Politics Thread!

[PFVA]

Here there is 20% less houses being sold.

I wonder why. Could it be the prices?

Note: Apparently that's the trend I all Europe with the exception of Cyprus.

[Orava]

So for dis discussion what do you think of the new tobacco laws. Pure fascism or for nation's health? Basically means if you are 15 now you can never legally buy tobacco as each year they increase the age limit by one year. Comes into force in three years

[rowan]

I've said before here [as a smoker] I think it's probably a good thing.
It remains to be seen how much black market increase there'll be though.


It's getting hard to smoke to be honest. For many years there was only 1 shop I knew which stocked my preferred brand.
The time before last I went in there, instead of all the covered up plain white cabinets there was a rainbow assortment of .. crap .. and I thought "this doesn't look good".
They've turned at least half of it into a vapestore and discontinued a shedload of tobacco brands, including mine.

I can now only find it online, although that's been a pretty positive experience, there was an issue with the website so I rang them up and the phone was answered after about 2 rings. He could not have been more polite & helpful, he took all my details, registered the account for me from the backend, took my initial order over the phone, gave me free delivery for the hassle, then waited whilst I logged in and confirmed all was working fine. Best customer service I've had for at least 10 years.

[Orava]

I used to smoke Camel in the early 90s. Not sure if that is available anymore

[Orava]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... llegations

WTF? UK the banana republic

[Mat]

I'm still formulating exactly why this makes me angry, but the announcement that Rishi Sunak is planning to abolish "sick note culture" at a knee-jerk, visceral level is just another example of a clueless, privileged toff worrying that the proles may have realised that they're being taken advantage of.

Since the pandemic, I feel safe in asserting that at least in central London, a huge amount of workers are at most "working from home" on Mondays and Fridays.
And honestly, I think a lot of them have realised that the world won't end if they don't go into the office on these days, and that a lot of the time they spend in the office is wasted (despite what managers would like to believe, no-one works 100% for 8+ hours a day).
In effect, they've realised that there are a lot of privileged assholes living this way, and hey, they want a piece of the same pie. They want more meaning from their lives beyond just a "career."

[snaff]

I'm still formulating exactly why this makes me angry, but the announcement that Rishi Sunak is planning to abolish "sick note culture" at a knee-jerk, visceral level is just another example of a clueless, privileged toff worrying that the proles may have realised that they're being taken advantage of.

Since the pandemic, I feel safe in asserting that at least in central London, a huge amount of workers are at most "working from home" on Mondays and Fridays.
And honestly, I think a lot of them have realised that the world won't end if they don't go into the office on these days, and that a lot of the time they spend in the office is wasted (despite what managers would like to believe, no-one works 100% for 8+ hours a day).
In effect, they've realised that there are a lot of privileged assholes living this way, and hey, they want a piece of the same pie. They want more meaning from their lives beyond just a "career."

Work doesn't pay since Gordon Brown inflated house prices.

[snaff]

https://www.theflyingfrisby.com/p/dimwi ... cy-and-the

You might have seen in the news a couple of days back that, to make Britain’s unaffordable housing affordable, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and the Treasury are considering a scheme whereby people can buy homes with a deposit of just 1% and get a 99% mortgage.

It makes me weep what high house prices have done to this country. I see an entire generation, if not two, psychologically damaged, almost beyond repair, because they cannot afford somewhere decent to live.

They feel inadequate. They delay starting families, or have smaller families, or have no children at all because they cannot afford anywhere to house them. They then hate themselves because they have no children.

The result of smaller families later in life is population decline. The Blob then says there aren’t enough young people and opens the doors to mass immigration. Guess what happens then? Cheap imported labour pushes wages down, but increases demand for housing and essential services. State systems are too slow to adapt. Housing gets even more unaffordable. It is the most vicious of vicious circles.

Locals are then told that priority in the workplace must be given to the newcomer because diversity. Complain and you are racist. Your history is bad, by the way. And you wonder why everything is such a clusterfook.

Why do you think so many young people are so nihilistic? Because deep down they know they are never going to be able to afford anywhere decent to live, never mind pay off their student loans or have a family. They are, effectively, excluded from society. But stop drinking lattes and work harder.

Who do you know who can afford to buy somewhere where they grew up? I know I can’t, and I’m part of the One Percent. It’s the opposite of progress. When people can’t afford to live where they gre w up, they lose touch with their roots, their traditions, their culture, the very land. And you wonder why we have lost touch with who we are.

All because of stupid house prices.

[tufty]

Blame Thatcher. She started the home ownership boom and worse, killed social housing. Back when I was a kid, around 50% of households were owner-occupier, ~30% were council owned, and only 20% or so private. At the peak in the early 200s, home ownership was up to 65% or so, but non-private rentals were down to under 10 % and have only dropped since then.

[Dio]

Personally I'd start with establishing that housing is to be operated in a non-profit manner. Houses are to live in, not investment vehicles.

Then the starting point would be 100% CGT on all house sales. Any money raised in such a way to be invested in new housing. (This could also contribute to a fix to the council tax problem, since everyone would have to get an updated accurate value).

Might need further measures to make the rental market less attractive, but at least it would stop the double-dipping of capital and monthly gains.

[merman]

I'm still formulating exactly why this makes me angry, but the announcement that Rishi Sunak is planning to abolish "sick note culture" at a knee-jerk, visceral level is just another example of a clueless, privileged toff worrying that the proles may have realised that they're being taken advantage of.

Since the pandemic, I feel safe in asserting that at least in central London, a huge amount of workers are at most "working from home" on Mondays and Fridays.
And honestly, I think a lot of them have realised that the world won't end if they don't go into the office on these days, and that a lot of the time they spend in the office is wasted (despite what managers would like to believe, no-one works 100% for 8+ hours a day).
In effect, they've realised that there are a lot of privileged assholes living this way, and hey, they want a piece of the same pie. They want more meaning from their lives beyond just a "career."

Capitalists want the masses to return to the office - because the value of their commercial property has dropped. Empty office space = less money for landlords/property owners.
It's got nothing to do with productivity, team cohesion, or office culture. It certainly has nothing to do with worker's rights or the chance of making work more flexible to help people. Work-life balance doesn't matter, the balance sheet does.


As someone who is on Personal Independence Payment, Sunak is so far wide of the mark.

1. It's nothing to do with work. PIP is paid to help with the cost of living with a disability or condition. You can claim it whether you are in work or not.

2. This idea there are millions of people malingering or making false claims is also completely wrong. The assessment process is designed to discourage you from applying, the assessors are from private companies who are incentivised to turn you down, and the appeal process takes A WHOLE YEAR. So how someone is falsely claiming is beyond me, they must be very good at faking. Even then DWP mistakes and overpayments are DOUBLE what is lost in fraudulent claims - and over £14 BILLION in benefits goes unclaimed because people do not know what they are entitled to, or get put off by forms and rhetoric from politicians.

To put the approximately £1 billion in benefit fraud into context, this Government has spent £1 billion a day since 2010 and created a national debt of £2.8 TRILLION. More than three times what it was when they took over, and now 98.3% of GDP (compared to 65% when Brown left office, having bailed out the banks by spending £600 billion - the majority of which was paid back.) Get the Government's own mistakes, fraud and incompetence in order before accusing someone else of not pulling their weight.

3. The real issue is how many more people are economically inactive due to long COVID. Half a million cannot work full-time, and many of them are chronically ill putting extra strain on the health service. And why? Because the Government that included Sunak badly mishandled the whole pandemic, wasted billions on PPE that could not be used, gave out £4.5 BILLION in fraudulent furlough payments to non-existent or fake companies (which Sunak himself has prevented the fraud officers from investigating)... and the piece de resistance, the Eat Out To Help Out scheme engineered by Sunak himself without medical advice, which caused a massive wave of new infections and led directly to the second lockdown.


And yet, work from home COULD be the answer to getting more people economically active. I work from home part-time. If I could find a reliable source of income from a regular job, I would. But my health doesn't allow. But something I could do for a few hours a week would boost my bank balance, put more money back into the economy and not stress me out too much.
The whole problem is that the WFH sector is populated by scams and crooks, and there is little or no advice on what is real and what isn't.


To top off the Government's mistake, they are axing the existing £100 million support scheme to get disabled people back into work.
Instead of GPs giving fit notes/sick notes, they want it to be down to the overworked "work coaches" in Job Centres who have NO medical qualifications.
This shower need to be voted out at the earliest opportunity, so give them a bloody nose at the local elections next week and hasten Sunak's overdue departure from 10 Downing Street.

[Dio]

Capitalists want the masses to return to the office - because the value of their commercial property has dropped. Empty office space = less money for landlords/property owners.
It's got nothing to do with productivity, team cohesion, or office culture. It certainly has nothing to do with worker's rights or the chance of making work more flexible to help people. Work-life balance doesn't matter, the balance sheet does.

It's vastly more complicated than this, and I say that as a 100% home worker my entire life. It's absolutely no problem at all for introverted senior engineers, but not all people fit into that category.

One very critical and obvious point is that inexperienced people, even the very brightest, often really struggle working from home unless they're able to be given very isolated and relatively simple projects. They achieve less, they advance their careers more slowly and they are, from what I can see, less happy, even the ones who are natural loners and even the ones who are social media friendly; it is such an advantage for them to be able to go talk to someone experienced face to face when they hit a roadblock.

I'd advise anyone under 30 to prefer being office based if they're on a significant team. I'd expect them to go much further in the longer run.

[PFVA]

The 16% votes on the extreme right in last month's election had a unexpected effect.

Hundreds and hundreds of thousand of people took to the street yesterday in Lisbon and Porto commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 25 of April 1974 revolution that brought down the extreme right dictatorship that had lasted 48 years.

There was no incidents, all kinds of groups and bands were there, lots of families with children. It was the biggest demonstrations since the 70s.

[venusian]

It was the biggest demonstrations since the 70s.

Yay. I wonder what it takes, in the wider West, for ordinary people to recognise themselves from the past.

[Harlequin]

Even then DWP mistakes and overpayments are DOUBLE what is lost in fraudulent claims …

Although I have linked to Government figures along those lines in the past, it no longer appears to be the case. The published estimates for the 2022-2023 financial year state £6,400,000,000 (2.7%) lost to Fraud, £1,400,000,000 (0.6%) to Claimant Error and £600,000,000 (0.3%) to Official Error.