Do you want to discuss boring politics? (23 Viewers)

[TomRad85]

Weirdly, this has not been covered in this thread, but it is pretty interesting given the upset regarding Palestine Action. There are also some videos floating around of this counter protest and lots of people in masks. One clip from a poor guy trying to offer his support really is awkward:

UKIP banned from protesting in Tower Hamlets over disorder fears

Police say any UKIP members assembling in the area, which has a high Muslim population, face arrest.

www.bbc.com

Incredible really. It's almost too perfect isn't it. The idiot still won't get it though.

 

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[Brighton Sky Blue]

The government needs to find other ways to resolve issues in the long term. Being flexible with wage thresholds for some sectors with shortages is rational as a temporary measure. That isn’t happening in the UK, in some cases (like the NHS), it’s created a dependency on imported labour by not having any medium to long term planning.

Take social care, there’s a huge level of staff turnover in that industry and once you admit entry to people, it’s a laborious and costly task removing them if they’re in violation of their visa conditions. With this visa route specifically in mind, the numbers do not add up and there is fraud and thousands of people living in the UK in violation of their visa conditions.

On a broader scale, the purpose of an immigration system to be selective of desirable characteristics, to be clear, net tax contributors. If people are going to be in low income work, get ILR after 5 years (and eligible for welfare) and be eligible a UK pension, that isn’t desirable for the UK taxpayer.

Following on my reply to Fernando, the receipts to ‘foreign-born’ households has nearly doubled from 2022 and this is without the ‘Boriswave’ migrants, yet to receive ILR.

It's just that the government will talk freely about energy insecurity stemming from importing too much of our energy from abroad, food insecurity from relying on food imports and so on, but not an insecurity of labour stemming from relying on both skilled and unskilled foreign labour.

We need to move towards a more home-grown workforce.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

It's just that the government will talk freely about energy insecurity stemming from importing too much of our energy from abroad, food insecurity from relying on food imports and so on, but not an insecurity of labour stemming from relying on both skilled and unskilled foreign labour.

We need to move towards a more home-grown workforce.

Exactly! This is a traditional trade unionist position.

I’m uncomfortable that the political left (Labour, Greens and Lib Dem) have ceded ground to the Tories and Reform. The reason for this is because it’s an issue that risks ending up being a political football and any changes Reform/Tory make immediately reversed and vice versa.

It’s an issue that needs a new consensus. The reason I talk about immigration on here more than other issues is because there is common ground to strike between left and right.

On economic stuff, policies can take years before its impacts are revealed.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Exactly! This is a traditional trade unionist position.

I’m uncomfortable that the political left (Labour, Greens and Lib Dem) have ceded ground to the Tories and Reform. The reason for this is because it’s an issue that risks ending up being a political football and any changes Reform/Tory make immediately reversed and vice versa.

It’s an issue that needs a new consensus. The reason I talk about immigration on here more than other issues is because there is common ground to strike between left and right.

On economic stuff, policies can take years before its impacts are revealed.

I personally think there's common ground on the absurdly high cost of living, but that's for another day.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

I personally think there's common ground on the absurdly high cost of living, but that's for another day.

True, but how you actually go about fixing that is complex.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

True, but how you actually go about fixing that is complex.

I agree, but this is why I feel that the likes of Reform have leapt on immigration because it looks like a quick fix and doesn't require much heavy thinking or as difficult a sell to the electorate. Tackling the cost of living is complicated, would take time to manifest itself but would in my view be far more impactful on a typical person.

Just my opinion of course and for a separate discussion.

 

[Captain Dart]

Streeting is absolutely right
I never thought I’d see the day when it was ok to say these things again.
shame on us

Reform MP Sarah Pochin's comments about adverts were 'racist', Wes Streeting says

Sarah Pochin apologises for saying "it drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people".

www.bbc.co.uk

This whole thing is about social programming, particularly of young people.
Like the BBC featuring black soldiers at the battle of Hastings etc. etc.

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

This whole thing is about social programming, particularly of young people.
Like the BBC featuring black soldiers at the battle of Hastings etc. etc.

The colour of skin doesn’t matter when will we learn

 

[SBT]

This whole thing is about social programming, particularly of young people.
Like the BBC featuring black soldiers at the battle of Hastings etc. etc.

There weren’t any soldiers speaking modern English at the Battle of Hastings either.

Adverts and TV dramas do what they need to do in order to be most compelling to their intended audience. I’m not sure how or why “social programming” would come into it.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

This whole thing is about social programming, particularly of young people.
Like the BBC featuring black soldiers at the battle of Hastings etc. etc.

There’s a double standard. It would be ridiculous to do a series or movie on MLK or Mandela and have random white play them. So why would Hollywood depict historical figures like Cleopatra, Queen Charlotte and few other characters in films in Medieval Europe and so on as black?

It’s also incredibly patronising that Hollywood feels the need to rewrite ‘western’ history when there’s no shortage of interesting African/African-American characters throughout history.

How this guy does not have a film is beyond me:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/thrilling-tale-how-robert-smalls-heroically-sailed-stolen-confederate-ship-freedom-180963689/

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

The colour of skin doesn’t matter when will we learn

Actually, it does because it’s rewriting our history to something that it’s not. How ridiculous would it be if we redid Roots and presented the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade as being a mixture of white, black, brown or Asian victims.

It’s unacceptable to depict historical characters like Ghandi, MLK, Mandela, Mao. In fact, the Disney+ series Shogun didn’t randomly switch out Japanese characters for random non-Japanese actors because it would be an insult.

It also breaks the immersion of the word it’s depicting imo.

 

[SBT]

There’s a double standard. It would be ridiculous to do a series or movie on MLK or Mandela and have random white play them. So why would Hollywood depict historical figures like Cleopatra, Queen Charlotte and few other characters in films in Medieval Europe and so on as black?

I don’t know, it feels like racial identity is a slightly more pertinent detail to the stories of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela than for the other people you mentioned.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

I don’t know, it feels like racial identity is a slightly more pertinent detail to the stories of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela than for the other people you mentioned.

Why?

Let’s play devils advocate…

Would the message not be fundamentally the same if you swap the historical contexts and racial identities? That being Apartheid being a white majority excluded by a black colonial settlers or white people living under Jim Crow in the USA.

The answer is simple: it’s ridiculous because history is non-fiction and shouldn’t change the fundamental facts of the people and societies they live in.

I’ll accept I’m a stickler for detail on this because it annoyed me that in ‘Catherine The Great’, Helen Mirren plays a character who starts off in their mid to late 30s and dies in their late 60s, same actor and they look the same.

 

[SBT]

The answer is simple: it’s ridiculous because history is non-fiction and shouldn’t change the fundamental facts of the people and societies they live in.

Fictionalised versions of histories are literally as old as time, it’s frankly bizarre that people are pretending that TV dramas or adverts have any obligation other than to entertain us and sell things to us.

 

[rob9872]

Actually, it does because it’s rewriting our history to something that it’s not. How ridiculous would it be if we redid Roots and presented the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade as being a mixture of white, black, brown or Asian victims.

It’s unacceptable to depict historical characters like Ghandi, MLK, Mandela, Mao. In fact, the Disney+ series Shogun didn’t randomly switch out Japanese characters for random non-Japanese actors because it would be an insult.

It also breaks the immersion of the word it’s depicting imo.

Ben Kingsley is only half Indian/half English, but he is the most famous Ghandi actor.

Not saying your wrong btw, just pointing out it has happened for a long time.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Ben Kingsley is only half Indian/half English, but he is the most famous Ghandi actor.

Not saying you’re wrong btw, just pointing out it has happened for a long time.

Really, you’re using Ben Kingsley as an example? His father spoke gujarati (Ghandi’s primary language) and is of Indian descent, the likeliness is uncanny too albeit, he did wear darker makeup for the role.

If Idris Elba was cast to play Ghandi, it would rightly cause outrage. If you can’t get a historical characters ethnicity right in a film, how can trust their story to be told faithfully?

In earlier Hollywood era, white actors would be cast to play characters of a different ethnicity and we look back on and view it as racist.

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

Why? Johnson wanted migration to increase. That’s the accusation Dominic Cummings has levelled and imo, it’s credible.

There are reports picked up that the ‘Boriswave’ was allowed to crush inflationary wage increases.

The points system introduced by Johnson’s government is actually the basis of the immigration system the public voted for. You need to think of a points system like a tap, you can shut on/off. For example, what constitutes a ‘skilled worker’, you’ve had examples where people working in your local takeaway get visas as ‘chefs’.

The only significant change post-Sunak and now Starmer is that withdrawing from the ECHR has become an increasingly mainstream opinion. Something I didn’t support initially, but like many people, have lost faith in the existing frameworks to cope with the challenges Europe faces.

So if we take the right wing view that wage increases will result in inflation, as the Boriswave is blamed on, if we reduce the number of migrants filling jobs that few British people want to do then one of two things happen. or both

We have to massively (and I mean MASSIVELY) increase wages in social care etc to encourage locals to do them, resulting in huge inflation and a huge increase in the social care spending to cover it (bankrupting pretty much every council who are in charge of that budget). So to even think about covering that you need huge tax hikes. Do you want to pay them?

The other thing, which may well happen anyway as I doubt even with huge pay increases there would still be a massive undersupply of workers, is that due to the lack of a workforce the entire social care and health system collapses.

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

So if we take the right wing view that wage increases will result in inflation, as the Boriswave is blamed on, if we reduce the number of migrants filling jobs that few British people want to do then one of two things happen. or both

We have to massively (and I mean MASSIVELY) increase wages in social care etc to encourage locals to do them, resulting in huge inflation and a huge increase in the social care spending to cover it (bankrupting pretty much every council who are in charge of that budget). So to even think about covering that you need huge tax hikes. Do you want to pay them?

The other thing, which may well happen anyway as I doubt even with huge pay increases there would still be a massive undersupply of workers, is that due to the lack of a workforce the entire social care and health system collapses.

We want answers that don’t mean any sacrifice

 

[rob9872]

So if we take the right wing view that wage increases will result in inflation, as the Boriswave is blamed on, if we reduce the number of migrants filling jobs that few British people want to do then one of two things happen. or both

We have to massively (and I mean MASSIVELY) increase wages in social care etc to encourage locals to do them, resulting in huge inflation and a huge increase in the social care spending to cover it (bankrupting pretty much every council who are in charge of that budget). So to even think about covering that you need huge tax hikes. Do you want to pay them?

The other thing, which may well happen anyway as I doubt even with huge pay increases there would still be a massive undersupply of workers, is that due to the lack of a workforce the entire social care and health system collapses.

A generation ago od have agreed with this. It's too late, we've gone too far.

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

A generation ago od have agreed with this. It's too late, we've gone too far.

Immigration wise?

 

[rob9872]

Immigration wise?

Wages gap. If you increase those, every other sector will want their share of the pie and there isnt enough to go round without a magic money tree, not to mention the levels of inflation that would cause. Immigration is of course a factor on that too, but that's the history, its about what we do now and I dont have the answers, but throwing money at it now is pointless.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Wages gap. If you increase those, every other sector will want their share of the pie and there isnt enough to go round without a magic money tree, not to mention the levels of inflation that would cause. Immigration is of course a factor on that too, but that's the history, its about what we do now and I dont have the answers, but throwing money at it now is pointless.

Why have we experienced years of high inflation despite keeping wages low then?

 

[rob9872]

Why have we experienced years of high inflation despite keeping wages low then?

Depends what you consider high. In recent times the high energy costs and Covid among the bigger factors I'd guess, last spikes around the recession. In between hasn't been tracking particularly high imo and nothing like what we'd see to redress a wage balance.

 

[Grendel]

Why have we experienced years of high inflation despite keeping wages low then?

Our average wage increases are higher than inflation

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Depends what you consider high. In recent times the high energy costs and Covid among the bigger factors I'd guess, last spikes around the recession. In between hasn't been tracking particularly high imo and nothing like what we'd see to redress a wage balance.

I don’t see the connection between paying care workers properly and the economy being tanked by inflation. Is the answer that we should accept crap wages and conditions for difficult jobs as the norm? It just sounds like an excuse to not pay people fairly.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Our average wage increases are higher than inflation

How does it look over a 15 year period?

 

[Grendel]

How does it look over a 15 year period?

Why 15 years?

 

[rob9872]

I don’t see the connection between paying care workers properly and the economy being tanked by inflation. Is the answer that we should accept crap wages and conditions for difficult jobs as the norm? It just sounds like an excuse to not pay people fairly.

It's nothing to do with paying care workers correctly, as I said it should have happened a generation ago before needing immigration to fill the gaps. At what rate do you think you'd now encourage people back into the industry bearing in mind minimum wage is now around £12.50 per hour?

Let's be flippant as an example and say its £20. What happens to all of the professions who are now earning less than £20 who jump ship? So they want a raise. Then their manager says well why I do more I want £25. The nurses get say I might as well work in care, so they get £20 and then the doctors say ok after all my training and for the responsibility I want more, so it goes right to the top. Oh hang on a minute, now care workers are still paid the least, but we've dragged the minimum wage up to £20 and how do we collect that, ah yes let's increase taxes. The business owner says now I have to pay my staff more and other costs have risen, so I need to put the price of the goods up so everything is more expensive. Can you see why this wouldn't work?

There is one pot of money however it's collected, there isn't enough to go round. What do you suggest?

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Why 15 years?

The period of time from the end of the global financial crisis till now. It's convenient to look at what's happened over 6 months or a year and ignore how much catching up has to be done from a much longer period of wages lagging behind inflation.

 

[rob9872]

Why 15 years?

Always 15 years, I mean it's progress on 14 years which is what is always mentioned at least twice daily, but they've realised you can't blame much on the first year of administration unless that administration involves someone they don't support.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

It's nothing to do with paying care workers correctly, as I said it should have happened a generation ago before needing immigration to fill the gaps. At what rate do you think you'd now encourage people back into the industry bearing in mind minimum wage is now around £12.50 per hour?

Let's be flippant as an example and say its £20. What happens to all of the professions who are now earning less than £20 who jump ship? So they want a raise. Then their manager says well why I do more I want £25. The nurses get say I might as well work in care, so they get £20 and then the doctors say ok after all my training and for the responsibility I want more, so it goes right to the top. Oh hang on a minute, now care workers are still paid the least, but we've dragged the minimum wage up to £20 and how do we collect that, ah yes let's increase taxes. The business owner says now I have to pay my staff more and other costs have risen, so I need to put the price of the goods up so everything is more expensive. Can you see why this wouldn't work?

There is one pot of money however it's collected, there isn't enough to go round. What do you suggest?

Can you also see that the alternative is accepting that we just pay crap wages for a lot of jobs? I am not suggesting that we make the kinds of jumps the doctors were demanding recently, but we should be aspiring to bring them up over time to the levels that will wean us off relying on cheap foreign labour.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Always 15 years, I mean it's progress on 14 years which is what is always mentioned at least twice daily, but they've realised you can't blame much on the first year of administration unless that administration involves someone they don't support.

I don't support the current administration either but they weren't in charge for a decade and a half. Is the previous lot's time in office not relevant?

 

[Grendel]

The period of time from the end of the global financial crisis till now. It's convenient to look at what's happened over 6 months or a year and ignore how much catching up has to be done from a much longer period of wages lagging behind inflation.

Thats 17 years - and the biggest decline relative to inflation occurred in the 3 years after the crash. If you think about it it’s impossible then to really catch up.

Wages are really more linked to productivity, growth and investment.

Productivity versus our neighbours started to decline around 2005 and investment has been declining since 1997 in relation to other countries. It’s appalling.

Wages seemed to keep around inflation levels from 2014 until the rapid inflation rises post covid.

 

[SBAndy]

It's nothing to do with paying care workers correctly, as I said it should have happened a generation ago before needing immigration to fill the gaps. At what rate do you think you'd now encourage people back into the industry bearing in mind minimum wage is now around £12.50 per hour?

Let's be flippant as an example and say its £20. What happens to all of the professions who are now earning less than £20 who jump ship? So they want a raise. Then their manager says well why I do more I want £25. The nurses get say I might as well work in care, so they get £20 and then the doctors say ok after all my training and for the responsibility I want more, so it goes right to the top. Oh hang on a minute, now care workers are still paid the least, but we've dragged the minimum wage up to £20 and how do we collect that, ah yes let's increase taxes. The business owner says now I have to pay my staff more and other costs have risen, so I need to put the price of the goods up so everything is more expensive. Can you see why this wouldn't work?

There is one pot of money however it's collected, there isn't enough to go round. What do you suggest?

I get the logic - I think the issue is profiteering. There’s a reason quite a lot of private equity has gone into car home provision over the last 5+ years. I mean, what other choices do people have at the end of the day? Let your elderly relatives remain at home sitting in their own piss until they inevitably injure themselves or blow the house up because they forgot they left the hob on?

 

[rob9872]

I don't support the current administration either but they weren't in charge for a decade and a half. Is the previous lot's time in office not relevant?

As I keep saying, yes they made mistakes, but the reason they are out is lack of trust and being charlatans, not to do with managing the economy. For fear of sounding like a broken record, austerity was necessary at the start of the term with the coalition following the worldwide recession (which you accept was finished by 2010 just a few posts up). The second term covered Brexit and then we had the pandemic with much of the country furloughed and no industry. What would you have suggested during that time? Keep raising wages? To what end? I genuinely don't see how the economy could have been managed much better, it certainly wasn't a time for investing.