The state of the UK

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Re: The state of the UK

Post by Scot Dutchy » Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:12 am

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Re: The state of the UK

Post by Scot Dutchy » Thu Oct 28, 2021 12:39 pm

The tory budget:


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Re: The state of the UK

Post by Scot Dutchy » Thu Oct 28, 2021 3:08 pm

Even the IFS is warning:

Wage squeeze will leave average worker almost £13k worse off, Sunak warned
IFS says ‘staggering’ annual drop by mid-2020s will follow unprecedented two-decade hit to UK earnings

The biggest wage squeeze in British economic history will leave the average worker almost £13,000 a year worse off by the middle of the 2020s, Rishi Sunak has been warned.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), the UK’s leading tax and spending thinktank, said an unprecedented two-decade hit to earnings would leave average household disposable income 42% lower than it would have been had wages grown at pre-2008 financial crisis rates.

The 2010s were the weakest decade for real wage growth since the Napoleonic wars, but the IFS said the stagnation was expected to continue. By 2026, it said average household earnings would be £30,800, compared with £43,700 if wages had risen at the same pace as in the two decades before the banking crisis.

Paul Johnson, the IFS director, said the real-terms damage to household incomes was unprecedented in modern history, with weaker economic growth and higher inflation to blame.

“The gap between what we might have expected on the basis of pre-financial crisis trends and what is actually happening is staggering,” he said.
Chumocracy in action.
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Re: The state of the UK

Post by aufbahrung » Thu Oct 28, 2021 5:20 pm

Scot Dutchy wrote:
Thu Oct 28, 2021 3:08 pm
Even the IFS is warning:

Wage squeeze will leave average worker almost £13k worse off, Sunak warned
IFS says ‘staggering’ annual drop by mid-2020s will follow unprecedented two-decade hit to UK earnings

The biggest wage squeeze in British economic history will leave the average worker almost £13,000 a year worse off by the middle of the 2020s, Rishi Sunak has been warned.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), the UK’s leading tax and spending thinktank, said an unprecedented two-decade hit to earnings would leave average household disposable income 42% lower than it would have been had wages grown at pre-2008 financial crisis rates.

The 2010s were the weakest decade for real wage growth since the Napoleonic wars, but the IFS said the stagnation was expected to continue. By 2026, it said average household earnings would be £30,800, compared with £43,700 if wages had risen at the same pace as in the two decades before the banking crisis.

Paul Johnson, the IFS director, said the real-terms damage to household incomes was unprecedented in modern history, with weaker economic growth and higher inflation to blame.

“The gap between what we might have expected on the basis of pre-financial crisis trends and what is actually happening is staggering,” he said.
Chumocracy in action.
Oils running out, climate change and as yet unknown breakthroughs in energy tech...the economic rocket scientists of hindsight forecasting make graphs out of curves but the future is not a linear deal. Was the past a bunch of curves? Could I buy a pocket calculator in the Napoleonic wars? All this astrology means is that 'business as usual' wealth is over in the UK. Doesn't mean that much at all regarding future developments past five years, scrying into the mist beyond that...
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Re: The state of the UK

Post by aufbahrung » Thu Oct 28, 2021 5:39 pm



Found this leaked debate from the IFS
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Re: The state of the UK

Post by Scot Dutchy » Sat Oct 30, 2021 11:54 am

‘My students never knew’: the lecturer who lived in a tent
Higher education is one of the most casualised sectors of the UK economy, and for many it means a struggle to get by

Like many PhD students, Aimée Lê needed her hourly paid job – as an English lecturer – to stay afloat. But what her students never guessed was that for two years while she taught them she was living in a tent.

Lê decided to live outside as a last resort when she was faced with a steep rent increase in the third year of her PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London, and realised she would not be able to afford a flat and cover all her costs on her research and teaching income.

She recalls: “It was cold. It was a small one-person tent, which meant after a bit it did get warmer. But there were days when I remember waking up and my tent was in a circle of snow. When I wasn’t doing my PhD or other work I was learning how to chop wood or start a fire.”

She stored her books in the postgraduate office so they wouldn’t be damaged, and showered at university. She “didn’t quite tell” her parents, saying to them that she was staying on an ecological farm so as not to worry them.

Nor did she tell her university, which insisted this week that the welfare of all its students was paramount and that it encouraged anyone struggling to reach out for support. Lê says she led a double life, fearful that it might damage her professional reputation if people knew she was homeless.
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Re: The state of the UK

Post by Scot Dutchy » Tue Nov 02, 2021 6:13 am

Britain’s prisons are becoming ever more like the failed US system
Duncan Campbell wrote:From numbers behind bars to drugs, mental health and regressive legislation, our prisons are in a shameful state

Just around the corner from where the Krays used to hold sway in east London’s Brick Lane there is an establishment called Alcotraz. Described as “London’s first immersive theatrical cocktail bar”, Alcotraz allows you to dress up in a prison uniform, get locked up in a cell, have a cocktail or two, and get your photo taken. So Britain is channelling – in the cause of entertainment – a famous prison in the United States. But look closely and you’ll see that we are also mirroring that country’s relentlessly unforgiving and counterproductive penal policy.

Earlier this year, the prime minister joked that Britain was now “probably the Saudi Arabia of penal policy, under our wonderful home secretary”. In October, the Prison Reform Trust published a report which showed that there had been a “dramatic” increase in the number of people serving long prison sentences, with far more people now serving very lengthy terms. Nearly 11,000 people in prison in England and Wales will spend at least 10 years in custody. More than two-thirds of them are serving indeterminate sentences and do not know when – or if – they will be released.

Prison numbers will also inevitably increase if the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill becomes law. The bill creates new offences that will essentially criminalise the lifestyles of Gypsies and Travellers and bump up the overall prison population with increased sentences for protesters. The new nationality and borders bill means that those arriving in Britain illegally could now be jailed for up to four years.


The whole criminal justice system is in a chaotic state, partly – but far from entirely – because of Covid-19. Of the 320 magistrates courts that existed in England and Wales in 2010, 164 have been sold off to developers for a total of £223m and turned into hotels and apartments. In Scotland, 17 sheriff and justice of the peace courts were sold off or closed in the past decade. All of which makes it harder for lawyers, members of the public – and reporters – to attend courts and see what sort of sentences are being handed down.

September’s justice committee report suggested that as many as 70% of prisoners in England and Wales may have mental health issues. During Covid lockdowns many of us talked of being “stir-crazy”. For prisoners, often confined to their cells for 23 hours a day and heavily restricted from learning new skills or studying because of staff shortages, being driven crazy is now a daily reality. There is also a drugs epidemic inside, with “spice” – with all its wild and dangerous side-effects – widely available.
How you treat prisoners is a reflection of the society the prisons are part of.
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Re: The state of the UK

Post by Scot Dutchy » Wed Nov 03, 2021 9:59 pm

Chumocracy aka corruption.

Johnson accused of corruption as he tears up system to fight Westminster sleaze
Critics hit out at effort to ‘weaken independent scrutiny’ with Keir Starmer saying Owen Paterson ‘not fit to serve as MP’

Boris Johnson tore up the independent system for combating sleaze in parliament on Wednesday as he threw the government’s weight behind protecting a Conservative MP who was found to have repeatedly breached lobbying rules.

The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, accused the prime minister of corruption after Johnson whipped his MPs to halt Owen Paterson’s parliamentary suspension and demand a review of the entire standards process to allow for appeals.

Scores of Tory MPs declined to back the prime minister, however, with several saying they had been deluged by angry messages from constituents.

One Tory, Angela Richardson, MP for Guildford since 2019 and an aide to Michael Gove, confirmed she had departed from her role as a parliamentary aide after her decision to abstain. She tweeted: “I abstained … aware that my job was at risk, but it was a matter of principle for me.”


The Liberal Democrat chief whip, Wendy Chamberlain, said: “This looks like a clear attempt to weaken independent scrutiny ahead of investigations into other damaging Tory sleaze scandals, from dodgy Covid contracts to the refurbishment of Boris Johnson’s flat. The Conservatives are trying to make parliament’s watchdog toothless so it can no longer properly hold them to account.”

The deputy Labour leader, Angela Rayner, said: “If the prime minister has nothing to hide then he should be pleased to be investigated by the parliamentary commissioner instead of abolishing and overriding this independent regulator and replacing it with a committee with a Tory majority that will just do the prime minister’s bidding for him.”
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Re: The state of the UK

Post by Brian Peacock » Thu Nov 04, 2021 9:34 pm

Patterson resigned his seat today. Word is his constituency party weren't happy he was acting in his own and his private-sector employers' interests rather than theirs, and when Johnson tried to rollback his whipping of MPs to dissolve the independent standards commission Patterson realised that his PM, having saved his skin yesterday, was going to throw him to the wolves tomorrow. Now he's no longer an MP Patterson is no longer under the authority of the standards commission.
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Re: The state of the UK

Post by Scot Dutchy » Sun Nov 07, 2021 10:08 am

It is getting worse:

Labour calls on Jacob Rees-Mogg to resign over lobbying row
Shadow Commons leader says his position is ‘untenable’, as minister dismisses affair as ‘storm in a teacup’

Labour has called for Jacob Rees-Mogg to resign from his post as leader of the Commons because of his role in the Owen Paterson lobbying row, while a cabinet minister dismissed it as a “storm in a teacup”.

The shadow leader of the Commons, Thangam Debbonaire, said Rees-Mogg’s position had become “untenable” because of the role he played in getting Conservative MPs to vote for a motion that would spare Paterson the proposed 30-day suspension he was facing for breaking lobbying rules.

Opening the debate on Wednesday, Rees-Mogg defended the decision to link saving Paterson from suspension with another plan – set out in the same amendment – to review the way the standards committee operates. He brushed aside complaints that it was a mistake to link the two issues, and that the government appeared to be retrospectively changing the rules to protect a former Tory minister.

The following day, after No 10 decided the vote was no longer defensible, Rees-Mogg told MPs it had been mistake to conflate the two issues, while appearing reluctant to accept responsibility.

In an interview with Sky’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday, Debbonaire said: “If I was him I would be considering my position, and that’s what I think he should do today.” Asked whether she was saying Rees-Mogg should resign, Debbonaire replied: “I think his position is untenable, yes.”

Debbonaire said that, despite the government U-turn on Thursday, Rees-Mogg had left the Commons “in a state of chaos”. She said the motion passed on Wednesday, declining to back the standards committee report into Paterson, still applied, and the government should let MPs vote to rescind it before the Commons begins a short recess on Wednesday.
Chumocracy is everywhere.
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Re: The state of the UK

Post by pErvinalia » Sun Nov 07, 2021 11:33 am

No shit. You post the word 5 times a day.
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Re: The state of the UK

Post by Scot Dutchy » Sun Nov 07, 2021 12:03 pm

I am glad you are counting.
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Re: The state of the UK

Post by Brian Peacock » Mon Nov 08, 2021 10:44 pm

Tory MP faces bankruptcy over unpaid taxes and may have to step down.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... am-afriyie

When will the government stop harassing decent hardworking people like themselves?
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Re: The state of the UK

Post by pErvinalia » Mon Nov 08, 2021 10:46 pm

Greenwashing. Chumocracy!
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Re: The state of the UK

Post by Scot Dutchy » Tue Nov 09, 2021 10:27 am

pErvinalia wrote:
Mon Nov 08, 2021 10:46 pm
Greenwashing. Chumocracy!
You getting your nickers in a twist. Greenwashing is happening in Glasgow climate conference. Chumocracy happens in Anglo-Saxon governments.

Tory sleaze proves that British politics needs cleaning up. Labour must do it
Polly Toynbee wrote:The scandals will keep coming – time for an opposition parties’ pact promising to detoxify Westminster

Cleaning up politics is a stunningly simple task, glaringly obvious to anyone – except those 250 Tory MPs who voted last week to protect their own. What we need to do is take all the money out of Westminster and let parliamentarians live on their salaries as other public servants do. Just over a third of MPs took home £4.9m between them in outside earnings in the 12 months since March 2020.

Ah, we’d lose high-quality people by banning extra work, they say – yet how much would those paid “consultant” MPs be missed? Running the NHS, schools, Whitehall or councils, the public sector is packed with people of far higher calibre than the current crop of ministers. They work without fame but, like the better MPs, to improve society.

The recent scandal only passed as a “Westminster storm in a teacup” – the words of environment secretary George Eustice – because under Boris Johnson barely a week goes by without some new dishonesty: his government has made 43 U-turns since it came to power in December 2019, and most were disreputable. Keir Starmer, accusing the prime minister of “leading his troops through the sewer”, reaffirmed Labour’s commitment to bar MPs from directorships and consultancies; along with restrictions to stop ministers departing to companies through that corrupt revolving door. Lobbying pays good returns: compare Randox’s £8,000-a-month outlay to Owen Paterson, with government contracts worth almost £500m. (The company insists Paterson “played no role in securing any Randox contract”.)
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