Firstly, I wish you every success in your role as union rep. Depending on which part of NHS you represent (whether you're in Herts or not) it's possible you represent my other half. Sadly, in her particular field – which is highly specialised and has quite a significant impact on the life chances of young people who require the service – the past six years have been rough. A large number of highly qualified workers have left the country, or dripped through to the private sector, and they have not been replaced. There are currently too few qualified people to fill vacancies. In theory the scarcity of labour should push up wages and conditions but that hasn't happened and the reason it hasn't – and likely won't – is because the people in charge (and the very architects of Brexit themselves) simply don't subscribe to the theory. If they agreed with you, there wouldn't be a heavily mobilised media campaign to demonise the likes of Mick Lynch, to suggest that nurses asking for better pay are agents of Putin as Zahawi did yesterday, and to focus every aspect of the argument on how disruption to key services is selfish at Christmas. Then it'll be unsustainable as the rest of the country has to tighten their belts in the new year. Then there'll be a new argument and so on. Now, partly thanks to Brexit, wages need to rise even higher than they did a couple of years ago in order to keep pace with the various butterfly effects on all aspects of the economy. And so it's even easier to demonise the workers and label them as greedy because they are asking for double digit pay rises when other workers are facing hard times. I am stunned that a union rep does not recognise all this and I marvel at how you manage to retain such faith in a libertarian right wing interpretation of market forces sorting things out. You're right, this isn't a Brexit thread. But one of the biggest flaws of Brexit is that the people who yelled loudest for it failed to recognise that in a mature, complex, interconnected economy everything has an impact on everything else. Looking at issues in isolation and pretending they can be dealt with in isolation is part of the problem, in my view.
?? I am sorry, but not a word of that makes sense with regard to what I have said. But how do you reconcile mass immigration to fill the demand for low paid jobs? Whilst negotiating higher wages for those same low paid jobs? How is filling NHS jobs with low paid foreign skilled workers going to make it easier for current NHS workers to negotiate a better wage? Particularly, it would be good to see you suggest something that requires no legislation or very heafty contributions from the tax payer. It can be done, by making employers act responsibly, but it will involve higher wages and also higher prices, without a doubt.
Again, you are unaware of my previous position on things. I consider myself a bit of a leftie, and I dislike greed as musch ad I dislike communism and socialism as ruling ideologies. Providing free at the point of delivery health care is, my opinion, the ultimate indication of a civilised society. Unfortunately, extremists on the left, at the moment, wish to pull down our society, and, across the board, inept a holes obsessed with authoritarian order, their own self importance because they made a bit of money, and the idea they are cleverer than everybody else because they have a couple of degrees and everyone says yes to them, want to immortalise themselves as great thinkers of the world who saved civilisation. I am no more fond of capitalists who are crippled by greed than I am communists that consider themselves the elite. I like capitalism that is fair, and believe that regulation is essential across the markets. I believe in being guided by the markets, and not being a slave to them or anything else. I believe that advertising and marketing, unfettered, is the closest thing to biblical evil that we can reach out and touch today, and require regulation every bit as much as corporate greed. And that CRT and other blatant forms of racism and classism are the saddest indicators that human hatred and mental health issues are being given free reign in government corridors today. I believe in practical social ideals, with as much democracy as you can cram into it, and dislike ideologies that cannot tolerate dissent or disagreement. Which is the modern day left. If you don't believe me, read this forum. It is full of hatred for different views.
It makes sense if you look at the bigger picture rather than isolating one niche aspect of the economy or society and assuming that it can exist and operate completely independently of everything else. No job, no industry even, operates in isolation and the biggest problem with all Brexit-related ideology is that every single person who voted for it thought it was going to sort out their particular and specific issue. The fishing industry thought one thing, the farmers another, and so on. Fortunately it's not incumbent on me to suggest anything. I can see that Brexit won't work for you in the way you hoped and, thank goodness, it's not my job to sort that out. Genuinely, I think we're a lot closer in our hopes and wishes for society and the workforce than our previous skirmishes here might suggest. I just don't think reducing the workforce while in the process putting the UK at a huge economic disadvantage was a good idea. Not least because no one who can currently make a difference has any interest whatsoever in improving the lot of working people. If they did, the minimum wage would cover people's living costs, in-work benefits wouldn't be a thing and food banks wouldn't exist. If they did, some of the biggest corporations in the world wouldn't be paying British people a pittance while attempting at every turn to reduce their tax burden. I am ever so slightly dubious about your claim to be on the side of working people in the NHS given that the Brexit you support was a project dreamed up by a whole host of people who all want an insurance based health service, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt on that one.
As I said, I think we're a lot closer in ideology than our various jousts would suggest. I am certainly not full of hatred in the slightest and I don't really recognise your characterisation as being anyone on this board. There have been robust exchanges between people who believe different things – and sometimes not all that different things! I would respectfully say, though, that if you believe that free at the point of delivery health care is the peak of civilisation (which is a view I subscribe to) you definitely wouldn't find yourself on the same side as Farage, Banks and co.
I am not on their side. I don't think I have ever posted to support or venerate them other than to recognise that they have a right to say what they believe, and that on certain topics I agree with them. I detest the EU and I think they are a danger to this country, with 19th and 20th century ideas of imperialism wrapped up with 21st century methods and communications. They have no sense of "enough" and will carry on and on until the people cannot take it anymore, and I am not convinced they will not repeat mistakes from the last century, whether they lean left is neither here nor there, but they are obsessed with their own importance, and someone is going to sniff an opportunity that the infrastructure will not be able to stop. That is based on human nature and historical evidence, not any conspiracy. Four lefties in this forum have attempted to have me banned, predominantly because I remind them, on occasions where they virtue signal about how racist ‘other’ people are, regularly that one of them made a most disgusting racial insult regarding an ethnic group, and one regular poster is constantly saying I should be removed. But he has been one of the worst offenders for hatred and, thankfully impotent, attempts at bullying. He and others on the left are the only people I hear who use and double down on racialised and derogatory language, or insult people purely for their opinions, yet they are constantly accusing those on the right of worse, with only their opinions to support them. If you want to understand hatred on this forum, go to the Jan 6 thread and defend something Trump did, like funding for historically black schools and universities. Or mention his record low black unemployment figures. Or suggest that a young Republican getting killed, because he was a Republican, was an unfortunate occurrence. I have never said a racist thing on this forum, I don’t resort to petty insults just because someone disagrees with me, and when I say that someone is acting like a fascist or a gammon, I support what I say by quoting their own words to them. I am not saying you do, but there are members on here that do, in my experience.
It makes perfect sense. You seemed to be suggesting that the only possible reason for FOM was to fill vacancies with low paid foreign labour. I was suggesting the possibility of ALL jobs paying a wage that allowed people to live whilst also having FOM...thereby allowing vacancies to be filled when there may be inadequate 'domestic' supply to do so. The driver in this scenario would be a lack of available, local labour per se, NOT a lack of local people willing to do the jobs for 5h1te wages. It needs to be accepted that the jobs should have a real living wage attached to them, no matter who is doing them. Why should I suggest something that requires no legislation? Legislation will be the only feasible way of doing it, as history has shown. I venture to turn the question around for you: can you suggest a way of 'making employers act responsibly' WITHOUT legislation? Fixing the current unfair and atrophying 'system' will need a fundamental redistribution within society. To try to claim otherwise is tantamount to saying there is no necessity for reform, which, as @EnjoytheGame has posted, is exactly the position taken by the present government. The crux of the whole issue is not 'will it need money to do it?' but 'where could the money come from?'.
I have repeatedly said Hooter should be banned. I don’t care that he’s an idiotic follower of all things to the right or even that he constantly takes the side of the worst of White US paranoia. It’s because he constantly infers that his opponents are racist/homophobes/sexists/paedophile supporters, without respecting others viewpoints or representing them accurately. As you are aware, he simply decides what you mean, usually offensive and then keeps on with it again and again. He also posts obsessively against certain individuals (look at the thousands of derisive and angry posts about me if you just search his history). He also invents things, like he ‘knows’ I’m an executive or, just the other day, a landlord. Just made it up on the spot. This is unacceptable behaviour in an online community and he shouldn’t be here.
Yes, they told me themselves on this forum. Apart from one of them, who repeats his call for me to be banned on a regular basis, the posts have been deleted along with the threads. I think you can guess for yourself who they are, though one of them, Cley, has left the forum. I resolved the issue with Cley by meeting up with him in town and having a drink. He still doesn't agree with me, and he doesn't particularly like what I post, but we got on OK and didn't have any further spats. He's a good bloke, and I have occassionally bumped into him at games. And he does look like Father Christmas.
Just out of interest mate, can you justify anything you say in that first paragraph, because I can refer back to many posts you have made that make that paragraph fit you better than it does me. Go on. Prove what you say, lest you leave yourself open to fair accusations of lying. If you are going to say those things, you should back it up, like I do when I call you a gammon, or say you are prone to behaviour that gives the impression that you have some fascist tendencies (not calling you a nazi though). I think you are a liar. Prove me wrong... You described yourself as a successful executive at a company that provides some sort of service to the NHS, many years ago, to justfy some COVID complaint you had (probably that ludicrous one about medical gloves being counted as individual items rather than pairs). If I am wrong, you are welcome to correct me. I believe I have said that on many occassions, particularly when YOU have threatened to go on strike.
Is he still around? He reappeared about 18 months ago as High Street Horn, but as you say hasn't posted for quite a while.
I have seen him in the Bunker, but I don't often go down there. Last time I saw him is probably over a year ago. He's good company with a beer in your hand, and didn't punch me once!!
Of course I can. Your numbers of posts stalking me are obsessive. You yourself say your role is to ‘police’ me. Do you deny that? You were making up just the other day that I am landlord. Do you deny that? Why did you do something so weird? And I don’t describe myself as an ‘executive’, but you keep on repeating it dozens of times. That’s your MO. Do you deny that? You regularly decide what I mean, like your ridiculous Third World argument. Or any argument really. Do you deny that? But I was explaining to @Since63 and have no great wish to engage with you. If you don’t like what I write, then put me on ignore. But, you don’t deserve membership of the forum, just like you didn’t under your previous user name.
You haven't answered my question, so I will continue to consider you a liar. Please answer my question. Justify the offensive, untrue rubbish you said in your opening paragraph, or I will continue to call you a liar and refer to your hatefulness and aversion to opposing ideas. I said I was living rent free in your head, because of your obsessive posting of greetings images on a thread. Clearly the joking implication of you being my landlord went over your head, though I thought it was very funny. I repeat it, that you are a successful executive (my response was to joke about you striking by a brasier outside your executive office) because I believe strongly that I remember you saying it. If you wish to say you never did, please make it clear that you are not a "successful executive", rather than implying that your modesty prevents you from such boastful claims. You can clear that up right now. The other things you say are par for the course on a public forum. Your belief that I am stalking you is your business, but if you believe I have missrepresented you in any way, please point it out to me so I can either clear up the matter or appologise. I seem to remember that there was a time when I did miss-speak about you, and I appologised when you pointed it out (I am one of the few people on here who will admit getting things wrong). So you have nothing to fear from putting your money where your mouth is. Unless you are worried that I will respond to you in the way you used to with ZZ, or when I admitted getting it wrong about Obama's documents a few weeks back. Because you really are not very charitable. In fact you were decidedly unpleasant. So perhaps you are projecting your own wroth onto me. Sorry mods, I am, I believe, responding civilly to Moose's complaints and unwarranted insults to me. I know it is tedious, but he does seem to be genuinely upset by the situation, and I am only defending myself.
And I don't mind what anyone posts on here, other than that disgusting reference to a racial minority and the defence that was made by some of the posters (that is, you trying to get me chucked off for calling out racism because the poster was your ally). So I don't need to ignore anyone. Yet you, only a few days ago, told everyone you were going to punish me, again, by putting me on ignore. Perhaps you should practice what you preach? Rather than keep trying to get me thrown off of here simply for disagreeing with you, and for pointing out when you act hypocrytically. If I had a tenner for every time you said you were going to ignore me, I'd probably buy myself a nice new 76 inch TV. Not one of the really expensive ones, but none the less. I have never said you should be banned, and I think your posts are the best evidence of the left having completely lost the plot and rejected its traditional support. Nor have I ever impotently threatened to ignore you (the very concept of such a narcissisticly barren act escapes me). I think it is pretty clear which one of us believes and means the things they say.
I’ve been very clear that I don’t want you slung off for having different views. That would be nuts and against my own views. You should be slung off for being a disrespectful, spiteful troll and if anyone disagrees, just search on Hooter’s posts and fill your boots. You are going to have to explain why you object to para 1. I said you were an idiotic follower of all things to the right. Idiotic is my opinion, but hard to see how you can argue with ‘all things to the right’. Equally so that you take the side of white US paranoia. Stolen election anyone? BLM racist anyone? Etc etc But when I say ‘you have to explain’ I don’t actually mean that. You are welcome to say nothing and ignore me. And I will you.
I realised you had canvassed for his expulsion, because you have said so before. I was simply intrigued by his apparent conviction that there was a total of 4.
I am asking you for proof that I have these views or do the things you say, and all you are saying is that you believe it, thus it is so. Prove it. Prove what you say. Because you are looking and sounding more like a liar with every evasion. You are even now passing it off, at least partially, as your opinion. Only narcissists consider their opinions as facts. If you value opposing views to your own, why do you ALWAYS react to anyone that disagrees with you. So my objection to your first paragraph, with respect, is that it is simply a pack of lies, mixed in with unwarranted opinions based on you being butt-hurt because I don't agree with you and won't shut up when you tell me to. I don't think there are many on here who would disagree, even if they are not keen on my style. I have never said, by the way, that the elections were stolen. I have objected most strongly, however, to the Democrats response to the objections. Particularly given their own objections to the elections they have lost in the last few decades. It is an embarrasment to the Democrats that so many of them are now being confronted by their own election denials from 2016, that lead to the Mueller investigation, and an attempted coup by impeachment. I have no idea if the election was stolen. But the Democrat's reaction makes me feel there was fire to the smoke. And, for reasons I have explained, I do not feel that Jan 6 was the greatest threat to the USA since Pearl Harbour. I have explained that to you, and described my disregard for Trump as a person, so many times on here that I have lost count. But you still lie and say the same rubbish you put in that first paragraph. You are, demonstrably, a liar, in my fair and honest opinion, and your own words prove it. Oh, and yes. Much of my opinion is now considered right wing, and I recognise that. In some cases, it is because the left have pushed it there. Likewise, much of what was extreme right before is now firmly on the left, such as racism and intolerance of others. There is nothing illegal or even immoral about being right wing, so I embrace it as a label, because I think it should not be treated as extremism just because it is nit what intolerent lefties believe in.
You can take my word for it. The Cley spat was very public. Can you guess how many people me or anyone on the right have attempted to get banned?
Well, that now makes sense to me, given the first time you tried to ban me was after I criticised another poster's disgusting racism, and the third person who tried to get me banned was the person who said the thing in the first place. At least Cley, who tried first, said it was because he thought I was a ****, and he was man enough to say it to my face, before buying me a pint (maybe I shouldn't have drunk it) So that seems like an admission from you that I am the only person who stands up against racism, and I thank you for the compliment. Yes I know I have twisted your meaning. But I have not twisted the meaning of your words. It is a subliminal trait of the guilty that they cannot help telling you what they have done, in some way or other. You just can't help blurting out the things you don't want people to know. Please do not ever stop blurting.
My point exactly. It all leads back to your defence of the indefencible. You can't say I am wrong, so you just keep calling me a liar without identifying the lies. QED.
But you cannot imagine a situation where ALL jobs paying a living wage exist without FOM? And what do you think the motivation would then be for anyone to come to the UK ? When the only reason they do come is because their wages are even worse than ours. Or are you suggesting that alone, among the countries of Europe, the UK subsidise immigrants to do jobs that Britions might otherwise do? I am sorry, but that is a very silly and naive suggestion. Because legislation can be an enormous choke on creativity, opportunity, growth and commerce. But I am not entirely against regulation, over greed, like the bankers and the mega corporations. I would like to see limitation on the size of companies, encouraging local development that is not under the threat of corporate take over simply to stifle competition. I would like to see monopolies taken more seriously. 1. You have not reconciled mass immigration with responsible employment. You instead came up with a very silly suggestion that would stagnate FOM by making the only imperative for it redundant (leaving the only other driver for it being leisure), and you would take away the most effective tool that Euro Zone countries have to mitigate the frailties of a universal currency. N.B. I cannot believe you are suggesting the alternative, that only the UK subsidise immigrants, out of the kindness of the tax payers hearts. No, you really can't be suggesting that so I will forget it. There is a litany of absurd repercussions, such as employers taking advantage of the fact that the government would have to subsidise the short fall, to all UK employees, at the tax payers expense, or that, if we were the only country doing it, that there would be no other desirable destination for economic migrants. The suggestion is absurd and invites the most disasterous of responses. The EU would be horrified if you suggested they join with us. They would laugh at the suggestion even louder than I am right now. No. Get away with you on that one. 2. You have not turned the question around. You have merely asked the OP's question again, My answer to which, that scarcety of Labour is the best tool for making employers suddenly decide that they have to act more responsibly, was the trigger for your contribution to the thread. Your question has come as a response to me making that suggestion. I am left dumbfounded, but unsurprised. I am used to you asking the same question, and demanding the same answer, over and over again. RTFT, please, for all out sakes. Agreed. And the less of it that can be taken from mine and your taxes the better. But it does not need legislation that chooses to subsidise mass immigration, because that would be the end of us. I don't know the answer. But I do believe that scarcety of Labour can play a part in it, particularly if wages are to be improved, and that is the nature of the question I answered, which not only responded to the OP, but also to the question that you just asked AGAIN in your post I am replying to here. My answer, as I have stated, is the same. I hope you are not going to get stuck in another question loop.
And, I am very sorry to say, the government saying to corporations that "You manage them, make your profits for the benefit of our country, and we will subsidise you" would not be far removed from Musolini's ideal. The marriage of government and corporate was a foundation of Italian fascism. Be careful what you wish for. Please. I am not calling YOU a fascist, I am trying to inform you that your resolution is not necessarily the cure you think it is. How can you possibly think that tax payers subsidising people's pay will encourage responsible behaviour from employers?
Sorry (for yet another post!), missed this earlier. Brexit worked for me. There is fall out, we knew there would be. But separation from the EU was my goal. I love Europe, and I believe that joining a reformed EU in the future would be a natural consideration, though not necessarily a natural step. I believe that working with Europe, through the EU if it is necessary, is important to this country, and I even believe in a bit of give an take, but not 'take-take'. I believe we are all Europeans, but I am British and English first when it comes to governance of this country, and I am horrified at the idea of being an EU citizen, which is basically a corporate body running its 'member' states. Not necessarily what you want to hear, but there you go. I think we might seem a lot closer together if there was no EU question. I just think it is easier to hold the government to account when it is in Westminster. Imagine if the bad things that were affecting our lives were coming down from the EU Council. What hope would we have of voting them out or changing their minds? And I am afraid that is the way they like it, in my honest opinoion.
Peston suggesting that Oliver Dowden is the De Facto Minister for Strikes, signalling the Government’s intent to beat the public sector strikes by any means necessary. The Government’s economic plans did not cater for anything but a severe squeeze on public services. This is the essence of class war, on both sides. There is of course money to pay public sector workers more. It is held by the ruling class -shareholders, landowners, the privately wealthy and these days, multinationals. Who the Tories were set up to represent. It’s battle for a small proportion of the Country’s wealth, yet one of great importance to those workers in a market economy, where there is little protection against rising rents and prices. This will be a particularly vicious set of disputes, maybe the worst since the miners strike. The Government appears to want to wear that armour of Maggies’s betting that confrontation with the unions can drive traditional support back their way and hole Labour below the waterline. The Tory press has begun its coordinated campaign against the unions. As we have seen, disinformation about public sector pay is rife. We will all be drawn into taking sides in this war. I certainly stand with the unions. But given the public’s general support for the public sector, particularly nurses, is this the right face to drive public opinion against the strikers?
I can imagine a situation where ALL jobs in UK pay a living wage and we also could have accepted FOM within the EU. I thought your main objection to FOM was that it allowed mass immigration into UK of people willing to accept such low wages that it immediately depressed the wages available to everyone else. If such unacceptably low wages were disallowed by law, surely that specific objection would be removed. I am certainly not suggesting that the UK should subsidise immigrants to do jobs that Britons might otherwise do; I fail to comprehend how you could draw that conclusion from what I've said. British citizens should be able to do those jobs and get paid a REAL living wage for doing them. If foreign workers from a pre-defined pool (shall we call it the EU?) also apply to do those jobs at those wages, then employers have a choice who to give those jobs to based on perceived ability to do them and not on the fact they can get away with paying them wages the British worker would not accept. So you want some 'regulation' but cavil at the suggestion of 'legislation', when they are, in essence, the same thing. The rest of the paragraph wherein you accept the need for some regulation includes most of the initial steps towards systemic restructure of our economy that Corbyn proposed and Starmer is (rather feebly) hinting at. Such moves would also go a long way to giving you the reassurance that not as much as you may fear would need to come from your taxes. Your comments in the section (1) are based on a complete misunderstanding of what I am saying, so little point in replying to it until you manage so to do. Your reliance on 'scarcity of labour' is touching in its innocence, but it seems to be having little impact upon the thinking of those in power; unless of course we are about to witness a Malthusian Catastrophe.
I assume you are aware that this is happening at present via Universal Credit & before that Income Support, Working Tax Credit etc. Think it through. Our current system allows employers to pay the very crappy low wages you complain about, because they know the government will stop people actually starving (well, until now, of course) via the benefits system. And you seem to hold some fond belief that such employers will ever act responsibly without being forced to via legislation. To think you have just accused me of naivete. Why not take out the middleman and just make those employers pay a REAL LIVING WAGE in the first place? I'll ask you a very simple question: do you believe it should be a fundamental human right that in one of the richest countries in the world, someone doing a full time job should be able to live at an adequate standard from the wages such employment provides?
I mean, surely you realise governments would have considered this over the past few decades? The obvious answer is that it stops businesses, especially small businesses from hiring workers, as it increases the cost of them. They then grow less quickly, hire fewer people and sack people they have on their books. They are incentivised to make urgent efficiency savings, like using technology instead of people. If unemployment goes up, as it inevitably will, those who are poorest/ lowest down the ladder are often the ones to go. This means the government has to give more unemployment benefits, paying many times more than it has to when it is just topping up via tax credits. Especially in a time with high interest rates/ inflation, where employers are less likely to be able to borrow/ stay afloat. For the largest multinational businesses, who I imagine you really want to hit with this policy, they can and will just shift workers abroad.
I think you have fairly described the current situation and the driving mentality of the UK economy over the last 20+ years. But that is why our productivity is appallingly low. We need to encourage efficiently and automation through the use of technology. We have a record employment rate and have had a zero, or near to zero, economic unemployment for some time The only way to keep immigration to reasonable levels and ensure those that come, as well as all the people here, have well paid and "decent" jobs is to increase productivity. Employers have become addicted to government subsidised, low paid, workers and that will continue until they can become more efficient and less reliant on manual labour. It's a model that we have to move towards with our aging population anyway. Even immigration will not be enough to solve the whole problem. But, as I say, the way you describe the situation now is spot on. Business is locked into low wages. It's got very little to do with immigration. Businesses will literally go under or move abroad if the current model is changed too quickly. But change it must. Government should be supporting businesses, both big and small, to invest in technology and improving process to reduce the need to rely on low wage employees to survive. There also needs to be mass retraining of these low wage employees to move into better jobs once these lower wage jobs are replaced by tech. Blaming migrants, the benefit system or even just business is too simplistic. It needs a fundamental change to our economy.
