nostr:npub1kpphzfas6a0zvx5vg4aygk8t5c92z32024nlv7hz6qv97uuuj0hszr9nk0
Indeed, the data on 'unemployment' is partly a figment on ho one defines unemployment (of course)
Over 20% of people between 16-64 are not actively looking for work; this includes students & the (early) retired; there has also been considerable coverage of the long-term sick in recent months.
The group who are not working due to care responsibilities are also important.
I posted recently on grandparents & childcare, and its now clear that the crisis in #socialcare is keeping some #workers at home!
This is why better social & #publicservices make economic sense!
One of the ways (metaphorically) of thinking about the likely impact of privatising healthcare in the UK is to look at how the market for veterinary services has worked.
Confirming the view of most pet owners I know (including myself) the Competition & Markets Authority has launched an investigation into overcharging for pet healthcare, including medicines.
As the sector is essentially a quasi oligopoly, it will be interning to see if the CMA demands a break up?
#pets #healthcare #oligopoly
As wage growth continues to slow in the UK, it will be interesting to see how the BoE will explain any residual inflation, given they are keen to avoid looking too closely at the 'maintenance' of profits....
Likely it will be the return of 'external factors' if they cannot keep blaming workers for seeking to repair their loving standards.
#inflation #workers #corporations
nostr:npub1a0x29trnmm49g808fqnx7zejduuyatqclrxvp4rjpslxdjj5wlesph4j48
Yes, the term 'hard working' as a social divider, is really quite pernicious...
nostr:npub17dvvvuxs0thapytcc7e9p4s42664yz4nvgvxrclm573rzqsz5ecqx8n4j7
There's a lot of people hoping you're right....
For this of you who have despaired at the plight of #BBC news coverage, let me recommend BBC Verify, which seems like a quiet bastion of proper news analysis which may revive your hope that there may be something to salvage from the wreckage of the BBC news coverage; I sometimes wonder how this has escaped the notice of the #Tories.
[You'll note from the web address that this used to be called 'reality check'; the shift in term/title may reveal some internal #politics?]
#RishiSunak is in trouble with Sir Robert Chote (chair of the UK Statistics Authority) for claiming last month the 'debt was falling' when what he actually referring to was an OBR forecast that debt *would* likely fall in the future.
As Chote said 'the average person in the street [would...] likely have assumed that he was claiming that debt was already falling or that the government’s policy decisions had lowered it at fiscal events — neither of which is the case'!
Sunak can't help himself!
The #Tories malign attention to #education continues to wreck the system... so having slagged off #teachers, made their workload heavier, disrupted their work-life balance & generally making the sector difficult to work in, not only has recruitment into teaching dropped, and retention levels fallen, now in one year rates of early #retirement have gone up by 40%.
This is not the way to educate our coutnry, but perhaps that's the #Tories' aim?
for them educated #voters are dangerous!
The #ClimateCrisis is here, we're doing too little about it & the extreme heat being experienced around the world may have become normal in a decade....
We can only do two thins & we need to do them both:
we need to accelerate moves to #netzero!
we need to develop strategies for helping those most effected (either to adapt their homes/locations) or move to areas/locations where they can thrive.
Everything else is just sound & light!
#GreenTransition now!
nostr:npub1t3raw53wsc47582dlppuf5c3vnr3jx2sha9le6pwm9356u3m5gts0z6knd
You've already put more thought into the consequences than they have... its a classic but of declaratory politics... the practicalities will sink it almost immediately
A new development in #outsourcing: the #Tories have announced a plan to rent cells ro accommodate #prisoners from overcrowded UK jails... a new twist on the Costa del Crime?
So as Dame #SharonWhite prepares to step down for the chair of John Lewis Partnership (after the shortest tenure of any of its chairs), the Q. will be whether the experiment with non-retail appointments will continue.
Either, she bought a new & vital perspective to the partnership's future, or her difficulties show that generalist management (with little specialist/sectoral experience) doesn't have what it takes to steer a firm through a crisis.
Take your pick on which conclusion you prefer
The #surveillancesociety is like a budget version of #orwell... run on excel spreadsheets & baking off when the threat of #lawyers is aired.
That the DfE is trying to silence then is no real surprise... but its still shocking that this (rather than engagement with the views/criticisms) is the strategy adopted.
Thought not named here I have at least one good friend (and active unionist) who I'm sure also has their own excel spreadsheet & file.
To be clear: #InheritanceTax is a tax on unearned income coming to the recipients, not a tax on those who've died.
Lets start there & ask why people should be advantaged in life by the accident of having rich(er) but now dead parents?
You'll want to claim a 'right' to give things to your children, but given the law (except in particular circumstances) doesn't support contesting wills on the basis of a 'right' to inherit, why do we privilege the interests of the dead?
Just thinking aloud
If you had been wondering how #Russia seemed to be (despite sanctions) happily exploiting #oil into the international market, look no further than EU & G7 #merchantshipping...
certainly, there is also a shadow fleet doing some of the shipping, but mainstream (normally operating) vessels (including a lot of #Greek shipping which carried around a third of all shipment in the first 6 months of 2023) is also handling Russian oil exports.
Unenforced sanctions are not sanctions!
h/t EU Observer
Just in case you think that #RishiSunak's potential pledge to change/abolish #InheritanceTax might be a populist measure... here's the Government's own analysis on its reach.... hmmm, only a pretty small minority of deaths result in a IHT tax payment.
So whatever the claims, this is yet another bung (if it ever happens) to the rich (and he knows that, of course)
nostr:npub10kcanyrevwyaafkmcjkh2zcaz8tg9ujc3f4xn74ef5dp5vwptjnqqmqjyy
good point, not clear how the study was costing their projections..
Quite apart from other problems caused by #Brexit, there is a likelihood that in #geopolitical terms, the move to leave the EU may have been a major mistake in strategic terms.
If the world (as Simon Tisdall, plausibly suggests) is starting to coalesce into competing (large scale, continental) blocs, then being a disconnected island off the shore of Europe may be less 'freedom from' & more 'vulnerability to' other states' strategic decisions - post imperial hubris?
As someone who has always subscribed to the view that great #art is underpinned by great #drawing, I'm very glad to see Barbara Walker's #windrush drawings shortlisted for the #TurnerPrize. Hope she wins... but I suspect she won't
