Meanwhile they’ve done some very normal, quite leftie anti-austerity things recently but there are no clicks in reporting that for days on end and that’s all that matters now. Competence is boring.
Not my thing but some of you might like this as an alternative to the usual poppy. I can’t work out if it’s a cool, creative bit of product development to generate funds or a bit tacky and disrespectful. Anyway, for £6 I thought someone might find it useful. https://www.poppyshop.org.uk/search?q=Qpr
Apparently Sue Gray is ‘digging her heels in’ for a severance package after changing jobs for Starmer. I don’t get this. In every job I’ve ever done the only way I’d get a ‘severance package’ is through being made redundant, which means the job doesn’t exist any more. This can’t be the case for Gray because she is being replaced, her old job still exists. So she either resigned or was sacked, neither of which attract a ‘severance package’ as far as I know. Are these the new employment rights for workers that are being brought in? If so I might go back to work and repeatedly resign or get sacked and require a ‘severance package’ every time. From day one of employment now, apparently.
The Telegraph speaks. Why should 'workers' have rights? Why should 'humans' have rights? Eh, Honest Bob?
Aah, you think Gray was ‘unfairly dismissed’? Which would attract compensation under the new employment rights as I understand them. You can wilfully misread what I wrote, which was about a greedy apparently incompetent woman demanding to be paid for being sacked, with a hint of sarcasm about the coincidence of this happening when employment law is changing (for the better), if you like. As it happens I think ‘human rights’, at least the way I see them interpreted, is an abstract concept which largely keeps human rights lawyers employed. A useful idea but unless individual people recognise that another person’s ‘right’ places a real obligation on them to protect that right, so what? And clearly you, I and Kier Starmer don’t feel that the basic ‘right’ not to be killed places any obligation on us as individuals to actively stop people being killed, beyond passively not killing them ourselves. Indeed, Sir Kier actively supports and provides the means for some people to ‘defend themselves’ (as is, apparently, also their right) by killing others. Which would imply that human rights aren’t universal. But you’d need to be a human rights lawyer to really understand this stuff and how people with the real power square their consciences with it so it’s beyond my competence. Thank God we are led by a man who really does understand it and who is, apparently, infallible. Lots more sarcasm in there, by the way. I genuinely do find the subject of rights and obligations fascinating, over and above politics and the current situation.
Firstly I agree with your earlier point. It seems odd given it’s effectively an internal move. But what if you were moved teams against your will to a more junior position with someone else brought into your role? Again not sure I’d expect compensation in that instance though unless the salary was reduced (which I don’t think can happen in my contract anyway). I guess she’d argue it’s not the same as an internal move in a private company. There’s also the quite credible possibility it’s all a load of bollocks.
Elsewhere, confusing population figures, with deaths outnumbering births but the population growing due to pesky immigrants. The single place with the highest population growth 2013-23, 16% against the average 6%, is……Stratford upon Avon! Yay, I’ve contributed to an outlier stat! To be honest it doesn’t feel overcrowded and you would hope that the huge influx of people would mean that the shops, pubs and restaurants as well as other businesses would continue to thrive. Oops, we also have a way above average % of the population aged 50 or over, which explains everything being closed by 7:00 pm.
In a previous existence I’ve actually moved people who were struggling in a particular role but were basically just in the wrong place rather than rubbish into another on paper more junior, ie less well paid, role. Their salaries and benefits were protected for a period, I think a year, giving them some time to decide whether they would accept the situation or move on. And in many cases salary scales for different roles had large amounts of overlap so pay reductions only really happened to those near the top of the scale for the senior role. If that makes any sense at all. Of course Sue Gray was very near the top of a brand new scale which was seemingly invented just for her. I suppose she could argue for protected pay for a bit, but not severance pay, in my view. She’s 67, she should just retire.
Speaking as someone whose sleep schedule is all over the place due to going out with a chef, I hate when I’m in a smaller town and you’re made to feel a pariah for walking into a restaurant at 8:15. Equally annoying when I’m sat at the bar of her restaurant and some knobhead comes in after four pints expecting the kitchen to be open at 10.
On the day we moved in, a freezing Monday in January last year, we hit the wall at about 8:00 and went out to eat. Monday is usually a quiet night but here it was absolutely dead, the only place willing to serve us was a Zizzi’s. That’s what you get for having a virtually zero student population and a bit of a contrast to where we had moved from, Leamington Spa. Bizarrely, the restaurants are packed early evening, but by the time I stagger out to take the dog for a pint it’s a ghost town.
I don't know, and don't care, whether Gray was unfairly dismissed or not. It's an irrelevance as far as I'm concerned, but it serves the right wing media well as another means to bash Starmer, along with suits and Arsenal seats. What's important are the proposed improvements to workers' rights, and this is where attention should currently be paid, in my opinion. I'm tired of how a few billionaire newspaper owners continue to be able to dictate the wider news agenda, even though hardly anybody reads their rags.
If only it were suits and Arsenal seats: “….the prime minister for accepting more than £100,000 in hospitality and free gifts. This includes clothing worth £32,000 and multiple pairs of glasses worth about £2,400 from Alli, as well as the use of an £18m central London penthouse……” The above was obtained from that well known bastion of the right wing media ….. The Guardian As for removing Sue Gray, it would be naive to believe that personnel changes alone can solve Labour’s challenges. The party’s weakness lies in its lack of a cohesive political vision. After 100 days in office, the government has yet to provide a meaningful analysis of why Britain finds itself in such a dire situation, or what concrete actions are needed to address it. This would require holding accountable the individuals and institutions responsible. Without a plan, Labour has found itself pushing instead for cuts in public services and investment. This is precisely the opposite of what Labour voters elected Sir Keir to do. In the apt phrase of the historian David Edgerton, Britain is in “a bad way”. Yet Labour’s response has been conspicuously absent. Where is the plan to address the deep inequalities in income, wealth and geography – not just for the sake of fairness, but to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the economy? Labour’s disdain for the Conservatives is genuine, particularly when contrasting its commitment to the NHS with the neglect shown by the Tories. But to govern effectively, the party needs to do more than attack the last government; it requires a critical analysis of the broader economic and social landscape. The above is also from The Guardian
Of course the Guardian reported on the freebies issue, it was obliged to because it had risen to the top of the news agenda after having been successfully blown up out of all proportion by right wing newspapers owned by billionaires interested in doing down Starmer and his government. "as well as the use of an £18m central London penthouse……”
The fact that a Labour Lord, who was working as part of Sir Starmer's pre-election team, paid for him to get some new suits is a complete ****ing non-story. Only the hard-of-thinking and desperate Labour haters are making a fuss out of it. The people attacking Labour right now hated them before Starmer was elected. Best just leave them to their tantrums and focus on what they're actually doing. Nothing Labour could do would ever be good enough for them.
Ah. Happy hour. And I thought that only happened in the North East. Quite a few time over the years I've had an early dinner in Newcastle (usually because of something else like a gig or to watch the mighty Gateshead play in the evening but, I confess, occasionally because I was too tight). I recall one particular evening (should that be late afternoon?) when I entered a restaurant near Blaydon to find it packed with punters enjoying the 3 course set menu for £4.95. I was tempted but sadly not even standing room so I had a walk about and come back after 7pm to find I was on my own. The meal was still cheap, around £18.00 for three courses including a pint of the local brew. Service was quick but not so cheerful. After all they were serving up the leftovers from the 5 pm sitting and I can understand the waitress not being chuffed about having some git from London to serve at 7.15. I was the only diner in the restaurant at the time. Didn't mind because I still got into Toon to see the gig in full
