When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We've had an inflow of 17 million migrants since the year 2000. Are you saying that even with those 17 million we wouldn't have enough employees/workers without additional migration?
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
My current pay rate for doing care work is zero, as is Mrs Flatlander's.
She even gets to wipe arses instead of charging her clients (although as pointed out, this is about 1% of the job).
The reality is that a vast amount of care is done within families mostly unrewarded and unnoticed by the authorities.
Which is precisely what Ed Davey says in his book. Care is a balance between family, social provision and the private sector. His view is that you need to provide support to all carers as well as giving as much autonomy as you can to those being cared for. It's not a question of any single policy- it's the mix.
Yougov have Reform 28%, Labour 23%, Con 18%, Lib Dem 16%, Green 9%.
I’d love to see a Lib Dem / Tory crossover, even if only briefly. It’s within touching distance.
That’s LLG 48 RefCon 46, so a slight lead for the out of touch liberal woke elites.
It’s SPLORG 59 LabCon 41
The Lib Dems did, of course, finish ahead of the Tories in the recent local elections.
As far as national polling goes, there've been two polls to have the Lib Dems just one point behind the Tories: the previous YouGov (C 17, LD 16), and the most recent FON (C 16, LD 15).
The next GE is four years away, and no-one as a clue of course what it will be like. But at the moment all the parties and targets are moving. There are two 'finishing points' which would bring some clarity to the issues in the next election. One would be the decline and collapse of Reform and a return to an election in which the principle contests were Lab v Con and LD v Con with little overlap. Unlikely but not impossible.
The other neat contest with clarity would be LD v Reform. I don't think this is impossible either. Momentum is clearly building behind Reform being a main challenger. Lab and Con are truly tarnished. LDs, Lab and One Nationers getting behind the LDs would make sense.
Socialists won't vote LD over Labour or Green after the Tory and LD coalition a decade ago.
Leavers generally won't vote LD at a general election after their rejoin EU attempt to overturn Brexit in 2019, there aren't enough prosperous home counties seats for the LDs to challenge Reform for government
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We've had an inflow of 17 million migrants since the year 2000. Are you saying that even with those 17 million we wouldn't have enough employees/workers without additional migration?
I'm not sure what your numbers refer to. The non UK born population in 2021 was 10 million, up from 5 million in 2001. That's an increase of 5 million, and includes British citizens born overseas (like two of my children).
My question: what percentage of the UK population in 2025 comprises the same people as in the year 2000?
Answer: "Given the continuous growth of the population, it's likely that a relatively small percentage of the 2000 population is still alive and residing in the UK in 2025."
Relative to what? Of course it is not a small percentage, but it may be relatively small if you compare it to a higher number or expectations.
Back of the envelope, from the 2000 population maybe 12 million have died and a few million more left. So 40-45 million still here which gives around 60%.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
In a sane world, at least part of the answer would be that more domestic labour will become available as a result of AI, and that care workers will be among the last whose jobs will be automated away. But that solution depends on a mechanism for getting money from increased company profits into funding for care workers. I hope the government is working on developing a plan, because there's no doubt that Farage will be peddling some simplistic but superficially appealing plan by 2029.
Solution. Far fewer degrees, slim down the universities.
The reason degrees aren't as useful/marketable as they used to be is because so many more people have them today compared to 40 or 50 years ago. That isn't unfair, it's what happens with anything that becomes more common and therefore less valuable. Seems a bit silly to complain about a fact of life in this way.
Yes and no. One of the justifications for expanding higher education was because people with degrees are paid more, and innumerate politicians did not think it through. Although tbh I suspect the real reasons were that New Labour were themselves middle class graduates who wanted us to be more like them and Britain to be more like America where going to "college" is normal.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
Care requires zero qualifications and 81% of the UK work in the Service Sector.
Maybe if care homes paid the people cleaning the shit off your elderly relative more than a coffee shop pays a barista or a restaurant pays wait staff, then they'd be able to find people who can fill the vacancies.
Why do you think so little of the people cleaning the shit off your elderly relative that you think they have no right to any more than minimum wage?
And we can automate away barista jobs etc by investing in machinery that does the work.
Care work involves far more than “cleaning the shit off your elderly relative”, although that is part of it. Your focus on demeans and dehumanises the residents.
(In the case of supermarkets in particular, it’s not so much the wages as the consistent hours and better shifts with less physical work).
It's of interest that, in Japan, there is very considerable investment in attempting to automate parts of care.
My sister-in-law worked in a care/medical facility for a while. Among other things, they were trialling a Japanese robot which lifted patients (elderly, mostly). So instead of 2 carers, plus one supervising, a single care person could monitor the robot doing the lift. It was also, so she said, more comfortable for the patients.
Mrs Flatlander did a course this week on lifting (using a hoist) as we've had to resort to using one now.
[She was the only family carer there. 7/12 of the trainees were "sponsored" by the home office.]
It can technically be done solo although normally you would get two people if it was a scheduled visit.
The equipment is definitely better than it used to be although it isn't cheap.
Incidentally, the tutor said they had to deal with a 66 stone patient that took 8 people to lift if manual handling was required. Fortunately it wasn't that often as they do now have suitable equipment. This was an extreme case but they do have a lot of overweight patients.
Perhaps the new drugs will help with these problems.
My question: what percentage of the UK population in 2025 comprises the same people as in the year 2000?
Answer: "Given the continuous growth of the population, it's likely that a relatively small percentage of the 2000 population is still alive and residing in the UK in 2025."
Relative to what? Of course it is not a small percentage, but it may be relatively small if you compare it to a higher number or expectations.
Back of the envelope, from the 2000 population maybe 12 million have died and a few million more left. So 40-45 million still here which gives around 60%.
And 15 million born here since another 25-30% or so.
Yougov have Reform 28%, Labour 23%, Con 18%, Lib Dem 16%, Green 9%.
I’d love to see a Lib Dem / Tory crossover, even if only briefly. It’s within touching distance.
That’s LLG 48 RefCon 46, so a slight lead for the out of touch liberal woke elites.
It’s SPLORG 59 LabCon 41
The Lib Dems did, of course, finish ahead of the Tories in the recent local elections.
As far as national polling goes, there've been two polls to have the Lib Dems just one point behind the Tories: the previous YouGov (C 17, LD 16), and the most recent FON (C 16, LD 15).
In times past the LibDems, Alliance or even the SDP or Liberals on their own have had 'breaking the mould' type of numbers in the polls. Is Reform any different?
The Lib/SDP/Alliance had a competent, disciplined, serious Conservative Party to deal with, not the pathetic rabble of a Conservative Party today.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
In a sane world, at least part of the answer would be that more domestic labour will become available as a result of AI, and that care workers will be among the last whose jobs will be automated away. But that solution depends on a mechanism for getting money from increased company profits into funding for care workers. I hope the government is working on developing a plan, because there's no doubt that Farage will be peddling some simplistic but superficially appealing plan by 2029.
Why would AI efficiencies lead to permanently higher profits? Give competition it should lead to similar profits and lower prices, at least after any first-mover advantage.
I'm just reading about the end of the Ming dynasty.
The Chongzhen Emperor's efforts to reform and save the empire failed because (amongst other things) he "sought only instant successes and simple solutions".
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We've had an inflow of 17 million migrants since the year 2000. Are you saying that even with those 17 million we wouldn't have enough employees/workers without additional migration?
Enough as in what? If we insisted on national service in care homes we would clearly have enough. If we insist on paying NMW or a tiny fraction above, then no, we don't have enough because there are better NMW jobs out there.
So we can pay more, which requires tax raises, or import labour. We can't magic the problem away.
The only proper solution to systemic vacancies is to pay more.
Importing labour just sees those imported choose to get any other job as why shouldn't they if there's better NMW jobs out there?
Especially if you've paid £15,000 to buy a visa, you don't want to be stuck on NMW for long if you can avoid it.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
My question: what percentage of the UK population in 2025 comprises the same people as in the year 2000?
Answer: "Given the continuous growth of the population, it's likely that a relatively small percentage of the 2000 population is still alive and residing in the UK in 2025."
Think about what would be the answer to that question, had there been no immigration or emigration at all. And have a go at answering it yourself.
I'm just reading about the end of the Ming dynasty.
The Chongzhen Emperor's efforts to reform and save the empire failed because (amongst other things) he "sought only instant successes and simple solutions".
Are you saying the Ming vase strategy didn't even work back then?
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
It's a lot of money, but it's not expensive.
It is if you're paying it yourself. And that's the cheaper end of the market, I think ?
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
It's a lot of money, but it's not expensive.
Bathrooms are typically communal, not en-suite.
62% are en suite. In addition, many in new care homes are en suite wet rooms:
I'm just reading about the end of the Ming dynasty.
The Chongzhen Emperor's efforts to reform and save the empire failed because (amongst other things) he "sought only instant successes and simple solutions".
Are you saying the Ming vase strategy didn't even work back then?
Hardly that. He changed his senior officials yearly, as the schemes failed. Half of them were removed via execution.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We've had an inflow of 17 million migrants since the year 2000. Are you saying that even with those 17 million we wouldn't have enough employees/workers without additional migration?
Enough as in what? If we insisted on national service in care homes we would clearly have enough. If we insist on paying NMW or a tiny fraction above, then no, we don't have enough because there are better NMW jobs out there.
So we can pay more, which requires tax raises, or import labour. We can't magic the problem away.
The only proper solution to systemic vacancies is to pay more.
Importing labour just sees those imported choose to get any other job as why shouldn't they if there's better NMW jobs out there?
Especially if you've paid £15,000 to buy a visa, you don't want to be stuck on NMW for long if you can avoid it.
A lot of countries tie visa to specific jobs/industries so that can be done.
I think we should increase their pay significantly but yet to be convinced of an electorally plausible route of that happening. Saying what the government should do is easy, saying what they should do and can do electorally is far harder.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We've had an inflow of 17 million migrants since the year 2000. Are you saying that even with those 17 million we wouldn't have enough employees/workers without additional migration?
UK Pop in 2000 = 58mn: 2023 = 68mn. Seem to have lost a few or is the black economy blacker than we think.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We've had an inflow of 17 million migrants since the year 2000. Are you saying that even with those 17 million we wouldn't have enough employees/workers without additional migration?
UK Pop in 2000 = 58mn: 2023 = 68mn. Seem to have lost a few or is the black economy blacker than we think.
People leave as well as arrive. 17 million not a net figure.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
It's a lot of money, but it's not expensive.
It is if you're paying it yourself. And that's the cheaper end of the market, I think ?
That's about what councils pay so yes, the cheaper end of the market.
I have a relative in one which is £7000 a month. It's a wonderful place.
That is roughly £1000 state pension, £1200 private pension, £800 various state benefits, and the rest from the sale of the house and interest thereon.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We've had an inflow of 17 million migrants since the year 2000. Are you saying that even with those 17 million we wouldn't have enough employees/workers without additional migration?
UK Pop in 2000 = 58mn: 2023 = 68mn. Seem to have lost a few or is the black economy blacker than we think.
About 8 million people have left since the year 2000, probably to places like Aus, NZ, Canada, etc. That's why 60+17-8+69 million, the current population.
My question: what percentage of the UK population in 2025 comprises the same people as in the year 2000?
Answer: "Given the continuous growth of the population, it's likely that a relatively small percentage of the 2000 population is still alive and residing in the UK in 2025."
Relative to what? Of course it is not a small percentage, but it may be relatively small if you compare it to a higher number or expectations.
Back of the envelope, from the 2000 population maybe 12 million have died and a few million more left. So 40-45 million still here which gives around 60%.
Your envelope underestimates deaths. Given the well-known fact that everyone lives to 75 and promptly carks it, and 25 years is one third of 75 years, it follows that one third of the 2000 population will have died, which is a sight more than 12 million. (Of course life expectancy does not work like that but...)
I'm just reading about the end of the Ming dynasty.
The Chongzhen Emperor's efforts to reform and save the empire failed because (amongst other things) he "sought only instant successes and simple solutions".
Are you saying the Ming vase strategy didn't even work back then?
Hardly that. He changed his senior officials yearly, as the schemes failed. Half of them were removed via execution.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
It's a lot of money, but it's not expensive.
It is if you're paying it yourself. And that's the cheaper end of the market, I think ?
That's about what councils pay so yes, the cheaper end of the market.
I have a relative in one which is £7000 a month. It's a wonderful place.
That is roughly £1000 state pension, £1200 private pension, £800 various state benefits, and the rest from the sale of the house and interest thereon.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We've had an inflow of 17 million migrants since the year 2000. Are you saying that even with those 17 million we wouldn't have enough employees/workers without additional migration?
Enough as in what? If we insisted on national service in care homes we would clearly have enough. If we insist on paying NMW or a tiny fraction above, then no, we don't have enough because there are better NMW jobs out there.
So we can pay more, which requires tax raises, or import labour. We can't magic the problem away.
The only proper solution to systemic vacancies is to pay more.
Importing labour just sees those imported choose to get any other job as why shouldn't they if there's better NMW jobs out there?
Especially if you've paid £15,000 to buy a visa, you don't want to be stuck on NMW for long if you can avoid it.
A lot of countries tie visa to specific jobs/industries so that can be done.
I think we should increase their pay significantly but yet to be convinced of an electorally plausible route of that happening. Saying what the government should do is easy, saying what they should do and can do electorally is far harder.
Australia for example tie immigration to a specific geography. So you have to stay in a particular state for a period. Visa's for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland only might solve some of the nativist concerns.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
It's a lot of money, but it's not expensive.
It is if you're paying it yourself. And that's the cheaper end of the market, I think ?
That's about what councils pay so yes, the cheaper end of the market.
I have a relative in one which is £7000 a month. It's a wonderful place.
That is roughly £1000 state pension, £1200 private pension, £800 various state benefits, and the rest from the sale of the house and interest thereon.
Having a beer right by the centre of the universe (according to Salvador Dali after an experience of cosmogonic ecstasy here in 1963), La Gare de Perpignan
Does Freshwater/CityAM count as an accepted pollster? Not sure I've heard of them before.
"Since last month’s survey, Keir Starmer’s net approval rating has seen a modest improvement from -39 to -36 while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s has slumped from -12 to -15. Meanwhile, Farage’s rating has jumped from -12 to just minus eight, while Reform UK now tops the voting intention survey at 32 per cent. Labour comes second on 22 per cent – down 13 points since their election victory last summer – while the Conservatives are on 19 per cent, just ahead of the Lib Dems on 15 per cent."
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
It's a lot of money, but it's not expensive.
It is if you're paying it yourself. And that's the cheaper end of the market, I think ?
That's about what councils pay so yes, the cheaper end of the market.
I have a relative in one which is £7000 a month. It's a wonderful place.
That is roughly £1000 state pension, £1200 private pension, £800 various state benefits, and the rest from the sale of the house and interest thereon.
Seeing that does encourage me to save...
£7,000 a month?!
Bottom rung is about £4500 as discussed above.
The bottom rung is more than my take home salary and I am a higher rate taxpayer. Christ
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We've had an inflow of 17 million migrants since the year 2000. Are you saying that even with those 17 million we wouldn't have enough employees/workers without additional migration?
UK Pop in 2000 = 58mn: 2023 = 68mn. Seem to have lost a few or is the black economy blacker than we think.
People leave as well as arrive. 17 million not a net figure.
It's a meaningless number. I lived in the US for five years, and now I've left. So my impact on the current US labour market is zero. The only number that counts is the net increase.
My question: what percentage of the UK population in 2025 comprises the same people as in the year 2000?
Answer: "Given the continuous growth of the population, it's likely that a relatively small percentage of the 2000 population is still alive and residing in the UK in 2025."
Relative to what? Of course it is not a small percentage, but it may be relatively small if you compare it to a higher number or expectations.
Back of the envelope, from the 2000 population maybe 12 million have died and a few million more left. So 40-45 million still here which gives around 60%.
Your envelope underestimates deaths. Given the well-known fact that everyone lives to 75 and promptly carks it, and 25 years is one third of 75 years, it follows that one third of the 2000 population will have died, which is a sight more than 12 million. (Of course life expectancy does not work like that but...)
Does Freshwater/CityAM count as an accepted pollster? Not sure I've heard of them before.
"Since last month’s survey, Keir Starmer’s net approval rating has seen a modest improvement from -39 to -36 while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s has slumped from -12 to -15. Meanwhile, Farage’s rating has jumped from -12 to just minus eight, while Reform UK now tops the voting intention survey at 32 per cent. Labour comes second on 22 per cent – down 13 points since their election victory last summer – while the Conservatives are on 19 per cent, just ahead of the Lib Dems on 15 per cent."
Probabilities implied by betting odds aren't really probabilities. But nice charts.
That's a bold statement since the definition of a set of probabilities is pretty much a bunch of non-negative numbers that add up to 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_axioms. We must ignore the overround of course.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
It's a lot of money, but it's not expensive.
It is if you're paying it yourself. And that's the cheaper end of the market, I think ?
That's about what councils pay so yes, the cheaper end of the market.
I have a relative in one which is £7000 a month. It's a wonderful place.
That is roughly £1000 state pension, £1200 private pension, £800 various state benefits, and the rest from the sale of the house and interest thereon.
Seeing that does encourage me to save...
£7,000 a month?!
Look at it this way, how much is your rent/mortgage plus employing a couple of assistants one of whom has to cover the night shift....
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We've had an inflow of 17 million migrants since the year 2000. Are you saying that even with those 17 million we wouldn't have enough employees/workers without additional migration?
UK Pop in 2000 = 58mn: 2023 = 68mn. Seem to have lost a few or is the black economy blacker than we think.
People leave as well as arrive. 17 million not a net figure.
It's a meaningless number. I lived in the US for five years, and now I've left. So my impact on the current US labour market is zero. The only number that counts is the net increase.
Well, extreme example but... If 17 million arseholes arrived, it might cause 15 million current residents to leave. Net migration 2m - but a net rise in arseholes of at least 2m - and probably much more.
The impact on the country will be dramatic regardless.
My question: what percentage of the UK population in 2025 comprises the same people as in the year 2000?
Answer: "Given the continuous growth of the population, it's likely that a relatively small percentage of the 2000 population is still alive and residing in the UK in 2025."
Relative to what? Of course it is not a small percentage, but it may be relatively small if you compare it to a higher number or expectations.
Back of the envelope, from the 2000 population maybe 12 million have died and a few million more left. So 40-45 million still here which gives around 60%.
Your envelope underestimates deaths. Given the well-known fact that everyone lives to 75 and promptly carks it, and 25 years is one third of 75 years, it follows that one third of the 2000 population will have died, which is a sight more than 12 million. (Of course life expectancy does not work like that but...)
Point of order
I am 81 and my wife 85 so we didn't cark it at 75 !!!!!
Does Freshwater/CityAM count as an accepted pollster? Not sure I've heard of them before.
"Since last month’s survey, Keir Starmer’s net approval rating has seen a modest improvement from -39 to -36 while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s has slumped from -12 to -15. Meanwhile, Farage’s rating has jumped from -12 to just minus eight, while Reform UK now tops the voting intention survey at 32 per cent. Labour comes second on 22 per cent – down 13 points since their election victory last summer – while the Conservatives are on 19 per cent, just ahead of the Lib Dems on 15 per cent."
There will be no more visas for low-skilled workers, especially foreign care workers. That creates a problem for all of the care homes that have come to depend on immigrants. Will the country’s 1.5 million out-of-work people, or its 9 million economically inactive people, take on the estimated 150,000 vacancies that exist in the care sector?
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
It's a lot of money, but it's not expensive.
It is if you're paying it yourself. And that's the cheaper end of the market, I think ?
That's about what councils pay so yes, the cheaper end of the market.
I have a relative in one which is £7000 a month. It's a wonderful place.
That is roughly £1000 state pension, £1200 private pension, £800 various state benefits, and the rest from the sale of the house and interest thereon.
Seeing that does encourage me to save...
£7,000 a month?!
Bottom rung is about £4500 as discussed above.
The bottom rung is more than my take home salary and I am a higher rate taxpayer. Christ
Welcome to the reality of the problem.
A while back, we were discussing a special home for a couple of kids with serious SEND issues, that was being set up in a house in a Cotswold village. The total cost of their care was estimated an 250K per year, per child.
In one way this is interesting, for those who like social equality. That was under a Conservative government. They were paying for, essentially, an upper class lifestyle for the very lowest of the low - the children came from fairly horrific circumstance, IIRC.
The failure of the USN to establish anything approaching air superiority over the Houthis is interesting. And should factor into the analysis of the usefulness of our own greatly inferior carriers.
Lots of interesting takeaways from this piece, but the winner has to be "multiple US officials" confirming the Houthis nearly shot down an F-35, the most advanced aircraft ever built... https://x.com/gbrew24/status/1922077099252208114
Having a beer right by the centre of the universe (according to Salvador Dali after an experience of cosmogonic ecstasy here in 1963), La Gare de Perpignan
The bar I'm in is next door to the Hotel Paris Barcelona; its main sign says Hotel PB
I'm just reading about the end of the Ming dynasty.
The Chongzhen Emperor's efforts to reform and save the empire failed because (amongst other things) he "sought only instant successes and simple solutions".
Are you saying the Ming vase strategy didn't even work back then?
Hardly that. He changed his senior officials yearly, as the schemes failed. Half of them were removed via execution.
Reform have promised to remove Ming vases from all council buildings they control, along with the Ukraine flags.
The failure of the USN to establish anything approaching air superiority over the Houthis is interesting. And should factor into the analysis of the usefulness of our own greatly inferior carriers.
Lots of interesting takeaways from this piece, but the winner has to be "multiple US officials" confirming the Houthis nearly shot down an F-35, the most advanced aircraft ever built... https://x.com/gbrew24/status/1922077099252208114
And 3 jets have "fallen overboard" whilst the carrier was taking evasive manouevres.
Whether any of these were actually shot down will depend on whether the regime needs to keep Hegseth in place, regardless of his uselessness.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
It's a lot of money, but it's not expensive.
It is if you're paying it yourself. And that's the cheaper end of the market, I think ?
That's about what councils pay so yes, the cheaper end of the market.
I have a relative in one which is £7000 a month. It's a wonderful place.
That is roughly £1000 state pension, £1200 private pension, £800 various state benefits, and the rest from the sale of the house and interest thereon.
Seeing that does encourage me to save...
£7,000 a month?!
Bottom rung is about £4500 as discussed above.
The bottom rung is more than my take home salary and I am a higher rate taxpayer. Christ
Most people who have to go into a care home don't spend a year there. Some do, but must don't.
Also, most people don't need to go into one at all.
It is just the kind of situation that needs a reliable insurance scheme of the kind that governments can provide.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We've had an inflow of 17 million migrants since the year 2000. Are you saying that even with those 17 million we wouldn't have enough employees/workers without additional migration?
UK Pop in 2000 = 58mn: 2023 = 68mn. Seem to have lost a few or is the black economy blacker than we think.
People leave as well as arrive. 17 million not a net figure.
It's a meaningless number. I lived in the US for five years, and now I've left. So my impact on the current US labour market is zero. The only number that counts is the net increase.
Well, extreme example but... If 17 million arseholes arrived, it might cause 15 million current residents to leave. Net migration 2m - but a net rise in arseholes of at least 2m - and probably much more.
The impact on the country will be dramatic regardless.
For sure but what if 17mn non arseholes arrived and 15 million arseholes left? This 17mn number, wherever it came from or refers to, clearly includes mostly people who came and then left, since the net rise in the foreign born population has been around 5mn.
There will be no more visas for low-skilled workers, especially foreign care workers. That creates a problem for all of the care homes that have come to depend on immigrants. Will the country’s 1.5 million out-of-work people, or its 9 million economically inactive people, take on the estimated 150,000 vacancies that exist in the care sector?
Having a beer right by the centre of the universe (according to Salvador Dali after an experience of cosmogonic ecstasy here in 1963), La Gare de Perpignan
The bar I'm in is next door to the Hotel Paris Barcelona; its main sign says Hotel PB
You can check out any time, but you can never leave...
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
It's a lot of money, but it's not expensive.
It is if you're paying it yourself. And that's the cheaper end of the market, I think ?
That's about what councils pay so yes, the cheaper end of the market.
I have a relative in one which is £7000 a month. It's a wonderful place.
That is roughly £1000 state pension, £1200 private pension, £800 various state benefits, and the rest from the sale of the house and interest thereon.
Seeing that does encourage me to save...
£7,000 a month?!
Bottom rung is about £4500 as discussed above.
The bottom rung is more than my take home salary and I am a higher rate taxpayer. Christ
Most people who have to go into a care home don't spend a year there. Some do, but must don't.
Also, most people don't need to go into one at all.
It is just the kind of situation that needs a reliable insurance scheme of the kind that governments can provide.
It's about 10% of us for an average (mean) of two years, I think. So a pot of £11k each.
My question: what percentage of the UK population in 2025 comprises the same people as in the year 2000?
Answer: "Given the continuous growth of the population, it's likely that a relatively small percentage of the 2000 population is still alive and residing in the UK in 2025."
It’s answered a different question to the one you asked
Does Freshwater/CityAM count as an accepted pollster? Not sure I've heard of them before.
"Since last month’s survey, Keir Starmer’s net approval rating has seen a modest improvement from -39 to -36 while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s has slumped from -12 to -15. Meanwhile, Farage’s rating has jumped from -12 to just minus eight, while Reform UK now tops the voting intention survey at 32 per cent. Labour comes second on 22 per cent – down 13 points since their election victory last summer – while the Conservatives are on 19 per cent, just ahead of the Lib Dems on 15 per cent."
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
Care requires zero qualifications and 81% of the UK work in the Service Sector.
Maybe if care homes paid the people cleaning the shit off your elderly relative more than a coffee shop pays a barista or a restaurant pays wait staff, then they'd be able to find people who can fill the vacancies.
Why do you think so little of the people cleaning the shit off your elderly relative that you think they have no right to any more than minimum wage?
And we can automate away barista jobs etc by investing in machinery that does the work.
I'm happy for them to get paid more, but it's taxpayers paying it so which taxes are going up or what spending is getting cut?
Mandatory care insurance for people aged 50 and over and NI on all income including pensions and rental income (or just merge NI and Income tax). I think that would raise enough money. Oh also get the con artists and shysters out of the care industry by properly regulating margins and wages. If the current care industry operators can't handle the cut in the exorbitant profit margin then they can leave and others will enter.
Care margins aren’t exorbitant.
Typically around 18-22% is a decent ebitda margin.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
It's a lot of money, but it's not expensive.
It is if you're paying it yourself. And that's the cheaper end of the market, I think ?
That's about what councils pay so yes, the cheaper end of the market.
I have a relative in one which is £7000 a month. It's a wonderful place.
That is roughly £1000 state pension, £1200 private pension, £800 various state benefits, and the rest from the sale of the house and interest thereon.
Seeing that does encourage me to save...
£7,000 a month?!
Bottom rung is about £4500 as discussed above.
The bottom rung is more than my take home salary and I am a higher rate taxpayer. Christ
Most people who have to go into a care home don't spend a year there. Some do, but must don't.
Also, most people don't need to go into one at all.
It is just the kind of situation that needs a reliable insurance scheme of the kind that governments can provide.
It's about 10% of us for an average (mean) of two years, I think. So a pot of £11k each.
It isn't a vast amount, is it? Though you would need to add the cost of care at home for something comprehensive.
Not sure what the average is for that. Of the same order, but maybe a bit more?
It isn't beyond the wit of man to fix this, surely, but it seems beyond the wit of politics.
A question nobody ever seems to ask is: if foreign workers are happy to work in care homes for the present wage/salary, why should British workers automatically assume they ought to be paid more to do the same job?
I am struggling to understand how Starmer’s tightening of immigration policy can be described as “Powellite” by anyone except professional shit-stirrers.
Agreed. We’re still looking at 240K plus a year..
Note the Powell speech was made at a time when net migration was negative - with somewhere around 200k immigrants, and 300k emigrants annually.
The Powell speech was a warning to do something before what has happened, happened. It was made in order to stop the UK becoming an ‘Island of strangers’, or ‘sleepwalking into segregation’.
Starmer's disgusting speech yesterday has one obvious result and that is to emboldened racists. "Island of strangers" and "sleepwalking into segregation". There is not a cigarette paper between this and the white supremacist sentiment demonstrated by Powell in the Birmingham Town Hall speech.
I don't believe, Iike you, that Starmer even believes this rubbiy. However he's said it now and his days should be numbered.
“Sleepwalking to segregation” was said by a black man who was head of Blair’s multiculturalism unit
A question nobody ever seems to ask is: if foreign workers are happy to work in care homes for the present wage/salary, why should British workers automatically assume they ought to be paid more to do the same job?
Because they could get paid more for doing a different job?
One which the Home Office has decided we won't import foreign workers for [in theory].
A question nobody ever seems to ask is: if foreign workers are happy to work in care homes for the present wage/salary, why should British workers automatically assume they ought to be paid more to do the same job?
The evidence is that the foreign workers aren't happy with the wage/salary - they buy a visa and then do another job.
Which is why the government is ending the right of the care home companies to direct recruit like this.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
Care requires zero qualifications and 81% of the UK work in the Service Sector.
Maybe if care homes paid the people cleaning the shit off your elderly relative more than a coffee shop pays a barista or a restaurant pays wait staff, then they'd be able to find people who can fill the vacancies.
Why do you think so little of the people cleaning the shit off your elderly relative that you think they have no right to any more than minimum wage?
And we can automate away barista jobs etc by investing in machinery that does the work.
I'm happy for them to get paid more, but it's taxpayers paying it so which taxes are going up or what spending is getting cut?
Mandatory care insurance for people aged 50 and over and NI on all income including pensions and rental income (or just merge NI and Income tax). I think that would raise enough money. Oh also get the con artists and shysters out of the care industry by properly regulating margins and wages. If the current care industry operators can't handle the cut in the exorbitant profit margin then they can leave and others will enter.
Care margins aren’t exorbitant.
Typically around 18-22% is a decent ebitda margin.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Similar question. Why aren't the middle class professionals and entrepreneurs with access to capital on pb opening care home chains if the margins are so easy?
In reality a lot of care homes are struggling and closing.
The trouble with running a care home is the round the clock nature of it. 1 minimum wage employee for 24 hours is almost £300 in straight wages, plus NI, pensions, holidays etc.
£6.5k/month for a resident sounds like a lot of cash, but it's only about £216/day.
Take £50 of that as the "hotel" cost of the room, bedding, cleaning (that's Travellodge off peak sort of price), put £30 in for meals (£10ea), you have £136 left for caring labour and associated costs.
That £136 is around the true cost of 8hrs labour at minimum wage, so if you're averaging a inmate:staff ratio of less than 3:1 over 24hrs you're in the red.
How are we all feeling about the death penalty today?
Fairly happy. Which is worse - wrongful conviction followed by a quick death or wrongful conviction followed by 40 years in prison for an horrific crime?
To be serious, those who want the death penalty always need to answer the question of mistakes. And those who are against need to answer why people like the Southport murderer or the killers of Sarah Everard, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman etc should be allowed to live?
Peter Hitchens has written a new article in support of the death penalty, but it looks like it wasn't a good day to publish it.
"Peter Sullivan who has spent 38 years in jail for murder has conviction quashed
Mr Sullivan was convicted of murdering Diane Sindall in Birkenhead in August 1986 but a review found his DNA was not present on samples preserved at the time."
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
It's a lot of money, but it's not expensive.
It is if you're paying it yourself. And that's the cheaper end of the market, I think ?
That's about what councils pay so yes, the cheaper end of the market.
I have a relative in one which is £7000 a month. It's a wonderful place.
That is roughly £1000 state pension, £1200 private pension, £800 various state benefits, and the rest from the sale of the house and interest thereon.
Seeing that does encourage me to save...
£7,000 a month?!
Bottom rung is about £4500 as discussed above.
The bottom rung is more than my take home salary and I am a higher rate taxpayer. Christ
Most people who have to go into a care home don't spend a year there. Some do, but must don't.
Also, most people don't need to go into one at all.
It is just the kind of situation that needs a reliable insurance scheme of the kind that governments can provide.
It's about 10% of us for an average (mean) of two years, I think. So a pot of £11k each.
It isn't a vast amount, is it? Though you would need to add the cost of care at home for something comprehensive.
Not sure what the average is for that. Of the same order, but maybe a bit more?
It isn't beyond the wit of man to fix this, surely, but it seems beyond the wit of politics.
Yep. Apparently there are 1.5 million people providing more than 50 hours of care a week to a relative, which is is bonkers. So the care home population might quadruple if that free care is displaced, with a similar effect on total costs. £40k? Might even more than that, if that type of care is longer term than the care home average.
How are we all feeling about the death penalty today?
Fairly happy. Which is worse - wrongful conviction followed by a quick death or wrongful conviction followed by 40 years in prison for an horrific crime?
To be serious, those who want the death penalty always need to answer the question of mistakes. And those who are against need to answer why people like the Southport murderer or the killers of Sarah Everard, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman etc should be allowed to live?
39 years on the nonces’ wing, for a crime you did not commit, is horrifying. I honestly do not know if execution is worse.
My question: what percentage of the UK population in 2025 comprises the same people as in the year 2000?
Answer: "Given the continuous growth of the population, it's likely that a relatively small percentage of the 2000 population is still alive and residing in the UK in 2025."
Probably not, but ask it a different question. Namely "how many people in the UK and alive in 2020 are still alive and in the UK in 2025?"
Yougov have Reform 28%, Labour 23%, Con 18%, Lib Dem 16%, Green 9%.
I’d love to see a Lib Dem / Tory crossover, even if only briefly. It’s within touching distance.
That’s LLG 48 RefCon 46, so a slight lead for the out of touch liberal woke elites.
It’s SPLORG 59 LabCon 41
The Lib Dems did, of course, finish ahead of the Tories in the recent local elections.
As far as national polling goes, there've been two polls to have the Lib Dems just one point behind the Tories: the previous YouGov (C 17, LD 16), and the most recent FON (C 16, LD 15).
Of course the closer the Tory vote gets to the LD vote the more likely Farage becomes PM with a Reform overall majority under FPTP, as it would signal ever more direct Tory switching to Reform.
So be careful what you wish for!
I made the comment above in purely neutral terms. That said, I'm not sure I entirely agree with your assessment. The main factor would be whether it's the Tory vote declining or the LD share going up that would impact the number of Reform seats that would result - and of course the Reform share is not an independent variable, nor one guaranteed to stay at 25%+.
How are we all feeling about the death penalty today?
Fairly happy. Which is worse - wrongful conviction followed by a quick death or wrongful conviction followed by 40 years in prison for an horrific crime?
To be serious, those who want the death penalty always need to answer the question of mistakes. And those who are against need to answer why people like the Southport murderer or the killers of Sarah Everard, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman etc should be allowed to live?
39 years on the nonces’ wing, for a crime you did not commit, is horrifying. I honestly do not know if execution is worse.
A question nobody ever seems to ask is: if foreign workers are happy to work in care homes for the present wage/salary, why should British workers automatically assume they ought to be paid more to do the same job?
Yougov have Reform 28%, Labour 23%, Con 18%, Lib Dem 16%, Green 9%.
I’d love to see a Lib Dem / Tory crossover, even if only briefly. It’s within touching distance.
That’s LLG 48 RefCon 46, so a slight lead for the out of touch liberal woke elites.
It’s SPLORG 59 LabCon 41
The Lib Dems did, of course, finish ahead of the Tories in the recent local elections.
As far as national polling goes, there've been two polls to have the Lib Dems just one point behind the Tories: the previous YouGov (C 17, LD 16), and the most recent FON (C 16, LD 15).
In times past the LibDems, Alliance or even the SDP or Liberals on their own have had 'breaking the mould' type of numbers in the polls. Is Reform any different?
I'd refer you to my comment at 10:35 for the long answer there.
For the short answer, no, they're not that much different *but* we shouldn't assume that just because the SDP, Alliance, Lib Dems, UKIP, BxP or Change UK didn't break the mould that the mould is therefore unbreakable. In particular, while Reform isn't that far different, circumstances may well be.
This one has broken O’Brien. Can never go against daddy Starmer, but can’t just suddenly jump on the anti-immigration train after years of calling everyone racist.
How are we all feeling about the death penalty today?
Fairly happy. Which is worse - wrongful conviction followed by a quick death or wrongful conviction followed by 40 years in prison for an horrific crime?
To be serious, those who want the death penalty always need to answer the question of mistakes. And those who are against need to answer why people like the Southport murderer or the killers of Sarah Everard, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman etc should be allowed to live?
Best to consign the whole thing to history.
When the state starts to prescribe capital punishment for specified crimes mission creep can end up with state executions for dissent against a Tommy Robinson government.
The failure of the USN to establish anything approaching air superiority over the Houthis is interesting. And should factor into the analysis of the usefulness of our own greatly inferior carriers.
Lots of interesting takeaways from this piece, but the winner has to be "multiple US officials" confirming the Houthis nearly shot down an F-35, the most advanced aircraft ever built... https://x.com/gbrew24/status/1922077099252208114
Serious question: do the houthis have an air force? If not, what is the point of a F35? Would a navalised A-10 suffice?
“According to figures produced by the OBR, the average “low-wage migrant worker” will cost the British taxpayer £465,000 by the time they reach 81 years of age. According to analysis conducted by Karl Williams, from the Centre for Policy Studies, just 5 percent of all visas in 2022-23 were given to high-skilled migrants who are likely to be net contributors - fully 72 percent of skilled work visas went to migrants likely to be earning less than the average UK salary”
If you read that quickly, you think 3/4 of immigrants will cost us half a million each. But the article is pulling a fast one. In the 1st sentence, it references an OBR analysis on the “low-wage migrant worker”, but the 2nd sentence's 72% refers to those “likely to be earning less than the average UK salary”. These are not the same.
The OBR figure is for someone on 50% less than UK average. But lots of people will be earning less than average, but more than 50% less. Indeed, the Telegraph article linked to has 54% as being around the OBR low-wage category, not 72%. The 72% is the 54% plus a group higher than low-wage but below average.
But 54% is still high. How do we get that figure? That comes from the Centre for Policy Studies, a report co-written by Rob Jenrick, a 2nd Tory MP + Williams. It looks more partisan with all the authors!
The CPS report is clear they don’t have robust data. They criticise govt for not collecting such data. Instead, they look at people on skilled worker visas by category of occupation and then look at median earnings of people (immigrant or not) in those occupation categories. This is a brave attempt at doing something, but has huge uncertainties, as is acknowledged. They conclude: “54% of visas were issued for occupations in which the median salary was below the £25,600 threshold”
A flaw is the CPS analysis doesn’t adjust for age. People earn more as they age. Immigrants are younger. You shouldn't compare their salaries to median salaries, you should compare them to age-adjusted median salaries. A group of native 25 year olds will also be earning below the median sectoral salary.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We've had an inflow of 17 million migrants since the year 2000. Are you saying that even with those 17 million we wouldn't have enough employees/workers without additional migration?
UK Pop in 2000 = 58mn: 2023 = 68mn. Seem to have lost a few or is the black economy blacker than we think.
Simple fact is we have no idea what the uk population is as we dont count people in or out. I seem to remember a supermarket estimating that the population was a few million higher than the official figures due to food sold vs their market share....also no a reliable estimate probably
Finding out what the actual population is rather than guesses would be a start
The failure of the USN to establish anything approaching air superiority over the Houthis is interesting. And should factor into the analysis of the usefulness of our own greatly inferior carriers.
Lots of interesting takeaways from this piece, but the winner has to be "multiple US officials" confirming the Houthis nearly shot down an F-35, the most advanced aircraft ever built... https://x.com/gbrew24/status/1922077099252208114
And 3 jets have "fallen overboard" whilst the carrier was taking evasive manouevres.
Whether any of these were actually shot down will depend on whether the regime needs to keep Hegseth in place, regardless of his uselessness.
Have you just made this shit up?
One was a blue-on-blue by the Gettysburg. The second fell off a deck elevator while they were doing fuck knows what. The last was an arrestor failure.
The failure of the USN to establish anything approaching air superiority over the Houthis is interesting. And should factor into the analysis of the usefulness of our own greatly inferior carriers.
Lots of interesting takeaways from this piece, but the winner has to be "multiple US officials" confirming the Houthis nearly shot down an F-35, the most advanced aircraft ever built... https://x.com/gbrew24/status/1922077099252208114
Serious question: do the houthis have an air force? If not, what is the point of a F35? Would a navalised A-10 suffice?
They have lots of shiny toys (missiles) donated by adversaries of the US. It's a proxy war.
EDIT: An A-10 puts you nicely in the heart of the coverage of just about every SAM system ever built. With next to no electronic warfare capability and a radar cross section of a barn. In the event of an opponent who can shoot back, your life expectancy in one of those is measured in seconds.
This one has broken O’Brien. Can never go against daddy Starmer, but can’t just suddenly jump on the anti-immigration train after years of calling everyone racist.
When is someone going to have an honest and open conversation with voters about the tradeoffs involved in trying to manage an ageing society with record high levels of taxation and ever rising spending on the elderly? Absent immigration, our labour force is shrinking. People are living longer, often in poor health (frequently related to poor lifestyle choices) and require extensive, labour intensive services. Can we please have a grown up conversation about this? People don't like immigration, okay, fine. What are they willing to sacrifice then? Do they want to pay more tax so we can fill jobs in the care sector wholly from domestic workers, paying much higher salaries to lure workers away from other sectors? Are they okay with worse service and greater automation across the economy as labour shortages become more widespread? Are they good with more cuts to ageing related spending? (The hoohaw about axeing WFP suggests not). Are they okay raising the pension age further to cut pension spending and expand the labour force? Or do we just want to bitch and moan about foreigners coming over to do the jobs that natives are either unwilling or unavailable to do, at wages that we largely can't afford to raise?
We can invest in automation to cut out unnecessary jobs and boost productivity.
If we can't afford to raise wages, then maybe the job is not productive enough and it doesn't need to be done.
That's easy to say when it's not your elderly relative lying in their own shit all day because there are no carers.
An interesting question would be at what pay rate would the middle class professionals on this board be happy to do care work? At what pay rate might they recommend it to their kids as a potential career?
And how can we raise the difference in that and current near NMW pay from taxation, insurance or private funding?
Here's the thing, with cleaning and particularly nursery work you can sort of see a link between the wages and what is paid. With care that link seems totally out of whack, the bills are universally enormous whilst the wages are appalling
Care home at £4500 per month is £150 per night. For an en suite hotel room with accessible bathroom, three meals a day, 24 hour carers and nurses either 24 hour or on call.
It's a lot of money, but it's not expensive.
It is if you're paying it yourself. And that's the cheaper end of the market, I think ?
That's about what councils pay so yes, the cheaper end of the market.
I have a relative in one which is £7000 a month. It's a wonderful place.
That is roughly £1000 state pension, £1200 private pension, £800 various state benefits, and the rest from the sale of the house and interest thereon.
Seeing that does encourage me to save...
£7,000 a month?!
Look at it this way, how much is your rent/mortgage plus employing a couple of assistants one of whom has to cover the night shift....
Assistants though are shared between residents it is not a couple of assistants per person but a couple of assistants per x residents, my fathers care home is charging 6700 so 7k seems not unfeasible and its far and away from the top end. I think one of the ones I looked at wanted 12k a month
This one has broken O’Brien. Can never go against daddy Starmer, but can’t just suddenly jump on the anti-immigration train after years of calling everyone racist.
Comments
Leavers generally won't vote LD at a general election after their rejoin EU attempt to overturn Brexit in 2019, there aren't enough prosperous home counties seats for the LDs to challenge Reform for government
It's a lot of money, but it's not expensive.
Back of the envelope, from the 2000 population maybe 12 million have died and a few million more left. So 40-45 million still here which gives around 60%.
The Chongzhen Emperor's efforts to reform and save the empire failed because (amongst other things) he "sought only instant successes and simple solutions".
Importing labour just sees those imported choose to get any other job as why shouldn't they if there's better NMW jobs out there?
Especially if you've paid £15,000 to buy a visa, you don't want to be stuck on NMW for long if you can avoid it.
Google's answer is both imprecise, and feeble.
But nice charts.
And that's the cheaper end of the market, I think ?
So things are going in the right direction.
He changed his senior officials yearly, as the schemes failed. Half of them were removed via execution.
I think we should increase their pay significantly but yet to be convinced of an electorally plausible route of that happening. Saying what the government should do is easy, saying what they should do and can do electorally is far harder.
I have a relative in one which is £7000 a month. It's a wonderful place.
That is roughly £1000 state pension, £1200 private pension, £800 various state benefits, and the rest from the sale of the house and interest thereon.
Seeing that does encourage me to save...
Without the executions.
Yet.
"Since last month’s survey, Keir Starmer’s net approval rating has seen a modest improvement from -39 to -36 while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s has slumped from -12 to -15. Meanwhile, Farage’s rating has jumped from -12 to just minus eight, while Reform UK now tops the voting intention survey at 32 per cent. Labour comes second on 22 per cent – down 13 points since their election victory last summer – while the Conservatives are on 19 per cent, just ahead of the Lib Dems on 15 per cent."
https://www.cityam.com/reform-uk-tops-latest-city-am-poll-as-nigel-farages-approval-ratings-climb-following-local-election-wins/
Deaths between 550k and 650k each year for 25 years, gives 14m-15m. Not all will be 2000 UK residents. Maybe its 13m or 14m.
A three point move is either a "modest improvement" or a "slump" and a four point movement is a "jump".
Words don't come easy (as someone once sang) - exaggeration is a million times easier.
Freshwater aren't, I believe, members of the BPC.
The impact on the country will be dramatic regardless.
I am 81 and my wife 85 so we didn't cark it at 75 !!!!!
-3 = "slump".
lol...
There will be no more visas for low-skilled workers, especially foreign care workers. That creates a problem for all of the care homes that have come to depend on immigrants. Will the country’s 1.5 million out-of-work people, or its 9 million economically inactive people, take on the estimated 150,000 vacancies that exist in the care sector?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/12/immigration-experiment-labour-keir-starmer-nigel-farage
A while back, we were discussing a special home for a couple of kids with serious SEND issues, that was being set up in a house in a Cotswold village. The total cost of their care was estimated an 250K per year, per child.
In one way this is interesting, for those who like social equality. That was under a Conservative government. They were paying for, essentially, an upper class lifestyle for the very lowest of the low - the children came from fairly horrific circumstance, IIRC.
And should factor into the analysis of the usefulness of our own greatly inferior carriers.
Lots of interesting takeaways from this piece, but the winner has to be "multiple US officials" confirming the Houthis nearly shot down an F-35, the most advanced aircraft ever built...
https://x.com/gbrew24/status/1922077099252208114
Whether any of these were actually shot down will depend on whether the regime needs to keep Hegseth in place, regardless of his uselessness.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/13/keir-starmer-immigration-speech-completely-different-to-enoch-powell-yvette-cooper
Also, most people don't need to go into one at all.
It is just the kind of situation that needs a reliable insurance scheme of the kind that governments can provide.
This 17mn number, wherever it came from or refers to, clearly includes mostly people who came and then left, since the net rise in the foreign born population has been around 5mn.
@GoodwinMJ
·
9m
NEW.
Reform 28%
Labour 23%
Tories 18%
Source - YouGov
11-12 May
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-december-2024/why-do-people-come-to-the-uk-work#data-tables
M&S customer data.
Of the Visas handed out a relatively small amount are for work.
Dependents are by far and away the largest.
Typically around 18-22% is a decent ebitda margin.
Not sure what the average is for that. Of the same order, but maybe a bit more?
It isn't beyond the wit of man to fix this, surely, but it seems beyond the wit of politics.
One which the Home Office has decided we won't import foreign workers for [in theory].
Which is why the government is ending the right of the care home companies to direct recruit like this.
https://www.chpi.org.uk/blog/investors-are-making-a-fortune-from-uk-healthcare-why-is-nobody-holding-private-equity-to-account
£6.5k/month for a resident sounds like a lot of cash, but it's only about £216/day.
Take £50 of that as the "hotel" cost of the room, bedding, cleaning (that's Travellodge off peak sort of price), put £30 in for meals (£10ea), you have £136 left for caring labour and associated costs.
That £136 is around the true cost of 8hrs labour at minimum wage, so if you're averaging a inmate:staff ratio of less than 3:1 over 24hrs you're in the red.
To be serious, those who want the death penalty always need to answer the question of mistakes. And those who are against need to answer why people like the Southport murderer or the killers of Sarah Everard, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman etc should be allowed to live?
"Peter Sullivan who has spent 38 years in jail for murder has conviction quashed
Mr Sullivan was convicted of murdering Diane Sindall in Birkenhead in August 1986 but a review found his DNA was not present on samples preserved at the time."
https://news.sky.com/story/peter-sullivan-who-has-spent-38-years-in-jail-for-murder-has-conviction-quashed-13363928
https://unherd.com/2025/05/the-case-for-the-death-penalty/
I am still anti the death penalty.
There are 5 million unpaid carers in total.
For the short answer, no, they're not that much different *but* we shouldn't assume that just because the SDP, Alliance, Lib Dems, UKIP, BxP or Change UK didn't break the mould that the mould is therefore unbreakable. In particular, while Reform isn't that far different, circumstances may well be.
https://x.com/nickdixoncomic/status/1922078854597800011?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
When the state starts to prescribe capital punishment for specified crimes mission creep can end up with state executions for dissent against a Tommy Robinson government.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/ahc-stol-a-10.430256/
“According to figures produced by the OBR, the average “low-wage migrant worker” will cost the British taxpayer £465,000 by the time they reach 81 years of age. According to analysis conducted by Karl Williams, from the Centre for Policy Studies, just 5 percent of all visas in 2022-23 were given to high-skilled migrants who are likely to be net contributors - fully 72 percent of skilled work visas went to migrants likely to be earning less than the average UK salary”
If you read that quickly, you think 3/4 of immigrants will cost us half a million each. But the article is pulling a fast one. In the 1st sentence, it references an OBR analysis on the “low-wage migrant worker”, but the 2nd sentence's 72% refers to those “likely to be earning less than the average UK salary”. These are not the same.
The OBR figure is for someone on 50% less than UK average. But lots of people will be earning less than average, but more than 50% less. Indeed, the Telegraph article linked to has 54% as being around the OBR low-wage category, not 72%. The 72% is the 54% plus a group higher than low-wage but below average.
But 54% is still high. How do we get that figure? That comes from the Centre for Policy Studies, a report co-written by Rob Jenrick, a 2nd Tory MP + Williams. It looks more partisan with all the authors!
The CPS report is clear they don’t have robust data. They criticise govt for not collecting such data. Instead, they look at people on skilled worker visas by category of occupation and then look at median earnings of people (immigrant or not) in those occupation categories. This is a brave attempt at doing something, but has huge uncertainties, as is acknowledged. They conclude: “54% of visas were issued for occupations in which the median salary was below the £25,600 threshold”
A flaw is the CPS analysis doesn’t adjust for age. People earn more as they age. Immigrants are younger. You shouldn't compare their salaries to median salaries, you should compare them to age-adjusted median salaries. A group of native 25 year olds will also be earning below the median sectoral salary.
All of this goes back to the OBR number of a £465,000 burden, from https://obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/Fiscal-risks-and-sustainability-report-September-2024-1.pdf or see fig 1 at https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-fiscal-impact-of-immigration-in-the-uk/ The OBR picked their low-wage figure as representing approx the 25th centile for migrant earnings. However, the Adam Smith page is claiming it represents the 75th centile and the CPS report, the 50th centile. It is questionable to take the OBR figure, that the OBR says is the 25th centile, and then ignore the rest of the OBR analysis to claim it actually represents the 50th or 75th centile. If you trust the OBR figure, why not take the totality of the OBR analysis?
Finding out what the actual population is rather than guesses would be a start
One was a blue-on-blue by the Gettysburg.
The second fell off a deck elevator while they were doing fuck knows what.
The last was an arrestor failure.
EDIT: An A-10 puts you nicely in the heart of the coverage of just about every SAM system ever built. With next to no electronic warfare capability and a radar cross section of a barn. In the event of an opponent who can shoot back, your life expectancy in one of those is measured in seconds.
He very much didn't jump on the "anti-immigration train". He called Starmer out.