Current Affairs The Conservative Party

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Wonder where they're finding 'highly skilled people' to do the jobs of those striking because their skills is not fully appreciated.

A friend shared this with me: what happened when Queen Mary University hired a very expensive private firm to mark students' papers in place of striking lecturers:


As a one sentence summary of the Tory (and Lib Dem) austerity + tax cuts for the rich + mindless boosterism era, "65/100? Perfect!" seems to hold up well.
 
Indeed. I was reading a book (like an entire book) on the subject before I got Covid and while it was solely looking at the US, they have built up a bit of a reserve to help them when income from taxes doesn't cover pension payments, but unless things change (ie higher taxes, later retirement, lower pension payments etc.) then that fund will be gone in around 10-15 years. As is common I suspect everywhere, politicians much prefer to kick this can down the road to the next lot until the wolf is at the door and then scrabble together a last minute fix.

I'm not sure what the situation is like here, but that deck you shared doesn't make it sound like we even have a fund built up and are relying solely on taxpayers, which perhaps explains why the share of government expenditure taken up by pensions has been rising steadily over the past few decades.

View attachment 174523
The UK doesn’t have a fund for pensions.

Today’s National Insurance contributions pays today’s pension payments.
 
The UK doesn’t have a fund for pensions.

Today’s National Insurance contributions pays today’s pension payments.
Yes, that's largely what is the case in the US, but they put the excess tax income into a fund for a rainy day (which is on the horizon)


We don't seem to have done that and instead harvested that excess into other areas of government expenditure. As you can see from the chart, they introduced some significant changes to their pension system in the early 80s to try and make it more sustainable, which has given them the leeway they have now.
 
It’s like whack-a-mole.


They should make it a TV show. (Channel 4?)

Heeeeere’s today’s Tory sleazefest. He’s the man with his hand in your pocket. The prince of P.A.Y.E. The government’s grabber of your wonga.

Is he, as innocent as a lamb?
A bit whiffy, but not seriously Boris Johnson level dodgy ?
As bent as a nine bob note ?

Let's find out, join us, as we play tonight’s instalment of, corrupt conservative quiz.
 
This is the thing isn't it? They regularly tout the low unemployment rate, and it is very low, but it's very low in many countries. For instance, Germany and the Netherlands have practically identical unemployment rates to here, and places like Poland, CZ, and Japan are even lower.

The problem is one of an enormous skills shortage. Now we're also in a demographic crunch at the moment with large numbers of boomers going into retirement and fewer numbers of millennials replacing them, so unless that picture changes significantly, either by raising the retirement age/encouraging older people to work for longer or increasing the birth rate (which obviously won't have an impact for some time), the only option is increasing immigration, which is something the government has backed itself into a corner about.

So we're likely to scrabble along in low productivity mode for a generation unless something noticeably changes. As a point of reference, there are currently around 1.3 million unfilled vacancies in the UK.

Yes very insightful post.

These jobs are often far more skilled than people give them credit for, and those who are unemployed are increasingly long term unemployed. I hate to say it, but life increasingly teaches me a lot of those are unemployable really, even in quite basic jobs.

I think the crude Tory maths was, if we lose x jobs from migrants, we can replace them with y jobs from those unemployed and save Z from the welfare bill. It was a paint by numbers thinking that was never really going to work out, and the fact that farmers down this way cant get staff to work in the fields for £25.00 an hour including travel kind of indicates that

I appreciate a lot of this is massively "politically correct" and it me without my ideological blinkers on, but it doesnt seem to work.

What's happened is in certain sectors labour has enjoyed a pay rise, which is a good thing, but it's really uneven. Employers are being put under pressure, and it has inevitability contributed to inflation.

In terms of the broader picture, the nightmare scenario is you end up like Japan, with an ageing population, and as you say very low growth. Most of the models we work to, require a certain level of growth we seem unlikely to get, and less likely to get with Brexit making it harder to trade.

There was never a realistic, or honest conversation in this country about what immigrants bring in terms of value. In honesty theres not an honest discussion about many things, but that is one. You just get endless negative stories on the one hand, with a very defensive counter narrative- "we know they are bad but its morally a good thing" type of counter. There really needs to be far more air time given to the benefits migrants bring for a country. The most successful countries in the world have huge inward migration.
 
Yes very insightful post.

These jobs are often far more skilled than people give them credit for, and those who are unemployed are increasingly long term unemployed. I hate to say it, but life increasingly teaches me a lot of those are unemployable really, even in quite basic jobs.

I think the crude Tory maths was, if we lose x jobs from migrants, we can replace them with y jobs from those unemployed and save Z from the welfare bill. It was a paint by numbers thinking that was never really going to work out, and the fact that farmers down this way cant get staff to work in the fields for £25.00 an hour including travel kind of indicates that

I appreciate a lot of this is massively "politically correct" and it me without my ideological blinkers on, but it doesnt seem to work.

What's happened is in certain sectors labour has enjoyed a pay rise, which is a good thing, but it's really uneven. Employers are being put under pressure, and it has inevitability contributed to inflation.

In terms of the broader picture, the nightmare scenario is you end up like Japan, with an ageing population, and as you say very low growth. Most of the models we work to, require a certain level of growth we seem unlikely to get, and less likely to get with Brexit making it harder to trade.

There was never a realistic, or honest conversation in this country about what immigrants bring in terms of value. In honesty theres not an honest discussion about many things, but that is one. You just get endless negative stories on the one hand, with a very defensive counter narrative- "we know they are bad but its morally a good thing" type of counter. There really needs to be far more air time given to the benefits migrants bring for a country. The most successful countries in the world have huge inward migration.
I quite agree with this, and the sad thing is, there is countless evidence to this effect out there in the form of peer-reviewed research. I know because I've written about it a lot myself. It's seldom a narrative that gets wider attention, however. I touched on this in an earlier post about the life sciences sector, but pretty much every sector where we might regard ourselves as a success internationally wants a very liberal immigration system because their lifeblood is talent, but we have seemingly evolved into this bizarre situation where the Tory government actively go out of their way to not only make things harder for our leading industries but often to verbally do them down as somehow anti-British because they represent the other side in so-called culture wars. It's utterly mental.
 
Indeed, everyone has the right to look for a different well paid job. If they believe they will be paid better then go for it. No one has the right to demand a certain pay check because they can control the operational aspects of a company. If you are worth it, go and get it. However, if you are not, then get on with the job ……
I would love to get on with my job, but Shapps and co, want Me to take a pay cut , raid my pension and are engaged in political game to smash the union rather than talk to them.
While sacking thousands and replacing them with agency staff on worse conditions and pay, for instance we have station cleaners employed by iss who are on minimum wage, they are still waiting for the rise in pay from when the wage went up in May.
The so called mass of vacancies are in this area minimum wage or just above .
That just means anybody with kids gets benefits and we the tax payer subside the companies profits, look at the likes of Boots average hours was 32 a week when the tories came to power its now below 16 , reason the company don't have to make a nation insurance payment at those levels.
The majority will be young woman.
The problem for the country is that the race to the bottom we are in and have been for years in the job market , has finally hit the bottom, people are not taking just any job, for instance at the airports ect, the wages on offer will not entice staff and certainly will not keep them , why stay? they get the same money anywhere, why do a hard job when there is an easier job around the corner.
In Spain for instance there is a shortage of holiday workers , bar staff ect because the work involves long hours low pay, Benidorm has a 4000 staff shortfall alone so it's not just a UK problem.
Any man or Woman should have the right to legally withdraw there labour in any civilised society, we are not slaves , and the alternative is civil disturbance if you take the right to withold your labour, do you really want to go down that path?
The tory government have also raised the fines for Unions Up to a million pounds for calling unlawful strikes from about 200,00 its an attack on the unions that is underway.
The flaw in the government strategy is most of the big employment agencies are part of a group who globally have a charter than says they will not supply staff when a company has labour problems.
Its a standard of service garrentee , if you havnt got it you will not get any big contracts.
That means you will get scab employment agencies set up by mates of tory ministers more than likely , that will put these workers (scabs) in then more than see likely then collapse, because nobody will work with a company in the future, look at the two agencies that supplied the staff for PO both on there arse after taking the dirty money.
What a seedy horrible world these Tories want us to live in.
 
There's always a lying tweet.



Meanwhile....

FYai1pgXwAIISdK
 
I quite agree with this, and the sad thing is, there is countless evidence to this effect out there in the form of peer-reviewed research. I know because I've written about it a lot myself. It's seldom a narrative that gets wider attention, however. I touched on this in an earlier post about the life sciences sector, but pretty much every sector where we might regard ourselves as a success internationally wants a very liberal immigration system because their lifeblood is talent, but we have seemingly evolved into this bizarre situation where the Tory government actively go out of their way to not only make things harder for our leading industries but often to verbally do them down as somehow anti-British because they represent the other side in so-called culture wars. It's utterly mental.
Been trying to recruit folk with expertise in programming and AI recently on a fixed term contract (2 years plus).

Absolute nightmare with visas etc and attracting applicants. That's for something high skilled and niche. There's no incentive for people to come here, especially from the EU, as there's a risk they'll have to leave and visas are a serious expense. Probably less of an issue for this post though given its an in demand area and opportunities going forward. But still a risk in terms of relocating.

So imagine less skilled work. It all only worked because of flexibility.

Agree with @catcherintherye too, it was utter fantasy to think we'd replace Labour with what we have here for a variety of reasons.
 
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