Off Topic Political Debate

I was just quoting the figures that had been published Cologne, so not deliberately belittling what Germany are doing.
It's a bit of a stretch to link arms sales to aid and suggesting that those arms are the cause of issues that require this aid - you could argue that without this trade, Britain may not afford such levels of aid? If you consider the amount of aid that Britain pays to India and Pakistan that have their own space and nuclear weapons programmes, you could ask if this was better directed at countries that are in desperate poverty. Personally I would rather see aid used to fund mass immunisation programmes and the provision of drugs to combat things like Malaria, Dengue Fever, TB etc.

 

But how do you immunise against ISIL, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda?

 

No idea, but should you send aid to those countries where these scum operate either?

 

W_Y, I think that arms sales are just the tip of the iceberg. The West gives off the impression that it is trying to help the developing World (I hate that expression, but I don't have another) - yet the reality is very different. All but 4 African nations are currently using their most fertile land producing luxury foodcrops for European and American markets, at rock bottom prices and to pay the exhorbitant rates of interest on foreign loans. The conditions for those loans often involved privatizations - which, of water, forced this most basic of commodities into becoming a luxury product. Since privatization, water now accounts for a quarter of the income of the average income in Sierra Leone. Until we press for global fair trade and for a system where eg. African nations are not paying 10 times the interest rates which we are, then foreign aid is a farce ie. we are giving with one hand and taking with the other. Look further at how meat which is well past its sale date is dumped on African countries destroying their own agricultural sales, or how there are mountains of poisonous electrical parts (old computers, mobiles etc.) which we also dump on Africa without thinking about the children picking up mercury poisoning etc. I could go on and on. There is no real intention to bring living standards in the 3rd World up to our standards because we profit from the situation as it is - we have sources for cheap raw materials, cheap labour, dumping grounds for everything which we don't want (including the dismantling of 1,000 container ships per year - probably under the most atrocious working conditions found anywhere). Until we address these issues aid paid by the West is a sham, which sends out a goodie goodie image but hides the real facts.

 

Agree with most of that Cologne, I really try to avoid buying food with excessive food miles, especially foods that we grow in the UK, but not in season and are shipped in from countries that they are not natural to. A good example is Raspberries - I really love them, but only buy fresh ones when in season here - the other day in my local supermarket, they had them from Morocco!

 

Not correct, my wife works on minimum wage and gets paid for working hours only (retail trade). Tea breaks and lunch breaks are only given when over max stipulated time between breaks, are never paid indeed she was told by her manager that she should not use the toilet facilities outside the break times. She has also been given a verbal warning for being ill 3 times in a 6 month period all genuine illnesses and she really only works for the pleasure of it not for money so definitely not abusing the system. This is where I get my workers rights hat on and support my grandfathers approach of we must have unions to stop the repressive behavior of some businessmen who have no idea about staff motivation or productivity enhancement through culture. You'll find many retail if not all retail workers get paid only for time on the shop floor....

 

Sorry to disagree, but it is correct. To their credit, many restaurant chains had previously used their discretion to pay staff for the 30 minute break, and many supermarket chains had provided staff with other perks. The introduction of the National Living Wage has seen them alter that practice, unsurprisingly I suppose as it must have cost a pretty penny overall.

I guess I've been lucky over the years - I can only think of one job where I wasn't paid for my lunch break, a labouring job for a demolition company in Brisbane. The boss more than made up for that though by taking us all to the pub after work everyday & the drinks were on him for an hour - much appreciated after slogging for 6 hours in 35C heat...

 

Be careful using food miles as a guide if you are doing this for environmental reasons w_y. It is at least 40 times more efficient to transport goods by ship than lorry. Similarly, you have to consider the carbon emissions in the production of the food. Using greenhouses that are heated is not good, or using heaters in apple orchards and even helicopters to prevent frost damage is appalling. There are fewer greenhouse gases emitted in getting NZ apples to a British home than most French apples, which are trucked from France.

Of course the most inefficient bit in transporting food to a home is getting from the shop to home in a car. We are about to buy an electric bike to solve this problem.

Having said that Moroccan raspberries are probably bad. The worst case I heard about were M&S English asparagus, which were beautifly packaged and tied up with English chive leaves. Both the asparagus and chives were flown to Kenya to be assembled by hand and then flown back. They were labelled English asparagus, of course.

 

Our supermarket has over the last week had strawberries on sale produce by a grower less than forty miles away. We look forward to them as the Spanish ones never have that much flavour, so we don't bother to buy them. However I do suspect that the French ones have travelled much further than forty miles as they almost certainly went to a large distribution centre, probably in Orléans which is over 120 miles, then back again. As you drive across some areas of the country you will see what looks like water from a distance. As you get closer you find that it is actually acres of plastic netting on supports to protect the fruit trees from frost or hail. If the netting is in place the producer can claim on his insurance should a crop fail, without it he has to take the loss on the chin. I am not sure how much fuel is required to manufacture the netting, but it doesn't come from these parts.

 

I agree that 'item for item' ship transport may be the most environmentally friendly way of transporting freight. However, in bulk it isn't, because the capacity of these ships actually increases the amount of freight - the largest container ships can transport up to 18,000 TEU's (Twenty foot equivalent units), in other words the equivalent of 9,000 lorries - if you make ships this big then they will be filled to capacity - and this subsequently goes onto lorries upon arriving in Felixstowe, Rotterdam etc. Do we really need to eat strawberries 12 months per year ? The best thing which a community or town can do for the environment is to try to increase the amount of food which it produces locally - to try to raise its level of self sufficiency in all ways. I agree that the buying of European products is not necessarily better than products from China - partly because many products are not clearly marked, or are produced in several countries. Most of the Italian olive oil actually originates in Andalucia (Spain), and only the water in Italian tins of tomatoes actually comes from Italy.

 

...and what about Spaghetti? Once upon a time we could only buy spaghetti when it came into season in Italy. Now that they've planted trees in such widely diverse countries as Paraguay, Nicaragua, Botswana, Bangladesh and Laos, we seem to be bombarded with the stuff all year round. I am forced to eat it with Dolmio sauces far more than the once a week that is, apparently, good for me.

What is this world coming to?

 

I thought you died years ago.

 

I am Vicker not Whicker.....

 

Was this Whicker, I thought it was Dimbleby (Dickie not Dave)?

 

Been busy last few days so just had big catch up on this thread.
Couple of interesting things I'd like to expand on.
1) With aberdeen on the retail shop floor thing. My mother-in-law works in retail and her employers really take the piss. Minimum wage for time 'on the floor' but expected to cash up and bring money upstairs in her own time (takes 20 mins all in apparently) thus taking her below min wage. I said to sort this out, she said anyone who puts head above parapet gets sacked, with plenty of people lining up for their jobs, the workforce keep quiet. Same situ with toilet breaks as aberdeen said, too. Disgraceful.
2) Sorry if this has been covered on my sabbatical () but I'd like to hear more about what w_y was talking about re foreign aid to countries with space or nuclear programmes. How can this be justified? If people say humanitarian reasons then what stops us from taking on a country's social service bill because they would rather 'invest' in something that is a luxury? I've heard it justified by "Well India's space programme is relatively small." That seems irrelevant to me, it's a matter of principle.
(It's rather like, for those that remember this

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, which was based on a book called 'One-Upmanship' by Stephen Potter, played by Alistair Sim in the film. In the book, a very funny gem of a read, it is recommended that you buy very expensive Christmas and birthday presents for those to whom you owe a lot of money!)

 

Both India and Pakistan receive significant aid from the UK, but both have Space and Nucleur Programmes that have very large budgets.

 

It's a difficult one NZ, it's not just food miles, but also Colognes points on having poor farmers in poor countries growing cash crops instead of growing food for local consumption. I have this simplistic model that I use, but it's not 100% - so if a product can be grown in the UK, then I try to only buy it when in season and from UK growers*. Aspagus is another great example, I absolutely love it and cannot wait for the season to start and I do not buy it until then - but 2 of my kids are on this Body Coach programme and one week had to eat Aspagus and have been laughing at me as I will not eat theirs. Not 100% because I eat Oranges and Bananas - they half meet my model!

* have to take great notice on the packaging these days. Tesco gave started branding fruit and veg with a nice old fashioned English farm names complete with pictures of tractors - I noticed in the local store last week that this even included Bluberries that were grown in South America! I understand that the NFU have quite rightly conplained about it.

 

Yes we have to disagree as I've always seen evidence to the contrary with sales positions having breaks but always unpaid, Tesco the same and my son was there years ago before Uni... https://www.ourtesco.com/working-at-tesco/people-policies/expenses/working-hours. I see a current movement towards a conflict based employer - worker relationship after years of improving worker employer relations. Not sure if this is just my perspective or real and a result of the allowance of Chinese competition causing business to think exploitation rather than colaboratrion is the way?

 

Yep, this is it. I must be stupid - could somebody please explain the ethics of this?
I'm really not one of those tight-lipped 'look after ours first' people, but I find it pretty indefensible when we cut benefits to our disabled and give money to countries in these cases.