Off Topic Politics Thread

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
davecg69 said:
“We” voted him in ...... :emoticon-0101-sadsm
All because the opposition parties allowed him and his bunch of cheating bastards to call an election instead of holding out ..... :emoticon-0121-angry
Click to expand...
Absofuckinglutly! Lab, Lib Dems and SNP mugged themselves leaving spaffer Johnson and his crooked bunch of sycophants without any checks and balances parliamentary scrutiny having been removed in the WAB and the political declaration ripped to threads.
What a ****ing triumph (thanks Vin).
 
  • Like
Reactions: thereisonlyoneno7, davecg69, ChilcoSaint and 1 other person
ChilcoSaint said:
This is a very chilling piece which argues with some authority that society in Britain and America is in a death-spiral:
https://outline.com/VNVMDM
Click to expand...

Great post Chilco and that article is spot on. With a few exceptions the only way to find out what is really happening to our societies we have to look to the free press in America. Here is a video with Chris Hedges that tells it how bad it really is in America. It's frightening, really frightening to see the disintegration of human rights, basic values of a secure society and the growth of the far right and government militarisation.

Chris Hedges (On Contact), Abby Martin (Empire Files), Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, are all people of integrity that speak of things the mainstream media choose to ignore. We really are in deep trouble but because very little of it is in the media, it's no wonder most people are unaware of the real state of the collapse of society. The situation is not as bad in the UK as it is in America, but it is heading that way. Some of the announcements coming out of Downing Street in the past few days show the clampdown has started to ramp up.


You must log in or register to see media
 
  • Like
Reactions: Osvaldorama, ChilcoSaint and davecg69
ChilcoSaint said:
This is a very chilling piece which argues with some authority that society in Britain and America is in a death-spiral:
https://outline.com/VNVMDM
Click to expand...

A brilliant piece, that spells it out as it is.
Shamefully, IMO, much of this is largely down to many of my generation, who had the best of everything, in terms of opportunity, but who, for some reason, don’t appear to want their own offspring to have the same chances and benefits that they had.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ChilcoSaint
St Badger said:
A brilliant piece, that spells it out as it is.
Shamefully, IMO, much of this is largely down to many of my generation, who had the best of everything, in terms of opportunity, but who, for some reason, don’t appear to want their own offspring to have the same chances and benefits that they had.
Click to expand...

Not sure I completely agree with you, here, Badger. I think we all want our children to have the same chances, but those have been ripped from their hands by the banking crisis, the austerity measures, the high level of student debt (and the changing of technical colleges - for those of lesser academic ability to learn trades - into second rate universities- as far as employers are concerned anyway), the pandering to the wealthy and their lack of care for those less fortunate, plus the rise of the privileged few who are in it for themselves and their mates. Meanwhile, the media is in the hands of those billionaires who tell the population what they want and the population are numbed into believing it by the mindless crap they are served up on tv.
Luckily, I taught my children to question everything and (I hope anyway) that they see through what passes for politics these days.
I’m just hoping that the government don’t take what little I leave when I go and it can help my children and their children make a go of it in this crazy world.
“One day when the power of love outweighs the love of power .....” :emoticon-0100-smile
 
  • Like
Reactions: StJabbo1, TheSecondStain, thereisonlyoneno7 and 2 others
Just been listening to Priti Patel explaining that there are 8.45 million British people who are economically inactive, who can be used to fill the gaps left by unskilled foreign labour.
Apparently this figure includes people who cannot work owing to illness/disability, people who haven’t yet reached state pension age but have retired, full time students at university and those who cannot work because they have to stay at home to care for dependants.
Once these groups are removed from the figures, we are left with about 2 million people who are economically inactive, not 8.45 million.
Not sure how many of those can be cajoled into doing unskilled jobs, such as picking fruit and vegetables, in place of foreign labour, but listening to a Yorkshire farmer, his employment force for picking pumpkins usually has just 5% of British workers.
 
  • Like
Reactions: StJabbo1, davecg69 and ChilcoSaint
St Badger said:
Just been listening to Priti Patel explaining that there are 8.45 million British people who are economically inactive, who can be used to fill the gaps left by unskilled foreign labour.
Apparently this figure includes people who cannot work owing to illness/disability, people who haven’t yet reached state pension age but have retired, full time students at university and those who cannot work because they have to stay at home to care for dependants.
Once these groups are removed from the figures, we are left with about 2 million people who are economically inactive, not 8.45 million.
Not sure how many of those can be cajoled into doing unskilled jobs, such as picking fruit and vegetables, in place of foreign labour, but listening to a Yorkshire farmer, his employment force for picking pumpkins usually has just 5% of British workers.
Click to expand...

And this is the thing that happened last year, when a lot of produce was left in the ground or in the trees and bushes, for want of pickers. British workers don't want to/can't afford to/ do it for minimum wage. But of course the ordinary worker will be forced into taking jobs like this even when it doesn't even cover their outgoings. Basic living costs in the UK for the permanent population are often too high for minimum wage jobs. I have seen the pressures that UK Job Centre advisors put on the unemployed. I certainly wouldn't have it done to me. Those individuals would be recorded and reported.
 
TheSecondStain said:
And this is the thing that happened last year, when a lot of produce was left in the ground or in the trees and bushes, for want of pickers. British workers don't want to/can't afford to/ do it for minimum wage. But of course the ordinary worker will be forced into taking jobs like this even when it doesn't even cover their outgoings. Basic living costs in the UK for the permanent population are often too high for minimum wage jobs. I have seen the pressures that UK Job Centre advisors put on the unemployed. I certainly wouldn't have it done to me. Those individuals would be recorded and reported.
Click to expand...
When the CBI, TUC, NFU, healthcare, hospitality in fact about every employment sector decry the proposal you have to agree it's a bad thing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: davecg69 and TheSecondStain
St Badger said:
Just been listening to Priti Patel explaining that there are 8.45 million British people who are economically inactive, who can be used to fill the gaps left by unskilled foreign labour.
Apparently this figure includes people who cannot work owing to illness/disability, people who haven’t yet reached state pension age but have retired, full time students at university and those who cannot work because they have to stay at home to care for dependants.
Once these groups are removed from the figures, we are left with about 2 million people who are economically inactive, not 8.45 million.
Not sure how many of those can be cajoled into doing unskilled jobs, such as picking fruit and vegetables, in place of foreign labour, but listening to a Yorkshire farmer, his employment force for picking pumpkins usually has just 5% of British workers.
Click to expand...

I'll give you a hint: the answer is that almost no one can be cajoled into doing those jobs, and it wouldn't be to the benefit of farmers if they could, anyway.

I'm in an area with an unemployment rate above 8%, and that rate is higher for workers without postsecondary education. The farmers here are almost entirely reliant on temporary foreign workers from Jamaica and Central America, because that work is difficult, and being piece-work it only pays reasonably well if you have enough experience and work ethic to get quite a bit done.

The only local I knew who picked apples as a vocation (rather than the occasional 17 year old whose parents thought it'd be a good part-time job that lasted approximately three hours) was a neighbour growing up, who left school at around 10 or 11...and was probably significantly more educated than most of his ancestry. In other words, someone who had a considerable incentive to keep doing the work until he became efficient at it, whereas most people today would have enough education to at least do labour that paid more from day one.
 
I travelled around France in my 20s picking fruit. France was a good place for that in the 1980s because there was a fairly generous minimum wage, which the farmers could afford because they got a guaranteed price for their product - small growers were subsidised by the EU Common Agricultural Policy (that wicked EU again).

Even with decent pay, the vast majority of pickers were Gypsies and itinerant travellers from Spain, Portugal and France, plus a few young European drifters like me. Local people did do a few hours, but there was no way on earth the French towns and villages could supply enough Labour during harvest time.

We slept in fields btw.
 
Last edited:
I remember bean picking as an 11 yêar old for 11d ( 4.5p) per hour. I think that the adult rate was something like 4/6d, so we as kids earned around 20% of the grown ups. In fairness to the farmer we probably didn't contribute much more than our wages justified. Near to where I live the big crop is asparagus. Foreign workers come from mid April until the end of June. My understanding is that they get paid minimum wage but the farmer deducts a pretty large amount for their board and lodging that takes the form of Stalag Luft type huts.

If farmers do succeed in employing locals then they will have to pay probably double their current rate. Clearly in the case of a high value crop such as asparagus this could be passed on to the consumer who pays maybe six quid a plate in London restaurants. So I think the answer is to offer locals say £15 an hour, this would most likely be a good enough incentive to get labour for a hard and sometimes unpleasant job. In the mean time, as a public footpath runs directly through the asparagus field I will be getting out the recipe book again soon!
 
  • Like
Reactions: davecg69 and Archers Road
Farked19 said:
I remember bean picking as an 11 yêar old for 11d ( 4.5p) per hour. I think that the adult rate was something like 4/6d, so we as kids earned around 20% of the grown ups. In fairness to the farmer we probably didn't contribute much more than our wages justified. Near to where I live the big crop is asparagus. Foreign workers come from mid April until the end of June. My understanding is that they get paid minimum wage but the farmer deducts a pretty large amount for their board and lodging that takes the form of Stalag Luft type huts.

If farmers do succeed in employing locals then they will have to pay probably double their current rate. Clearly in the case of a high value crop such as asparagus this could be passed on to the consumer who pays maybe six quid a plate in London restaurants. So I think the answer is to offer locals say £15 an hour, this would most likely be a good enough incentive to get labour for a hard and sometimes unpleasant job. In the mean time, as a public footpath runs directly through the asparagus field I will be getting out the recipe book again soon!
Click to expand...


Pm me and I’ll come and get some of that asparagus from you <ok>
(for a fair price, of course)
 
Farked19 said:
I remember bean picking as an 11 yêar old for 11d ( 4.5p) per hour. I think that the adult rate was something like 4/6d, so we as kids earned around 20% of the grown ups. In fairness to the farmer we probably didn't contribute much more than our wages justified. Near to where I live the big crop is asparagus. Foreign workers come from mid April until the end of June. My understanding is that they get paid minimum wage but the farmer deducts a pretty large amount for their board and lodging that takes the form of Stalag Luft type huts.

If farmers do succeed in employing locals then they will have to pay probably double their current rate. Clearly in the case of a high value crop such as asparagus this could be passed on to the consumer who pays maybe six quid a plate in London restaurants. So I think the answer is to offer locals say £15 an hour, this would most likely be a good enough incentive to get labour for a hard and sometimes unpleasant job. In the mean time, as a public footpath runs directly through the asparagus field I will be getting out the recipe book again soon!
Click to expand...

This is a no win situation for farmers.
If they were to pay local workers £15 per hour, instead of the current minimum wage (£8.21 for over 25s?), and pass the costs on to their customers, they risk becoming uncompetitive and losing their customer base.
Alternatively their customers accept increased trade prices and pass them on to the public, who then, depending on the products, decide if they really need them in their diet, again having an impact on the farmers.
It seems that our government consists of people that don’t understand this, or simply don’t care because they can afford to pay higher prices, compared to the ordinary man and woman in the street.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Archers Road and VocalMinority
Cutting down on food waste will go some way to reducing the reliance on the insanity of industrial scale farming which demand cheap slave labour to maintain its business model. Buying locally grown food from smaller suppliers will also help. Current food stock levels in the large supermarkets is at insane levels and the amount of food wasted is criminal, and should be treated as such. If we all look to reducing our food intake and get healthier everyone benefits, including the environment.

There is enough land in the UK to grow food on a sustainable basis and to supply everyone here with a healthy diet. That doesn't mean we all have to live on a tasteless basic diet but it does mean we have to change the way we view food. The corporate food producers are stripping farm land of its natural healthy balance and relying on more and more destructive pesticides and fertilisers which poison the environment, and us.

In 2018 around 9.5million tonnes of food was wasted out of 43million tonnes of food purchased in the UK (wrap.org) which is a national scandal and is a damning statement on our society. That is around 22% of all food purchased going to waste. It's a horrendous amount of destruction to the environment for no reason at all, other than greed. Many poorer people are now struggling to provide their children with a healthy diet yet we are dumping millions of tonnes of food. Absolute madness.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: davecg69, Schrodinger's Cat, StJabbo1 and 2 others
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back