they shouldn't think him stupid. He absolutely knew this info going into the press conference, and couldn't resist jumping the gun, which wasn't appropriate, but now he looks 'prescient', and those yelling at him have massive egg on their face.
The discriminatory hiring practices in US ATC (which, lets face it, is what they were) appear to have been made illegal by Congress in 2016.
It seems hard to believe that ATC is still affected at an operational level.
(Obviously everybody involved in this fiasco deserves every single bit of opprobrium thrown at them.)
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
People may despise the man, but they shouldn't think him stupid. He absolutely knew this info going into the press conference, and couldn't resist jumping the gun, which wasn't appropriate, but now he looks 'prescient', and those yelling at him have massive egg on their face.
The discriminatory hiring practices in US ATC (which, lets face it, is what they were) appear to have been made illegal by Congress in 2016.
It seems hard to believe that ATC is still affected at an operational level.
(Obviously everybody involved in this fiasco deserves every single bit of opprobrium thrown at them.)
People may despise the man, but they shouldn't think him stupid. He absolutely knew this info going into the press conference, and couldn't resist jumping the gun, which wasn't appropriate, but now he looks 'prescient', and those yelling at him have massive egg on their face.
The discriminatory hiring practices in US ATC (which, lets face it, is what they were) appear to have been made illegal by Congress in 2016.
It seems hard to believe that ATC is still affected at an operational level.
(Obviously everybody involved in this fiasco deserves every single bit of opprobrium thrown at them.)
Until the enquiry is complete, they really don't.
For clarity: by “fiasco” I meant the discriminatory hiring fiasco, not the current tragedy.
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
Can I just point out the CDU leader Merz is an idiot. Widely seen as arrogant, out of touch, thin-skinned and clumsy, he's also just rubbish at politics.
In the middle of a general election campaign, he's decided to pull a massive political stunt by putting forward rushed, unworkable legislation that has zero chance of becoming law any time soon. But it doesn't even make any sense as a political stunt, as all it achieves is to boost the AfD (unless that is his aim - I'm beginning to wonder), make the job of making a coalition after the election much more difficult, and upset lots of people in his own party.
Aiming for a coalition with the AfD rather than with more centrist parties would be the suspicion. He must have bunked off history lessons.
There's no chance of a coalition with the AfD after the next election. I've no idea what goes on in Merz's brain, but the CDU wouldn't allow it, it's a non-starter.
I get the impression that the "normal" politicians in Germany are flailing around, a bit, as here. They don't know what to do. Which is ripe for stupid decisions.
The AfD is considerably worse than Reform, I think.
Thoughts?
The AfD are composed of the people Farage is trying, with varying degrees of success, to keep out of Reform.
But while performing the complicated manoeuvre of having them still vote for him.
Agreed, but that might still be better than having them vote for something else. To my mind there is a clear divide between Farage and fascists. We need to be genuinely vigilant against the latter and call them out because they are genuinely dangerous and on the march, and it doesn't help that effort to try to tar rightwingers like Farage with the same brush.
I don't actually see much difference between Farage and the Braverman wing of the Tory party. He is closer in politics, to Starmer and Badenoch than Trump or the AfD despite his bromance with the orange one.
Hmm, I am not sure. The founder of UKIP, Alan Sked has said that Farage is a racist. Farage doesn't care about whipping up divisive hatred. I would say he is very very close to Trump in many ways. How much farther to the right the AfD are, I am not able to judge. I am right of centre in most of my politics, but I see Farage as an odious egotistical crypto-fascist.
How many of the following would Farage do:
Blatantly lie about an election result Encourage his supporters to attack the police Encourage his supporters to hang his deputy Blame minorities for an air crash within hours of it happening Threaten to invade Greenland
He is definitely unpleasant at times, likes a cheap shot, but that is true of plenty in all the established parties. He is closer to them than the likes of Trump.
How often has he really challenged Trump on these things? Not much that I have noticed. He is also a recidivist apologist for Putin, which in my opinion makes him scum of the earth.
He wants the Trump bromance. So do Starmer, Lammy and Mandelson whilst they are in power.
There's no doubt he's kissed the Trump ring (a phrase almost as discomfiting as 'that' photograph). Despite that Farage didn't get an invite to the Trump inauguration ceremony which suggests DJT doesn't see him as rich or influential enough. Of course Boris was there..
Yes I'm seeing that phrase a little too often for my liking. Can we not substitute with "genuflected in abject fashion" or something similar.
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
What the actual f***?
Can’t they just set up a recruitment centre in Manila? There would be a queue around the block for UK visas for care workers, most of whom would be qualified nurses and could work towards UK certification.
Charge £10k/year/dependent for visas.
They do recruit from Manila.
When my wife was in HR for the NHS she went, with a team, to the Phillipines to recruit nurses.
There was a queue round the block. People travelled for days from outer areas to get there.
Awesome! Something like 80% of the nurses in the sandpit are Filipinas, lovely people.
They're great. They also recruit from India. The nurses have to commit to 3 years in the region. Problem it a fair few of the Indian ones then move off to Leicester, Brum, London and other places with a large diaspora. The Filipino's tend to put down roots and stay. The Phillipines trains more nurses than they need and get paid a fee for the ones we take.
Works brilliantly and they are fantastic workers.
"The Philippines trains more nurses than they need" - hmmm. We have a shortage of training places for people who graduate with medical degrees.
Perhaps we could do a deal.
I have just said that. We do. Well South Tyneside and Sunderland Trust do.
Probably something other trusts could do as well.
I meant sending UK graduates to train in the Philippines. We have the bizarre situation that with a growing population, and growing NHS, we have a cap on the number of university places for medical studies. Based on having places for the graduates to train, afterwards.
Ah, got you, yes, why not. It would make sense and give the graduates a great life experience to boot.
Alternatively, stop nursing being a graduate level training, and go back to what it was in the good old days.
As noted her many times before, nursing degrees are largely vocational and focusing on the skills essential for the job. By all means move the courses out of universities, but what is actually taught wouldn't change much (and it might become less attractive as an option, not having a degree at the end of it).
(Source - I work in a department that runs nursing and midwifery degrees. I have lectured on the nursing courses, on the use and limitations of the National Early Warning Score - something nurses need to know - and a very brief bit about understanding research papers and knowing good research from crap. That latter bit is less relevant to the day to day job for many, but useful for the nurses who end up working in the community and getting asked about all kinds of fad treatments.)
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Apparently, the crops benefit from windbreaks, so it makes perfect sense to use solar panels for that purpose. The crops grow just as well, and there is still access for machinery.
I guess the panels are cheap enough now that it's fine to have them in a suboptimal orientation, particularly if that means you can also use the land for agriculture.
My only concern is that this could restrict a new generation of Theresa Mays from running through farmers' fields - or at least, limit them to a single direction
It looks to me like those panels are mounted on a tilting mechanism, so they can be stored vertically whilst the combine is in, but turned to a better angle when being used for generation.
However, I'm not quite sure this is more efficient than a field of solar panels and a field of wheat. No doubt someone has the numbers...
There are tools to help calculate yields on panels that follow the sun in one or two axes (ie did the calcs and said "not worth it at this point"). I have dealt with these around panels on house walls or flat roofs or in gardens. You may get up to an extra 30-35% of power very approximately.
Generally the extra complexity renders the benefit marginal over 2 or 3 decades due to wear and tear.
In this field case however ... hmmm. I think they may be better with them on taller frames not needing adjusting.
OTOH the better they are orientated, the more sunlight it will block.
People may despise the man, but they shouldn't think him stupid. He absolutely knew this info going into the press conference, and couldn't resist jumping the gun, which wasn't appropriate, but now he looks 'prescient', and those yelling at him have massive egg on their face.
He was not right and he doesn't now look prescient. The issue was his unseemly haste to politicise this tragedy with speculative pigeon-speak ramblings as to what caused it. It showed (as if it needed more showing) his unfitness for the presidency.
He sticks to the facts, but it looks very much like most of the blame lies with the helicopter pilot or with the protocols in place. The helicopter pilot twice confirmed that he had the plane in sight, and was further told by ATC to pass behind the plane when they appeared to be on a possible collision course. I'm not sure what more ATC could have done in this situation.
It seems he was talking about the wrong plane, so ATC could have tried to confirm it.
If there were two nearly planes, and ATC could see all three aircraft on radar, then it’s a communication failure.
“The conflict aircraft is at your 10 o’clock not your 2 o’clock” does the trick.
Would ATC have known which way the helicopter was facing? In the video, the helicopter appears to be manoevring in various directions before apparently ascending into the path of the plane.
They would know in which directing it’s travelling, as opposed to facing, which isn’t a subtle distiction when talking about a helicopter that can fly sideways at high speed.
IMHO there were a few seconds when a shouted radio message from someone might have led to one or other of the pilots avoiding the collision, but that’s what Americans would call Monday morning quarterbacking.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
Runcorn will be a must win for the Fukkers and a must avoid third place for the Kemical Brothers. Don't think it matters too much for Labour because their chance of holding it is 0%. Utter failure is already priced in.
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
I think it only makes a difference if they lose out to them at a “real” election. Then it will be panic stations and even Boris will be on the table.
I think Boris being leader at next GE is a good bet.
I have a few £ on that.
Then odds have to take account of the fact that therewould have to be a by-election in a seat where (a) Boris can win in principle (so not Bootle) and (b) he can actually beat the Reform candidate.
So basically it has to be a seat where Reform could win. Would Boris be up for that? It wouldn't be dull, and could deliver a knock out blow to whichever side came second.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
The number of flight slots at Reagan airport actually gets discussed by the US Senate, with of course Senators from almost everywhere wanting more of them to the closest airport to their offices.
The UK equivalent would be the MPs demanding one flight a minute into LCY, from every little regional airport in a country with no motorways and no railway lines. Because they all think LHR is too far away.
Also, Republican politics and what happened to the ATCs. Reagan isn't in the current mix just because he has the airport named after him. Some people on Pprune are of the view that US ATC never recovered from the mass sackings at that time - culture and staffing levels changed. IANAE though.
Obviously it has nothing to do with Ronald Reagan, there’s no-one involved in ATC now who was there four decades ago when the President took the nuclear option to resolve a labour dispute. That option wouldn’t be there now, as the airspace is so much busier and there are a lot of more civvy and a lot fewer mil controllers to take over.
The allegations are that there has been racial and ‘gender’ profiling in recruitment in recent years, which has led to staff shortages, and in common with most Biden-era agencies there’s plenty of public documents and videos saying that “aviation has a white man problem” and similar sentiments.
The NTSB investigation isn’t going to go into the hiring policies of the FAA, but it is very much going to go into staffing levels, shift patterns, and work hours at Reagan Airport. There’s been suggestions that ATC have been working 10h days and 6d weeks, which would be totally illegal in pretty much every other Western country.
I heard that a number of trans ATC workers had been asked to stop coming into work after Trump's first week, but don't know if that particulary had any impact on the staffing at this airport.
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
What the actual f***?
Can’t they just set up a recruitment centre in Manila? There would be a queue around the block for UK visas for care workers, most of whom would be qualified nurses and could work towards UK certification.
Charge £10k/year/dependent for visas.
They do recruit from Manila.
When my wife was in HR for the NHS she went, with a team, to the Phillipines to recruit nurses.
There was a queue round the block. People travelled for days from outer areas to get there.
Awesome! Something like 80% of the nurses in the sandpit are Filipinas, lovely people.
They're great. They also recruit from India. The nurses have to commit to 3 years in the region. Problem it a fair few of the Indian ones then move off to Leicester, Brum, London and other places with a large diaspora. The Filipino's tend to put down roots and stay. The Phillipines trains more nurses than they need and get paid a fee for the ones we take.
Works brilliantly and they are fantastic workers.
"The Philippines trains more nurses than they need" - hmmm. We have a shortage of training places for people who graduate with medical degrees.
Perhaps we could do a deal.
I have just said that. We do. Well South Tyneside and Sunderland Trust do.
Probably something other trusts could do as well.
I meant sending UK graduates to train in the Philippines. We have the bizarre situation that with a growing population, and growing NHS, we have a cap on the number of university places for medical studies. Based on having places for the graduates to train, afterwards.
Ah, got you, yes, why not. It would make sense and give the graduates a great life experience to boot.
Cross cultural learning, deep immersion in other cultures, post colonial restitution... paying a developing country, doing real healthcare while there, making up for the strip mining of medical staff from such countries & establishing a real working relationship with the medical structures in that country, not just recruiting their staff.
Sounds like DEI heaven, really.
It's not the daftest idea Sandpit has had. Well worth working out the detail of how it might operate.
He said Matt Gaetz was a good pick for Attorney General, so... no, not his daftest idea.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
So what you are saying is that sheep are the ChavScum of mythology?
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
So each mimunim wage worker brings an average of 1.7 dependents with them?
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
It sounds like a football hooligan outfit.
Or a white soul outfit who dress in sharp 60s suits and are great live.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
So each mimunim wage worker brings an average of 1.7 dependents with them?
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
So what you are saying is that sheep are the ChavScum of mythology?
That’s way over my head Malmsy. I think it’s more likely down the centuries village idiots have been inbreeding with them.
Their only pastime is eating, though they might be showing a bit of interest in radio five of late. Not sure if that means anything at all.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
So each mimunim wage worker brings an average of 1.7 dependents with them?
The old folk can wipe their own bums I guess.
More than 80% of the "bum wipers" are of UK origin.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
I recommend my default assumption for any assertion or piece of data that supports a right wing populist sentiment. It's wrong or grossly misleading.
They were being quite rude about that one on Ukraine the Latest, presumably yesterday.
Along the lines of "the mind boggles".
If this happens then Putin will have plucked an unlikely victory from the jaws of geopolitical defeat.
A war of aggression should not be rewarded with territorial concessions, but it’s understandable that if people really want it to stop, they may have to accept the status quo for a while. But the status quo also includes Russia being locked out of Western energy markets.
Utterly brain dead to suggest doing something that will simply fund military rebuilding and hasten the next Russian invasion in Eastern Europe.
No, it's strategic. Reform are the real enemy, not Labour, and boosting Reform is the best way to win over the centrist "stop Farage" voters.
That never works. Letting your enemy win on the assumption that they will frighten people to your side is naive. People might find they like it and do it again.
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
We are undergoing THE REFORMATION. There are parallels. For instance, the Tories are currently having to eat the Diet of Worms.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
So each mimunim wage worker brings an average of 1.7 dependents with them?
Arguably its like the bus. The number was wrong but its got us talking... Its interesting, as presumably most are wives/husbands and children, so there will be a component of extra need for education etc. In the main younger people tend to need less healthcare, but they ALL need somewhere to live in these crowded Isles.
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
Like Bucks Fizz are now The Fizz.
Why did Buck leave?
Bucks Fizz were formed by songwriters married couple Nichola Martin and Andy Hill as a vehicle for their song "Making Your Mind Up" to enter Eurovision, with Bobby G, Cheryl Baker, Mike Nolan and Jay Aston. This is the line-up people know.
They were then involved in a serious coach crash in Dec 1984, then internal tensions arose. Aston had been sleeping with Hill. Aston left and was replaced, the band had its last hit, but then the replacement then left. Baker left. Everything's gone down hill. Bobby G has ended up in charge. He and Nolan recruit two new girls (and G marries one of them), but Nolan then leaves. So far, this is a typical story of successful band reduced to one original member who is still touring playing the old hits.
OK, this is where it then gets complicated. G recruits David Van Day, who was half of Dollar. The partnership rapidly falters, and Van Day leaves... only for him to join up with Nolan. Nolan and Van Day start a rival Bucks Fizz. G sues, so the new group has to be called "Bucks Fizz starring Mike Nolan and featuring David Van Day". A few years later, Nolan's relationship with Van Day also falters, which leaves Van Day in charge of a group called Bucks Fizz without any members who had been in the band during their glory days. G + wife put together a new line-up. They go back to court. G wins the case. Van Day's band becomes "David Van Day's Bucks Fizz Show", and he soon gives up to reform Dollar.
Bobby G's Bucks Fizz potters along until 2018 in control of the name. Meanwhile, Nolan gets back together with original members Baker and Aston. (I'm skipping over some complicated stuff in 2004-9.) They don't own the name, so they (after another law suit) end up calling themselves the Fizz. They have enjoyed a modicum of success, more than the Bobby G band. However, Nolan has recently left the group, so it's Baker + Aston + some other people now.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
I recommend my default assumption for any assertion or piece of data that supports a right wing populist sentiment. It's wrong or grossly misleading.
I'd extend that to almost anything put out by any political party.
Can I just point out the CDU leader Merz is an idiot. Widely seen as arrogant, out of touch, thin-skinned and clumsy, he's also just rubbish at politics.
In the middle of a general election campaign, he's decided to pull a massive political stunt by putting forward rushed, unworkable legislation that has zero chance of becoming law any time soon. But it doesn't even make any sense as a political stunt, as all it achieves is to boost the AfD (unless that is his aim - I'm beginning to wonder), make the job of making a coalition after the election much more difficult, and upset lots of people in his own party.
Aiming for a coalition with the AfD rather than with more centrist parties would be the suspicion. He must have bunked off history lessons.
There's no chance of a coalition with the AfD after the next election. I've no idea what goes on in Merz's brain, but the CDU wouldn't allow it, it's a non-starter.
I get the impression that the "normal" politicians in Germany are flailing around, a bit, as here. They don't know what to do. Which is ripe for stupid decisions.
The AfD is considerably worse than Reform, I think.
Thoughts?
The AfD are composed of the people Farage is trying, with varying degrees of success, to keep out of Reform.
But while performing the complicated manoeuvre of having them still vote for him.
Agreed, but that might still be better than having them vote for something else. To my mind there is a clear divide between Farage and fascists. We need to be genuinely vigilant against the latter and call them out because they are genuinely dangerous and on the march, and it doesn't help that effort to try to tar rightwingers like Farage with the same brush.
It's an important distinction. Here is the list of points used on The Rest is Politics the other day as a template to apply to Trump's politics. It is from a poster that was on sale in the shop U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as "'Early Warning Signs Of Fascism'.
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scape-goats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/ avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labour suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.
I make Trump well on the way to 12-14 out of 14. Farage & Friends are more interesting, and are on a smaller scale with a number of fairly obvious trends (eg 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 12) but we have more protective bulwarks.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
For what it's worth this is the result in Welwyn Hatfield with change from 2023: LD 259(+83), Con 174 (-143), Lab 116(-223), Green 32 (+32). Lib Dem gain from Con.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
So each mimunim wage worker brings an average of 1.7 dependents with them?
Why minimum wage, some will be doctors? Can you even get a visa for a minimum wage job regardless of sector? Why not think before assuming things can be true?
I don’t think there’s been sufficient discussion of the Patel intervention.
Is it now Tory policy that the Boriswave was one of their proudest achievements? If so, we can really dispense with the idea that the Tories have any viable electoral future.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
Runcorn will be a must win for the Fukkers and a must avoid third place for the Kemical Brothers. Don't think it matters too much for Labour because their chance of holding it is 0%. Utter failure is already priced in.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
So each mimunim wage worker brings an average of 1.7 dependents with them?
Why minimum wage, some will be doctors? Can you even get a visa for a minimum wage job regardless of sector? Why not think before assuming things can be true?
For added fun.
1) Companies can basically issue visas 2) The value of such visas is into 5 figures - a legitimate work visa for the UK 3) Multiple companies have been caught lying and cheating - selling visas and screwing over the prospective workers. 4) How much is certifying such a company to be allowed to issue visas worth?
Follow the money.
Hey, but it's furriners that are getting bilked. Good for balance of payments, no?
Meanwhile, as Trump and Reform steamroller over the Earth and leave it less than before, some slightly happy news. Some of you may remember the outstanding fan-film "Astartes" from some years ago. I'm not a fan of its setting (the Warhammer 40K universe) but the animation was fantastic. The animator has just released a trailer for its sequel, "Astartes II". Something good to look forward to as the sun sets over the West...
People may despise the man, but they shouldn't think him stupid. He absolutely knew this info going into the press conference, and couldn't resist jumping the gun, which wasn't appropriate, but now he looks 'prescient', and those yelling at him have massive egg on their face.
He was not right and he doesn't now look prescient. The issue was his unseemly haste to politicise this tragedy with speculative pigeon-speak ramblings as to what caused it. It showed (as if it needed more showing) his unfitness for the presidency.
He sticks to the facts, but it looks very much like most of the blame lies with the helicopter pilot or with the protocols in place. The helicopter pilot twice confirmed that he had the plane in sight, and was further told by ATC to pass behind the plane when they appeared to be on a possible collision course. I'm not sure what more ATC could have done in this situation.
It seems he was talking about the wrong plane, so ATC could have tried to confirm it.
If there were two nearly planes, and ATC could see all three aircraft on radar, then it’s a communication failure.
“The conflict aircraft is at your 10 o’clock not your 2 o’clock” does the trick.
Would ATC have known which way the helicopter was facing? In the video, the helicopter appears to be manoevring in various directions before apparently ascending into the path of the plane.
They would know in which directing it’s travelling, as opposed to facing, which isn’t a subtle distiction when talking about a helicopter that can fly sideways at high speed.
IMHO there were a few seconds when a shouted radio message from someone might have led to one or other of the pilots avoiding the collision, but that’s what Americans would call Monday morning quarterbacking.
And if that had happened yesterday, and the accident avoided, then another incident would have occurred in a few months or years.
The more I hear about this (caveated with the fact there is little official information so far, which is good...), the more my view is that something like this was inevitable. It was going to happen; and as traffic to/from the airport and down the 'copter route increased, so did the chances of disaster.
There will be many causal factors in this incident; and the most important ones will not have occurred in the control tower or in either of the cockpits. They will be systematic issues.
One of the things the FAA should be doing as a priority is looking for other places where there are similar potential conflicts, and look for any whispers of near-misses. There might not be any, but if there are, then they need addressing.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
I recommend my default assumption for any assertion or piece of data that supports a right wing populist sentiment. It's wrong or grossly misleading.
I'd extend that to almost anything put out by any political party.
Always treat with caution, yes. But there is still (thankfully) a gap between them and the ragbag of twitter sources. Although perhaps not so much in America since the GOP submitted to Donald Trump.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
Why is it so hard to buy mutton or hogget these days? They are even more tasty than lamb, if cooked correctly.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
So each mimunim wage worker brings an average of 1.7 dependents with them?
The old folk can wipe their own bums I guess.
More than 80% of the "bum wipers" are of UK origin.
Precisely. That's why the UK has made the collective decision to pay the costs associated with the 20% who aren't rather than paying all of them more to attract more UK workers to the sector. You can say it's a rather cynical strategy, even short sighted perhaps, but we all know the accute fiscal pressures associated with an ageing society. The one thing we shouldn't do is act like these people are some kind of hostile invasion force. We have asked them to come here, to do jobs we won't pay much for, and we are lucky they said yes.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
Remember that mucho lamb goes into dog food !
I shall try and work out what proportion of UK food production is used on feeding pets. The kind of thing I dream of bringing up on Question Time to really ruffle some feathers.
The Conservatives are never going to beat Reform when half the party seems happy for Reform to win. They have to fight them!
No most Conservatives want to get rid of Starmer's useless government above all.
They don't disagree with Reform anywhere near as much as they do with Labour on most issues, other than Tories are a bit more soft Brexit and Reform a bit more hard Brexit
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
So each mimunim wage worker brings an average of 1.7 dependents with them?
Why minimum wage, some will be doctors? Can you even get a visa for a minimum wage job regardless of sector? Why not think before assuming things can be true?
For added fun.
1) Companies can basically issue visas 2) The value of such visas is into 5 figures - a legitimate work visa for the UK 3) Multiple companies have been caught lying and cheating - selling visas and screwing over the prospective workers. 4) How much is certifying such a company to be allowed to issue visas worth?
Follow the money.
Hey, but it's furriners that are getting bilked. Good for balance of payments, no?
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
It sounds like a football hooligan outfit.
Or a white soul outfit who dress in sharp 60s suits and are great live.
Yes more like that actually but I was keen to avoid anything that sounds appealing.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
That's a marketing issue. Sheep are excellent food, especially considering the amount of grass in their diet.
The Conservatives are never going to beat Reform when half the party seems happy for Reform to win. They have to fight them!
No most Conservatives want to get rid of Starmer's useless government above all.
They don't disagree with Reform anywhere near as much as they do with Labour on most issues, other than Tories are a bit more soft Brexit and Reform a bit more hard Brexit
They were being quite rude about that one on Ukraine the Latest, presumably yesterday.
Along the lines of "the mind boggles".
If this happens then Putin will have plucked an unlikely victory from the jaws of geopolitical defeat.
A war of aggression should not be rewarded with territorial concessions, but it’s understandable that if people really want it to stop, they may have to accept the status quo for a while. But the status quo also includes Russia being locked out of Western energy markets.
Utterly brain dead to suggest doing something that will simply fund military rebuilding and hasten the next Russian invasion in Eastern Europe.
Merz if he becomes Chancellor may block it, he is more anti Putin than Scholz and much more anti Putin than the AfD are and wants more German produced gas
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
That's a marketing issue. Sheep are excellent food, especially considering the amount of grass in their diet.
Sheep are also ideal for rearing on land unsuitable for arable or dairy.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
So each mimunim wage worker brings an average of 1.7 dependents with them?
Why minimum wage, some will be doctors? Can you even get a visa for a minimum wage job regardless of sector? Why not think before assuming things can be true?
For added fun.
1) Companies can basically issue visas 2) The value of such visas is into 5 figures - a legitimate work visa for the UK 3) Multiple companies have been caught lying and cheating - selling visas and screwing over the prospective workers. 4) How much is certifying such a company to be allowed to issue visas worth?
Follow the money.
Hey, but it's furriners that are getting bilked. Good for balance of payments, no?
Pause
Pause
The government has just given up on governing...
(PS where's your Blob article?)
The Blob article was impounded by a Quango, and is in enforced review for the next 27 years, pending its alignment with the policies of Good Government.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
So each mimunim wage worker brings an average of 1.7 dependents with them?
Arguably its like the bus. The number was wrong but its got us talking... Its interesting, as presumably most are wives/husbands and children, so there will be a component of extra need for education etc. In the main younger people tend to need less healthcare, but they ALL need somewhere to live in these crowded Isles.
It’s absolutely a housing problem. If there was loads of available and cheap housing, then awesome, come on in…
1 - The Usonians always overdo everything. 2 - The limit we have here - preference for a candidate with a preferred attribute if both are equally eligible - is as far as we can justifiably go in hiring decisions. *
* There are others things, such as eg peer networks of women, targeted training schemes, which are worth considering. But we don't generally have things here such as the Beta Phi Kappa type mafias founded in Universities (afaik).
1 - The Usonians always overdo everything. 2 - The limit we have here - preference for a candidate with a preferred attribute if both are equally eligible - is as far as we can justifiably go in hiring decisions. *
* There are others things, such as eg peer networks of women, targeted training schemes, which are worth considering. But we don't generally have things here such as the Beta Phi Kappa type mafias founded in Universities (afaik).
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
I recommend my default assumption for any assertion or piece of data that supports a right wing populist sentiment. It's wrong or grossly misleading.
Right wing populists use statistics as a drunk uses a lamppost - for support not illumination.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
That's a marketing issue. Sheep are excellent food, especially considering the amount of grass in their diet.
Sheep are also ideal for rearing on land unsuitable for arable or dairy.
Brilliantly suitable for land that is being used for solar panels (with a bit of ducting for wiring). The sheep keep the grass down, even in the fiddly bits under the panels, they like the shelter in bad weather and the presence of the sheep and shepard(s) keeps the place from "feeling abandoned" - which reduces vandalism.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
So each mimunim wage worker brings an average of 1.7 dependents with them?
Why minimum wage, some will be doctors? Can you even get a visa for a minimum wage job regardless of sector? Why not think before assuming things can be true?
For added fun.
1) Companies can basically issue visas 2) The value of such visas is into 5 figures - a legitimate work visa for the UK 3) Multiple companies have been caught lying and cheating - selling visas and screwing over the prospective workers. 4) How much is certifying such a company to be allowed to issue visas worth?
Follow the money.
Hey, but it's furriners that are getting bilked. Good for balance of payments, no?
Pause
Pause
The government has just given up on governing...
(PS where's your Blob article?)
The Blob article was impounded by a Quango, and is in enforced review for the next 27 years, pending its alignment with the policies of Good Government.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
That's a marketing issue. Sheep are excellent food, especially considering the amount of grass in their diet.
Sheep are also ideal for rearing on land unsuitable for arable or dairy.
This is the trouble with sheep. They take up a very large proportion of the UK's agricultural land, depend on large subsidies, and contribute little to overall calorie consumption. That compares with grains, which take up a remarkably small proportion of land and provide over 100% of the UK's demand for them.
If you were restart our agricultural policy from scratch, wiping centuries of custom and tradition, there is no way any government would set up a system like the one we have at the moment.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
I recommend my default assumption for any assertion or piece of data that supports a right wing populist sentiment. It's wrong or grossly misleading.
Right wing populists use statistics as a drunk uses a lamppost - for support not illumination.
Statistics are a lot like bikinis, what they reveal is interesting, what they hide is much more fascinating.
The Conservatives are never going to beat Reform when half the party seems happy for Reform to win. They have to fight them!
No most Conservatives want to get rid of Starmer's useless government above all.
They don't disagree with Reform anywhere near as much as they do with Labour on most issues, other than Tories are a bit more soft Brexit and Reform a bit more hard Brexit
That attitude will see you eaten alive by Reform.
Most Tories would rather even that than see Labour win another majority.
Though most likely they largely hold their current softer Brexit vote.
Indeed Electoral Calculus now forecasts 138 Conservative seats to 82 Reform MPs in a hung parliament even though Reform lead on average poll rating by 24% to 22.5% for the Conservatives
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
So each mimunim wage worker brings an average of 1.7 dependents with them?
Why minimum wage, some will be doctors? Can you even get a visa for a minimum wage job regardless of sector? Why not think before assuming things can be true?
For added fun.
1) Companies can basically issue visas 2) The value of such visas is into 5 figures - a legitimate work visa for the UK 3) Multiple companies have been caught lying and cheating - selling visas and screwing over the prospective workers. 4) How much is certifying such a company to be allowed to issue visas worth?
Follow the money.
Hey, but it's furriners that are getting bilked. Good for balance of payments, no?
Pause
Pause
The government has just given up on governing...
(PS where's your Blob article?)
The Blob article was impounded by a Quango, and is in enforced review for the next 27 years, pending its alignment with the policies of Good Government.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
That's a marketing issue. Sheep are excellent food, especially considering the amount of grass in their diet.
Sheep are also ideal for rearing on land unsuitable for arable or dairy.
1 - The Usonians always overdo everything. 2 - The limit we have here - preference for a candidate with a preferred attribute if both are equally eligible - is as far as we can justifiably go in hiring decisions. *
* There are others things, such as eg peer networks of women, targeted training schemes, which are worth considering. But we don't generally have things here such as the Beta Phi Kappa type mafias founded in Universities (afaik).
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
That's a marketing issue. Sheep are excellent food, especially considering the amount of grass in their diet.
Sheep are also ideal for rearing on land unsuitable for arable or dairy.
This is the trouble with sheep. They take up a very large proportion of the UK's agricultural land, depend on large subsidies, and contribute little to overall calorie consumption. That compares with cereals, which take up a remarkably small proportion of land and provide over 100% of the UK's demand for them.
If you were restart our agricultural policy from scratch, wiping centuries of custom and tradition, there is no way any government would set up a system like the one we have at the moment.
Sheep are really a default way of keeping land tidy. Von Neumann machines applied to lawn mowing.
Suspect Reform will be jumping on stuff like this as it is just not sustainable. Should say that the figures don't correlate, as the dependant could be from previous year, but it is the picture it paints. Figures from Home Office visa tables.
Karl Williams @MalvernianKarl · 17h Apropos of nothing, in the first six months of 2024, we gave out 1,063 health & care visas to workers from Zimbabwe. They brought with them 10,670 dependants. That's 10 dependants for every (likely minimum wage) social care worker.
They certainly should be all over this. All to save a few quid an hour. 10 dependents per person. What a crock. Absolute insanity. Well done Tory Party you deserve to be out of power for a long term. How much will these dependents cost the taxpayer.
What sort of system allows someone to bring in 10 dependents ?!?
I'd love to see the source for this, because I very much doubt the numbers are as presented.
He posts the link in the twitter thread. It is on a dataset on a govt website. I cannot link to it at work. Perhaps someone else can ?
My guess is the dependents are mostly linked to workers who came earlier, presumably in greater numbers. It's not credible that these 1000 workers all had 10 dependents, as is claimed here. Or perhaps the dependents are related to a bigger group, eg all visa holders from Zimbabwe. AIUI it's generally quite hard to bringin dependents other than spouses and children, and it seems unlikely that these workers had 9 children on average. But I stand ready to be corrected.
Right, I have looked at the data. It's pretty obvious the dependents are arriving with a delay of a few months or quarters, as you might expect. The number of workers arriving has fallen from 6,494 in Q1 2023 to 451 in Q3 2024. The number of dependents only peaked in Q1 2024 at 8,475 and since then has fallen to 1,772. Over the 2023 to 2024 period as a whole there were 20,238 workers and 37,341 dependents, a ratio of less than 2:1 and a much more plausible looking number. Don't believe everything you read on X.
I recommend my default assumption for any assertion or piece of data that supports a right wing populist sentiment. It's wrong or grossly misleading.
Right wing populists use statistics as a drunk uses a lamppost - for support not illumination.
I don't think that's limited to right wing populists, to be fair.
People with limited grasp of data (or morals) will misuse figures in a way that suits their agenda, whatever their political inclination.
A tenth of British Farmland to be repurposed for net zero
Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production.
Meanwhile from 2022 to 2032 our population will grow by 5 Million people.
‘Brutal Budget has hurt farming’ Tom Bradshaw, president of the NFU, said it was “imperative this framework does not further restrict farmers’ ability to produce the nation’s food”. “Over the past 18 months, the UK farming industry has taken a battering,” he said. “Volatile input costs, commodity prices on the floor in some sectors, a reduction in direct payments, one of the wettest periods in decades, and a brutal Budget delivered by this Government. All have left their mark and have put homegrown food production under serious pressure.” The Government believes food production can be largely maintained at current levels by focusing on removing only the least productive land. About 20 per cent of England’s farmed land produces just 3 per cent of total calories, in areas where subsidies have historically accounted for 90 per cent of farm incomes.
Farmers getting 90% of their income from subsidies is totally disgusting.
Any other industry, and they'd have been shut down decades ago by the Thatcher government.
Well apart from the public sector which also gets its funding from the government.
Which is effectively what managing unprofitable land use is in this country.
The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.
Whether having Upper Swaledale so covered is a good idea is open for debate.
“The farmers are being funded so that tourists can see sheep in fields surrounded by dry stone walls.”
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
I'm going to try and calculate what proportion of UK calorie consumption is British lamb & mutton. I'd guess 0.5%.
That's a marketing issue. Sheep are excellent food, especially considering the amount of grass in their diet.
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
Like Bucks Fizz are now The Fizz.
Why did Buck leave?
Bobby G left to pursue other options. He said ‘it’s no big deal to take a chance against the odds’
1 - The Usonians always overdo everything. 2 - The limit we have here - preference for a candidate with a preferred attribute if both are equally eligible - is as far as we can justifiably go in hiring decisions. *
* There are others things, such as eg peer networks of women, targeted training schemes, which are worth considering. But we don't generally have things here such as the Beta Phi Kappa type mafias founded in Universities (afaik).
The Americans love solution that consist of a patch on top of a patch on top of a patch on top of a problem. Problem not fixed? Well this patch will fix it....
Which is how cost plus contracting came to be a default for government. Read the FAR regulations at your risk. Even a Lensman from EE Smith could lose his sanity.
Comments
It seems hard to believe that ATC is still affected at an operational level.
(Obviously everybody involved in this fiasco deserves every single bit of opprobrium thrown at them.)
https://x.com/luketryl/status/1885272533269680266
We tend to focus on individual polls which look interesting - but much more significant and easily missed - I think this is the first week when *every* poll released (from across 7 pollsters) has had the Reform ahead of the Conservatives.
I have a few £ on that.
(Source - I work in a department that runs nursing and midwifery degrees. I have lectured on the nursing courses, on the use and limitations of the National Early Warning Score - something nurses need to know - and a very brief bit about understanding research papers and knowing good research from crap. That latter bit is less relevant to the day to day job for many, but useful for the nurses who end up working in the community and getting asked about all kinds of fad treatments.)
Generally the extra complexity renders the benefit marginal over 2 or 3 decades due to wear and tear.
In this field case however ... hmmm. I think they may be better with them on taller frames not needing adjusting.
OTOH the better they are orientated, the more sunlight it will block.
IMHO there were a few seconds when a shouted radio message from someone might have led to one or other of the pilots avoiding the collision, but that’s what Americans would call Monday morning quarterbacking.
Infamy ! Infamy !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_hWVwS-BNA
So basically it has to be a seat where Reform could win. Would Boris be up for that? It wouldn't be dull, and could deliver a knock out blow to whichever side came second.
I’m getting more sheep, and it’s not for benefit of tourists, but the UK food chain because I believe in eat local. We don’t get any tourists driving past taking pictures of sheep.
Nor is for the love of sheep - though maybe I should phrase it different than that. Sheep are boring. They are also weird and stupid, like they give birth and stand there stunned sometimes doing nothing like they didn’t even know they were pregnant or a clue what’s happening or want any part in parenting. 🐑🤦♀️
https://x.com/marionawfal/status/1884632713895846146
Along the lines of "the mind boggles".
https://conservativehome.com/2025/01/31/james-ford-the-conservatives-smartest-move-in-any-runcorn-by-election-leave-it-to-reform/
Don't believe everything you read on X.
As for my son, well...
Blimey! LHR could get its 3rd runway by then (joke!)
Their only pastime is eating, though they might be showing a bit of interest in radio five of late. Not sure if that means anything at all.
A war of aggression should not be rewarded with territorial concessions, but it’s understandable that if people really want it to stop, they may have to accept the status quo for a while. But the status quo also includes Russia being locked out of Western energy markets.
Utterly brain dead to suggest doing something that will simply fund military rebuilding and hasten the next Russian invasion in Eastern Europe.
“When you look at the draw for both Aston Villa and Liverpool, it's very favourable”
Correct me if I don’t understand the route, but increasingly in form increasingly dangerous PSG in last 16 won’t be remotely favourable 🤷♀️
Boris also massively expanded non EU immigration.
Voters wanting a harder line on immigration would prefer a Farage premiership propped up by Kemi now than Boris PM again
They were then involved in a serious coach crash in Dec 1984, then internal tensions arose. Aston had been sleeping with Hill. Aston left and was replaced, the band had its last hit, but then the replacement then left. Baker left. Everything's gone down hill. Bobby G has ended up in charge. He and Nolan recruit two new girls (and G marries one of them), but Nolan then leaves. So far, this is a typical story of successful band reduced to one original member who is still touring playing the old hits.
OK, this is where it then gets complicated. G recruits David Van Day, who was half of Dollar. The partnership rapidly falters, and Van Day leaves... only for him to join up with Nolan. Nolan and Van Day start a rival Bucks Fizz. G sues, so the new group has to be called "Bucks Fizz starring Mike Nolan and featuring David Van Day". A few years later, Nolan's relationship with Van Day also falters, which leaves Van Day in charge of a group called Bucks Fizz without any members who had been in the band during their glory days. G + wife put together a new line-up. They go back to court. G wins the case. Van Day's band becomes "David Van Day's Bucks Fizz Show", and he soon gives up to reform Dollar.
Bobby G's Bucks Fizz potters along until 2018 in control of the name. Meanwhile, Nolan gets back together with original members Baker and Aston. (I'm skipping over some complicated stuff in 2004-9.) They don't own the name, so they (after another law suit) end up calling themselves the Fizz. They have enjoyed a modicum of success, more than the Bobby G band. However, Nolan has recently left the group, so it's Baker + Aston + some other people now.
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scape-goats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/ avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labour suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.
I make Trump well on the way to 12-14 out of 14. Farage & Friends are more interesting, and are on a smaller scale with a number of fairly obvious trends (eg 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 12) but we have more protective bulwarks.
Full text with descriptions: https://secularhumanism.org/2003/03/fascism-anyone/
Is it now Tory policy that the Boriswave was one of their proudest achievements? If so, we can really dispense with the idea that the Tories have any viable electoral future.
RIP Tories, 1834-202?
1) Companies can basically issue visas
2) The value of such visas is into 5 figures - a legitimate work visa for the UK
3) Multiple companies have been caught lying and cheating - selling visas and screwing over the prospective workers.
4) How much is certifying such a company to be allowed to issue visas worth?
Follow the money.
Hey, but it's furriners that are getting bilked. Good for balance of payments, no?
The more I hear about this (caveated with the fact there is little official information so far, which is good...), the more my view is that something like this was inevitable. It was going to happen; and as traffic to/from the airport and down the 'copter route increased, so did the chances of disaster.
There will be many causal factors in this incident; and the most important ones will not have occurred in the control tower or in either of the cockpits. They will be systematic issues.
One of the things the FAA should be doing as a priority is looking for other places where there are similar potential conflicts, and look for any whispers of near-misses. There might not be any, but if there are, then they need addressing.
The one thing we shouldn't do is act like these people are some kind of hostile invasion force. We have asked them to come here, to do jobs we won't pay much for, and we are lucky they said yes.
They don't disagree with Reform anywhere near as much as they do with Labour on most issues, other than Tories are a bit more soft Brexit and Reform a bit more hard Brexit
Pause
The government has just given up on governing...
(PS where's your Blob article?)
and wants more German produced gas
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/german-opposition-leader-vows-build-50-gas-fired-power-plants-if-elected-2025-01-19/
Didn't you know about the outsourcing of visas? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-68337205
1 - The Usonians always overdo everything.
2 - The limit we have here - preference for a candidate with a preferred attribute if both are equally eligible - is as far as we can justifiably go in hiring decisions. *
* There are others things, such as eg peer networks of women, targeted training schemes, which are worth considering. But we don't generally have things here such as the Beta Phi Kappa type mafias founded in Universities (afaik).
1 - The Usonians always overdo everything.
2 - The limit we have here - preference for a candidate with a preferred attribute if both are equally eligible - is as far as we can justifiably go in hiring decisions. *
* There are others things, such as eg peer networks of women, targeted training schemes, which are worth considering. But we don't generally have things here such as the Beta Phi Kappa type mafias founded in Universities (afaik).
If you were restart our agricultural policy from scratch, wiping centuries of custom and tradition, there is no way any government would set up a system like the one we have at the moment.
Though most likely they largely hold their current softer Brexit vote.
Indeed Electoral Calculus now forecasts 138 Conservative seats to 82 Reform MPs in a hung parliament even though Reform lead on average poll rating by 24% to 22.5% for the Conservatives
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
People with limited grasp of data (or morals) will misuse figures in a way that suits their agenda, whatever their political inclination.
Which is how cost plus contracting came to be a default for government. Read the FAR regulations at your risk. Even a Lensman from EE Smith could lose his sanity.