Rising Prices

A war isn't won in a single battle

Break from the EU - check
Get control of the left agenda - next

 

So now we'll have a few shortage occupations getting big wage increases, leading to price inflation which will hit those not in that fortunate position the hardest. Meanwhile UC uplift cancelled and extra NI will kick them harder. It never was about cheap imported labour. Polish plumbers and sparks etc were harder working and more reliable, not cheaper (unless you count cheaper as not stretching jobs out); British drivers don't want to spend weeks on the road like their Easter European counterparts are prepared to do; British are definitely prepared to do back-breaking seasonal work at any wage. But don't take my word for it, the leaders of Brexit Raab, Patel, and Kwarteng described British workers as the worst idlers in the world.

 

Tomorrow, tomorrow, the sun will come out tomorrow...

 

It was about many different things things for many different people

That is what it was about for me

 

This is nonsense, I'm sorry. High wages are no use to anyone if the cost of living increases at a greater rate too. Sudden huge increases in wages in certain parts of a supply chain – at a time when there is actually a shortage of workers – means that there will just be much higher costs for consumers, which means you and me. And that is fine, if there's some sort of medium-term plan, rather than this freewheeling, fantastical chaos playing on prejudices and the uninformed.

The problem is, the right champions a free market for the rich and socialism for the poor. No one on the right is saying: "I wonder if it would be a better idea to pay workers more and perhaps restrict shareholders and others sucking money out of companies at tremendous rates." We have a country where a company like Tesco can make gazilions and reward its shareholders but pay its workers so poorly they need topping up by the taxpayer (again, you and me).

So what have the right-leaning types done? Elected a Government that literally is in the pants of the corporations and now hopes that their interests will be looked after. Like a chicken hoping the fox won't eventually eat it.

And what's already happening? At the first hint of a labour shortage in the HGV sector their solution is to do precisely what the Brexit-voters didn't want in the first place – they are suggesting issuing visas to foreign workers. So, there'll be freedom of movement for HGV drivers but not you and me. (Well, actually, I'm okay as I have dual nationality so I'm relatively unaffected).

The system is absolutely unwell from top to bottom.

 

Would it not have made sense to do it the other way around? Get control of the left agenda, win government and then have a left based Brexit?

Aren't you concerned that allowing the UK government to have the freedom to "do as it pleases" applies to your political opponents too? Extreme government excesses work both ways.

Personally I don't think being a member of the EU restricted us much at all and what restrictions there were were mainly to do with minimum standards to ensure a fair playing field in the SM. A good thing imho.

 

If there was an election tomorrow, the Tories would romp it, partly because of a deeply, deeply flawed electoral system but nevertheless they'd still win. In many of their constituencies a flowerpot full of dung would win if it had a blue rosette on it. (As a caveat, the same can be said for some red constituencies too). All Brexit has done is make Labour unelectable until there is some sort of absolute and total breakdown. And even then people would say: "Yes, my rat on a stick is under-seasoned but just imagine how bad it would have been under Corbyn!" What I'm saying is that Brexit was always a lurch to the right – insular, weirdly protectionist, believing that trading arrangements could be all in our favour and so on. Those on the left who thought they could ride that tiger and then steer it in their own particularly direction were utterly deluded, it seems to me.

Anyway, leaving the EU is now just a tiring, dreary wait for some of the former arrangements to be restored while business with Europe just withers away. Issuing visas to HGV drivers will be the first of many steps towards pressing restore without having to take the PR hit of admitting that's what they've done.

 

To quote you. This is nonesense.

If the Conservatives were in the pocket of the corporations, we would never have come out of the EU, we would still be part of free movement, and we would be in the Euro Zone. Do you think the homogenisation of Europe will end with that?

The world has changed. We're just waiting for you guys to see what is happening and catch up. The US is ahead of us on the curve, with Democrat open borders pushing down wages, the corporate elites pumping out extreme left wing politics, and minorities, along with their communist white allies, crying out for seggregation.

You don't have to believe me, and you can tell me it is nonesense. When you say you saw it all along in a few years time, or the alternative, "who could have seen that coming" I may remind you.

It has happened in the US, it is happening in Europe, and we're watching as everyone is just sleep walking right into it.

 

I swear you’re a wind up account.

This is why threads like this end up getting locked, because you come along and spout complete drivel like that middle paragraph, that has no other purpose than to wind people up.

 

I’m all in favour of wages going up.

The problem is that workers are not in control, bosses are. Temporary workforce shortages will simply give way to us bringing in labour from around the globe as will much of an increase in wages. Only hostility to immigration has so far restrained this.

A resale tax back into this country would be dismissed as inflating prices for UK consumers.

It’s not a strategy to throw everything up in the air at the behest of the most rabid capitalists and hope for shortage or a revolutionary change.

Most workers won’t benefit from these wage increases and other prices, notably housing, will chip away at any gains. This is not a fundamental shift in wealth, it’s just rearranging the deck chairs.

 

welll given the way it’s going , either the sun will come up and scorch the earth to **** or the AIs will rise up and we will scorch the skies in a naive bid to starve them of power before they tturn us all to batteries

that is of course assuming we don’t all starve and freeze to death before January

 

I'm not sure about that.

Most of these price increases are ultimately regressive in impact and will make up a far higher percentage of income for low income people than for the mega rich. Given that the mega rich own the companies that are charging more, they won't notice a thing, but those on the thing end of the wedge definitely will and that extra siphoned cash will ultimately flow to the already-haves.

 

Maybe there won't be as much waste food thrown away as there is now if it costs a bit more. I can't believe how normal working families the same size as mine spend 2 or 3 times more on food than we do, and we eat well enough. But, there are some very low income families that have no way of making savings in their food spend. I hope the government choose to take some action to support them, maybe not taking away that UC, maybe looking at the VAT on fuel bills, or something similar.

But, I am pleased to see that there is a general movement to increase and improve wages and conditions to UK nationals rather than allow cheap labour from overseas to deflate the general wage levels. Hopefully the same will happen in the care sector, and others. I argued for months on here with posters who refused to believe that cheap labour from the EU drives wages and conditions down over here in some sectors. I wonder if they still deny this fundamental principle of market economics. It doesn't make sense to pay wealthy landowners millions in subsidies, whilst encouraging them to exploit cheap overseas labour. The same was happening in other countries such as Germany who are having similar problems on their farms and in their logistics sector with tens of thousands of HGV drivers short, after covid stopped free movement. They will be able to try and attract labour from Eastern Europe now covid restrictions are reducing to try and fill in the gaps. We need to take similar steps as doing so is not a surrender to the "remain" argument, but merely a demonstration of retaining control - albeit they need to be ready to react more quickly when the "essential services" providers don't.

Nevertheless, improving wages and conditions for our nationals was never going to happen perfectly almost overnight. Businesses should have been replacing the lost labour, the HGV drivers due to brexit, covid and the age demographics, for example, with better planning and foresight, and the government should have slowed incoming foreign labour in some sectors rather than just stop it so abruptly.

It is a bumpy ride, and the government need to be mindful, but it is a step in the right direction.

 

Ah, the Sherbert Dipper effect. I remember the pink and orange sherbert bursting out of the packet. Now it's like a meagre wrap of cocaine (presumably).

 

Luckily, there are a glut of unwanted 'lockdown pets' to feed the nation.

 

I’m pretty sure most of the directives around working conditions and minimum standards came from the EU in the first place, how are you suggesting having workers from the EU drove standards down?

 

Get all these out of work millennials and with their media studies degrees and illegal immigrants to drive turbines with their hands, powering the nation with ease and cheaply.

It's not difficult!

 

While I have some sympathy with the sentiments, this seems to me to pick a few if the wrong targets.

For example Tesco is a massively important uk company. As a good employer. Yes it pays dividends to shareholders. But most of those are institutions and pension funds that support uk occupation scheme pensioners and future pensioners. Holders of uk insurance schemes and holders of savings accounts. More importantly Tesco pays a lot of tax, both corporation tax, employers national insurance and business rates. And has done so over decades.

Venture capitalists looking at the short term need reining in. But so do people buying a house with the expectation it will double in value in 15 years. No one buys any other consumption good with the same expectation.

Amazon, Google, Lorraine Kelly, Jimmy Carr, etc have questions to answer on their attitudes to paying a fair whack to HMRC.

On the general point, we need to move toward a high reward economy, which is balanced by compulsory community contributions. You can call them taxes, mandatory payments into health and welfare insurances, whatever. The point is everyone should contribute and everyone should be in a position where they can contribute.

On the specifics of skill shortages, bigger economies have always drawn migrant labour both permanent economic migrants like the Home Secretaries family in the mid 1960s, people escaping poverty in Asia and Africa, people with skills like nurses from Portugal, lorry drivers from Bulgaria.

On lorry drivers, Germany has a shortage of 60,000 for similar reasons to us. It’s a hard job, with average pay, terrible work life balance and increasing responsibility. Without being over dramatic how many desk workers can face a manslaughter charge because someone decides to do something unexpected and you are responsible for mitigating their actions? The industry in the UK has a short term problem, exacerbated by longer transit times between it and Europe. But all of Europe has a problem with the HGV workforce.

Moving toward a high reward economy means investing in vocational training. For example on Newsnight it was revealed that to sign up for HGV training costs about £4,000. You don’t get a loan paid upfront for that, written off in your 50s, unlike a computer science degree. So make vocational training the equivalent to academic learning.

Finally the response in the longer term will be more automation, with autonomous vehicles. More robotics in agricultural production and in the face to face caring of people. That will again focus minds on the purpose of work. We work more now than we did 500 years ago, constantly defining ourselves by work.

What we need is a new political and social revolution focussed on delivering and growing human contentment.

 

https://www.joe.co.uk/news/farmers-...early-100000-pigs-due-to-a-post-brexit-287800

 

I’m a wind up and all that is wrong on the forum?

All you ever do is insult and criticise mate.

Show me where I resort to the derogatory language you use, and perhaps I could understand where you are coming from. I argue the points being made, you just criticise and insult people who disagree with you.

People think they can say whatever they like to right wing voters, no matter how liberal and moderate their leanings, and it’s all OK. The moment someone accuses the left of doing what they are openly and blatantly doing, it seems to be justification for you guys to rant and insult people until there is an excuse to complain to the mods to get a thread closed down. Try to resist doing that now, please. Your threat to do so is obvious to everyone: “Shut up, or I will complain to the mods”.

That middle paragraph is just pointing out the fact that the left has taken up the mantle of the extreme right, but you guys are so wrapped up in the history of it that you cannot or do not wish to see it. Like I say, in a few years time, you will be asking ‘how could we have known?’

Fact is, it is bleeding obvious to some.

 

Interesting take on the Lorry Drivers issue here, link takes you to full post. Can’t speak to the provenance of it, but being widely shared.



https://www.facebook.com/598726319/posts/10160353724496320/?d=n

 

I called what you wrote drivel, otherwise where is the name calling? Derogatory words? Insults?

I’ve never once complained to a mod about anything and I’m sure they’ll be happy to confirm that, but your obvious attempts at winding people up are clearly the root cause of many threads getting locked.

Your debating technique is childish and tiresome, statements like ‘the left has now become the extreme right’ is about as basic and as transparent an attempt at a wind up as you can get. All your posts are exactly the same, twist the argument back on everyone else no matter how absurd and ridiculous it is, in fact the more absurd and ridiculous it is the better. ‘The right are bad, no the left are the right’ ‘BLM protestors are the real racists’ Lol, repeat ad nauseam.

Just because you use big words and long paragraphs doesn’t mask the fact that all you’re doing is just calling black white and night day, it’s as simple and transparent as that.

 

Slightly disingenuous as 'their' shortage is and has been ongoing (notably forced by state/federal insurance requirements) whereas 'our' 100K shortage (numbers posted of the ARRSE* suggest it's closer to 150K) happened 'overnight' (after Jan 1st 2021).

*Very long and interesting thread highlighting the UK's poor working conditions and the behaviour of regional distribution centres (RDC) exercising their 'clout' to squeeze more money out of suppliers/customers.

 

I think your post above exactly exemplifies my description of your MO.

The fact that you use short words and Twitter sized arguments doesn’t make you right either. But I try to discuss it, whilst you, as you always do, simply criticise what I am saying without addressing the facts.

Just as I say. Your post above fits my description of you exactly. Misquoting me and attempting to belittle my point with lies and insults.

As far as I am concerned, and as I have said many times on here before, extremism is detestable what ever ‘side’ it comes from, and as far as I am concerned, left and right becomes the same thing when it comes to extremes. If you cannot see that the left has become authoritarian, racially motivated and in cahoots with corporations who openly express extreme left wing views, that is not my fault. I am only pointing out undeniable facts that you cannot, and have not, disproven, but instead just keep saying, “but that is what the right do”.

Things have changed. When you are saying ‘how could I have known’ in a few years time, I’ll bump these posts.

 

Back in time for Christmas.

 

Grant **** can say what he likes but Brexit is partly the issue here, but it’s by no means the only issue. Whilst I support getting in uk based employees to plug the gap, I just wonder how long that will take in reality? I work in the transport industry and can see already that transport companies will significantly increase prices due to the massive increase in wages. There are clearly benefits of paying people here more, but the argument needs to be balanced - It’s naive to think that paying drivers more will not have a knock-on impact. The policy of let’s make the HGV test easier also needs carefully considering - anything that comprises h&s sounds like a bad idea.

 

I would like to see an analysis of the amount of HGV capacity lost because of EU based drivers who used a) to come over with a load, deliver, then b) do a few days doing pickups and drop-offs and then c) collecting a load to take back to EU. Now they don't bother because they can't do b) because of brexit rules, and c) is problematic given the EU actually check stuff unlike us, and more lucrative/less hostile work available on continent.

Anecdotally, my last 2 longish trips (Birmingham and Bristol) I would say that HGVs with EU plates were about 1 in 20, when it used to be about 1 in 2. I suspect this visa U-Turn is barely going to touch the sides.

 

It suddenly struck me as a great slogan for the Tories - "A Cavalcade of C***s". Would anybody with a straight face be prepared to defend a single one of this shower (apart from Cilla who you might have spotted in the convertible, cos she wiv da angles)

 

Yep. Would anyone with a straight face and a decent argument explain where they have gone wrong?

Pity to see you bringing your detestable politics attitude, and the disgusting language that goes with it, into the main forum.

 

There was a haulage chap on the news this morning, I didn’t catch it all… some association or other… who claims there are 600,000 people with HGV licenses living in the UK, but only 300,000 have jobs driving HGVs.

Blamed wages, conditions, unsociable hours etc and have been warning the government for several years this was on the cards.

Seems to me if the government approached them all and offered a whopping cash bonus for a few months work, and guaranteed in law their current jobs (on a maternity type arrangement) it could be quite quickly solved.

 

It's obvious. Do you really think that British workers would put up with living in a shed on a farm in the middle of nowhere, and working from dawn till dusk, short breaks and minimum wages?

 

Fair point about Tesco – and yes, they do have more in the 'positives' column than some other huge, more blantantly tax-dodging corporations. But the point stands that great chunks of the labour 'market' in this country are broken and supermarket economics – both in terms of how they drive down the prices paid to suppliers, and how they pay their staff – is highly culpable. Why should the taxpayer subsidise Tesco worker's wages because either the hours are not available or the pay is too low to live on. Of course, the Government's flat-footed benefits system, which they seem to think incentivises work actually does the opposite in many cases.

I couldn't agree more with your last point. We seem to have lost sight of what a job is for. To generate income in order to lead a meaningful life, to enjoy things in our time off, to contribute to society – either in the form of paying taxes or in the form of providing a service with a sense of pride, or ideally both. We seem to have allowed a political and corporate class to turn large numbers of people back into cotton mill-style workers. Work more, more more, for less, less less.

Your point about automation is a very good one. There are going to be far fewer of the jobs we currently recognise in future. What is the solution to that? Unfortunately, all the progressive ideas get yelled down before they even get off the starting grid, usually by people who seem to relish the idea of working till they drop for decreasing rights and protections.

 

What has that got to do with the price of fish? The minimum standards we do have relating to working hours, breaks, holiday pay etc. All come from EU laws.

 

As you say, I'm unlikely to change your mind, so I'll bow out of this particular strand here. But you'll have a heck of a shock if you ever have a look through the list of who funds the Conservative Party and then take a detailed look at their MPs' register of interests. The rest of your points are just weird, even for an internet forum.