UK Politics - Put your mask in the bin and hug your granny

[Liffguard]

1 hour ago, Which Tyler said:

Sounds like "busy work" to me - which is, by definition, an obsolete sector.
Not that I have a particular problem with the idea; but not as a "Categoricallly better than UBI" option.

This is pretty much where I stand as well. I'm not necessarily opposed to a jobs guarantee in principle, but I'm not sure how you guarantee that the jobs are actually worth doing and not just make-work. I don't see how a make-work job could be "of benefit to the individual." If you're going to pay someone to do something useless, why not just give them the money outright and drop the useless "work" requirement?

More generally, I'm deeply opposed to the ideology that work is a good thing in and of itself. Frankly I think we all need to be working far less.

[mormont]

15 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

More generally, I'm deeply opposed to the ideology that work is a good thing in and of itself. Frankly I think we all need to be working far less.

This is something of a derail, since it's not a live issue in UK politics right now. If folks want to start a new thread (or resurrect one? I think there might be one) that would be appropriate.

I would just comment that work being a good thing in and of itself isn't an 'ideology', as such - it's well understood in psychology and HR that this is a fact. Work provides all sorts of non-economic benefits to people, from social to existential, and most of us would work to obtain these even if all of our material needs were met. Now, what kind of work and how much of it we should do and how it should be structured, those are fair questions.

[Fragile Bird]

This discussion reminds me of what I heard was the common saying in Poland during the communist era, where there was “full employment” with barely survival wages: they pretend to pay me, and I pretend to work.

[Poobah]

1 hour ago, Liffguard said:

This is pretty much where I stand as well. I'm not necessarily opposed to a jobs guarantee in principle, but I'm not sure how you guarantee that the jobs are actually worth doing and not just make-work. I don't see how a make-work job could be "of benefit to the individual." If you're going to pay someone to do something useless, why not just give them the money outright and drop the useless "work" requirement?

More generally, I'm deeply opposed to the ideology that work is a good thing in and of itself. Frankly I think we all need to be working far less.

I'm kinda... I support UBI but I also do see the point of what the other poster is talking about. I've been out of work for a long time because of various health, particularly mental health issues and... sitting at home all day with the ability to play video games or browse reddit or whatever is way less fun than it might seem from the outside. Getting the chance to do low / zero pressure work from a local charity where I could turn up and do something and feel like I'm being a contributing human being was better for my health both mental and physical than years of drugs and shrinks and doctors. Covid totally killed that though and it's really sucked to go back to trying to find a reason to get out of bed.

[The Anti-Targ]

4 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

Sounds like "busy work" to me - which is, by definition, an obsolete sector.
Not that I have a particular problem with the idea; but not as a "Categoricallly better than UBI" option.

It's hard to deny that earning a living wage while actively doing something that you have demanded and the state is obliged to provide is better than being paid substantially less than a living wage, that you cannot live on unless you find some other kind of paid work that is far from guaranteed. If you want to advocate for a UBI to be set at the living wage level then that will give the unemployed a sustainable income, however it's simply too much cash flowing into the system to give people already on good incomes a living wage top up. This is why UBI always needs to be set at below any kind of livable income, to keep the cash inflows to manageable levels. You can advocate for the dole to simply be a no-expectations income set to the living wage, and that can work too, but if you do that you might as well tack on a JG for the people who want to work but are finding it hard to get into the private sector.

Busy work is beneficial to the individual so long as they are gaining or retaining skills that are useful to them and will allow them to more easily transfer into the private sector if they so choose.

[Which Tyler]

Shifted to UBI thread

[mormont]

Moving back to more immediately related to UK Politics, Scottish government guidance released today confirms that you don't need to wear a mask when dancing in nightclubs as this is covered under the exemption for exercise. 

Where have you been until 3am? Oh, I was out exercising! 

[Spockydog]

Sexercising.

[Spockydog]

Good to see Glorious Leader shoring up his shiny new red wall.

Downing Street refuses to apologise for Boris Johnson coalmines joke

Quote

 

Downing Street has declined to apologise for Boris Johnson joking about the Conservative government’s closing of the coalmines but said he “recognises the huge impact and pain” that was felt by communities at the time.

Johnson drew outrage on Thursday when he claimed that Margaret Thatcher had given the UK an “early start” in the shift away from fossil fuels by closing pits and followed up by laughing about it.

His remarks were criticised by the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, the Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and the Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, as well as provoking a backlash among some of his own Tory MPs.

Three mayors representing millions of people across former coalfields of northern England said voters would feel as if they were being treated with “utter contempt” by the prime minister.

Dan Jarvis, the mayor of the Sheffield city region, said: “Thatcher’s destruction of the coal mining industry left a trail of devastation across the Yorkshire coalfields, without a thought for the people and communities that were so deeply affected as a consequence. We are still picking up the pieces to this day. Boris Johnson choosing to laugh about that destructive legacy tells you all you need to know.”

Tracy Brabin, the mayor of West Yorkshire, said Johnson had shown his “lack of understanding of the devastating impact pit closures had on our communities in West Yorkshire”.

Jamie Driscoll, the mayor North of Tyne combined authority, said: “I’m not sure that the miners’ strike has ever been on the syllabus at Eton, but the prime minister’s understanding of history is somewhat skewed.”

As the backlash grew on Friday, the prime minister’s spokesperson declined to offer any regret for his words.

 

 

[Werthead]

The ONS figures seem to confirm the reduction in COVID cases is happening and seems to being sustained. Interesting, since there still doesn't seem to be a full explanation as to why, given the pattern in other heavily-vaccinated countries doesn't seem to be tracking with the UK experience. That also seems to be being backed up by the death figures, which seem to be staying put at below 100 a day (having peaked at over 130 last week).

2 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Good to see Glorious Leader shoring up his shiny new red wall.

Downing Street refuses to apologise for Boris Johnson coalmines joke

 

Owch. I think Boris is underestimating how many people in former mining communities voted Conservative extremely reluctantly due to Brexit or Corbynphobia, including people who would have cheerfully fed a Conservative politician into a blender if they'd shown up anywhere within sight in 1984, and will happy run back to a Corbyn-less Labour Party or just not bother voting at all if they feel they're being shat on.

[Which Tyler]

And yet the new coal mine in Cumbria is still going ahead

[Spockydog]

Why public schoolboys like me and Boris Johnson aren’t fit to run our country

Quote

It is noticeable, and often noticed, that something immature and boyish survives in men like Cameron and Johnson as adults. They can never quite carry off the role of grownup, or shake a suspicion that they remain fans of escapades without consequences. They look confident of not being caught, or not being punished if they are. Cameron has his boyishly unlined face and Johnson his urchin’s unbrushed hair, and his arch schoolboy’s vocabulary.

But what kind of boyhood was it, in our paid-for rooms in those repurposed mansions that housed our schools? What of the distant past still works in us as adults and can we pass on the harm to others? Are we the right people to steer the country, either clear of trouble or in the direction of sunlit uplands? The answer to these questions depends on lessons learned at an impressionable age. Unless, of course, we learned nothing. And no one pays hundreds of pounds a term, even in the late 70s, to learn nothing.

One of the first things we learned – or felt – at prep school was a deep, emotional austerity, starting from the moment the parents drove away. That first night, and on other nights to come, the little men in ties and jackets reverted to the little children they really were – in name-taped pyjamas with a single soft toy (also name-taped), blubbing themselves to sleep and wetting their beds.

I remember the feeling of desolate homesickness: abruptly, several times a year, our attachments to home and family were broken. We lost everything – parents, pets, toys, younger siblings – and we could cry if we liked but no one would help us. So that later in life, when we saw other people cry, we felt no great need to go to their aid. The sad and the weak were wrong to show their distress, and we learned to despise the children who blubbed for their mummies. The cure was to stop crying and forget that life beyond the dormitories and classrooms existed. Concentrate instead on the games pitches and the dining hall and the headmaster’s study. By force of will we made ourselves complicit in a collective narrowing of vision.

...

In the early 80s, Radley’s non-teaching staff were known as College Servants. We had cleaners, chefs, groundsmen, bit-part players and comic mechanicals. They represented the proles, the plebs, the oiks, the yokels, the townies and the crusties (a term Johnson continued to use 40 years later). Our special language had its range of words to set these unfamiliar animals apart, meaning people not like us, and if you didn’t know the language you were probably one of them. As Orwell doubles-down in Nineteen Eighty-Four: “The proles are not human beings.”

In his autobiography, For the Record, David Cameron admits that about Brexit he “did not fully anticipate the strength of feeling that would be unleashed both during the referendum and afterwards”. Of course he didn’t. Strong feelings were involved, and also the common people. He was floundering in a pair of blind spots, to emotion and the British public. He gorged on a double helping of ignorance undisturbed since his schooldays.

I don't have kids, but I know how much my sisters miss theirs when separated even for a couple of days. It really must take a certain type of person to subject your children to boarding school. No wonder our leaders are so fucked up and useless.

 

[BigFatCoward]

17 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

 

I don't have kids, but I know how much my sisters miss theirs when separated even for a couple of days. It really must take a certain type of person to subject your children to boarding school. No wonder our leaders are so fucked up and useless.

 

If your kid was that physically and morally repugnant you would have him straight out the door. 

[Heartofice]

Anti vax / lockdown protesters storm the BBC building!!

Effective protest except the BBC haven’t been there in years, they sold it a while ago.

Really highlights the stupidity on offer here.

 

[DaveSumm]

 

[Spockydog]

Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre sues Prince Andrew

Quote

Virginia Roberts Giuffre, an alleged victim of the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, on Monday filed a lawsuit against Prince Andrew in federal court in New York.

She accused the British royal of sexually abusing her at Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan and at other locations when she was under the age of 18, according to court records. He has denied having sex with her.

The legal action also comes just days before the expiration date of a New York state law that permits alleged victims of childhood sexual abuse to file civil claims that might otherwise be barred by statutes of limitations, ABC News reported.

“If she doesn’t do it now, she would be allowing him to escape any accountability for his actions,” Giuffre’s attorney, David Boies, chairman of Boies, Schiller Flexner, told ABC News. “And Virginia is committed to trying to avoid situations where rich and powerful people escape any accountability for their actions.”

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and accuses Andrew of sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

I mean, good luck and all that, but he'll probably just ignore it.

[Luzifer's right hand]

17 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Anti vax / lockdown protesters storm the BBC building!!

Effective protest except the BBC haven’t been there in years, they sold it a while ago.

Really highlights the stupidity on offer here.

 

I'm sure they "researched" the address in the same way they "research" everything else. 

[Heartofice]

7 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

I'm sure they "researched" the address in the same way they "research" everything else. 

"Do your own research!"

[Raja]

Know there was some talk about abuse not being from UK based twitter accounts, but Twitter UK have said otherwise. Full thread here.

Quote

While many have quite rightly highlighted the global nature of the conversation, it is also important to acknowledge the UK was - by far - the largest country of origin for the abusive Tweets we removed.

 

[mormont]

Of more interest in that thread (and I do appreciate this is not from an unbiased source) is the finding that 99% of the accounts involved had information that would allow easy identification of the individuals behind them.

The belief that linking real names to social media accounts will deter abuse strikes me as one of those 'common sense' ideas where people haven't actually bothered to do the research to back it up. This suggests they really do need to, and I don't mean doing a YouGov poll on whether people think it would work.