Would you change your vote now?
- Thread starter Alex
- Start date
Simon Wilson
New member
Laurie said:
You're free to have that opinion but I think you might struggle to justify it. I disagree and will point out just one bit of evidence - we have full employment (depending on what level you set for full employment).
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment
Simon Wilson
New member
Madness said:
So just take positive measures to reduce waiting lists and invest more money in the NHS. Labour has not been getting the anti-austerity message across. There is a good workable alternative to austerity measures. Deal with the deficit by encouraging entrepreneurs to expand the economy. Immigrants from the EU are more entrepreneurial and create more jobs. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-immigration-immigrants-jobs-brexit-remain-what-happens-unemployment-a7091566.html
Provide incentives for people to move to towns where they are demolishing empty houses.
http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-derelict-terraced-houses-boarded-up-and-awaiting-demolition-burnley-52091181.html
MJenkinson
Member
I'd argue that Britain is full of old people which is a massive strain on the NHS, and also financially due to pensions and care / welfare. Now, I am not saying they are not useful and / or don't deserve the care they need, nor am I proposing some sort of soylent green type of solution. These people have more than likely done a huge amount for this country; something for which my generation is very grateful.
But an aging population is not helping. I think my parents generation should be the last to get a government pension. My generation on needs to sort themselves and / or the companies need to provide a pension. This would probably free up a bit of cash to help sort an infrastructure to manage more people. If you want a pension and don't want to be left to die in your flat when you are pissing yourself, then you need young people to help fund that. And my generation is not breeding at anything like the rate / timing that we should be I guess.
Edit: 92.1 billion on state pensions 2015 / 2016............
https://fullfact.org/economy/welfare-budget/
But an aging population is not helping. I think my parents generation should be the last to get a government pension. My generation on needs to sort themselves and / or the companies need to provide a pension. This would probably free up a bit of cash to help sort an infrastructure to manage more people. If you want a pension and don't want to be left to die in your flat when you are pissing yourself, then you need young people to help fund that. And my generation is not breeding at anything like the rate / timing that we should be I guess.
Edit: 92.1 billion on state pensions 2015 / 2016............
https://fullfact.org/economy/welfare-budget/
Simon Wilson
New member
The average age of immigrants from Eastern Europe is 26. And I'll repeat what I said earlier, they pay more NI.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/05/uk-magnet-highly-educated-migrants-research
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/05/uk-magnet-highly-educated-migrants-research
MJenkinson
Member
Seems a good age for getting a job, grafting and paying taxes to support the old folks. My point entirely.
Simon Wilson
New member
MJenkinson said:
Quite right. And a good age for being fit and healthy and not being a burden on the NHS.
pwhole
Well-known member
In that case 'EW' would be far more appropriate - in the sense of something you wouldn't like to touch...alastairgott said:
My main worry about the whole employment issue is that there are fewer and fewer jobs out there that can be classed as 'manual' i.e. physical or demonstrably 'unqualified' work, and yet the populations that used to provide that manual labour, mostly but not all in the industrialised north, are just as large and have no hope of obtaining 'social' employment in the only growth industries (call-centres, etc.). The whole thrust of Western civilisation has been to reduce physical labour where possible and replace it with more efficient machinery, plant, computing, etc. That has always been seen as a 'good thing', despite inevitably introducing redundancy - but which has been offset by increased spending power and increased and improved leisure facilities. As in, you don't have to work as hard as your grandparents, and you still get a better life. That is a good thing.
But if the increased wages don't happen, and local infrastructures in social, business and political realms (as well as leisure) just don't get developed and improved at a fast enough rate, you end up with what we have now. I'm from Rotherham, and grew up there until the early 80's when the steel and coal industries collapsed - and most of my family still live there, so I'm well aware of the realities of what I'm writing about, on every level. Everyone knows what's happening to towns like that, all around Britain (Oldham featured on the news just now), and it's tragic. One of my friends teaches at a school in the area, and a majority of her class is now comprised of children who have both parents unemployed, and they always have been - they've never had a job because they couldn't get one if they tried.
When I was working rope-access at a large power-station a couple of years ago, for nigh-on nine months, I was amazed to see that nearly all the unskilled labour on-site was from Eastern Europe - Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, even Georgia. A few Spaniards and Poles too. All the skilled labour and management was British, with a couple of Germans and Austrians. Now this power-station is only about four miles from one town, and about eleven miles from another town, both of which are fairly deprived, and have a large population of unskilled and unemployed men and women who could have done this work with their eyes shut - it wasn't difficult and it wasn't physically strenuous - on our team it was mostly sawing polystyrene blocks into measured chunks and clipping them onto our ropes. But there were none.
When I asked the Eastern European guys what they were getting, they told me ?10 an hour - plenty enough for any locals, and well above minimum wage. But strangely, no-one local seemed to be enticed by the work. The EE guys were all hired via employment agencies, which may be part of the answer. But they were all hired by a British construction company. Did the locals even know this work was available? As someone who is generally pro-EU, this was a difficult situation for me to swallow, even if I do agree with the 'principle' of free movement of labour. But any fool knows you only move to a country richer than your own to make that work, in which case we have the US (UK residents can't move there without a guaranteed and sponsored job), Germany or Japan. As most British people speak neither German nor Japanese, but as most Germans and Japanese can (at the very least) understand and probably communicate in basic English, you can see this equation isn't working out too well for us...
So if we're going to get to a situation where there generally are 'jobs for all', with 'decent wages for all', but in a society that is steadily and unflinchingly automating most processes, and demonstrably aiming for 'jobs for none' as a target, what's the answer...?
Simon Wilson
New member
Madness said:
And that is precisely what Jeremy Corbin is saying and precisely why he has the overwhelming support of the party members.
http://www.labour.org.uk/pages/questions-about-membership
MJenkinson
Member
pwhole said:
I sympathise with much of what you have written and am concerned that if this work is available for a reasonable wage - why aren't the local British in on the act? I guess fee movement of labour does create a competitive environment for jobs but then we have laws to regulate minimum wage etc (I am sure it is still not enough) and so they can't be driven too low. As for your final comment - eventually we will be surrounded by robots and then we get onto the arguement about a government guaranteed basic income....
However the section I quote above I would like to raise the point that neither of those nationalities are born speaking English, yes they have more exposure to it given the global dominance of English as a language but they have had to work at it. We have always been lazy with learning other languages; with globalisation and free movement of people that needs to change. My kids will end up learning languages much earlier than I did (I know enough German to be dangerous, also enough to have painfully awkward conversations with German coastguard when I asked him if he spoke German), my niece is learning Spanish and sign language and she is 8. I think that's fantastic. I have been doing a lot of work out in Japan but I will be honest, I haven't tried to learn much other than the usual greetings. Maybe the next generation won't be able to get away with this.
pwhole
Well-known member
I guess that's one the 'downsides' of us running much of the world when it was developing into the Industrial Age - everyone speaks the lingo. And yet - when I did French at school (the only language option), there was no incentive for me to put this into practise outside the school other than to move to France - we couldn't afford foreign holidays in those days. Similarly, no-one speaks German except Germans. So it's far more difficult for British people to integrate on the wider continent than it is for the wider continent to integrate with us. That clearly needs to change.
Brains
Well-known member
https://www.facebook.com/theguardian/videos/506897629498005/
Some thoughts on the ECHR - which is independent of the EU so a bit off topic, but still amusing
Some thoughts on the ECHR - which is independent of the EU so a bit off topic, but still amusing
andrewmcleod
Well-known member
pwhole said:
And all the Eastern Europeans had the advantage that they were all born speaking English? Or did they just put in that little extra effort and get far more fluent than the average Brit does in any other language (myself included in that).
In some ways we have a massive advantage because English is such an international language, particularly in things like science, that we can travel around the world and work and not even bother to learn the language. I have always viewed the fear of people coming over and 'taking our jobs' in a somewhat cynical way - if you can't compete with 'immigrants' despite being born into one of the richest and best educated countries in the world, speaking the native language and having the home advantage (changing countries can be quite a complicated and stressful process even with free movement) then what hope do we have in the world?
BUT I also recognise that austerity and other cultural policies has left swathes of the populace culturally abandoned, undereducated and with little hope for the future despite all the apparent advantages of being British. Honestly, if you want to 'make Britain great' then start working for the British - all the British - instead of just closing shop as we fail to invest in our own people.
andrewmcleod
Well-known member
pwhole said:
Slightly repeating myself, but I would argue the complete opposite. You will get further in Europe with English than you will with French or German. Equivalently, the Germans won't get very far in Europe unless they learn other languages. Part of the reason I have always believed British people find it hard to become fluent in other languages compared to Europeans is that culturally the world language is English to some degree. When you go to other countries you will often see stuff in English, often for the 'cool' international feel. The major world's media is in English - for example music. There is thus a higher incentive to learn English if you are French/German than the reverse.
In science, which is probably an extreme example, English-speaking people have an advantage because all science happens (at least nearly all astrophysics in my experience) in English. If you do a PhD in Astrophysics in Prague you have to pass tests in English. If you are British you can work around the world without ever learning another language - I have friends who have worked in Germany, the Czech Republic, France, Japan...
