Why would he care, his driver or butler takes care of that

He won’t know what one is.

His many cars are always immaculately clean but it happens by magic, like so many other things such as the perpetually full petrol tank and the view of the driver from the back seat

I could see my Tory MP getting her face on screen a bit during PM Q’s… God, I hope we can get her out next election.

FFS haven’t we done this?

Simple economics is a bit more nuanced. Who knew?

https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-and-jobs-labour-market-effects-immigration/

It’s difficult to see how sectors like care could be automated. But you know – small boats 🤷

I mean, did you see Rishi Sunak trying to buy petrol?! He needed that supposedly low-skilled worker to tell him where to tap his **** debit card…

Hold on a minute. I’m no fan of Sunak, Tories or the status quo, but knowing where to tap a debit card isn’t exactly a difficult skill to learn. That anecdote doesn’t appear to prove what you are trying to use it to prove.

dazh Full Member
What’s his position on car washes though?

I would have thought that Rishi Sunak fully supports the well established Tory position on the issue – let them get on with it:

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/26/more-than-90-of-hand-carwashes-in-uk-employing-workers-illegally-study-finds

“The latest findings on continuing poor treatment of workers in carwashes come after the government in early 2019 rejected the idea of a national licensing scheme for the sector.”

And as the Guardian article points also points out:

“Only 6% of the carwashes had written contracts with workers while just 11% handed out payslips so that they could prove they were paying the legal minimum wage, holiday pay or sick pay. Less than half (41%) were registered companies, indicating most are not registered with the tax authorities.”

It is hard to believe that many fluent English speaking UK born workers, whatever their race, would put up with that sort of shit. So you can see the attraction of importing cheap foreign labour.

Otherwise no one will wash your car for you without charging you a ridiculous amount of money to do it and you will be forced to either use an automated car wash, which won’t clean and dry your car properly, or to get a bucket of water and do it yourself.

When an enterprising punter sets up a roadside bicycle washing service for a fiver a wash we will wonder how we ever managed to wash our own bikes after a bike ride.

rejected the idea of a national licensing scheme for the sector

“Light touch” regulation as cover for exploiting workers isn’t just Tory policy, for some it’s their religion. The problem is UK government policy deliberately enabling the eroding of the position, conditions, security and pay of workers. Wherever they were born. The workers aren’t the problem.

And hate him or hate him, he’s famously quite good at campaigning, then absolutely rubbish at everything else.

Beautifully put Binners.

Can we park the car wash thing and focus on supposedly better governed employment sectors that have had the arse ripped out of them because of the changes to labour markets and the race to the bottom? Care sector, nursing, manufacturing? Whoever went to a car wash thinking it was in any way legit?

Care sector, nursing, manufacturing?

Retail, warehousing and logistics, parcel delivery…

When an enterprising punter sets up a roadside bicycle washing service for a fiver a wash we will wonder how we ever managed to wash our own bikes after a bike ride.

Why would you expect it be that cheap? Dog grooming isn’t.

https://washmy.bike/pricing
https://www.rideclean.cc/booking-form-old
https://www.bikleen.com/book-online

The worrying thing is that they’ve only just started.

They’re proposing their latest anti-union ‘minimum service’ legislation to deliberately be so vague that they can apply it to virtually any sector. Even the few remaining sane members of the Tory party think this is a step too far. Not that they’d actually vote against it, obviously.

Be under no illusions, they want to make striking itself illegal, and you can only imagine what would happen to wages and employees rights from that point onwards

so vague that they can apply it to virtually any sector

And any worker. The employer could name any worker as being exempt from normal strike laws and effectively banned from striking, in law. So, pick out those most likely to stand up for everyone else, and put them (not their role, but their name) on the list of people required to work to ensure a “minimum service” when a strike is on.

The workers aren’t the problem.

So you keep repeating whilst maintaining this ludicrous pretence that anyone has blamed the workers.

I guess it is a measure of how weak your argument is that you have to focus on something which no one has actually said.

The whole thing is empowering employees with all the legislative cover to effectively sack anyone on the spot for pretty much anything, with no comeback.

Their ideal model for future employment law is to enable what P&O did when it sacked everyone, en masse, and then took on replacement workers on much reduced pay and zero employment rights

Anyone who thinks their intentions are any more benevolent than that, now we’re ‘free’ of that pesky EU legislation, needs to wise up pretty sharpish

Be under no illusions, they want to make striking itself illegal, and you can only imagine what would happen to wages and employees rights from that point onwards

Yup. However it is very likely to backfire on them. Firstly it is likely to create an environment of even greater militancy, and feed left-wing movements. And secondly it is likely to make the public more sympathetic towards trade unions and less towards the Tories. Already the latter is very much becoming evident.

Anyone who thinks their intentions are any more benevolent than that, now we’re ‘free’ of that pesky EU legislation, needs to wise up pretty sharpish

It’s genius in a way… tell workers that taking control of our borders and keeping out EU migrants is the answer to their problems… oh, turns out that isn’t the answer, and in many cases it’s made the situation much worse… the problem is now workers rights and collective action taken over pay and conditions… so let’s get rid of all that. Now who would have predicted that…?

secondly it is likely to make the public more sympathetic towards trade unions and less towards the Tories. Already the latter is very much becoming evident.

The concerted efforts of the government and the media to portray Mick Lynch as Arthur Scargill and nurses and teachers as a modern day ‘enemy within’ really aren’t going well, are they?

the problems is now workers rights, pay and conditions… so let’s get rid of that.

Perhaps you didn’t bother reading the Guardian link? Here it is again for you:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/26/more-than-90-of-hand-carwashes-in-uk-employing-workers-illegally-study-finds

This is today without any changes to existing legislation. The gig economy is alive and well as it was when the UK was an EU member state. Hand car washes are not the result of brexit. In fact brexit has probably been a burden to hand car wash operators, it certainly hasn’t helped them.

As far as the right to strike is concerned the Tories have only about 18 months to make it illegal before a Labour government comes to power and reverses it.

No one doubts that a Labour government would fully support the right to strike, do they?

No one doubts that a Labour government would fully support the right to strike, do they?

Starmer is on the record, repeatedly, saying a labour government would immediately repeal any of these anti-union laws

I know thats not what the forum revolutionaries want to hear, but there you go

really aren’t going well, are they?

No, thank goodness.

But this winter has taught me not to bring up strikes and unions when out socialising, not everyone is getting behind them, to put it mildly. Some indifference is turning to anger or some (even if more people are moving the other way, at least for now). They’re still political capital to made from turning people against unions (and the making that stick to Labour as well, even where they aren’t connected). Have the Conservatives overestimated the power of that? Or is it about building a motivated base to reduce losses at the next election, and to try and build back from that fast after it?

On the question of the exploitation of migrant workers and the threat of growing militancy – United Voices of the World and the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain are a very new and positive phenomena:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Voices_of_the_World

The openly confrontational attitude of UVW and IWGB distinguishes them from larger unions:

They also take an uncompromising approach to their demands. Both unions are quick to call strike action, often with short work stoppages of several hundred employees that take place alongside protests designed to generate a social media buzz and exert public pressure on an employer … “We tell workers that they need to take action, serious action, protracted action until they win,” says Mr Elia. “The demands we make are non-negotiable. We want everything we ask for.”

That’s proper fighting talk! And they are growing evermore influential.

Starmer is on the record, repeatedly, saying a labour government would immediately repeal any of these anti-union laws

I know thats not what the forum revolutionaries want to hear, but there you go

That is obviously exactly what “the forum revolutionaries” want to hear. I was of course fully aware of Keir Starmer’s pledge to repeal any anti-trade union legislation.

My concern was whether doom-mongers such as Kelvin were aware. The whole argument appears to be based on indefinite and uninterrupted Tory rule. Despite the fact that the Tories will almost certainly be gone in a few months.

Although Kelvin already argues that there will be too much for Labour to do, so he has already set the bar as low as possible and dashed expectations.

In contrast I have more confidence in what the next Labour government will be able to achieve.

Me? A doom-monger? Political events have panned out at least as badly as I was expecting for the UK since the 2015 Tory election win, in many areas much worse. Come the election, 15 years of damage will probably require 15 years of rebuilding to turn around. Anything else is wishful thinking. Will the UK give Labour the time to do that? I doubt it. But I hope we do. Will Labour move further right if left dealing with the realities of government for that long? I expect so. But I hope it does not. As for workers rights… safer under Labour… but undercutting the conditions and pay of other countries will continue to be a political football in UK politics, and I can’t predict how that’ll turn out longer term. Having joint minimums below which we and bordering countries should not fall was fine by me. The battle ahead in the UK should have been for improving standards, not trying to protect what we have. Of course there’s also still the possibility of a big two thumbs up bounce back towards the Tories, another win for them, and another downwardly spiralling decade ahead. I really hope not, but anything could happen before the next General Election. If Sunak stays in till election day… Labour should be able to carry much of their lead into government… but it’s only should, or could, not will.

Me? A doom-monger?

Absolutely. You constantly paint a picture where the Tories have unlimited and indefinite power, despite the fact that they will almost certainly only be in power for a few more months. You dismiss any possibility of a Labour government even reversing current Tory policies, let alone providing legislation which dramatically improves on what previously existed.

Come the election, 15 year of damage will probably require 15 years of rebuilding to turn around.

Complete nonsense. And there is every reason to suspect that Labour will win the next two general elections.

To claim “anything else is wishful thinking” is a measure of how little you expect from a Labour government.

It took a Labour government 3 years to create the NHS from scratch.

Come the election, 15 years of damage will probably require 15 years of rebuilding to turn around.

Nah, the tories only really did any stuff in their first term. Since then all they’ve done is held a vote on EU membership then spent the next 6 years trying to implement it. Labour won’t be reversing brexit but they can put a serious dent in the stupid stuff the tories did between 2010 and 2016 and that can easily be done in one term.

You dismiss any possibility of a Labour government even reversing current Tory policies, let alone providing legislation which dramatically improves on what previously existed.

Well, lots of claims you make there about things you say I’ve said. I haven’t said those things of course.

Let’s hope your expectations of the damage of everything that’s happened under the Tories being undone in a few years. I personally do not believe in the “we had a vote, and then when we woke up the next day it was like it had all been a bad dream” approach to politics… it’ll take more than a change in government… there’s a long hard slog ahead to rebuild the UK… in both the private and public sector, but it absolutely starts with a change of government. We need a general election now. Let’s crack on and stop the Tories wasting yet more years.

I haven’t said those things of course.

What the stuff I copied and pasted?

Or how dire the situation is because of the Tories and how Labour won’t have the time to reverse it?

Get a grip and own the things that you have said 💡

So Rasb is rumoured to be falling on his sword pretty soon. How quaint!

Hopefully he’ll lay a bit longer though, Sunak tree Weak seems to be sticking.👍

Personally I think he’s Sunakered.

It won’t be the Labour Party I would choose but if they do leave the Tories with 100 seats then history tells us that Labour should get at least two terms and whatever they do will be 100 times better than anything over the last 12 years so I am happy with that knowing the imposed limits the country has (idiots voters, biased media etc,.). Yes I have a low bar after living in the country for 55 years…

So Rasb is rumoured to be falling on his sword pretty soon. How quaint!

If he goes and potentially Braverman as well, Sunak is screwed and there’ll have to be a GE. I know Boris is on manoeuvres to make a glowing return but there’s surely no way they can reinstate him. Johnson > Truss > Sunak > Johnson in less than a year…?!

If the current situation was a kids book it’d be…
Fishi Sunak and the government of inaction.
like a comic novel only not funny.
*BOFF* watch him fly to Leeds in a jet to talk to medical staff rather than increase their wages and invest to improve working conditions.
*BIFF* Watch him take zero action over blatant fraud from one of his own MPs until the media noise became deafening.

Crazy legs- I get where you are coming from, but with this “conservative*” party I think Boris cooking back is a 50/50 chance!

Who would really get a large amount of money AGAINST it?😐

* It’s changed into a shape shifting,power at any cost, malignancy more than a functioning political party imo.

On Monday we had dinner with someone who deemed the only wrong thing Dumbojo did was lie. All the other stuff was an amazing success.
I’m sure he would happily vote for that **** again. Let’s hope the **** gets locked up.

Why would there have ti be a GE crazylegs?

Just thought I’d leave this here………….

Lol, very good. I wonder if they can be bought on eBay?

Lol, very good. I wonder if they can be bought on eBay?

The Conservatives? Oh yes, I’m sure they can be.

enabled the Tory Hard Brexit.

Would that be the “Hated Deal” the Express and Mail are always bleating on about.

As if it’s the fault of the EU and they forced the tories by twisting their arm up their back to accept it. 🙄

We’ve raised #BankRate to 4% today. Inflation has started to fall, but it is still much too high. Raising interest rates is the best way we have to ensure low and stable inflation. Andrew Bailey explains more below. https://t.co/n7j94kLoaX pic.twitter.com/QRLtzXchxi

— Bank of England (@bankofengland) February 2, 2023

Imagine an economy where it’s operated in the ‘interests’ of the lower/modest incomes.

Because, we have exactly the opposite.

The sooner this establishment driven economy properly stalls and we rebuild the better. (And I think it’s on the cards – just taking time to get there.)

We’re all getting shafted at the expense of the perverse glee of clumsy market economies with BoE intervention when it needs fixing only for the asset class.

Inflation as we all know is being used politically by the the UK Government and BoE (ha ha independent) to make it look like they’re fixing the economy, so you vote Tory. Note how halving inflation has become a political tool from tools. It actually shouldn’t be like that if the BoE is supposed to be independent. But the Tories have weaponised it. (They didn’t take the blame on the way up BTW.)

We all knew last year that inflation was looking like being an unstoppable transitory phenomenon.

But now the BoE has squeezed the living shit out the economy and made money more expensive when there is less of it. That adds to inflation (but it won’t necessarily show up on CPI but limits spending.)

But later on we will all be celebrating lower CPI when individual inflation will have increased.

Shocking state of affairs.

In other news the BBC has done an investigation into how its journalists present the economy, and have found much reporting to distort the truth about government financing and such. For example always using the term as government debt is a bad thing that needs paying back – when we know it doesn’t function like a household. And government debt is not the same as personal debt. This line of reporting has helped reinforce the ‘need’ for austerity, as it’s Tory framing (just letting Rachel Reeves absorb this would be a good thing.)

Certainly progress for those that want a wider adoption of economic understanding.

See here: go deep for the full review.

https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2023/thematic-review-taxation-public-spending-govt-borrowing-debt-output

And Meadway article.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/31/bad-economics-bbc-tory-austerity-uk-politics

P.S on Sunak’s rubbish poster he both says reduce government debt and grow the economy.

That’s impossible.

Government red is private sector black.

Idiot.

I see today that rat boy’s latest wheeze is to make withdrawal from the ECHR a Tory manifesto pledge.
Progressive stuff.

trailmonkey
Full Member
I see today that rat boy’s latest wheeze is to make withdrawal from the ECHR a Tory manifesto pledge.
Progressive stuff.

You have to admire the balls of the Tories and tear your hair out in frustration at the stupidity of a sub set of voters that they see this as a good thing.

Wonder if said voters are sentient enough to realise the ECHR protects them too?

Nah… Got the word europe in so must be bad.