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Oh Britain, what have you done (part XXIII)?

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Yet the media commentary of the day is concentrating on how automation is going to render manual labourers redundant by their millions. It's not, you know, not by a long way, and not anytime soon. I'm currently working in a factory that employs someone to manually place lids on pots. It's not unique.
 
Seanm said:
Jesus, what a ballroot. I hope he keeps talking: he's singlehandedly destroying the myth that he was a great communicator and strategist.
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i disagree. he's one of the very few people in town telling it like it is. the man speaks the truth. it's unfortunate that a lot of people are hanging on to their old grudges and animosities. these are different days, different times. why sink the ship because the only pilot with a good steer has history?
 
He nails it with the “two conflicting visions of the past” to define the options on the table though. There is certainly room for a forward-thinking centralist option, ideally something very new with no links to past parties/old ideologies/historical failure etc. He should obviously have no part in it though!
 
Seanm said:
Jesus, what a ballroot. I hope he keeps talking: he's singlehandedly destroying the myth that he was a great communicator and strategist.
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Leaving aside the fact that you (along with millions of others) don't like him, which specific strategic points does he make that you disagree with?
 
It is a really good article. Ironically he made the same type of pragmatic calculation that he says Corbyn is making in his (Blair's) backing of American wars.

Just shows sometimes you have to do what is right even if you lose as a result.
 
stevec67 said:
Yet the media commentary of the day is concentrating on how automation is going to render manual labourers redundant by their millions. It's not, you know, not by a long way, and not anytime soon. I'm currently working in a factory that employs someone to manually place lids on pots. It's not unique.
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Indeed. It turns out that robots are rubbish at manual dexterity but good at being journalists, teachers, doctors, lawyers and at other so-called professional work.

That's where the jobs will go.

Stephen
 
Seanm said:
Jesus, what a ballroot. I hope he keeps talking: he's singlehandedly destroying the myth that he was a great communicator and strategist.
Click to expand...
Gotta love those Guardian puff pieces: "strikingly composed", "centred gravitas", "the body of a Greek God". Only one of those is made up.

I'm not familiar with the word "ballroot" but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume it's not intended as a compliment.

Ballrootery aside, the article does a useful job of explicating and probing Labour's position on leaving the EU. It might be obvious but it's not made plain often enough that Corbyn is attempting the nearly impossible: soften the impact of leaving the EU as much as possible while keeping strongly pro-Brexit traditional Labour voters on board. Blair acknowledges that, gives a couple of decent counter-arguments (which I don't necessarily agree with) and even recognises that Corbyn is engaging in precisely the kind of pragmatic triangulation he used to. The sting is in the tail: if he had to choose, Blair would rather stay in the EU than have a Labour government. OK, the guy's a ballroot.

The same question recently emerged on a thread in the 48% Facebook group: what's most important, a Labour government or staying in the EU? I answered as follows:
In order of preference:

1. Labour government, stay in the EU.
2. Labour government, softest possible Brexit.
3. Tory government, stay in the EU.
4. Tory government, leave the EU (which might be a hard, soft, or cliff-edge Brexit - we don't know what these clowns will deliver).

Rationale: One major driver of the Leave vote was the feeling of being "left behind" in communities hollowed out by four decades of neoliberal dogma. Unless this is addressed, it will manifest itself in other ways (civil unrest, authoritarianism, some other beastliness). There is precisely zero chance that *any* Tory government (in or out of the EU) will fix the underlying causes of the Leave vote; in fact they will continue to make things worse. In contrast, under Corbyn, Labour is committed to reinventing the social contract so it works for the many not the few. It's a bummer that, if the UK leaves the EU, a Labour government will be more constrained in what it can do, but them's the breaks and any Labour government is better the the alternative.
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Sadly the mods pulled the thread because it was deemed "too party-political". This despite it being open season to attack Labour's position and fawn over every word that comes out of Nick Clegg's mouth.
 
1. Labour government, stay in the EU.
2. Labour government, softest possible Brexit.
3. Tory government, stay in the EU.
4. Tory government, leave the EU (which might be a hard, soft, or cliff-edge Brexit - we don't know what these clowns will deliver).

which of these options would be best for the country? then, take away the party political guff (stuff) and which would be best?

1. stay in the EU.
2. softest possible Brexit.
4. leave the EU (which might be a hard, soft, or cliff-edge Brexit - we don't know what these clowns will deliver).
 
HH, you've missed my point which is it's impossible to disentangle the EU referendum vote from the party-political "guff". The vote, the circumstances that led up to it, and how we manage its consequences are unavoidably party-political.
 
but that IS my point drood. our political masters, sorry, representatives, are playing party political games with our futures. it's...despicable.
 
Daily Record (link) and dirty digger news inc' report working time directive could be scrapped.
This saved my sorry ass many times from being over-worked, and having to undertake other unhealthy working practices.
 
stevec67 said:
Yet the media commentary of the day is concentrating on how automation is going to render manual labourers redundant by their millions. It's not, you know, not by a long way, and not anytime soon. I'm currently working in a factory that employs someone to manually place lids on pots. It's not unique.
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In robotics the mechanics price will stay constant but the electronics price drops by half for the same computing power every couple of years, software algorithms probably improve by a factor of four in the same time, so every two years the performance increases by a factor of eight, someday soon it will become economic to replace that lid fitter. Another factor is that the UK, is the worse in Europe for automation as it prefers cheap labour.
 
russel said:
Another factor is that the UK, is the worse in Europe for automation as it prefers cheap labour.
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A UK company will only replace that lid fitter when the robot costs less than a years salary. Unfortunately foreign competitors are much better at planning beyond this financial year
 
notaclue said:
Brexit hasn't even happened yet, but the warning signs are flashing over food. I wonder if by Christmas 2019, Brexitiers will get to enjoy some more Victorian values and we'll see oranges again become a popular present idea?

"The diversion of his work force meant that Mr. Mitchell, a fruit supplier for a major supermarket chain in Britain, lost 50 tons of fruit worth half a million pounds ($680,000) in a matter of weeks.
...
British agriculture experienced a labor shortfall of between 13 percent and 29 percent on a monthly basis from May to September, according to the National Farmers Union. John Hardman, director at Hops Labour Solutions, a supplier of temporary workers, said that labor fell by as much as 40 percent during the peak season between April and September compared with the same period last year. Industry officials and experts expect the shortage to be worse next year.
...
Ms. Capper owns an orchard in the Midlands that produces Gala apples. This year, she had 20 percent fewer workers than usual, she said. That translated to at one point about 35 tons of apples going unpicked until they could be used only to make juice, which is less lucrative than apples for consumption." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/...union-farming-immigration-labor-shortage.html
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There is a logical inevitability to one outcome of Brexit: we hear much said by (and on behalf of) Leave voters about cheap Eastern European labour either taking jobs of locals, or undercutting job rates. Once that pool of labour is no longer available, the demand will have to be met from within. Leave voters appear to assume that labour rates will go up, to the point where the jobs done by migrants will be taken by locals instead, attracted by the rather better pay.

This overlooks the view that many of the more unpleasant, manual jobs done by migrants (picking sprouts in January, harvesting fruit and veg in all weathers, year round) are done by migrants despite there being a pool of unemployed locals. My suspicion is that it will become possible for the unemployed to be obliged to do these jobs, or else they won't receive their benefits. We're already most of the way there, thanks to the sanctions regimes. As far as I can tell, all that prevents people being forced to take jobs at the moment, is the existence of a migrant willing to take it.
 
markvdv said:
So the new "leader" of Remain wants parliament to choose no-deal Hard Brexit by voting against a "softer" Brexit deal on offer .... to get Brexit reversed. Sly fox Soros behind this ? (betting against the pound again ? )
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...vise-pro-eu-campaigns-before-brexit-deal-vote
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There are voices far more powerful than his clamouring for hard Brexit- right inside government. I must admit I'd never considered the Jewish money theory you propose.
 
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