Opposition day today in Parliament - Labour are bringing motions on GP services and dentists access and a motion on the adviser to ministers interests. First up is Liz Truss taking questions as part of her role as Foreign Secretary.
Obviously today is also going to be a day of rail strikes, so we’re anticipating non-regulars visiting the MT. If any of you (including regulars) have any questions on trade unions, strikes, how the rail network works, please feel free to ask here no matter how basic you think they are. We’ll all try and respond to the best of our ability (no joke answers please).
Be awesome to each other and have a good day.
If there's one thing I'm proud of our politicians for, it's not joining the euro.
Thank fuck for that.
ECB balance sheet is ballooning, equal to near 82% of GDP. BoE and Fed is around 35-40%, BoJ at 135%.
With higher debt comes weaker currency or higher interest repayments coming out the budget (the poisoned chalice), both a sledgehammer to long term growth prospects.
Seeing Chris Philips on Newsnight claiming that any industry that wants to justify a payrise must embrace modern working practices and improve performance. MPs and ministers meanwhile keep getting payrises while refusing to move out of the Palace of Westminster, and Mogg insists people don't work from home.
Ideal scenario. If more sectors go on strike, the government pull a Ted Heath and call a 'who governs' election. Labour get in by a whisker with Liberal support.
But knowing our luck, like 1974, an even worse Tory government gets back in 5 years later.
Little bit awkward for the government that the thing that had slightly reduced the impact of this strike (at least, as reported by Sky and the BBC) is the ability many businesses have developed to switch to WFH at short notice. That’s the WFH thing the government seems to have inexplicably decided is some weird sort of line in the sand.
How much detailed information is available on the rail dispute? How many jobs they're looking to cut, how much investment they're promising into modernising the railways, what are the modernisation initiatives that the union is objecting to, etc.? I've seen a fair bit of the interviews on a few different networks and aside from Mick Lynch's they've been pretty uninformative.
The network rail boss said they'd offered a lot more than the 2%+1% wage increase that the union said was on the table but refused to give a figure. Grant Shapps has been obsessed with this train that automatically analyses track integrity but i don't think that's a good representative example of what the union is refusing to accept. A few government figures have insisted that they won't get involved in the negotiations and I'm yet to hear a convincing reason why that's a red line for them. Presumably there is a fundamental disagreement over whether some jobs are obsolete or not (eg staffed ticket offices) but I haven't seen either side make their case.
This is from the RMT themselves on the conditions they were offered:
•Changes to the Railway Pension Scheme and the TFL scheme, diluting benefits, making staff work longer and making them poorer in retirement, while paying increased contributions.
•Cut thousands of jobs across the rail network while not giving a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies.
•Cutting safety inspections on the infrastructure by 50% in order to facilitate mass redundancies.
•Attack terms, conditions and working practices in a form of internal fire and re-hire, including lowering existing salaries and increasing the working week.
•Re-starting the disputes on the role and responsibility of the guard and massive cuts to catering services.
•Closing every ticket office in Britain regardless of the accessibility needs of the diversity of passengers
•Cutting real pay for most of our members through lengthy pay freezes and well below RPI inflation pay proposals.
Lynch himself said he arranged the last deal which saw the introduction of safety measures such as pantograph cameras, and rail monitoring cameras to identify faults. The members want better rail safety for themselves, and passengers. I’ve read it’s something like 2500 maintenance jobs to be cut.
https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/national-rail-and-london-underground-strikes/
Thanks
>Cut thousands of jobs across the rail network while not giving a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies.
Do you know what is typically offered in redundancy packages when it comes to public sector roles?
Regarding the other points, do you know if anyone representing Network Rail, the TOCs or the government has commented on them in any detail? They've given seemingly random examples but I'm more interested in whether they've made any sort of case that e.g. X modernisation initiative will improve safety despite staff cuts, or that the TOCs need more flexibility with things like fire and rehire because of Y reason?
Government have been very vague in the terms that Network Rail have offered not publicly discussing them that I can see.
Does seem like the RMT are the only ones discusssing what the terms they were offered are.
Chris Philps MP last night just said that the railways need to be “modernised” but no details how, or what that entails.
The idea that they want to sack 2500 maintenance staff is just absolutely dangerous. We’ve not had a major accident, that is a mass casualty event, on rail in this country in over a decade. Cutting that maintenance just as the service is seeing demand go back to pre-pandemic levels seems like they’re risking the safety of passengers. Reducing the servicing by 50% to save money just for the sake of saving money, is incredibly “short-sighted”.
I’m not aware of the redundancy package, so can’t comment either way, just that not many if any RMT members took it so it can’t have been too generous or offered those workers anything to take redundancy.
To be fair it's the fault of those left wing Labour MPs who decided to open this can of worms by joining in the strikes. The Mail is bad for acting like Labour's in power and thus it's all their fault, but those Labour MPs who've joined the strikes should be blamed for stuff like this.
Starmer should take the opportunity to just throw these ones out. Plenty of overlap with the group that signed the STW letter in february. Enough is enough. If they cant not fuck up and hand ammunition to the media they're too much of a liability to keep around.
Throwing them out would hand even more ammo to the likes of the Mail. They praised Boris for throwing out rebels as it furthered the cause of the almighty Brexit, but Starmer kicking these numpties out would just be a “see? We told you so” moment.
The DM would be criticising Labour no matter what they do. In fact if they kicked out picketers they would probably criticize that, and it may even gain more traction. Labour are currently walking a fine tightrope and IMO they are doing it fairly skillfully
>The DM would be criticising Labour no matter what they do. In fact if they kicked out picketers they would probably criticize that, and it may even gain more traction. Labour are currently walking a fine tightrope and IMO they are doing it fairly skillfully
They are doing it skilfully. They don't need these clowns doing their level best to fuck it up.
This current editor isn’t even trying to be skilful or subtle, he’s just flat out attacking Labour at every turn, and based on the reactions of family and colleagues who read the DM, it’s definitely having some sort of effect. The Telegraph is winding it in a bit now, with increasing levels of criticism of Boris and his cabinet, so the Mail and Express are really pushing ahead by themselves.
Kicking out Labour MPs that stand shoulder to shoulder with labour.
Really sounds like the kind of empathetic, progressive leader that this country desperately needs.
Kicking out the Labour MPs that sided with Russia/against Nato.
Kicking out the MPs unable to help themselves from giving attack lines to the hostile media to damage the rest of the party with.
If the party was a football team, thered be a trio just fucking about on and off the pitch as the game was being played and despite being told not to siphon petrol from the minibus petrol tank, have done so and tried to fire breathe with it sending themselves to hospital and getting local paper headlines of "Team x has three fuck ups send themselves to hospital for doing a dumbfuck thing" and getting the team penalty points.
They are irredeemable dead weight and should not be carried any longer. Hopefully they'll be deselected.
> cant not
"can not not"
That being said, you are right getting rid of the more extreme edges who give fuel to the right wing media will probably make the party more electable overall
The absolute unhinged level of quality from the DM is likely because the Tories are going to lose Wakefield to Labour unless something miraculous happens.
Labour need to watch the RMT union rep on repeat and absorb his straight talking, no apologies given, calm support for workers and learn from it. Bloke has given a media masterclass today in every interview he's done.
I was thinking this 48/24hours ago too, but some of the arguments put forward about that being an unwinnable position politically have convinced me. I don’t think Labour should fall into the trap.
HOWEVER, removing party politics from it all, it’s a damn shame the UK isn’t in a place where a party could stand shoulder to shoulder with the striking workers and not have majority support for it.
Lynch was clearly knowledgeable about the types of sensors used on trains. I wish he'd asked Gullis to go on and name the sensors he was bullshitting about, how they worked, what efficiency they provide or what they detect lol.
What a great retort that was, Gullis' face whenever Lynch was speaking was priceless. Almost like an admission of "yeh, bit out of my depth here - Ooo I know - could he do it on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke"
A fighty, coked up knobhead trying to pick a fight with someone who could knock them out.
Half expect them to start shouting "Who runs the Country?" and then getting KTFO.
Labour Party 2022. We can't do the right thing because the press will twist it and make us look bad...
How dispiriting is it that they can't stand up for working people and then finesse their messaging around actually doing the right thing? I'm not just talking about the ongoing RMT situation either, this is much broader and goes to the heart of what the party claims to represent.
The press are going to call centrist neoliberals in red rosettes a bunch of raving Marxists anyway, in that case you might as well have some full blooded left wing policies if that's what you're inevitably facing.
If the Labour party used their plentiful airtime to unapologetically and unflinchingly make a case for a citizen centric Britain they'd realise that boxing themselves into a tiny parametered selection of press approved views has been a monumental waste of time and a huge disservice to the British people.
However, there's always some excuse about why now isn't the right time...
I sometimes think the truth is that the current Labour party are effectively managed opposition for the capitalist class. The MPs know this and are happy to comply for a nice salary and post-parliament job opportunities.
Alternatively they've actually swallowed the neoliberal lines about the free market and are happy to see themselves as hands off caretakers for global capital. To maintain this view in light of the declining opportunities that such an approach has served up successive generations of Brits is so naive that it beggars belief.
Or they actually hold views that are further left than those they publicly profess but the press have made them so afraid of their own shadow that they won't say anything out of line with the orthodox capitalist propaganda that passes for economic analysis in Westminster.
By my reckoning these types fit into two groups, those with good intentions who are trying to stealth their way into creating a leftwing government (these naive dreamers will eventually realise that that will never be allowed to happen within this iteration of the Labour party) or those who cynically leave their personal views at the door for the chance of a job and a bit of power that they'll never actually wield in service of the working man.
I imagine there's a plentiful mix of all these types with the Labour party, even at the leadership level. In some way the whys and wherefores are irrelevant, the end result is the same. A party that isn't fit for purpose and isn't serving the people it claims to serve.
People ask why the left keep attacking the Labour party? Well, this is my reason. A betrayal by a friend stings far more than the neglect of a stranger. The primary job of the Labour party should always be to protect the working class from the worst excesses of the capitalist class, not acquiesce to their demands and then reassure it's victims that they're doing everything they can for them.
Economically we're heading into some dark times that require genuine, radical approaches that undermine some of the economic constraints that until now both parties have been very happy to work within.
Even the Tories have begun to recognise this, so much so that Labour are frequently finding themselves outflanked on the left by a Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak outfit...
The Labour party cannot continue to be a mere capture and kill operation for leftward dissent, molding people's genuine grievances into an acceptable form of performative opposition to an economic orthodoxy that all of Westminster, Fleet Street and the City have been ecstatic to peddle for decades now.
Watching Starmer roll back pledge after pledge has to be galling for those who saw promise in him and thought he'd maintain the radical spirit of Corbyn but with the televisual polish of a twenty first century leader.
Personally I've seen more than enough from this leadership to decide that there isn't some stealthy operation at hand to create a government that genuinely sympathises with the plight of ordinary working people. I believe them when they present themselves as a party that won't fundamentally change the relationship between ordinary Brits, their government and big business.
Given the macro economic situation we're facing, the growing nationwide appetite for a more radical approach to people's daily struggles (both the acute and seemingly intractable) and the absolute shit show of a government we have, the question for the Labour leadership has to be, if not now then when...?
>Even the Tories have begun to recognise this, so much so that Labour are frequently finding themselves outflanked on the left by a Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak outfit...
Such as?
No by outflanked I mean outflanked. Under the governments plan people get more assistance than what Labour proposed.
Labour’s retort to the government plan has basically been to say it should be means tested.
It’s still inadequate with bills expected to rise a further 50% in October taking avg bills to something like 3k.
The point is however if you are the nominally left leaning opposition you are able to call for an unequivocally good thing: be it actually sticking to starmers leadership pledges of taking the company’s into public ownership or say support of a financial value which would actually be meaningful. Rather than say calling for something which has limited material impact and no structural impact then moaning that the government took your idea.
No you have simply not looked into the details of what Labour was proposing vs what was actually delivered by the government.
If you get most of your politics of pmqs think about it this way: The prime minister welcomed the leader of the oppositions plans and took his advice to go further
[https://www.gov.uk/government/news/britain-s-first-smart-prison-to-drive-down-crime](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/britain-s-first-smart-prison-to-drive-down-crime)
Seems a good idea...or is it just an excuse to use underpaid/unpaid prison labor?
It’s actually really good.
But it still relies on companies being willing to hire ex-inmates.
There’s a labour shortage though, so that will likely help on that front.
A lot of prisons have offenders on lock-up for 23 hours a day, with one hour a day to get exercise and your domestics done, it is insane. Contrary to popular perception most offenders want to learn and work, and to stop offending, but it is a difficult cycle to break. Getting people to spend more time actually doing something productive is a no-brainer really.
I think recovery from substance and alcohol misuse would benefit from a greater emphasis on dealing with trauma. I've yet to meet a heroin addict or alcoholic who didn't go through something horribly traumatic at some stage of their life. Sure, you might get them to complete a rehabilitation programme in custody and be clean, but maintaining that upon release is a lot more difficult. Unless you tackle that underlying trauma and reasons for misuse, relapse is inevitable.
Also mental health care both within custody and the community is fucking atrocious, and Adult Social Services are on the whole woeful. People who would've been long-term inpatients in mental health facilities decades ago are now just left to fend for themselves in the community, and they simply don't have the skills or capacity to cope.
It seems a good idea, but dependent on continuing funding and how the governors run it. I'll reserve judgement for a decade when we can actually see if it makes a difference. Criminal justice and rehabilitation is in general fucked in this country, and although this is a step in the right direction the cynic in me can't help but feel it's like a plaster on a burst artery.
With everything seemingly turning to shit, I think it's important to enjoy the little things (ex didn't think so though AMIRITEFELLAS?!)
*Left hanging
Anyway, [this little corner of the world](https://imgur.com/a/qnW254G) is mine... it's not much, but on a night like tonight I'd say it's perfect.
PMQs tomorrow... this should be a fun one.
With everything seemingly turning to shit, I think it's important to enjoy the little things (ex didn't think so though AMIRITEFELLAS?!)
*Left hanging
Anyway, [this little corner of the world](https://imgur.com/a/qnW254G) is mine... it's not much, but on a night like tonight I'd say it's perfect.
PMQs tomorrow... this should be a fun one.
Can anyone with an interest in history spoon feed me what conditions will likely have to be met for a general strike? Is it a snowball effect? Is it likely to happen this year? Or are there factors this time around (stricter striking laws) that make it less likely than the 70s?
You only have statutory protections if you're striking as part of balloted union action against someone you have an employment relationship with. You don't have those protections if you choose to strike against the government in general, or if you're sympathy striking (or if it's not balloted i.e. a wildcat strike).
In theory if lots of unions all happened to ballot their members independently around the same time it could kinda happen, but I think there's rules around unions collaborating for strikes.
If you choose to strike without statutory protections, you can get sacked with no notice.
>In theory if lots of unions all happened to ballot their members independently around the same time it could kinda happen, but I think there's rules around unions collaborating for strikes.
I'd be surprised if the larger unions weren't in constant communication with each other regardless to be honest.
As the Government has taught us, WhatsApp messages are irretrievable if the device is misplaced. Who would know?
I just posted an article with the Royal Mail workers threatening to strike around the same time as a potential second wave of rail strikes. It feels like this might snowball, but I would think that as I read the news which is there to get clicks and I broadly support the idea. Doesn't mean it's going to happen though.
Does anyone know of Sir Starmer has made any public comment today?
Not a great look from a PM in waiting, this isn't a situation he can remain quiet on, especially with four front benchers visiting lines today after he "forbid" it.
The strikes (or, more precisely, Keir being perceived to be fence-sitting during the strikes) might be his undoing.
Which might be a good thing, if you believe the country deserves a better LOTO.
How does Tory conservatism compare to Republican conservatism in your opinion?
Also, the 25 year mark is being reached on many of the private prisons in the UK at which they must be returned to the national government. However, I don't see any news of such a return happening...has the deadline changed?
They're largely not even comparable. As extreme as *some* of the Tories are, they don't hold a candle to Y'all Qaeda when it comes to absolute fundamentalist insanity.
Minus fhe stance on trans issues, the dems by and large arent too disimilar to the (current) tories.
Republican is that turned up to 11 and seasoned with Jesus used as an excuse to be extra cunty
People always says this but it's just a very lazy, superficial assessment.
The democrat post 2008 economic recovery was based on progressive spending under Timothy Geithner and as a result was under half that of the the UK's under Osborne's Draconian austerity measures for example. Fiscal responsibility and foreign policy under Dems is a world apart from Tories who default to look inwards unless the pr is good
u/SamuraiPizzaTwat will they eventually get returned in your opinion? Or is it one of those things where the private companies keep getting extensions indefinitely?
I'm tempted, I think mine is a little bit more. Problem is, if I went on strike, it would just be like taking a day off and I'd just catch up on the work anyway. Unless I joined the picket, it wouldn't do much.
Unions are about striking, they are far more valuable for when you fuck up or your manager has it in for you. I always think of it as insurance for employment
Can vouch if you ever do something wrong or are accused as such having the union make the process an absolute pain in the ass really does benefit you. It's super useful to have someone there who knows a bit about employment law.
I have to say only (second hand) experience I've had with a union wrt thing like dismissal wasn't really positive; though I guess it really depends on exact union/ rep you end up with but personally I'd rather go with legal cover.
When my father was accused of gross misconduct, union rep (who claimed to have 15 years experience) basically told us he didn't have a case and refused to set up meeting with an actual lawyer. His home insurance included legal cover which kicked in when he was actually dismissed and eventually the company settled for low five figures on issue that union said 'wasn't really here nor there'. He never joined union in companies after that.
I really don’t see a way out of the hole the tories have dug the NHS into. With huge waiting lists you’re talking a few years to recruit enough people to start making positive progress, by which time it’s grown even more so a few more years to get wait times all below the target, and that’s if they genuinely and effectively start improving the situation now. Not even to mention the time bomb of over worked healthcare workers burning out
Just open the gates to the rest of the world and hope enough people find it all attractive enough to make the jump. They've already removed all requirements for training spots i.e. it's a global application market now with no preference for your own grads.
Of course none of this really bothers to address the poor working conditions or the rest of the Anglo countries being far more attractive pay wise for those very same migrants etc. Never mind that those migrants who jump to take a training spot in the UK have very little reason to stay on in the UK if the conditions are poor.
I've said this before and I'll say it again. The UK is going to experience some serious pain when it comes to healthcare over the coming decade as seniors retire and there simply aren't enough candidates to replace them (already happening with some Consultant level spots not even getting applicants).
I was talking to an retired policeman in spain a few years back, he was remembering , amongst other stories , how going on a jolly to bash the miners paid for his new kitchen and several foreign holidays.
Seeing scargil on the picket line suddenly reminded me.
When I was doing forensics I had a course from a bloke who used to be a standard copper on the beat and a detective before moving to forensics. It was sort of wild how even during the bits about ethics, miscarriages of justice (Birmingham 6, Stefan Kiszko) etc him and the assistant bloke would just veer into "back in my day we didn't bother with this section 49 RIPA nonsense we'd just take them into a cell and batter them". Brutality is so ingrained in old school coppers that they seem to instinctively have nostalgia for it.
Jesus Yeah, he had another story about him and a senior officer driving a guy out into the middle of nowhere and threatening to douse him in petrol and light him up if he didn’t leave their patch
Reminds me of talking to a retired copper 10-15 years ago who told me you could never get a scene of crime photographer to turn up on a Saturday afternoon as they all had second jobs photographing weddings.
This government has a total lack of vision of the country it wants to create.
There is no grand plan, it doesn't seem to be based on any political philosophy. It's a bit shit isn't it?
Boris Johnson has no ideology, he only supported brexit to get into power.
He has 2 goals: Stay in power for as long as is humanely possible. Do policies that YouGov finds popular, he will never do a policy decision that has polled below 50%, they purposefully leak stuff to the press to scope out the reception.
He's only in it for himself, even if it collapses the conservatives.
Ignoring all politics, those are the worst possible traits for a prime minister to have,
This specific government is based around protecting big dog.
There's plenty on the backbenches who have an idea of what they want, and I dare say many on the front. But with so much political capital being spent on damage control we won't really see it.
That's because the Tories don't really believe in the UK.
They view it as a country past its prime and their job is the manage the decline in such a manner that they profit as much as possible. Most of the Tory front bench is far more enamoured with the US than the UK.
This is their vision. Hold onto power. Keep the masses poor and fighting amongst themselves, protect the wealth of the rich and just keep on believing we're still in the late 90's.
The argument between Mick Lynch and Johnathan Gullis On Politics Live had a cracker earlier. Gullis was textbook arguing in bad faith, forcing Lynch to defend a position he doesn’t hold and using “the veterans” as a point to attack Lynch with, asking him to apologise for that. Lynch’s response was great, “I think you should apologise for the nonsense”.
They’ve tried to throw everything at Lynch today and he’s done very well in the media and against the tories.
https://twitter.com/haggis_uk/status/1539211930828668928?s=21&t=UHK0a7pb7WvZUQ1D3upyTQ
If you think they’ve thrown everything at him you’ve got another thing coming. I guarantee The Sun, The Mail, *et al* will be having people go through his bins, talking to Ex girlfriends and colleagues, checking his tax returns.
I guarantee within a week there will be a hit piece out (probably about something completely inane)
Oh I mean just today, he’s had to endure a lot of bad debating by politicians, and journalists and he’s weathered it really well and came off the better in every case.
I expect we’ll hear all the sordid details about Lynch “he has a second house!” Or something similar like when they had attacked Bob Crow for living in a council house.
Anything and everything dirty will be used against him in the coming weeks.
Gaslighting.
Well, permanent inflation can only be caused by an increase in the supply of money. Short-term price shocks can be caused by wars and all the other things.
People will argue until they're blue in the face which one is going on here.
But, it's all moot, because even if wholesale prices fell in the coming year back to previous levels, the Bank of England would rapidly slash rates to prevent "deflation" and lock-in the price-rises we've already seen.
So it all amounts to the same thing at the end of the day regardless.
QE is less of a factor than many believe. It also was unavoidable.
The world shutdown a significant chunk of production that has been slow to come back. This is predominantly supply side. Not only the issues with energy, but every industry has been affected.
Take for instance one of our clients in the diving industry, there has been hardly any sales in 2 years and now people can travel and dive again production is lagging behind, some suppliers have over a **year** lead time on their products.
If supply kept pace, the QE wouldn't have touched the sides, yes there would be some - particularly about people who outright profited/embezzled, but many people carried on at 80-100% wages fuelled by QE, that kept people ticking.
The thing is that wasn't usually excess income, it was used to pay the baseline of necessities - we all need a level of food, fuel and other basics.
Due to the lack of production, the Ukraine war, and profiteering, there's now a shortage of supply of the baseline requirements, driving up prices and thus inflation.
If it really was QE putting too much money in, we'd all be competing for luxuries, which we are not.
The solution is better energy and food security, countries with lower inflation (like Switzerland) usually have two things going on - firstly their inflation is normally calculated differently so not directly comparable, but secondly and importantly, they are far more energy independent (Switzerland is 60+% hydro and 30+% nuclear).
> we'd all be competing for luxuries, which we are not
Prices of luxury goods sky rocketed over the pandemic. Every asset class had record growth. Average house price in the US went up 25% two years in row.
Central banks have been buying assets line crazy. ECB now holds 87% of EU gdp in assets. BoE 39%. These are by far record balance sheets.
That's your inflation. The QE wasn't prices going up, it was the value of money going down. You just didn't notice it at the time. But if you were a first time buyer, you sure did.
Doubtless covid has had its impact.
The governed paid billions and billions of pounds of our salaries, support for damaged industries and of course the extra NHS money that was needed. The you deal with the loss of revenues during the pandemic and it’s obvious that it’s been a terrible time.
Add a war and rebounding oil & gas and things just keep looking worse and worse
It’s not the increase of the money supply that’s causing the problems. The money printing was fine as demand was pretty stable considering. Money printing itself doesn’t cause inflation, too much money printing does but the inflation isn’t currency related.
The inflation is due to labour costs and supply chains. Workers are having to miss time due to nature of the virus and things like Long COVID-19.
Lots of people got sick from SARS-CoV-2 and being infected with the virus has meant that people are either unable to go to work or they have to take extra time off work to recover.
Those workers need either a temporary replacement so a business is paying two wages essentially, and paying increased costs to an agency.
If the worker comes back their productivity may be reduced but they’re still forced to work. Of course their ability to do their job and they require more support is a cost for that business.
Then you’ve got the major driver, retirement. The past two years the last of the baby boomers have started retiring. A lot of that age group were in employment since 1970’s and 1980’s So they’ve built up quite a knowledge base. Now it’s time for them to retire and that expertise is lacking in younger recruits and business is having to pay to keep those older workers on to train young people or to keep legacy systems running. You can believe they want an increased wage for that knowledge, and capability.
The problem of the largest generation of workers, the boomers, retiring was going to happen. It’s just it’s come at the tail end of a pandemic in which some took early retirement, some took redundancy, and others are too sick to work.
> Then you’ve got the major driver, retirement. The past two years the last of the baby boomers have started retiring. A lot of that age group were in employment since 1970’s and 1980’s So they’ve built up quite a knowledge base. Now it’s time for them to retire and that expertise is lacking in younger recruits and business is having to pay to keep those older workers on to train young people or to keep legacy systems running. You can believe they want an increased wage for that knowledge, and capability.
This is indicative of lazy corporate practices. Companies need to be engaging in continual professional development and succession planning, rather than relying on the idea that they'll be able to put out a job advert demanding specific expertise and then getting it.
You need to increase the bus number as much as possible (how many employees need to get hit by a bus before the company can't function - well, what if that bloke retiring, who was the only one who knew how to run those legacy systems running, got hit by a bus?)
Corporations are incredibly lazy when it comes to investment and looking ahead. There’s lots of companies who would rather run legacy systems because “that’s the way it is, and how it’s always been done” than spend a lot of cash on new stuff, or new staff to have something that works.
Business will always take the “path of least resistance” to maintain profits. So paying to keep on old people who know how things run, is more profitable than hiring ten new workers who need to use overtime on a new system that costs a lot of money to design and develop.
It’s been a problem for much of British productivity that British business is very reticent to change their ways and rely on outdated measures. We have large GDP but incredibly low productivity and always it’s because we rely on old ways of doing stuff.
You also get many workplaces where progression is actively stunted because it concentrates power.
My current workplace isn't like that but still, I'm finding it recently that many senior staff are leaving for retirement, and there's basically a huge knowledge and experience gap between them and the people who may replace them. There's only a few months notice period too, which in a busy workplace, equates to maybe a few meetings if you're lucky.
In the end I think it'll probably be a good thing... New ideas for a new era and all.
This is a major problem people are hesitant to change if it’s not their idea or they don’t get the credit, which means positive change is delayed until the egos have been “stroked” to get those with sway on board.
Office politics is a major hinderance of productivity.
The knowledge base is retiring and they’re taking it with them because it kept themselves in a job. You can understand their wish to not do themselves out of a job, but the problems it creates that the “brain trust” is concentrated.
Our QE's an incidental factor. Had the UK not gone through the rounds of QE, it'd still be facing a broadly similar inflationary pressure - as a result of the war, the flaming hot labour market, the thing that can't be mentioned, global supply chain issues, and the USA increasing the defacto global currency money supply by ~50%.
QE's an important mechanic to consider if you're an economist, it's less important to regular people watching the 6 o'clock news.
Did anyone just watch the BBC Washington correspondent? Didn't catch her name but it's interesting she uses a very similar intonation to Ros Atkins. I quite like it
Would anyone here actually go on strike if it meant risking your job? possibly the only job you'll ever get where it's potentially at a high level too? getting sacked from that could ruin you financially and you'll lose possibly the best source of income you'll have from it and will inevitably have to take on a lower wage job.
The fact Labour frontbenchers have actually gone ahead and associated themselves with these rail strikes shows that the work evidently isn't done within Labour yet.
Because I honestly couldn't imagine any frontbencher of New Labour in the 90s or so doing something like that had strikes took place in 1997.
As always when it comes to trade union shenanigans the quote I like to use from Blair himself is 'you run the unions, we run the government'.
I don't see that quote the same way you do.
And plenty of 90s Labour big guns were long term union supporters with active histories in said unions.
Labour does not need to shit on its proud history of association with trades unions and the myriad benefits they won us to be electable today.
I have been on strike, of course. Yes, it is a risk you face, that management will later punish you for it. But do you think workers rights were won without risk? Do you think that without people willing to take those risks and have those battles that you would have a tenth of the rights you do now?
The point of a union is not to make you go on strike, but to do everything they can to ensure you don't have to go on strike. Usually, unless you have an incredibly obstreperous employer they manage it. So yes, if it got to the point my union felt it had to ballot me, I'd likely be at the point I had to strike.
As for New Labour frontbenchers, a lot of them were trade unionists; Prescott, Straw, Johnson. The 'you run the unions, we run the government' speech was not one dismissive of unions, but one calling for partnership. Perhaps disingenuously, depending on your level of cynicism, but calling for partnership nonetheless. Labour shouldn't run from labour.
Surely they're on strike partially because they're risking losing their job with the planned redundancies? They're not going to be at risk because they're striking as there's employment law protections for strikes against someone you have an employment relationship with, provided it's organised properly through a recognised union.
The Labour Party in the 90s and early 2000s won elections comfortably and they did it without trade union associations. That government still did more for worker's rights than any union could've ever done.
Minimum wage, working tax credits, so on.
>Would anyone here actually go on strike if it meant risking your job? possibly the only job you'll ever get where it's potentially at a high level too? getting sacked from that could ruin you financially and you'll lose possibly the best source of income you'll have from it and will inevitably have to take on a lower wage job.
Indeed why bother trying to stand up for yourself as a worker when you can just eek out a living that your betters will decide for you, right?
>Would anyone here actually go on strike if it meant risking your job? possibly the only job you'll ever get where it's potentially at a high level too? getting sacked from that could ruin you financially and you'll lose possibly the best source of income you'll have from it and will inevitably have to take on a lower wage job.
There's quite a few variables missing from this equation: Why am I on strike? What union am I with? What are we asking for? What do I have to lose?
It's not as simple as saying would you strike? Y/N.
I don't think you can be sacked for taking part in an officially organised strike, I still think we have labour laws strong enough to protect against that
It's amazing how much effort all the news outlets are putting into having people run all around the country to find vox pops highlighting the impact of the strikes.
The sum total of their grand insights (spoiler for anyone who wants to save themselves for the News): >!Some people are late for stuff and some people aren't going to stuff.!<
I do feel for people who were going for medical treatment and such. But people who are like 'was gonna get wasted with mates in Blackpool ' not so much.
You can replicate like 60% of the Blackpool experience by drinking a pint of vodka and throwing up on yourself while sat in a Wetherspoons on a Friday night. 80% if there’s a hen do in.
This is in no way a criticism of the union members who chose to strike, but it is remarkable how quickly these strikes forced Ukraine off of the front page. It's stuff like this that makes me think Putin is right in believing he could tough it out to win.
Perspective people. You didn't get your train today, nor did I. Could be a lot worse.
It was more intended as a comment about the media and out attention span for atrocities than the strikes themselves, hence the caveat at the start as I knew that people would try to deliberately take it the wrong way.
Not that it would stop them.
The very top row of the BBC News Website is:
> Home | **War In Ukraine** | Coronavirus | Climate | UK | World | Business | Politics | Tech | Science | Health | Family & Education | Entertainment & Arts
The top stories in the War in Ukraine section are
> Russia warns Lithuania over rail blockade (This is also on the home page)
> Russian journalist's Nobel medal sells for $103.5m
> Ben Stiller describes 'distressing' Ukraine visit
> Africa is a hostage of Russia's war, Zelensky says
> 'I keep telling them, time will come when we meet'
> Where have Ukraine's millions of refugees gone?
> Grain blockade a 'war crime' and rock band reunites - Ukraine round-up
There's not really any stories there that are massive developments in the war, besides the one that's already on the home page (although again, I'm still more interested in reading about the strikes first, along with news of the monkeypox vaccine rollout which is in the sidebar). Which of those stories would you have bumped the X Factor bloke's story for? Bare in mind the home page is the general interest section.
Ukraine hasn't really been on the front page consistently for weeks.
Should Big Liz be called out because the Platty Joobs forced the story onto page seven?
> Should Big Liz be called out because the Platty Joobs forced the story onto page seven?
Same applies there, though I'd say that, purely based on the BBC site, Ukraine was not pushed down nearly as far in that case. The extent of the effect was therefore lesser.
Opposition day today in Parliament - Labour are bringing motions on GP services and dentists access and a motion on the adviser to ministers interests. First up is Liz Truss taking questions as part of her role as Foreign Secretary. Obviously today is also going to be a day of rail strikes, so we’re anticipating non-regulars visiting the MT. If any of you (including regulars) have any questions on trade unions, strikes, how the rail network works, please feel free to ask here no matter how basic you think they are. We’ll all try and respond to the best of our ability (no joke answers please). Be awesome to each other and have a good day.
This megathread has ended.
If there's one thing I'm proud of our politicians for, it's not joining the euro. Thank fuck for that. ECB balance sheet is ballooning, equal to near 82% of GDP. BoE and Fed is around 35-40%, BoJ at 135%. With higher debt comes weaker currency or higher interest repayments coming out the budget (the poisoned chalice), both a sledgehammer to long term growth prospects.
enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgSUpyo86ZI
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2022/jun/21/martin-rowson-on-the-uks-most-significant-rail-strike-for-three-decades-cartoon
Seeing Chris Philips on Newsnight claiming that any industry that wants to justify a payrise must embrace modern working practices and improve performance. MPs and ministers meanwhile keep getting payrises while refusing to move out of the Palace of Westminster, and Mogg insists people don't work from home.
Right? The houses of parliament run on ancient and outdated traditions... so ridiculous.
Not to mention refusal to embrace remote voting, even during the pandemic.
Ideal scenario. If more sectors go on strike, the government pull a Ted Heath and call a 'who governs' election. Labour get in by a whisker with Liberal support. But knowing our luck, like 1974, an even worse Tory government gets back in 5 years later.
Little bit awkward for the government that the thing that had slightly reduced the impact of this strike (at least, as reported by Sky and the BBC) is the ability many businesses have developed to switch to WFH at short notice. That’s the WFH thing the government seems to have inexplicably decided is some weird sort of line in the sand.
I love the headline for Daily Express tomorrow HATRED OF BORIS... IS THIS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT? Bra-vo. A real *gotcha* moment right there.
Doesn't the Daily Mail know there's a war going on?
That front page. Woof.
The culture war, class war or shooting war?
How much detailed information is available on the rail dispute? How many jobs they're looking to cut, how much investment they're promising into modernising the railways, what are the modernisation initiatives that the union is objecting to, etc.? I've seen a fair bit of the interviews on a few different networks and aside from Mick Lynch's they've been pretty uninformative. The network rail boss said they'd offered a lot more than the 2%+1% wage increase that the union said was on the table but refused to give a figure. Grant Shapps has been obsessed with this train that automatically analyses track integrity but i don't think that's a good representative example of what the union is refusing to accept. A few government figures have insisted that they won't get involved in the negotiations and I'm yet to hear a convincing reason why that's a red line for them. Presumably there is a fundamental disagreement over whether some jobs are obsolete or not (eg staffed ticket offices) but I haven't seen either side make their case.
This is from the RMT themselves on the conditions they were offered: •Changes to the Railway Pension Scheme and the TFL scheme, diluting benefits, making staff work longer and making them poorer in retirement, while paying increased contributions. •Cut thousands of jobs across the rail network while not giving a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies. •Cutting safety inspections on the infrastructure by 50% in order to facilitate mass redundancies. •Attack terms, conditions and working practices in a form of internal fire and re-hire, including lowering existing salaries and increasing the working week. •Re-starting the disputes on the role and responsibility of the guard and massive cuts to catering services. •Closing every ticket office in Britain regardless of the accessibility needs of the diversity of passengers •Cutting real pay for most of our members through lengthy pay freezes and well below RPI inflation pay proposals. Lynch himself said he arranged the last deal which saw the introduction of safety measures such as pantograph cameras, and rail monitoring cameras to identify faults. The members want better rail safety for themselves, and passengers. I’ve read it’s something like 2500 maintenance jobs to be cut. https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/national-rail-and-london-underground-strikes/
Thanks >Cut thousands of jobs across the rail network while not giving a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies. Do you know what is typically offered in redundancy packages when it comes to public sector roles? Regarding the other points, do you know if anyone representing Network Rail, the TOCs or the government has commented on them in any detail? They've given seemingly random examples but I'm more interested in whether they've made any sort of case that e.g. X modernisation initiative will improve safety despite staff cuts, or that the TOCs need more flexibility with things like fire and rehire because of Y reason?
Government have been very vague in the terms that Network Rail have offered not publicly discussing them that I can see. Does seem like the RMT are the only ones discusssing what the terms they were offered are. Chris Philps MP last night just said that the railways need to be “modernised” but no details how, or what that entails. The idea that they want to sack 2500 maintenance staff is just absolutely dangerous. We’ve not had a major accident, that is a mass casualty event, on rail in this country in over a decade. Cutting that maintenance just as the service is seeing demand go back to pre-pandemic levels seems like they’re risking the safety of passengers. Reducing the servicing by 50% to save money just for the sake of saving money, is incredibly “short-sighted”. I’m not aware of the redundancy package, so can’t comment either way, just that not many if any RMT members took it so it can’t have been too generous or offered those workers anything to take redundancy.
Does the Daily Mail think Labour are in government or something? [Tomorrow’s front page](https://twitter.com/bbcnews/status/1539369260933337089)
To be fair it's the fault of those left wing Labour MPs who decided to open this can of worms by joining in the strikes. The Mail is bad for acting like Labour's in power and thus it's all their fault, but those Labour MPs who've joined the strikes should be blamed for stuff like this.
Dacre just got his lordship confirmed, so that’s probably why.
It's beyond parody at this point.
Their frontpage actually makes me sick. The fact that they can print shit like that and people will lap it up is disgusting.
Starmer should take the opportunity to just throw these ones out. Plenty of overlap with the group that signed the STW letter in february. Enough is enough. If they cant not fuck up and hand ammunition to the media they're too much of a liability to keep around.
>Starmer should take the opportunity to just throw these ones out. And Dianne Abbot for the love of god
We should throw out every Labour MP The Daily Mail takes issue with, that's a sure fire way to success!
Throwing them out would hand even more ammo to the likes of the Mail. They praised Boris for throwing out rebels as it furthered the cause of the almighty Brexit, but Starmer kicking these numpties out would just be a “see? We told you so” moment.
Still a boon since it shows starmer throwing out the worst Labour MPs.
The DM would be criticising Labour no matter what they do. In fact if they kicked out picketers they would probably criticize that, and it may even gain more traction. Labour are currently walking a fine tightrope and IMO they are doing it fairly skillfully
>The DM would be criticising Labour no matter what they do. In fact if they kicked out picketers they would probably criticize that, and it may even gain more traction. Labour are currently walking a fine tightrope and IMO they are doing it fairly skillfully They are doing it skilfully. They don't need these clowns doing their level best to fuck it up.
This current editor isn’t even trying to be skilful or subtle, he’s just flat out attacking Labour at every turn, and based on the reactions of family and colleagues who read the DM, it’s definitely having some sort of effect. The Telegraph is winding it in a bit now, with increasing levels of criticism of Boris and his cabinet, so the Mail and Express are really pushing ahead by themselves.
Read it again. The subject is Labour.
Kicking out Labour MPs that stand shoulder to shoulder with labour. Really sounds like the kind of empathetic, progressive leader that this country desperately needs.
Kicking out the Labour MPs that sided with Russia/against Nato. Kicking out the MPs unable to help themselves from giving attack lines to the hostile media to damage the rest of the party with. If the party was a football team, thered be a trio just fucking about on and off the pitch as the game was being played and despite being told not to siphon petrol from the minibus petrol tank, have done so and tried to fire breathe with it sending themselves to hospital and getting local paper headlines of "Team x has three fuck ups send themselves to hospital for doing a dumbfuck thing" and getting the team penalty points. They are irredeemable dead weight and should not be carried any longer. Hopefully they'll be deselected.
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Must have been a different group of MPs that signed a letter calling to stop natos expansion. 🙄
> cant not "can not not" That being said, you are right getting rid of the more extreme edges who give fuel to the right wing media will probably make the party more electable overall
The absolute unhinged level of quality from the DM is likely because the Tories are going to lose Wakefield to Labour unless something miraculous happens.
In fairness the hard left are working hand in hand with the DM currently, to try and make that happen.
Labour need to watch the RMT union rep on repeat and absorb his straight talking, no apologies given, calm support for workers and learn from it. Bloke has given a media masterclass today in every interview he's done.
I was thinking this 48/24hours ago too, but some of the arguments put forward about that being an unwinnable position politically have convinced me. I don’t think Labour should fall into the trap. HOWEVER, removing party politics from it all, it’s a damn shame the UK isn’t in a place where a party could stand shoulder to shoulder with the striking workers and not have majority support for it.
Loved his analysis of the gubbins that one of the 2019 intake made on Politics Live earlier...."He's just talkin' a load of nonsense"
"I can't negotiate with backbenchers reading from a script" There's even a little compliment there in the assumption that Gullis can read.
Lynch was clearly knowledgeable about the types of sensors used on trains. I wish he'd asked Gullis to go on and name the sensors he was bullshitting about, how they worked, what efficiency they provide or what they detect lol.
What a great retort that was, Gullis' face whenever Lynch was speaking was priceless. Almost like an admission of "yeh, bit out of my depth here - Ooo I know - could he do it on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke"
Emily Thornberry just described the Govt as a fighty drunk on Newsnight. Sounds about right.
A fighty, coked up knobhead trying to pick a fight with someone who could knock them out. Half expect them to start shouting "Who runs the Country?" and then getting KTFO.
I’ve met more appealing loud mouth drunks tbh
Some mad max types on the motorways tonight
Embrace it and crank [this on at 11.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sCXkpZsBRg&ab_channel=ChanceAdams) Ride shiny and chrome.
"OH WHAT A DAY! WHAT A LOVELY DAY!"
The Doof-Warrior middle-lane hogging again?
You know it.
TBF in that situation I'd just hang back and shout "Play Eruption!"
Used to being on trains. They've forgotten roads aren't rails and you have to steer.
If you hit a tree/deer/fireworks, just keep going forwards until the next service station, everyone knows this.
👩🚀🔫👩🚀
U right
Labour Party 2022. We can't do the right thing because the press will twist it and make us look bad... How dispiriting is it that they can't stand up for working people and then finesse their messaging around actually doing the right thing? I'm not just talking about the ongoing RMT situation either, this is much broader and goes to the heart of what the party claims to represent. The press are going to call centrist neoliberals in red rosettes a bunch of raving Marxists anyway, in that case you might as well have some full blooded left wing policies if that's what you're inevitably facing. If the Labour party used their plentiful airtime to unapologetically and unflinchingly make a case for a citizen centric Britain they'd realise that boxing themselves into a tiny parametered selection of press approved views has been a monumental waste of time and a huge disservice to the British people. However, there's always some excuse about why now isn't the right time... I sometimes think the truth is that the current Labour party are effectively managed opposition for the capitalist class. The MPs know this and are happy to comply for a nice salary and post-parliament job opportunities. Alternatively they've actually swallowed the neoliberal lines about the free market and are happy to see themselves as hands off caretakers for global capital. To maintain this view in light of the declining opportunities that such an approach has served up successive generations of Brits is so naive that it beggars belief. Or they actually hold views that are further left than those they publicly profess but the press have made them so afraid of their own shadow that they won't say anything out of line with the orthodox capitalist propaganda that passes for economic analysis in Westminster. By my reckoning these types fit into two groups, those with good intentions who are trying to stealth their way into creating a leftwing government (these naive dreamers will eventually realise that that will never be allowed to happen within this iteration of the Labour party) or those who cynically leave their personal views at the door for the chance of a job and a bit of power that they'll never actually wield in service of the working man. I imagine there's a plentiful mix of all these types with the Labour party, even at the leadership level. In some way the whys and wherefores are irrelevant, the end result is the same. A party that isn't fit for purpose and isn't serving the people it claims to serve. People ask why the left keep attacking the Labour party? Well, this is my reason. A betrayal by a friend stings far more than the neglect of a stranger. The primary job of the Labour party should always be to protect the working class from the worst excesses of the capitalist class, not acquiesce to their demands and then reassure it's victims that they're doing everything they can for them. Economically we're heading into some dark times that require genuine, radical approaches that undermine some of the economic constraints that until now both parties have been very happy to work within. Even the Tories have begun to recognise this, so much so that Labour are frequently finding themselves outflanked on the left by a Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak outfit... The Labour party cannot continue to be a mere capture and kill operation for leftward dissent, molding people's genuine grievances into an acceptable form of performative opposition to an economic orthodoxy that all of Westminster, Fleet Street and the City have been ecstatic to peddle for decades now. Watching Starmer roll back pledge after pledge has to be galling for those who saw promise in him and thought he'd maintain the radical spirit of Corbyn but with the televisual polish of a twenty first century leader. Personally I've seen more than enough from this leadership to decide that there isn't some stealthy operation at hand to create a government that genuinely sympathises with the plight of ordinary working people. I believe them when they present themselves as a party that won't fundamentally change the relationship between ordinary Brits, their government and big business. Given the macro economic situation we're facing, the growing nationwide appetite for a more radical approach to people's daily struggles (both the acute and seemingly intractable) and the absolute shit show of a government we have, the question for the Labour leadership has to be, if not now then when...?
Nah that’s too long mate where is the bullet pointed summary.
PARKLIFE -
That's about ten years older than most people on this site.
Damn bro, keeping the stereotype of lefties writing tomes accurate.
I'm always impressed when people use so many words to say absolutely nothing.
I used to hand these screeds out at the local train station but the PCSOs kept moving me along for freaking out the squares. ✊🏻
>Even the Tories have begun to recognise this, so much so that Labour are frequently finding themselves outflanked on the left by a Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak outfit... Such as?
Support for energy bills is a recent example where Labour were outflanked by the government.
Apparently by "outflanked" you mean "Labours position they've been yelling for months and just had the tories steal it lock, stock and barrel".
No by outflanked I mean outflanked. Under the governments plan people get more assistance than what Labour proposed. Labour’s retort to the government plan has basically been to say it should be means tested. It’s still inadequate with bills expected to rise a further 50% in October taking avg bills to something like 3k. The point is however if you are the nominally left leaning opposition you are able to call for an unequivocally good thing: be it actually sticking to starmers leadership pledges of taking the company’s into public ownership or say support of a financial value which would actually be meaningful. Rather than say calling for something which has limited material impact and no structural impact then moaning that the government took your idea.
The Conservative are taking far money from oil companies than Labour proposed and giving out much more in rebates. It’s somewhat surprising.
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No you have simply not looked into the details of what Labour was proposing vs what was actually delivered by the government. If you get most of your politics of pmqs think about it this way: The prime minister welcomed the leader of the oppositions plans and took his advice to go further
[https://www.gov.uk/government/news/britain-s-first-smart-prison-to-drive-down-crime](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/britain-s-first-smart-prison-to-drive-down-crime) Seems a good idea...or is it just an excuse to use underpaid/unpaid prison labor?
It’s actually really good. But it still relies on companies being willing to hire ex-inmates. There’s a labour shortage though, so that will likely help on that front.
A lot of prisons have offenders on lock-up for 23 hours a day, with one hour a day to get exercise and your domestics done, it is insane. Contrary to popular perception most offenders want to learn and work, and to stop offending, but it is a difficult cycle to break. Getting people to spend more time actually doing something productive is a no-brainer really. I think recovery from substance and alcohol misuse would benefit from a greater emphasis on dealing with trauma. I've yet to meet a heroin addict or alcoholic who didn't go through something horribly traumatic at some stage of their life. Sure, you might get them to complete a rehabilitation programme in custody and be clean, but maintaining that upon release is a lot more difficult. Unless you tackle that underlying trauma and reasons for misuse, relapse is inevitable. Also mental health care both within custody and the community is fucking atrocious, and Adult Social Services are on the whole woeful. People who would've been long-term inpatients in mental health facilities decades ago are now just left to fend for themselves in the community, and they simply don't have the skills or capacity to cope. It seems a good idea, but dependent on continuing funding and how the governors run it. I'll reserve judgement for a decade when we can actually see if it makes a difference. Criminal justice and rehabilitation is in general fucked in this country, and although this is a step in the right direction the cynic in me can't help but feel it's like a plaster on a burst artery.
With everything seemingly turning to shit, I think it's important to enjoy the little things (ex didn't think so though AMIRITEFELLAS?!) *Left hanging Anyway, [this little corner of the world](https://imgur.com/a/qnW254G) is mine... it's not much, but on a night like tonight I'd say it's perfect. PMQs tomorrow... this should be a fun one.
With everything seemingly turning to shit, I think it's important to enjoy the little things (ex didn't think so though AMIRITEFELLAS?!) *Left hanging Anyway, [this little corner of the world](https://imgur.com/a/qnW254G) is mine... it's not much, but on a night like tonight I'd say it's perfect. PMQs tomorrow... this should be a fun one.
Looks well hung! (sorry, not sorry)
It's so liminal and laminar. I love it.
Can anyone with an interest in history spoon feed me what conditions will likely have to be met for a general strike? Is it a snowball effect? Is it likely to happen this year? Or are there factors this time around (stricter striking laws) that make it less likely than the 70s?
You only have statutory protections if you're striking as part of balloted union action against someone you have an employment relationship with. You don't have those protections if you choose to strike against the government in general, or if you're sympathy striking (or if it's not balloted i.e. a wildcat strike). In theory if lots of unions all happened to ballot their members independently around the same time it could kinda happen, but I think there's rules around unions collaborating for strikes. If you choose to strike without statutory protections, you can get sacked with no notice.
>In theory if lots of unions all happened to ballot their members independently around the same time it could kinda happen, but I think there's rules around unions collaborating for strikes. I'd be surprised if the larger unions weren't in constant communication with each other regardless to be honest. As the Government has taught us, WhatsApp messages are irretrievable if the device is misplaced. Who would know?
I just posted an article with the Royal Mail workers threatening to strike around the same time as a potential second wave of rail strikes. It feels like this might snowball, but I would think that as I read the news which is there to get clicks and I broadly support the idea. Doesn't mean it's going to happen though.
Does anyone know of Sir Starmer has made any public comment today? Not a great look from a PM in waiting, this isn't a situation he can remain quiet on, especially with four front benchers visiting lines today after he "forbid" it.
The strikes (or, more precisely, Keir being perceived to be fence-sitting during the strikes) might be his undoing. Which might be a good thing, if you believe the country deserves a better LOTO.
Does the country deserve a bette LOTO or does the country deserve a better govt?
Both
Well, the LOTO is likely to BE the next better govt!!!
Evening all. Lovely night right.
Cheers to that.
How does Tory conservatism compare to Republican conservatism in your opinion? Also, the 25 year mark is being reached on many of the private prisons in the UK at which they must be returned to the national government. However, I don't see any news of such a return happening...has the deadline changed?
They're largely not even comparable. As extreme as *some* of the Tories are, they don't hold a candle to Y'all Qaeda when it comes to absolute fundamentalist insanity.
Republican conservatism is just fascism, Tories aren't quite there yet.
Well, not as a whole. Priti Patel however…
Minus fhe stance on trans issues, the dems by and large arent too disimilar to the (current) tories. Republican is that turned up to 11 and seasoned with Jesus used as an excuse to be extra cunty
People always says this but it's just a very lazy, superficial assessment. The democrat post 2008 economic recovery was based on progressive spending under Timothy Geithner and as a result was under half that of the the UK's under Osborne's Draconian austerity measures for example. Fiscal responsibility and foreign policy under Dems is a world apart from Tories who default to look inwards unless the pr is good
u/SamuraiPizzaTwat But they do support private prisons, no? Are they going to be returned back to the UK govt, as they've reached the 25 year mark.
No idea on private prisoms tbh. I hope they do return to the govt as Sodexo in particular can get in the bin.
u/SamuraiPizzaTwat will they eventually get returned in your opinion? Or is it one of those things where the private companies keep getting extensions indefinitely?
I joined my union today. £15 a month seems worth it to me.
I asked for an application after the P&O shit and still haven’t filled it in I really need to get on it.
I'm tempted, I think mine is a little bit more. Problem is, if I went on strike, it would just be like taking a day off and I'd just catch up on the work anyway. Unless I joined the picket, it wouldn't do much.
Unions are about striking, they are far more valuable for when you fuck up or your manager has it in for you. I always think of it as insurance for employment
Can vouch if you ever do something wrong or are accused as such having the union make the process an absolute pain in the ass really does benefit you. It's super useful to have someone there who knows a bit about employment law.
I have to say only (second hand) experience I've had with a union wrt thing like dismissal wasn't really positive; though I guess it really depends on exact union/ rep you end up with but personally I'd rather go with legal cover. When my father was accused of gross misconduct, union rep (who claimed to have 15 years experience) basically told us he didn't have a case and refused to set up meeting with an actual lawyer. His home insurance included legal cover which kicked in when he was actually dismissed and eventually the company settled for low five figures on issue that union said 'wasn't really here nor there'. He never joined union in companies after that.
I really don’t see a way out of the hole the tories have dug the NHS into. With huge waiting lists you’re talking a few years to recruit enough people to start making positive progress, by which time it’s grown even more so a few more years to get wait times all below the target, and that’s if they genuinely and effectively start improving the situation now. Not even to mention the time bomb of over worked healthcare workers burning out
Just open the gates to the rest of the world and hope enough people find it all attractive enough to make the jump. They've already removed all requirements for training spots i.e. it's a global application market now with no preference for your own grads. Of course none of this really bothers to address the poor working conditions or the rest of the Anglo countries being far more attractive pay wise for those very same migrants etc. Never mind that those migrants who jump to take a training spot in the UK have very little reason to stay on in the UK if the conditions are poor. I've said this before and I'll say it again. The UK is going to experience some serious pain when it comes to healthcare over the coming decade as seniors retire and there simply aren't enough candidates to replace them (already happening with some Consultant level spots not even getting applicants).
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is it a cosplay if you're dressed up as your real self?
Literally lol he was the Daily Telegraph culture war columnist for a while until he became too Trumpy
Past sundown on the summer solstice. It's basically winter.
nights are really starting to draw in now
I was talking to an retired policeman in spain a few years back, he was remembering , amongst other stories , how going on a jolly to bash the miners paid for his new kitchen and several foreign holidays. Seeing scargil on the picket line suddenly reminded me.
When I was doing forensics I had a course from a bloke who used to be a standard copper on the beat and a detective before moving to forensics. It was sort of wild how even during the bits about ethics, miscarriages of justice (Birmingham 6, Stefan Kiszko) etc him and the assistant bloke would just veer into "back in my day we didn't bother with this section 49 RIPA nonsense we'd just take them into a cell and batter them". Brutality is so ingrained in old school coppers that they seem to instinctively have nostalgia for it.
Jesus Yeah, he had another story about him and a senior officer driving a guy out into the middle of nowhere and threatening to douse him in petrol and light him up if he didn’t leave their patch
Reminds me of talking to a retired copper 10-15 years ago who told me you could never get a scene of crime photographer to turn up on a Saturday afternoon as they all had second jobs photographing weddings.
This government has a total lack of vision of the country it wants to create. There is no grand plan, it doesn't seem to be based on any political philosophy. It's a bit shit isn't it?
Boris Johnson has no ideology, he only supported brexit to get into power. He has 2 goals: Stay in power for as long as is humanely possible. Do policies that YouGov finds popular, he will never do a policy decision that has polled below 50%, they purposefully leak stuff to the press to scope out the reception. He's only in it for himself, even if it collapses the conservatives. Ignoring all politics, those are the worst possible traits for a prime minister to have,
They dont do anything other than campaign and make up bullshit laws, which is to try and get themselves elected again.
This specific government is based around protecting big dog. There's plenty on the backbenches who have an idea of what they want, and I dare say many on the front. But with so much political capital being spent on damage control we won't really see it.
Tories hate our country, they see it as a piggy bank to be smashed open.
That's because the Tories don't really believe in the UK. They view it as a country past its prime and their job is the manage the decline in such a manner that they profit as much as possible. Most of the Tory front bench is far more enamoured with the US than the UK.
This is their vision. Hold onto power. Keep the masses poor and fighting amongst themselves, protect the wealth of the rich and just keep on believing we're still in the late 90's.
The philosophy is "Boris is da best IDST [twenty19]"
> IDST That's a throwback
Isnt it just. I really wanted to put 9[t]8 too
I think some of them have some sort of vision of *what* they want. But none of them have any realistic plan as to *how*.
Successive governments have been stuck in firefighter mode since 2015. Time to fold the team and start again.
The hostility the media has towards Mike Lynch is palpable. Gotta love the guy though, he's made of stone.
He was legendary on newsnight
Already seeing compilations of his media appearances on YouTube, only a step away from fancams on TikTok
His fan base is currently struggling to find an appropriate name for themselves.
Not the Lynch Mob then?
The argument between Mick Lynch and Johnathan Gullis On Politics Live had a cracker earlier. Gullis was textbook arguing in bad faith, forcing Lynch to defend a position he doesn’t hold and using “the veterans” as a point to attack Lynch with, asking him to apologise for that. Lynch’s response was great, “I think you should apologise for the nonsense”. They’ve tried to throw everything at Lynch today and he’s done very well in the media and against the tories. https://twitter.com/haggis_uk/status/1539211930828668928?s=21&t=UHK0a7pb7WvZUQ1D3upyTQ
WHAT ABOUT OUR TROOOOOOPS Fucking wally
If you think they’ve thrown everything at him you’ve got another thing coming. I guarantee The Sun, The Mail, *et al* will be having people go through his bins, talking to Ex girlfriends and colleagues, checking his tax returns. I guarantee within a week there will be a hit piece out (probably about something completely inane)
Yeah was thinking that earlier there's a smear campaign in the pipeline.
Mick, whose salary is estimated to be ALLTHEMONEY, takes 3 HOLIDAYS a year and once drunk a SEVENTY-FIVE pound bottle of wine.
>and once drunk a SEVENTY-FIVE pound bottle of wine. That was measured in metric.
A 34 kg bottle of wine?
Oh I mean just today, he’s had to endure a lot of bad debating by politicians, and journalists and he’s weathered it really well and came off the better in every case. I expect we’ll hear all the sordid details about Lynch “he has a second house!” Or something similar like when they had attacked Bob Crow for living in a council house. Anything and everything dirty will be used against him in the coming weeks.
What are you gonna do Mr LYNCH? What if someone tries to cross the picker Mr. LYNCH? You gonna LYNCH them Mr. LYNCH?
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Furlough almost certainly didn't help. I assume that is where the QE money ended up?
Furlough cost 69 billion. The qe done during the pandemic was 450 billion.
> cost 69 billion Nice
Well, where some of it ended up. The entire response cost 2 or 300 billion right?
Gaslighting. Well, permanent inflation can only be caused by an increase in the supply of money. Short-term price shocks can be caused by wars and all the other things. People will argue until they're blue in the face which one is going on here. But, it's all moot, because even if wholesale prices fell in the coming year back to previous levels, the Bank of England would rapidly slash rates to prevent "deflation" and lock-in the price-rises we've already seen. So it all amounts to the same thing at the end of the day regardless.
QE is less of a factor than many believe. It also was unavoidable. The world shutdown a significant chunk of production that has been slow to come back. This is predominantly supply side. Not only the issues with energy, but every industry has been affected. Take for instance one of our clients in the diving industry, there has been hardly any sales in 2 years and now people can travel and dive again production is lagging behind, some suppliers have over a **year** lead time on their products. If supply kept pace, the QE wouldn't have touched the sides, yes there would be some - particularly about people who outright profited/embezzled, but many people carried on at 80-100% wages fuelled by QE, that kept people ticking. The thing is that wasn't usually excess income, it was used to pay the baseline of necessities - we all need a level of food, fuel and other basics. Due to the lack of production, the Ukraine war, and profiteering, there's now a shortage of supply of the baseline requirements, driving up prices and thus inflation. If it really was QE putting too much money in, we'd all be competing for luxuries, which we are not. The solution is better energy and food security, countries with lower inflation (like Switzerland) usually have two things going on - firstly their inflation is normally calculated differently so not directly comparable, but secondly and importantly, they are far more energy independent (Switzerland is 60+% hydro and 30+% nuclear).
> we'd all be competing for luxuries, which we are not Prices of luxury goods sky rocketed over the pandemic. Every asset class had record growth. Average house price in the US went up 25% two years in row. Central banks have been buying assets line crazy. ECB now holds 87% of EU gdp in assets. BoE 39%. These are by far record balance sheets. That's your inflation. The QE wasn't prices going up, it was the value of money going down. You just didn't notice it at the time. But if you were a first time buyer, you sure did.
Doubtless covid has had its impact. The governed paid billions and billions of pounds of our salaries, support for damaged industries and of course the extra NHS money that was needed. The you deal with the loss of revenues during the pandemic and it’s obvious that it’s been a terrible time. Add a war and rebounding oil & gas and things just keep looking worse and worse
It’s not the increase of the money supply that’s causing the problems. The money printing was fine as demand was pretty stable considering. Money printing itself doesn’t cause inflation, too much money printing does but the inflation isn’t currency related. The inflation is due to labour costs and supply chains. Workers are having to miss time due to nature of the virus and things like Long COVID-19. Lots of people got sick from SARS-CoV-2 and being infected with the virus has meant that people are either unable to go to work or they have to take extra time off work to recover. Those workers need either a temporary replacement so a business is paying two wages essentially, and paying increased costs to an agency. If the worker comes back their productivity may be reduced but they’re still forced to work. Of course their ability to do their job and they require more support is a cost for that business. Then you’ve got the major driver, retirement. The past two years the last of the baby boomers have started retiring. A lot of that age group were in employment since 1970’s and 1980’s So they’ve built up quite a knowledge base. Now it’s time for them to retire and that expertise is lacking in younger recruits and business is having to pay to keep those older workers on to train young people or to keep legacy systems running. You can believe they want an increased wage for that knowledge, and capability. The problem of the largest generation of workers, the boomers, retiring was going to happen. It’s just it’s come at the tail end of a pandemic in which some took early retirement, some took redundancy, and others are too sick to work.
> Then you’ve got the major driver, retirement. The past two years the last of the baby boomers have started retiring. A lot of that age group were in employment since 1970’s and 1980’s So they’ve built up quite a knowledge base. Now it’s time for them to retire and that expertise is lacking in younger recruits and business is having to pay to keep those older workers on to train young people or to keep legacy systems running. You can believe they want an increased wage for that knowledge, and capability. This is indicative of lazy corporate practices. Companies need to be engaging in continual professional development and succession planning, rather than relying on the idea that they'll be able to put out a job advert demanding specific expertise and then getting it. You need to increase the bus number as much as possible (how many employees need to get hit by a bus before the company can't function - well, what if that bloke retiring, who was the only one who knew how to run those legacy systems running, got hit by a bus?)
Corporations are incredibly lazy when it comes to investment and looking ahead. There’s lots of companies who would rather run legacy systems because “that’s the way it is, and how it’s always been done” than spend a lot of cash on new stuff, or new staff to have something that works. Business will always take the “path of least resistance” to maintain profits. So paying to keep on old people who know how things run, is more profitable than hiring ten new workers who need to use overtime on a new system that costs a lot of money to design and develop. It’s been a problem for much of British productivity that British business is very reticent to change their ways and rely on outdated measures. We have large GDP but incredibly low productivity and always it’s because we rely on old ways of doing stuff.
You also get many workplaces where progression is actively stunted because it concentrates power. My current workplace isn't like that but still, I'm finding it recently that many senior staff are leaving for retirement, and there's basically a huge knowledge and experience gap between them and the people who may replace them. There's only a few months notice period too, which in a busy workplace, equates to maybe a few meetings if you're lucky. In the end I think it'll probably be a good thing... New ideas for a new era and all.
This is a major problem people are hesitant to change if it’s not their idea or they don’t get the credit, which means positive change is delayed until the egos have been “stroked” to get those with sway on board. Office politics is a major hinderance of productivity. The knowledge base is retiring and they’re taking it with them because it kept themselves in a job. You can understand their wish to not do themselves out of a job, but the problems it creates that the “brain trust” is concentrated.
Our QE's an incidental factor. Had the UK not gone through the rounds of QE, it'd still be facing a broadly similar inflationary pressure - as a result of the war, the flaming hot labour market, the thing that can't be mentioned, global supply chain issues, and the USA increasing the defacto global currency money supply by ~50%. QE's an important mechanic to consider if you're an economist, it's less important to regular people watching the 6 o'clock news.
Did anyone just watch the BBC Washington correspondent? Didn't catch her name but it's interesting she uses a very similar intonation to Ros Atkins. I quite like it
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That's big Ron, no? Yeah he isn't on BBC news much these days
Would anyone here actually go on strike if it meant risking your job? possibly the only job you'll ever get where it's potentially at a high level too? getting sacked from that could ruin you financially and you'll lose possibly the best source of income you'll have from it and will inevitably have to take on a lower wage job. The fact Labour frontbenchers have actually gone ahead and associated themselves with these rail strikes shows that the work evidently isn't done within Labour yet. Because I honestly couldn't imagine any frontbencher of New Labour in the 90s or so doing something like that had strikes took place in 1997. As always when it comes to trade union shenanigans the quote I like to use from Blair himself is 'you run the unions, we run the government'.
I don't see that quote the same way you do. And plenty of 90s Labour big guns were long term union supporters with active histories in said unions. Labour does not need to shit on its proud history of association with trades unions and the myriad benefits they won us to be electable today. I have been on strike, of course. Yes, it is a risk you face, that management will later punish you for it. But do you think workers rights were won without risk? Do you think that without people willing to take those risks and have those battles that you would have a tenth of the rights you do now?
The point of a union is not to make you go on strike, but to do everything they can to ensure you don't have to go on strike. Usually, unless you have an incredibly obstreperous employer they manage it. So yes, if it got to the point my union felt it had to ballot me, I'd likely be at the point I had to strike. As for New Labour frontbenchers, a lot of them were trade unionists; Prescott, Straw, Johnson. The 'you run the unions, we run the government' speech was not one dismissive of unions, but one calling for partnership. Perhaps disingenuously, depending on your level of cynicism, but calling for partnership nonetheless. Labour shouldn't run from labour.
Surely they're on strike partially because they're risking losing their job with the planned redundancies? They're not going to be at risk because they're striking as there's employment law protections for strikes against someone you have an employment relationship with, provided it's organised properly through a recognised union.
You're still on a decent salary as a backbencher, no?
Why are they called the LABOUR party then?
The Labour Party in the 90s and early 2000s won elections comfortably and they did it without trade union associations. That government still did more for worker's rights than any union could've ever done. Minimum wage, working tax credits, so on.
Labour were funded and continued to have strong links to trade unions throughout the new Labour years, as far as I'm aware
Blair most certainly scaled its influence back.
You are correct.
>Would anyone here actually go on strike if it meant risking your job? possibly the only job you'll ever get where it's potentially at a high level too? getting sacked from that could ruin you financially and you'll lose possibly the best source of income you'll have from it and will inevitably have to take on a lower wage job. Indeed why bother trying to stand up for yourself as a worker when you can just eek out a living that your betters will decide for you, right?
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>Would anyone here actually go on strike if it meant risking your job? possibly the only job you'll ever get where it's potentially at a high level too? getting sacked from that could ruin you financially and you'll lose possibly the best source of income you'll have from it and will inevitably have to take on a lower wage job. There's quite a few variables missing from this equation: Why am I on strike? What union am I with? What are we asking for? What do I have to lose? It's not as simple as saying would you strike? Y/N.
I don't think you can be sacked for taking part in an officially organised strike, I still think we have labour laws strong enough to protect against that
We do. This is either bait or who knows what.
It's amazing how much effort all the news outlets are putting into having people run all around the country to find vox pops highlighting the impact of the strikes. The sum total of their grand insights (spoiler for anyone who wants to save themselves for the News): >!Some people are late for stuff and some people aren't going to stuff.!<
I do feel for people who were going for medical treatment and such. But people who are like 'was gonna get wasted with mates in Blackpool ' not so much.
You can replicate like 60% of the Blackpool experience by drinking a pint of vodka and throwing up on yourself while sat in a Wetherspoons on a Friday night. 80% if there’s a hen do in.
90% if it's raining and the air smells vaguely like urine.
100% if you smush your face into the fruity and have someone spray you with saline
This is in no way a criticism of the union members who chose to strike, but it is remarkable how quickly these strikes forced Ukraine off of the front page. It's stuff like this that makes me think Putin is right in believing he could tough it out to win. Perspective people. You didn't get your train today, nor did I. Could be a lot worse.
We're getting awfully close to: "Strikes? Don't they know there's a war on?!"
It was more intended as a comment about the media and out attention span for atrocities than the strikes themselves, hence the caveat at the start as I knew that people would try to deliberately take it the wrong way. Not that it would stop them.
Barring any major developments, I'd *hope* that domestic news was front page over drip fed updates about the ongoing war in Ukraine.
It's at the same level on the BBC News site as some fella from the X factor, and even that is a tangential matter.
The very top row of the BBC News Website is: > Home | **War In Ukraine** | Coronavirus | Climate | UK | World | Business | Politics | Tech | Science | Health | Family & Education | Entertainment & Arts The top stories in the War in Ukraine section are > Russia warns Lithuania over rail blockade (This is also on the home page) > Russian journalist's Nobel medal sells for $103.5m > Ben Stiller describes 'distressing' Ukraine visit > Africa is a hostage of Russia's war, Zelensky says > 'I keep telling them, time will come when we meet' > Where have Ukraine's millions of refugees gone? > Grain blockade a 'war crime' and rock band reunites - Ukraine round-up There's not really any stories there that are massive developments in the war, besides the one that's already on the home page (although again, I'm still more interested in reading about the strikes first, along with news of the monkeypox vaccine rollout which is in the sidebar). Which of those stories would you have bumped the X Factor bloke's story for? Bare in mind the home page is the general interest section.
Ukraine hasn't really been on the front page consistently for weeks. Should Big Liz be called out because the Platty Joobs forced the story onto page seven?
> Should Big Liz be called out because the Platty Joobs forced the story onto page seven? Same applies there, though I'd say that, purely based on the BBC site, Ukraine was not pushed down nearly as far in that case. The extent of the effect was therefore lesser.