Multi-billionaire To Tell Plebs How Much Money They Can Have At 12.30

From elsewhere:

 

It is an obvious trap. The next government will either have to scrap it and be unpopular or squeeze the budget elsewhere and be unpopular.

I guess on the up side by setting the trap the current government obviously think that the next government won't be a Tory one!

 

This isn't much of a trap though, as I think Labour broadly support the idea. I think Rachel Reeves said on the radio yesterday morning they'd vote for this when it comes up.

 

Not only is this jam tomorrow, but the policy does raise other problems. Not least of all about who will actually do it.

Any country has a finite number of people suitable to care for others. Let’s call them People who give a **** about other people (PWGSAOP). There is a well-established deficit in the UK of PWGSAOP’s due to the fact these roles are hard work and badly paid. Since Brexit this has become acute and people already complain that they cannot get nursery places or home care for the elderly.

The policy seeks to liberate parents on the basis of the lower paid work of others. Is it such a benefit to the economy for some parents to be able to work more (very few are not working at all) or in some cases natter all morning in a coffee shop, while taking up lots of the time of the youngest and most responsible workers on minimum or near to minimum wages?

Clearly, affordable childcare is important, but the Government could also have looked at the possible wins from more home working and compressed working weeks for both parents.

 

I wonder if Labour will suddenly 'grow a pair' (apols) and stop calling it "childcare" and use its proper name "education". In my final two post-docs I put my foot down (with the backing of the union) and demanded that the universities honour their claims about CPD (continual professional development) namely me getting credits towards a PGCAP (basically a PGCE for university lecturers and something all university teaching staff were supposed to have from, I think, 1997 - @Keighley?). As part of this PGCAP credit earning, and to punish me for being so gobby, the work I had to do was the read lots of 'unreadable' guff about pedagogic theory and the history (and development) of pedagogic theory (books, articles etc) and regurgitate it at length in dissertations (that weren't marked or critiqued and were returned with 'Pass' on them). Now the only interesting I learnt for doing this was how the English (and Welsh) education system worked, or more correctly its foundation: the system requires children having the skills to learn by the end of the 2nd year of formal schooling - ie if they haven't 'learnt how to learn' by age 7 they're pretty much f*cked.

Now if we're moving towards "...a knowledge based economy with lifelong learning..." (you know the crap) this means that early years education becomes even more important in order that some many kids aren't failed (by the system) at such an early date. All the various play-school and nursery's have to be formally and properly integrated into the state schooling 'system'. I man the private sector has always done this with its 'Prep' schools which are there to solely to teach the kids how to learn at 'big' school.

 

A late find, but very apt:



https://twitter.com/EdBish18/status/1636009425893748736

 

0.3% drop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They're economic geniuses...

 

How long until they give up on taking credit for inflation, which has very little to do with them, and ask their media colleagues to turn on the BoE?

 

I imagine the tag line of "The BofE would be better under the control of this Conservative government" wouldn't work that well...

 

They thought it would be an easy win. Everyone assumed that inflation would drop once the energy price shock from last March dropped out of the numbers.

Like a cheap magic trick, the Government thought they could just say that they are going to reduce inflation and hope it would make them look financially competent when it inevitably (or so they thought) did come down.

Unfortunately for them (and the rest of us!) other factors are keeping inflation stubbornly high. So you are correct. Another month or two of bad numbers will get them blaming the BoE.

Inflation goes up it's something that is beyond the government's control. Inflation goes down and it's down to good government fiscal management! And some people fall for it every time.

 

https://twitter.com/pollytoynbee/status/1668719142927577094