Off Topic Politics Thread

[Gregm1988]

I don`t understand how `Dame` Cressida Dick got a new contract recently. Every time there is another fiasco on her watch, she appears in front of the camera and blurts out the same `....I have ordered a thorough investigation blah blah`. Totally ineffective and uninspiring to the the public, and to the Met. And don`t get me started on how she gets rewarded by being made a `Dame`. What a farce.

I can’t help but be a cynic on this and wonder on no matter how bad she is if they fired her and replaced her with a man there would be a PR disaster (whether artificially inflated or not - who knows)

She seems to have been over promoted or at the very least outstayed her effectiveness

Not outstayed her welcome as the real answer is she is a useful pro-government tool. You just need to look at the Met’s reaction to the Tory Christmas parties

 

[San Tejón]

I can’t help but be a cynic on this and wonder on no matter how bad she is if they fired her and replaced her with a man there would be a PR disaster (whether artificially inflated or not - who knows)

She seems to have been over promoted or at the very least outstayed her effectiveness

Not outstayed her welcome as the real answer is she is a useful pro-government tool. You just need to look at the Met’s reaction to the Tory Christmas parties

Your comment about her being over promoted made me think about a comment I read elsewhere, which was - “I hope when Johnson is replaced as party leader, it is by Liz Truss, as I would hate him to be replaced by anyone who is remotely competent.”

 

[San Tejón]

Interesting to see that Johnson, in the first PMQs of the year, has been called out on no fewer than 4 false statements.
I like that Rayner, who I think Johnson and his bench are very patronising to, gets so far under his skin that he tried to scuttle out of the house as soon as PMQs were concluded, totally forgetting that he was due to make a Covid announcement.

 

[ChilcoSaint]

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[saintrichie123]

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[San Tejón]

By 9 am, this morning (7th Jan) the average amount paid to a top FTSE chief executive will be equal to the average UK worker’s annual wage.
It would take a carer 173 years to earn what a top FTSE chief executive is paid in one year.
Information reported by the High Pay Centre.
Levelling up, my arse.

 

[Gregm1988]

By 9 am, this morning (7th Jan) the average amount paid to a top FTSE chief executive will be equal to the average UK worker’s annual wage.
It would take a carer 173 years to earn what a top FTSE chief executive is paid in one year.
Information reported by the High Pay Centre.
Levelling up, my arse.

Did they ever say who the “levelling up” was meant for? I’m sure it was all nice and vague

 

[thereisonlyoneno7]

By 9 am, this morning (7th Jan) the average amount paid to a top FTSE chief executive will be equal to the average UK worker’s annual wage.
It would take a carer 173 years to earn what a top FTSE chief executive is paid in one year.
Information reported by the High Pay Centre.
Levelling up, my arse.

Whilst I do find this astonishing, I am not outraged by it.

Let me explain myself.

To me, it is not an outrage for chiefs of business to be paid a lot of money - ultimately there will always be those that earn loads and those that are on the breadline. The outrage to me is that the breadline (or norm as it now is) is so low and that those that genuinely need it don't get the support. Some may say they don't deserve it (the CEOs), and maybe, but I am not for levelling up so everyone earns the same, just a fair wage for a fair amount of work.

No one in 2022 in the UK should be hungry or homeless. It is easy to say tax the rich to pay for it, but sometimes this isn't the answer as it will cause the rich to work elsewhere where they pay less tax etc. What we do need is for everyone to pay their fair amount of taxes and spending their money here in the UK to generate jobs. No silver bullet, but it is a difficult balance to promote growth and enterprise (and ultimately raise the standard of living for all) and just making the rich more wealthy.

Well that's the right wing in me. Now for the left wing part. We need to encourage people to work - I am not saying people are lazy at all, just sometimes there is the poverty trap where you are better off not working 2-3 days a week as you will lose your benefits. We need to pay better benefits, but not penalise those who are on benefits that want to and can work. A higher minimum wage would help, but we need to somehow remove the "oh if I work and earn minimum wage then I lose all my benefits and am worse off".

I suppose what I am saying is that I don't know what the answer is, but it is not a crime to earn a fortune, but it is that any government allows its people to go hungry and live on the streets.

Oh and Badger, love your avatar.

 

[Gregm1988]

Whilst I do find this astonishing, I am not outraged by it.

Let me explain myself.

To me, it is not an outrage for chiefs of business to be paid a lot of money - ultimately there will always be those that earn loads and those that are on the breadline. The outrage to me is that the breadline (or norm as it now is) is so low and that those that genuinely need it don't get the support. Some may say they don't deserve it (the CEOs), and maybe, but I am not for levelling up so everyone earns the same, just a fair wage for a fair amount of work.

No one in 2022 in the UK should be hungry or homeless. It is easy to say tax the rich to pay for it, but sometimes this isn't the answer as it will cause the rich to work elsewhere where they pay less tax etc. What we do need is for everyone to pay their fair amount of taxes and spending their money here in the UK to generate jobs. No silver bullet, but it is a difficult balance to promote growth and enterprise (and ultimately raise the standard of living for all) and just making the rich more wealthy.

Well that's the right wing in me. Now for the left wing part. We need to encourage people to work - I am not saying people are lazy at all, just sometimes there is the poverty trap where you are better off not working 2-3 days a week as you will lose your benefits. We need to pay better benefits, but not penalise those who are on benefits that want to and can work. A higher minimum wage would help, but we need to somehow remove the "oh if I work and earn minimum wage then I lose all my benefits and am worse off".

I suppose what I am saying is that I don't know what the answer is, but it is not a crime to earn a fortune, but it is that any government allows its people to go hungry and live on the streets.

Oh and Badger, love your avatar.

The incentivise to work thing resonates as one of my friends recently got a bank staff hospital job

He was talking to my brother about trying to limit the number of shifts he took so that he could still claim certain benefits

Which misses (and should never be) the point

 

[StJabbo1]

The incentivise to work thing resonates as one of my friends recently got a bank staff hospital job

He was talking to my brother about trying to limit the number of shifts he took so that he could still claim certain benefits

Which misses (and should never be) the point

Not that I have answers that would solve the problem but no one should be worse of going to work.

 

[Gregm1988]

Not that I have answers that would solve the problem but no one should be worse of going to work.

Which is a key point the Tory’s try to make

Problem is their solution is to drive those who don’t (regardless of whether they are able to or not) onto the street / into the poor house. Rather than improving work

It was like this time last year when loads of republicans and American businesses were moaning that people wouldn’t accept poverty wages after Biden gave out more generous benefits (I think those have expired). There were loads of posts from restaurant owners whose pay offers were pathetic and yet they were wringing their hands about not getting staff and calling people lazy

It does need elements of stick and carrot I think. The right is often mostly stick and elements of the left over focus on the carrot. And I appreciate the point in-between is a difficult one to plot

 

[StJabbo1]

I found an interesting article on the Institute for Government site. https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/covid-social-security-system
Below is a comparison of approaches taken from it. Other topics discussed are "Greater short-term generosity reduces longer-term damage" and "We need to readopt the language of social security" The stigma of benefit scroungers has to be addressed.
"The UK benefits system focuses on providing a relatively low, flat rate of income that is heavily means-tested – with the level of income received being largely invariant to how long someone has been on benefits for. As a result, people who had no reasonable prior expectation of losing their job before the pandemic faced falling back on to a very low level of state benefits if they lost their jobs – and would have received no help at all if their savings exceeded £16,000.

In contrast, many other European social security systems provide benefits that are more closely tied to someone’s previous earnings. And these benefits are typically paid at a higher level when someone first loses their job – to help cushion a period of short-term unemployment – but then fall as the spell on benefits extends."
.

 

[San Tejón]

Whilst I do find this astonishing, I am not outraged by it.

Let me explain myself.

To me, it is not an outrage for chiefs of business to be paid a lot of money - ultimately there will always be those that earn loads and those that are on the breadline. The outrage to me is that the breadline (or norm as it now is) is so low and that those that genuinely need it don't get the support. Some may say they don't deserve it (the CEOs), and maybe, but I am not for levelling up so everyone earns the same, just a fair wage for a fair amount of work.

No one in 2022 in the UK should be hungry or homeless. It is easy to say tax the rich to pay for it, but sometimes this isn't the answer as it will cause the rich to work elsewhere where they pay less tax etc. What we do need is for everyone to pay their fair amount of taxes and spending their money here in the UK to generate jobs. No silver bullet, but it is a difficult balance to promote growth and enterprise (and ultimately raise the standard of living for all) and just making the rich more wealthy.

Well that's the right wing in me. Now for the left wing part. We need to encourage people to work - I am not saying people are lazy at all, just sometimes there is the poverty trap where you are better off not working 2-3 days a week as you will lose your benefits. We need to pay better benefits, but not penalise those who are on benefits that want to and can work. A higher minimum wage would help, but we need to somehow remove the "oh if I work and earn minimum wage then I lose all my benefits and am worse off".

I suppose what I am saying is that I don't know what the answer is, but it is not a crime to earn a fortune, but it is that any government allows its people to go hungry and live on the streets.

Oh and Badger, love your avatar.

For me the answer is that wage growth should have matched the growth of property values, even if that meant capping property values and rents, something the government, and millions of home owners and landlords, would never subscribe to.
Too many people are still working multiple jobs for not enough money to allow them to live in “nice” properties, rented or mortgaged.
A lot of people have forgotten that 30/40/50 years ago that houses could be bought with just one wage earner, on an average wage for the time.
Now, and over preceding decades, it’s near on impossible, if you are on basic wages, unless you can somehow save up a deposit for a house, again something that is increasingly impossible to do when rents are so often higher than a mortgage would be.
And when a person working for a company still needs benefits to survive, it is not their fault. And, unless things have changed, many companies will try to keep employees hours below the limit where they have to start paying NI contributions, which impacts on their futures.
Yes there will always be those who will try to cheat the system, but what they take out of the coffers, compared to the amount lost to tax avoidance, is pocket change, but Tory policy, aided by the media, is always to demonise the poor.
I think one of Corbyn’s suggestions was to link CEO earnings to the lowest paid employee for the company, something like it shouldn’t be more than 7 (?) times greater, which would mean an increase for the CEO would benefit all the staff.

Reference your last line. Thank you. 6 months today.

 

[Gregm1988]

For me the answer is that wage growth should have matched the growth of property values, even if that meant capping property values and rents, something the government, and millions of home owners and landlords, would never subscribe to.
Too many people are still working multiple jobs for not enough money to allow them to live in “nice” properties, rented or mortgaged.
A lot of people have forgotten that 30/40/50 years ago that houses could be bought with just one wage earner, on an average wage for the time.
Now, and over preceding decades, it’s near on impossible, if you are on basic wages, unless you can somehow save up a deposit for a house, again something that is increasingly impossible to do when rents are so often higher than a mortgage would be.
And when a person working for a company still needs benefits to survive, it is not their fault. And, unless things have changed, many companies will try to keep employees hours below the limit where they have to start paying NI contributions, which impacts on their futures.
Yes there will always be those who will try to cheat the system, but what they take out of the coffers, compared to the amount lost to tax avoidance, is pocket change, but Tory policy, aided by the media, is always to demonise the poor.
I think one of Corbyn’s suggestions was to link CEO earnings to the lowest paid employee for the company, something like it shouldn’t be more than 7 (?) times greater, which would mean an increase for the CEO would benefit all the staff.

Reference your last line. Thank you. 6 months today.

I was having this discussion with my Dad earlier this week after remortgaging. My mortgage is 60% of what it would be to rent the exact same place. So renters have a double whammy of reduced lifestyle due to paying so much and decreased chance of saving .

It’s so bad you’d almost think it was by design. But it has knock on effects throughout society. You can no longer have one member of a couple stay at home with kids in their formative years unless you really really scrimp.

It isn’t exactly a dream lifestyle to have a couple forced to be out of the house all day with their children looked after by strangers at a high cost and then them all returning at the end of the day to a place that has been hardly lived in and then having a couple of hours at most to spend together and with children

This either pushes people to only look for people who could afford that set up (which is not many anymore) - I am talking here about women who want more “traditional” families looking at the same guys (stereotypically but not exclusively).

Or (seemingly more commonly) it pushes people towards just not wanting families and children. And not wanting children removed a very large reason many people have long term relationships. And it all just circles from there

The above probably makes me sound super conservative and old fashioned but it is what it is

 

[SaintStu]

There are two races for wages - the Top execs all compare them selves to each other wages to push them up, whilst below exec level it is all about saving on wages to drive costs down.
I am in the Civil Service which according to the media is a gravy train, and it is true that our pensions are better than some, my wage has barely changed in the last 10 years, so when you factor inflation I am very much worse off.
The only way I am better off at the moment is now homeworking is the norm I am saving money on petrol, but how long will those saving will last when home heating bills go up I am not sure.
Tax avoidance: the real reason for Brexit. The Tories helping out their chums, time after time. How anyone in those red wall constituencies thought their situation woul improve under them is laughable if it wasn't so tragic.

 

[San Tejón]

I was having this discussion with my Dad earlier this week after remortgaging. My mortgage is 60% of what it would be to rent the exact same place. So renters have a double whammy of reduced lifestyle due to paying so much and decreased chance of saving .

It’s so bad you’d almost think it was by design. But it has knock on effects throughout society. You can no longer have one member of a couple stay at home with kids in their formative years unless you really really scrimp.

It isn’t exactly a dream lifestyle to have a couple forced to be out of the house all day with their children looked after by strangers at a high cost and then them all returning at the end of the day to a place that has been hardly lived in and then having a couple of hours at most to spend together and with children

This either pushes people to only look for people who could afford that set up (which is not many anymore) - I am talking here about women who want more “traditional” families looking at the same guys (stereotypically but not exclusively).

Or (seemingly more commonly) it pushes people towards just not wanting families and children. And not wanting children removed a very large reason many people have long term relationships. And it all just circles from there

The above probably makes me sound super conservative and old fashioned but it is what it is

I think it is by design just as the class system is used to divide the poorer people in the country.

I saw a video not long ago (not sure if on Facebook or YouTube) that emphasised why the Tories don’t want to stop house prices from going up, with part of it pointing out how many working class home owners elevate themselves to Middle class status, because they have a nice home and nice things, which often makes some of them lean towards the Tories, as against voting for Labour or another party.
For a while now, I have played a game with people, who claim to be Middle class, by asking a number of questions.
Do you, or did you, have to work to pay for your house?
Do you, or did you, have to work to pay your utility bills?
Do you, or did you, have to work to put food on the table, buy a nice car, buy clothes ?
If they answer yes, to any of those things, then I tell them that they are working class.
Some, like 6 of my siblings, still think of themselves as Middle class (actually one things she is the Queen of ****ing Sheba) so I piss them off by referring to them as working class snobs.

 

[Gregm1988]

I think it is by design just as the class system is used to divide the poorer people in the country.

I saw a video not long ago (not sure if on Facebook or YouTube) that emphasised why the Tories don’t want to stop house prices from going up, with part of it pointing out how many working class home owners elevate themselves to Middle class status, because they have a nice home and nice things, which often makes some of them lean towards the Tories, as against voting for Labour or another party.
For a while now, I have played a game with people, who claim to be Middle class, by asking a number of questions.
Do you, or did you, have to work to pay for your house?
Do you, or did you, have to work to pay your utility bills?
Do you, or did you, have to work to put food on the table, buy a nice car, buy clothes ?
If they answer yes, to any of those things, then I tell them that they are working class.
Some, like 6 of my siblings, still think of themselves as Middle class (actually one things she is the Queen of ****ing Sheba) so I piss them off by referring to them as working class snobs.

So what is middle class by your definition?

 

[StJabbo1]

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[San Tejón]

So what is middle class by your definition?

There isn’t one.
It’s just a made up class that panders to people’s self importance, designed to divide the working class and hopefully gain more votes for the Tory Party.
Divide and conquer.
It’s been the Tory strategy for decades.

 

[StJabbo1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_class_in_the_United_Kingdom#Great_British_Class_Survey