Strokes

Just now, FoxesDeb said:

Thanks, I couldn't see it either. 

Yeah I got it now.

14 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

How much time have you got?

Not a lot, as brief as possible please?

23 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

That is either a remarkable piece of trolling or a total lack of historical awareness. I wonder which?

What am I missing?

2 hours ago, Finnegan said:

 

It's not even political correctness. That phrase literally doesn't even apply here, it doesn't make any sense. Not only do you have to be a dickhead to have a problem with it, you've got to be a thick dickhead to think it's anything "woke" or "PC". 

 

It's nothing to do with anyone's feelings (except apparently their easily triggered ones?) it's just about physical accessibility. 

I couldn’t agree more, people have disabilities and if we can accommodate without spoiling things we should.

I propose we disband every team that plays in red and abolish every achievement they’ve ever had, as they’ve been cheating for centuries.

Bloody camouflaging with the grass on the sly.

40 minutes ago, bovril said:

I was. Seems like handing over part of our territory is a bit much just to raise truckers wages but admittedly I'm not a trucker. 

Your not northern Irish though either are you?

6 minutes ago, bovril said:

We couldn't have negotiated FoM while in the single market, which is where the territorial integrity bit comes in. 

Sorry I thought you were talking about Ireland.

But you’re right we couldn’t renegotiate FOM without leaving the single market. That’s my point, the Labour supply is what’s holding back wages and conditions. 
People leaving a former communist Poland might not baulk at what we consider poor wages and conditions and so things didn’t have to improve at the rate they should have.

3 minutes ago, bovril said:

surely the point is there are better ways of improving pay and conditions than erecting trade barriers and threatening the territorial integrity of your country 

Well yes, we could have negotiated an end to FOM without leaving the EU but it wasn’t ever an option.

Something about eating cake if I recall.

The territorial integrity is definitely something of regret IMO but I’m not too concerned about trade barriers, they can also be a good thing.

21 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

I wonder if labour shortages in some sectors are cultural and wouldn't necessarily be resolved by either higher wages or employers investing more in training.

 

Let's look at some shortage jobs: HGV drivers, slaughterhouse workers, nurses, care workers and seasonal agricultural workers.

 

- HGV drivers: Over the longer-term, better pay and more training might help but I wonder if it'll bridge the gap? Many ex-drivers say they left the industry due not to pay or training but to poor working conditions - everything from long hours and time away from home to poor truck stops, sleeping in the cab and being badly treated by employers and customers. Some of that could be resolved, but unsociable hours and nights away from home isn't so easy to change without a total reorganisation of the industry. There has also been a cultural change in the role of husbands/fathers in recent decades: single men might not mind such hours in return for good pay and older family men might have grown up finding it acceptable to spend a lot of time away from partner and kids, but most family men in their 20s, 30s or 40s now surely see it as important to spend a lot of time with their family.....even much higher pay might only attract a few.

 

- Slaughterhouse workers: Sounds like hard, dirty, unpleasant work to me - and many others, I expect. I'm not a veggie or massive animal lover, but someone would still have to pay me an awful lot to work killing animals and chopping them up and I doubt I'd stay in the job long. So long as there are other jobs available that pay a similar wage or even a significantly lower wage, I suspect an awful lot of people would steer clear of a career in a slaughterhouse.

 

- Nurses: Plenty have a vocation for nursing, but still not enough when we have an aging population and are apparently unhappy at the number of foreign nurses taking jobs. Here the employer (indirectly) is the Govt - and they've actively made it harder to obtain training by removing nurses' training bursaries. Reversing that policy might help, as might a large pay rise for nurses - but the Govt opposes that, too. Plus, training a nurse takes several years, so we're talking about long-term solutions only.

 

- Care workers: As my Dad needed care in his last 18 months, I have some experience of this, caring for him myself alternative weekends and seeing the great work done by the professional care workers, for whom I have massive respect. They deserve much higher pay, which might attract a few more to such work. But again the nature of the work - dealing with excrement, body washes, dementia etc. - would put a lot off. I wouldn't have the patience to do it, even assuming I could overcome the squeamishness. Then there are the hours: the nature of the work means some of it has to involve early morning, evening and nightwork that would put many people off. Plus much higher pay for care workers leads to higher fees payable either by families or by the state (and the recently announced NHS/social care spending does little for that, mainly going on NHS catch-up spending and subsidising inheritance for those with more valuable properties).

 

- Seasonal agricultural workers: I did a lot of this as a young man and quite enjoyed it, but suspect there's been a cultural shift. When I did such work (late 70s/early-mid-80s), there were few foreigners, mainly students, housewives, gypsies & unemployed. Do any or many young Brits choose to do such work now? Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression most looking for such temporary/casual work would prefer to do office temping, Deliveroo deliveries, factory/warehouse work, takeaway joints etc. Seasonal agricultural work requires little training. But even if pay was greatly increased, would younger people be attracted to do it?

 

There was much Brexiteer resentment at migrant EU labour taking jobs and forcing down pay. But if pay does increase greatly, I wonder how many Brits will really want to kip the night in an HGV cab away from family or slaughter pigs or wipe arses and cope with dementia in a care home or even pick spuds in the rain in a muddy field? Maybe a desire for such work wasn't really a motivating force for the Brexit vote?

 

 

If the jobs are so unsavoury and I’m not doubting any of this, don’t you think the employers have had it too easy as not to improve conditions since having Labour on tap? It’s up to the employers to now find out why they can’t attract brits and then adapt, improve and overcome. If not they rightly face extinction for being archaic.

Brits will have naturally moved away from these jobs over the years as foreign workers accepted conditions and wages they would not.

17 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

People leaving after you've trained them is the risk you take to get the skills you need. Engineering firms are going through the exact same thing. A whole generation of engineers was wiped out when manufacturing shifted overseas. If you want a decent engineer now, you take on an apprentice and you teach them. Can they up sticks and waste years of investment and dealing with all their mistakes? Of course they can, but by the time that happens, there's usually mutual respect between the employer (happy to get a new worker) and the employee (happy to have a chance at a decent living). 

 

If these countrywide titans started giving the slightest of shits about the people that work under them, and started treating them like humans and training them and investing in them, their workforce problems would diminish.

 

And we'd all be better for it. 

They’ve had it so easy for so long they don’t know how too, the power has suddenly shifted into the employees favour and it’s the left wingers up in arms. Beggars belief.

Just now, Mickyblueeyes said:

I really wanted them after O’Neil left. I was really young. I remember telling my dad “told you so” when Cottee got a job as manager of Barnet and won his first game 7-1!

I was older than I care to admit and shared a very similar point of view.

Walsh and Cottee.

21 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Okay, they will be paying capital gains tax on it subject to the size

Maybe I’m being naive here but wouldn’t they have been subject too capital gains tax had they bought the building using Chrie’s business in a way that didn’t avoid stamp duty?

9 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

The company was on sale, not the property. A quick internet trawl suggests that the company owned a portfolio of properties.  will be paying tax and stamp duty subsequently on the premises. In the process, they have put the company back into UK control which it never was previously.

 

Working in the area the sale of companies as opposed to the premises is sometimes easier for the logistical reasons for service charge management, lease assignment, even warranties etc from fit-out/refurbishment (look here - https://www.taylormorrisonltd.co.uk/portfolio/grade-ii-listed-office-strip-out-and-refurb-harcourt-st-london/). 

 

The fact Mrs Blair moved her companies into the building suggests that there is genuine reason for the purchase as opposed to creaming off property values. 

They acquired the property in 2017, at what point are they subsequently paying stamp duty?

Never again in our lifetimes.

2 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Not actually that dodgy when you read behind the headline. 

Im not sure what levels of dodgy there are? It either is or it isn’t. They bought an offshore company and subsequently avoided paying stamp duty.

Thats dodgy in my book, even if legal. I doubt you’d be quite so understanding if it was a former conservative MP.

1 hour ago, David Guiza said:

Got approached by old employer from a few years ago and, as I'm not desperate to move, I bumped up my current salary to see if they'd baulk. They've now been in touch and offered the position on that basis, but I'm concerned that, were I to accept, my P45/reference will show the truth and it'll all blow up in my stupid face. Jeremy Usbourne style. 

I’ve done this countless times. The P45 will go to someone in accounting, the person offering the job will not suspect he has been grifter and therefore will not seek.

It will be fine, only problem I see, is did you lie enough? Could you have got more?

10 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

Might be worth posing this question to the litany of Conservative apologists here who trot out "but the Labour Party..." every time the incumbent government, for the last 11 years, display whatever their daily dose of blatant negligence, corruption, cronyism or incompetence is. 

 

The issue with Blair in these leaks is that they show tax avoidance (legal but highly questionable) for personal gain. The leaks pertaining to Mohamed Amersi and Viktor Fedotov show political donations, used to win elections, from money sourced through corruption (not legal). If people's political bias is preventing them from distinguishing between those two examples, then I give up frankly. Neither are great, but they're incomparable and not worthing of "political" discussion. 

 

Not aimed at your Strokes, and more a wider observation on the debate here. Either side of the floor could elect the most repulsive candidate (which they have in recent years and thankfully the red one has gone but the blue one is, somehow, our PM) and the loyalist weirdos would still fly their flag on hypotheticals.

 

It just baffles, but I shouldn't be surprised, that given the content of the Pandora papers, the discussion has predictably gone to "but but the Labour Party". 

I’m just asking why this should change my vote? Nothing of this sort has been any different no matter who has been in charge in my lifetime. So why now, what’s different?

8 minutes ago, What the Fuchs? said:

 

I agree that Blair was involved in some dodgy deals and schmoozing the rich and powerful, but we all know he was not an ordinary Labour leader - moulded by Thatcherism and 18 years of the Tories gaining power by schmoozing these very same people, their natural ally. But let’s not pretend that Labour and Conservative parties are in any way similar in their history of involvement and supporting of billionaire interests: the Tories’ raison d’etre throughout history has been to protect the interests of the wealthy, to prevent land and wealth distribution that would harm the financial interests of its donors in any way possible, whether that’s denying voting rights, or neglecting improving the lives of workers.
 

What we have now is a government ran by the obscenely rich and powerful elite, for the rich and powerful elite - it’s no coincidence that these billionaires secretly meet with Johnson and Sunak every month, and the government seek to address economic troubles by raising national insurance contributions to harm ordinary people and prioritise cutting Universal Credit, instead of going after the billionaires and corporations paying little or no tax here, many of whom happen to be Tory donors. Sunak was asked if he was ashamed that London is now the capital for money laundering, and he essentially said no. This is Tory and Brexit Britain - our government relishes deregulation and tax avoidance so much it is not shameful to cosy up to the interests of the elite as long as they fund their media disinformation campaigns to keep the ordinary people being harmed by the their duplicity on side. (Brexit just allows more of this deregulation) No wonder their supporters stick to whataboutery even when confronted with the starkest evidence that this government, never mind the Tories in the past, are for the interests of their billionaire donors, not you, me or anyone on this forum.
 

The scandal not long ago where Richard Desmond got a corrupt backroom deal with Robert Jenrick at a Tory fundraiser was met by the Tories with the claim: ‘everyone has the same access to ministers as Desmond’. So basically you want a favour, a tax break, inside tips? Pay a fortune to go to a Tory party fundraiser, maybe pay millions for a tennis match with Johnson - or just donate a few million and you can pretty much dictate government policy behind closed doors; the choice is yours. This is what makes me sick every time I’m up north and see my neighbours reading the Express or the Mail - papers like these and others are literally the voice of these same people in the Pandora Papers, filtered in ways to manipulate readers who really have nothing in common with their interests into believing they do.

Without Blair, a conservative in your eyes, Labour have not won an election for nearly 50 years.

Its impossible to know what characteristics they hold, they’ve reinvented themselves 4 times in my lifetime and bounce from one side to the other.

How do we know what Labour Party we will be getting?

5 hours ago, What the Fuchs? said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58711151
 

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/04/tory-party-top-female-donor-lubov-chernukhin-vast-offshore-empire-husband

 

What a dystopian reality we live in, shady multi millionaires and billionaires queuing up to give obscene amounts of dodgy money to the Conservative party. Wonder why they do that? It’s not like the Tories are the party of the elite and super rich is it?

 

All these billionaires paying to meet de Pffefel and Sunak every month behind closed doors, in between all those regular meetings with the Murdochs of the world…wonder what they discuss? 🤔 Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not ‘levelling up’. Welcome to Britain for the oligarchs. A reminder to the Tory voters here who are not one of the 1%: Johnson et al have more desire to please the likes of those revealed in the Pandora and Paradise Papers than anything else. They always have and always will. Culture wars, flagshagging and tabloid smears are just their way of making the ordinary man acquiesce, inadvertently to their detriment.

It’s not like the Labour Party were short on dodgy dealings during their 13 years in power.

Just from memory I can count the F1 donation for tobacco sponsorship, cash for passports, cash for access, altered dossiers etc etc.

Thats without looking into TBs own dodgy behaviour in the paradise papers. The country is, was and always will be corrupt from the top down. Take what you can where you can.

2 hours ago, Chocolate Teapot said:

It's very clear to me what Rodgers is trying to achieve. When you've got the ball 65-70% of the time it's football death for the other team, its not quite there yet, but that's where we'll get to. It's death by football. You just suck the life out of them.

The trouble is, unless it’s purposeful play. It’s killing the crowds enjoyment. 

Just now, yorkie1999 said:

Friggin itchy stuff ain’t it.

Yeah it’s horrible, especially in the summer.

2 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

That’s clever …… are you sure you’re not a woman ?? 

Only on Thursday nights.

They should just say there is a national shortage of loft insulation and watch everyone panic buy it.

5 minutes ago, Sly said:

Mine is insulated as well. 

Let’s all take it out until the protests stop.

13 minutes ago, foxile5 said:

It's all over insulation isn't it? What's their main aim? My loft is insulated. Is that not enough? 

I spend a lot of time in people’s lofts in my day to day work (as a voyeur) and it’s been ages since I’ve seen one not insulated.