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May I present another possible future as an alternative to Tory hell?
Given the number of zombie companies and redundancies waiting in the wings, across all sectors (not just industry/the North/Wales as in Thatcher's time) a lot of people will be in a very bad way financially. And when that happens across the country to enough people they will want change. I think when the shit hits the fan economically and the idiots no longer have Brexit to cling to Boris and his Tories will have nothing. Labour will sweep in looking like proper government, and they'll have no choice but to reform. The number of people needing help will mean something big and radical will have to be done, they'll step up, and the UK will emerge better.
The government would love everyone to think it's us and them, family first and everyone else can go hang. It is us and them but it's capital versus labour. People need to learn about workplace and community organisation. Recently in Serco, a section got unionised, won sick pay from day one and a pay rise. I think they've surprised themselves.
Edukator's (?) comment about the Spanish repossessions flagged up how housing (and food, transport and and) is very much part of this issue but the Spanish have more history of battles around housing. Potentially the cladding issues blocks will lead to a mass wipeout of people at the very same time as declining building regs for newbuilds.
We are witnessing an increasing concentration of capital arising from what Gove calls 'creative destruction', wages cut, more zero hours, pensions cut, and flogging off the welfare state where possible. The mortgaged Audi brigade may well be finding themselves renting with no woodburner and a worthless car they can't afford. This is bare-knuckle class struggle and the LP has positioned itself in defence of the establishment so rowing over who said what, who to expel, who to give money to, who is a geriatric Nazi gardener, who to vote for in 4 yrs time, is pretty well irrelevant. We need to be thinking and acting very differently but looking at the voting intentions (and the current LP) it seems there's quite a few who imagine the establishment has their interests at heart. So sad, but some will be fast learners.
Good to hear. Which bit of creative Julian? And where are you based, if you don’t mind me asking?
Interested to know as work-wise as a freelance creative, it’s been a desert out there. There’s nothing. Not just from my own experience but across the board from the people I know. It’s wall-to-wall doom and gloom
Were in manchester, she does copy writing. I know one swallow does not make a summer, and this may be all she gets for years, who knows....
Not a bad piece from the Groaniad:
I’m doing what I can to mitigate the likely impacts of johnson’s incompetence; what are others doing?
For me this essentially boils down to saving as much money as possible and avoiding unnecessary spending. When all the covid stuff kicked off work started a voluntary hours reduction scheme where you could go to a 4 day week and whilst voluntary they were pretty pushy about how it would help the company. Quite a few colleagues signed up up but I didn't purely on the basis that now is not the time to be voluntarily reducing income, which may sound a little mercenary, but it's the sensible thing to do. I've also started taking a much more proactive approach to brushing up on skills I may need if I find myself looking for a job.
Out of curiosity, what do you want them to do other than just carrying on?
I don't expect anyone to do anything, it was more a comment on the lack of discussion both on here and in the real world about the affects. I admit I may be something of a pessimist on the economic front but when I talk to friends and relatives about this they seem completely oblivious or in outright denial.
I’m doing what I can to mitigate the likely impacts of johnson’s incompetence; what are others doing?
I'm interested in this. What CAN people do?
Some 50% of people in the UK have less than a month's worth of living costs in savings, and 69% of people under 35 have less than £1,000. (When I was 35, that was me, too. I'm now 40 and slightly better off).
So when we're talking about 'savings, investments, pensions', we're only really talking about the top few % of wealthy people in the country. What of the majority? What can they actually do, besides keep working and cross their fingers?
(sources:
maybe not everyone shares your pessimism? Yes, some industries have been brought to the brink of collapse (a lot of these were on their knees anyway) but the majority have not. Some have seen a huge boost as peoples' spending has shifted. Most small businesses (over half of the private industry workforce - a lot of people forget that corporates are actually in the minority) I speak to are seeing a return to normality, or have returned already (quite a few are even booming). Banks are OK. Plenty of households largely or unaffected financially/job-wise or at least still have 1 earner. Things are not looking good for some families and businesses which is awful but not the same thing as total economic collapse.I admit I may be something of a pessimist on the economic front but when I talk to friends and relatives about this they seem completely oblivious or in outright denial.
Banks are OK. Plenty of households largely or unaffected financially/job-wise or at least still have 1 earner.
That's because we're still in the early phases. Like I said the impact has been mostly on those who have already lost their jobs and income. The furlough scheme has so far delayed the real impact, but that is now being withdrawn and the redundancies are starting to accumulate. Also those impacted with no help like Binners will be living on savings or other temporary means which will soon start to run out if they haven't already. The bigger picture is the issues around city centre economies, the businesses it supports and underlying commercial and residential asset prices. When they collapse the banks will be hit. They're already reporting massive losses in the billions, and we know what happens from 2008 when the loans they have issued can't be repayed.
Personally I think you're massively over-inflating the importance of this, also as has been said a few times the counter-point to this is that local economies/high streets are benefitting hugely from the downturn in city-centre trade. I guess we'll have to see what happens tho!The bigger picture is the issues around city centre economies
Banks are OK.
The banks are most certainly not OK. Only last week HSBC put out a warning that they are expecting a huge raft of defaults as businesses fold owing loads in outstanding loans that will never be repaid.
Throw in a mass of personal bankruptcies, and stuff like PCP on cars that peple can't really afford anyway but certainly won't once they lose their jobs. Martin Lewis ran an article about that a couple of years ago where he stated that just outstanding PCP defaults could trigger a crash as the sub-prime mortgages collapse.
Also those impacted with no help like Binners will be living on savings or other temporary means which will soon start to run out if they haven’t alread
Savings are long gone. We've been luckier than most in that we live a very simple lifestyle anyway with not many expensive material trappings, my wife has a decent job and I've been able to do other things, so we've stayed afloat. Just.
I'm now working for a mates business on minimum wage with a few other massively overqualified people who've been made redundant already from well-paid professional roles. A lot of people with nice comfortable middle-class incomes and lifestyles are in for one hell of a rude awakening.
They are going to have to adapt to living on 'minimum wage' as when unemployment goes through the roof, as it's about too (present predictions are 9% of the workforce), for most positions it will simply become 'the wage' for everything and people are going to be fighting tooth and nail for every minimum wage job, in their hundreds.
If you read the stories on Excluded UK the desperate straits some people are in already is tragic. There are 3 million of us who've had no income since March and zero government support. We've just been cut adrift. Collateral damage. There's going to be millions more over the next few months who will be excluded completely, millions more consigned to the misery of Universal Credit. The suicide rate is going to go through the roof
right - they've set aside almost 7 billion dollars as a war-chest against said loans but have STILL managed to turn a profit.Only last week HSBC put out a warning that they are expecting a huge raft of defaults as businesses fold owing loads in outstanding loans that will never be repaid.
7 Billion?
As Daz said, nothing's happened yet. This is the calm before the storm
Look at how much we had to throw at the banks last time around to stop them folding. Hundreds of billions. And this is going to be way worse than that.
When this hits, 7 billion won't touch the sides
End of Furlough will see the impact really be felt
Even if consumer spending keeps up through the summer, the real worry is how severe any second wave will be.
Hospitality industry is going to struggle hugely, Xmas is a big chunk of their annual profits, there will be no work dos this year, no office parties , opening pubs is risky enough in the summer, but come winter, I really can't see them opening, especially if it's a wet one, when beer gardens can't be used & flu season is upon us.
As ever the middle classes who much more likely to keep WFH will be least impacted, it's already those at the bottom feeling this the worst.
I still believe the office is dead , but that has huge repurcussions for city centres, it could be a boost to local high streets, but government need to guide that, they still seem determined to get people back commuting into city centres & buying lunch in Pret
it could be a boost to local high streets
I really don't see where this boost is. I've been working from home and not once have I popped out to the high street to buy a coffee, a sandwich, a bag of crisps, let alone an after work pint or 3 as I was doing when working in Manc. Instead I go to Morrisons and buy the stuff I need in the weekly shop and make lunch at home. The local craft brewery has gained from the beer deliveries but that's the exception. Unless of course by 'boost to the high street' you mean boost to the big supermarket chains, but I don't think that's what most people think the 'high street' is.
they still seem determined to get people back commuting into city centres & buying lunch in Pret
Worryingly, I think that in itself is indicative of the dearth of imagination at the heart of government. They just seem to be wishing everything back to how it was before.
Despite the pessimism, this is surely an opportunity to address big issues about the way we order our society. They don't even seem to want to acknowledge that as even being a possibility. The present economic model was bust before Covid, it looks even more threadbare now, but we have an ultra-neoliberal government that won't countenance any other approach and is simply sticking its fingers in its ears and shouting LA LA LAAA WE'RE NOT LISTENING
Actually... Doesnt Boris have form for doing literally this?
It certainly doesn't bode well. Say what you like about Gordon Brown, when the banking crisis hit he understood the magnitude of the challange and stepped up to take decisive action
He didn't run off and hide in a fridge
really don’t see where this boost is. I’ve been working from home and not once have I popped out to the high street to buy a coffee, a sandwich, a bag of crisps, let alone an after work pint or 3 as I was doing when working in Manc.
That's my point, unless the government steps up the benefits will be minimal.
We have had a coffee & snack van started coming round locally, they also set up by the local parks, which are rammed, so all the parents can get their caffeine hit
local cafes doing takeaway should be encouraged too
what's stopping you from jumping on your bike and doing any of those things before/after work or at lunch time? Presumably you're saving a fair amount of time not having to commute? Maybe people just need a bit more time to adjust.I’ve been working from home and not once have I popped out to the high street to buy a coffee, a sandwich, a bag of crisps, let alone an after work pint or 3 as I was doing when working in Manc
Say what you like about Gordon Brown, when the banking crisis hit he understood the magnitude of the challange and stepped up to take decisive action
You can imagine the meetings going on in Whitehall with sober civil servants trying to explain to the likes of Boris and Raab just what a depression means for the economy and wider society. Back in the 30s FDR understood what it meant, and it resulted in the New Deal which by today's standards would be labelled outright communism. Even then the new deal in itself wasn't enough and it required the second world war and the command economy it created to pull them out of the deflationary downward spiral of the depression. What's happening now is of a similar magnitude, and yet our leaders seem to think getting people buying their lunch in Pret will solve the problem.
what’s stopping you from jumping on your bike and doing any of those things before/after work or at lunch time?
Well aside from lockdowns and the risk of catching covid, why would I when I can make lunch at home and open a can of beer at the end of the work day and in the process save a ton of money? Nothing's stopping me from doing it, other than the fact I don't need to, and that is exactly the problem. People are adjusting to a way of life which involves much less frivolous spending, and they like it. If you suck demand out of the economy overnight, then everything collapses, and that's exactly what's happening.
I really don’t see where this boost is. I’ve been working from home and not once have I popped out to the high street to buy a coffee, a sandwich, a bag of crisps, let alone an after work pint or 3 as I was doing when working in Manc. Instead I go to Morrisons and buy the stuff I need in the weekly shop and make lunch at home. The local craft brewery has gained from the beer deliveries but that’s the exception. Unless of course by ‘boost to the high street’ you mean boost to the big supermarket chains, but I don’t think that’s what most people think the ‘high street’ is.
It's doing ok here. I haven't been to the city centre in over 4 months but about twice a week I nip out for a coffee before work to support the local cafes. I now get my meat from a local butcher because I'll be in during the day to take delivery - was chatting to him last week and he said he's doing really well. I use the local takeaways more than I used to, and there's always a queue outside the bakery these days, when previously it was only busy on a Saturday morning. I'm spending less in supermarkets and more in local shops.
I don't think the pubs are doing so well, but overall the street is very lively.
Maybe. No sure that's there case where I am tbh! Local bike/surf shops never been so busy. Indie cafes/pubs/takeaways/ice creams vans/chip shops/garden centres etc doing a roaring trade. High st/seafront areas very busy. Also not noticed any less delivery vans so I guess plenty of people still spending lots online.People are adjusting to a way of life which involves much less frivolous spending, and they like it.
apparently this is a national trend with trade in local shops (convenience stores etc) up 60% in May!I’m spending less in supermarkets and more in local shops.
Maybe. No sure that’s there case where I am tbh! Local bike/surf shops never been so busy. Indie cafes/pubs/takeaways/ice creams vans/chip shops/garden centres etc doing a roaring trade. High st/seafront areas very busy.
I'd imagine seaside towns are doing great business this year. But even so, we do need to remember that we're talking about the middle class economy here. I know people with businesses that have had their best quarter ever: a record shop, a synthesizer shop, an independent clothes shop. But that's because their customers are people with office jobs W-ingFH and no pubs to spend their money in. It's not necessarily indicative of the wider economy. MrsDoris works in the airline industry and is not enormously confident of whether she'll still have a job in 6 - 12 months' time...
I'll say what I like about Gordon Brown. He saw being Prime Minister as an inheritance rather than something you had to go out a fight on the stump for.
But compared to the current lot he looks like Superman.
possibly, not convinced that the majority of the people thronging, scrapping & shitting on the beaches of Kent are that middle-class though tbh 😂But even so, we do need to remember that we’re talking about the middle class economy here.
airline industry... yeah, that's toast. Obviously doesn't help those who'll lose their jobs but I think it will do planet Earth a favour in the long run.
High st/seafront areas very busy.
Sounds like your area is benefitting from the staycation boom, rather than a shift from city working? What's going to happen in the winter or when people start travelling abroad again? And yes the online economy is for now doing ok, or better than it was, and from what I've heard there's money to be made in the delivery sector (I heard a rumour of one delivery driver in Manc bringing in 1k per week), but how long will that last when more people start to lose their jobs and savings? We're still in the phase where people have changed their spending habits due to the lockdown rather than lack of funds, but that's going to shift towards the latter, and when it does the change will become permanent.
traditionally always dead in the winter anyway, a lot of people I speak to have no interest in travelling abroad for holidays any time soon, so if anything I expect the winter months to be better! Again I guess we'll have to see how it pans out though.Sounds like your area is benefitting from the staycation boom, rather than a shift from city working? What’s going to happen in the winter or when people start travelling abroad again?
Sunday papers biz sections don't paint a rosy picture - nor do any of the many talking heads who've pontificated recently.
I've stayed away from this thread for a few days but...absentee PM; track, trace, test, isolate not working; banks making chunky provisions for bad debts; second spike almost certain; redunders announcements continue; imposed salary and hours reductions becoming more prevalent; BoE claim of rapid recovery is delusional; base rate going -ve is becoming more likely; rhetoric continuing to outstrip action; eat out to help out is now 25% done and it's benefit is questionable.
Look at non-essential retail shops in your area - are their opening hours back to what they were pre-CV19; limits on customer numbers.
Sunak making it clear that support schemes must end.
Possibility of re-imposing closures in the leisure sector.
Increased WFH is here to stay; extent still tbc.
Public transport under pressure.
Commercial property squeeze is on.
Open conflict between LAs and property developers just around the corner
Three weeks until the next stage of removing furlough.
Nothing from johnson about his vision for a post CV19 economy; more of the same bozza?
What about your economic, industrial and manufacturing strategy? Cripes, hadn't thought about that - been a bit busy, don'tcha know?
End of brexit transition and consequent costs will further deepen the gloom.
Was going to have a drink but...my glass is empty.
frankconway
SubscriberNothing from johnson about his vision for a post CV19 economy; more of the same bozza?
TBF that's for later, right now it'd just be good to have some plans that'd make a post covid economy possible. But this government is working hard for permanent covid.
There’s almost no chance of a post COVID world.
Are you really referring to a time when the virus has declined in severity to a point where we can return to normality?
Brown was no saviour he was a chicken. All that money and he didn't even nationalise them. There wasn't even a hiccough in their inflated salaries and bonuses. You would be very naive to look to the Tories or LP for a solution, they are tied to the system and can only seek to 'save' it, like Brown, at everyone else's expense. Covid is potentially putting the system on the line and they have no answers. Burger vouchers, really?
Many of those new tory voters have never been in unions and their thinking is binary and confused and as in all crises the media shifts to the right so no alternatives will come from there. The BLM protests showed lots of anger and concern but was only a real threat to some inanimate objects and people risking getting coshed and ridden over. Without political focus and organisation for a serious change in the direction of a socialist society all hope is lost. It seems that eg Osbourne has succeeded in persuading people that good government reduces your standard of living, that the nice but limp old reformist Corbyn was Lenin (and Stalin) and that posh people who say things you don't understand must know what they're on about therefore should be in charge. '
Class consciousness' isn't about which label's on your car or whether you wear a tie but understanding that the interests of capital and labour are mutually exclusive, profits come from exploiting the labour of others and the essential characteristic of capitalism is crisis not long term stable growth. The government have shown their true worth by their treatment of their own pay against the health workers' pay, give them a clap and a cupcake. If that's how they treat heroic and super-exploited frontline staff don't imagine for one moment they're going to do anything for you unless, maybe, you own Virgin or Wetherspoons.
There's never been a greater need for people to get informed and organised and prepare to fight back. Look at how brutally those BLM protesters were treated, they ain't going to make concessions without a big organised opposition and that's going to be in the workplace, communities, streets, alt media and I think you'll find Sir Squeaky has already been bought and absorbed into the system, a bit like that poor little angler fish. Gone.
Klunk
Member
ouch
Ouch indeed.
We've a very difficult winter ahead.
a lot of people forget that corporates are actually in the minority
This is true but they make up much of the money in The system so are critical to the economy.
BoE claim of rapid recovery is delusional
Interested in why you say this. Do you think that the BoE don't know what they are talking about, or are they under political pressure?
Ken Clarke has just been on Sky News. It would appear that despite his years as chancellor and decades in parliament that he doesn't know how the public finances work. He said the furlough scheme has 'added another NHS' to the public finances but we haven't 'raised any money to pay for it'. This is the problem. Until people stop worrying about how we're going to pay for things and start worrying about what will happen if we don't start under-writing the economy with printed money then we're f****. Deflation is here and we have a bunch of politicians in charge (and in opposition) who don't understand what it means, let alone the vision or will to take the bold action to correct it.
Clarke knows full well that it's financed by quantitative easing, it's just that 'you're going to have to pay for this' message in one of it's many and varied forms. **** (fill in as appropriate)!
Intrigued by the wording of the BBC on today's economic news...
"employment falls" rather than 'unemployment rises'. The psychology of that feels odd to me.
I agree, because the usual metric is unemployment, so when I saw it I read 'unemployment falls' which would normally be a good headline.
BBC have been careful in their phrasing...
The figures do not include the millions of people who are furloughed, those on zero-hours contracts but not getting shifts, or people on temporary unpaid leave from a job, as they still count as employed.
and
The UK economy has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic, but unemployment has not surged as much as feared because large numbers of firms have furloughed staff.
However, analysts said unemployment was set to worsen in coming months as the scheme wound down, warning of a looming "cliff-edge" and a "lull before the storm".
Another point on the wording. Very imminently the current year 13 are about to recieve their A level results. For the 50% ish that do not go to university, they are about to become classed as unemplyed adults.
At what point do those figures hit the stats?
At what point do those figures hit the stats?
I bet there is some kind of 'under 21 or less than three years in the workplace doesn't exist for statistics' excuse...
At what point do those figures hit the stats?
Almost as soon as they leave school and don’t go into work AFAIK, 4 weeks iirc.
Bunch of stuff https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn05871/
Bunch more stuff https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/bulletins/youngpeoplenotineducationemploymentortrainingneet/august2019
Employment and unemployment are fairly different metrics just now tbh but whether most people see the difference I don't know.
So most number of deaths in Europe, highest per capita death rate globally, and now the worst recession in the G7. That's quite an achievement. Aside from the obvious economic impacts of a likely second wave, the trouble now is that the economics are wrapped up with high politics. Boris is not going to want Sunak to be seen as the saviour, so we can expect any useful response to the oncoming depression to be vetoed so that Sunak can be blamed later and his leadership ambitions neutered. It's how this lot works. If the captain is going down, then so is everyone else.
Be interesting to see how their ideology gets them out of this.
Don't forget economy was already flatlining. We were in very bad shape before Covid hit.
Government needs to spend lots now on the right sort of things.
Massive infrastructure, big scale green innovations etc. Move away from the reliance on cheap personal debt. We all need to change our priorities and understanding for a new economic model.
This is the arse end of 40 years of bollocks. Economic analysis. Tories have a habit of putting things on life support though.
Sunak - Eating out is a larger part of our economy than the other G7s. That's why we're hit harder. Well within character of Tory lies.
Was the Tory poster boy for some... (The naive - just because he pressed the button on state support - something that should happen.)
We're about to see his whimpering lying excuses for a bodged up Covid response play out.
Massive infrastructure, big scale green innovations etc. Move away from the reliance on cheap personal debt. We all need to change our priorities and understanding for a new economic model.
Fat chance. It'll be more meal vouchers and buy British to support farmers bollocks. As with everything else, responsibility for spending our way out of recession will be transferred to the public. It'll be our patriotic duty to spend money on crap we don't need so we can keep minimum wage service industry workers in jobs. It'll be the responsibility of businesses to be nice to their workers, and it'll be the responsibility of local authorities and charities to support the millions who fall through the cracks. The only thing the state will be responsible for is keeping the billionaires tory donors and FTSE 100 execs in the manner they're accustomed.
Hopefully this recession news will be a wake-up call to lots of people who are on furlough and still spending like it's a free holiday! I know the economy needs us to spend, spend, spend but that will not be enough to get us out of the hole we are falling down so saving everything you can right now is the prudent thing to do.
As said above, there is no way you can trust the current govt lot to help you out of the worst happens.
I know the economy needs us to spend, spend, spend but that will not be enough to get us out of the hole we are falling down so saving everything you can right now is the prudent thing to do.
Yup, exactly what I'm doing now. There's a massive contradiction though between the message by government for us to get out there and spend money in restaurants etc, and the need for people to treat this crisis seriously so that they don't have to be supported later. This is where some novel thinking is required in terms of helicopter money, universal benefits etc. It's goes against most people's sense of 'fair play', but if the govt wants us to spend to revive the economy, they should think about providing us with the cash with which to do that.
Yep money should be given to people but this is a crisis of supply not demand. Throw money at these businesses and they will behave as described above, squirrel it away. Massive state intervention in investment is required but I suspect we might have to get by on hope.
Yep money should be given to people but this is a crisis of supply not demand.
Not sure I agree there. Both have been affected equally by the lockdown but demand is suffering through fear of the virus, continued home-working and people tightening their belts. That's why Boris is desperate to get us back into offices and out of our homes. The service sector is open and eager to get back to normal, all they need is customers.
This is worth a squiz:
https://www.counterfire.org/articles/analysis/21516-sunak-s-hard-times-choice-not-necessity
and this:
Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned he would allow a post-Brexit border down the Irish Sea “over my dead body,” just days after pledging to help Northern Irish businesses cope with a new wave of customs red tape after the U.K. leaves the European Union.
The Brexit Withdrawal Agreement signed by Johnson in late 2019 effectively creates a customs border in the Irish Sea, where goods crossing from the rest of the U.K. to Northern Ireland must comply with EU rules and pay any potential post-Brexit tariffs. The solution was designed to avoid creating a hard border on the island of Ireland.
Says one thing, does another... surely not?
Is this the right thread to discuss this particular big lie though?
They're really not a very bright bunch, are they?
Joris Bohnson still doesn't seem to get the fact that when you sign a legally binding international treaty, then you can't just weasel out of further down the line as it no longer suits you. You can see why he would think that. Its all he's ever done his entire life. Well, it's not going to wash this time, Joris.
Everyone knows that its just posturing and that he'll cave-in at the eleventh hour, just like he did last time. We'll be spared by Jorises' enormous ego, as he won't want to go down as the PM who bankrupted the country and broke up the UK. He'll betray the ERG too when it comes down to it, just as readily as he's betrayed everyone else in his life. The self-serving ****!
'Between 1947 and 1979, productivity in the US rose by 119%, while the income of the bottom fifth of the population rose by 122%. But between 1979 and 2009, productivity rose by 80% , while the income of the bottom fifth fell by 4%(5). In roughly the same period, the income of the top 1% rose by 270%(6).
In the UK, the money earned by the poorest tenth fell by 12% between 1999 and 2009, while the money made by the richest 10th rose by 37%(7). The Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality, climbed in this country from 26 in 1979 to 40 in 2009(8).' (Monbiot 2011)
Factor into that mass unemployment, people have been denied the means to spend their way out of a crisis. Employers will use the opportunity to 'press down on costs' and casualise the workforce, back to the lump of the 1970s.
Employers will use the opportunity to ‘press down on costs’ and casualise the workforce, back to the lump of the 1970s.
Employers are already driving down costs. And they're not messing about at it either. They're playing hardball. As a freelancer, I'm one of the 3.5 million people who've been left with no government support since March
If you look at industries which predominantly employ freelancers (pretty much all 'creative' industries), companies are now openly advertising freelance work at minimum wage, as they know (correctly) that some people are now so absolutely desperate, having had no income for 5 months, that they're just going to have to take anything available
Once the furlough scheme ends and the huge wave of unemployment breaks, expect pay rates for salaried positions to go the same way.
The middle class is now going to find itself on the pointy end of what the working class has been battered with since the 80's
I went for lunch and had a wander around Kings cross earlier and it was dead, even the massive construction site behind the station seemed to have been mothballed
I genuinely can't see anyway out of this
Edit on costs literally every major main contractor have asked for existing contracts to be priced down 5-10% and all future ones to be all cost. Anyone who doesn't agree will be removed from the tender list
Exactly this binners,
This government will succeed in doing to the whole country what Thatcher only achieved on the North.
We've just seen the working class North pivot towards nationalism. The next election cycle will see the middle class South pivot. In what direction it is too soon to tell but they will be the next constituency up for grabs. The North is lost to the left for the time being.
That might sound too much like an endorsement for Starmer for some folk on here but that's how I see it for now. The biggest danger for Starmer is his remoteness. He doesn't engage with people very well but he doesn't engage with the moment very well either, it seems to pass him by. That leaves him vulnerable to a charismatic figure who might emerge from either the Labour ranks or elsewhere.
Once the furlough scheme ends and the huge wave of unemployment breaks, expect pay rates for salaried positions to go the same way.
Thats already started
The next election cycle will see the middle class South pivot. In what direction it is too soon to tell but they will be the next constituency up for grabs. The North is lost to the left for the time being.
I suspect its going to be very, very depressing, given the way everything has gone over the last ten years.
The people responsible for creating economic misery, and offering austerity as the only solution, have been incredibly successful at deflecting the blame onto immigrants, foreigners, the EU and everybody but themselves.
It's going to be interesting to see if they'll find it as easy when the more educated southern middle classes start seeing their standard of living decimated due to firstly Covid-related government incompetence, then an ideologically driven no-deal Brexit.
Whilst the Governments Brexity anti immigrant stance plays well in the North and parts of the South East, (Essex, Kent etc) a good portion of the South though naturally conservative is not overly concerned about immigration and well informed enough to know both what a shit sandwich Brexit is and who made it. They will turn on Johnston
I grew up in the shires and this kind of nationalist nonsense doesn't really have much of a home there. My instinct tells me that these voters will be looking for a Blair like figure.
Once the current mob bugger off into the sunset, collecting their £200 billion for passing go I can see the Conservatives doing one of their abracadabra resets and going for Sunak. Not sure how Starmer would fare against Sunak. Although the public will blame Johnston and Co. for the mess they have made of everything they have short memories (just like the Tories) and could do a quick reset to the Rishi two step.
There's a danger that events are going to just pass Starmer by.
Once the furlough scheme ends and the huge wave of unemployment breaks, expect pay rates for salaried positions to go the same way.
Thats already started
Yep, the whole of the branch I worked at has been made redundant. That includes the Branch Manager, the section managers, HGV drivers and the bunch of us normal drivers. Everyone is now scrabbling to find any job they can that pays anything close to £10/hr, most jobs are now minimum wage. I've lucked in with a supermarket delivery job at £9.60/hr, waay down on the £13/hr I was on before with paid breaks and lots of other perks. Adding it all up I'd be down over 40% on my take-home pay, that's going to push a lot of people over the edge.
There's going to be a lot of people fighting over any job going for the next year or more so employers know full well they can just pay minimum wage and still have a long line of applicants.
We won’t be referring to it as ‘minimum wage’ for much longer. George Osbourne already rebranded it as ‘the living wage’, which it isn’t.
From now on it will just be ‘the wage’. Anything you get above it will be considered a bonus for most people.
The Tories will be absolutely loving this. They have no intension whatsoever of mounting any kind of Keynesian investment or stimulus.
With Brexit, a lot of the safeguards for working people will be immediately removed. And with huge scale unemployment and economic chaos they’re going to maximise this ‘opportunity’ for an assault on living standards that even Thatcher would have deemed excessive.
We really are about to become a sweatshop economy.
If you won’t work for minimum wage on a zero hours contract with no holiday or sick pay - fine - we’ll just get somebody else in who will
The Covid-related economic shitstorm we’re about to enter (it’s barely even started yet) suits the Brexiteer Disaster Capitalist agenda perfectly. It’s why they’re even more determined to force through no deal. The Rees-Moggs of this country are salivating at the prospect of what they’ll be able to do away with during this upcoming economic collapse. They won’t be happy until we’ve Victorian levels of inequality, with ‘employees’ little more than serfs, And themselves as the mill-owners
There's also the issue of lots of employers not offering any full-time contracts at all. My delivery job is only offering me a 30 hr contract with me having to fight for any more as overtime with the others. I would be losing money every month on that so bizarre as it may seem I'd be better off resigning, moving back in with my parents (I rent) and claiming Universal Credit! They were initially only offering 20hr contracts to us all but I've managed to negotiate them up. From speaking to my soon-to-be ex-colleagues it's the same everywhere, no employer wants to commit to full-time contracts.
Evictions can start from the 26th. So, the landlord evicts you, you present to the local authority as homeless. Local authorities have little housing capacity. They find you a private rental and increased need has meant the price has gone up. Result!
NB. Showering money at businesses won't lead to trickle down because of the marginal propensity to leak. True story.
We’ve just seen the working class North pivot towards nationalism. The next election cycle will see the middle class South pivot. In what direction it is too soon to tell but they will be the next constituency up for grabs. The North is lost to the left for the time being.
That might sound too much like an endorsement for Starmer for some folk on here but that’s how I see it for now.
Explain to me why a move towards nationalism fits with it being an endorsement for Starmer? It's less nationalism, and more culture war populism. Starmer is the very opposite of a populist. He's a technocrat, and fully signed up member of the establishment. His only hope is to demonstrate that populism has failed, and ensure the labour party are not seen as complicit in that failure. If you're right that we're heading for more populism, then Starmer is already dead in the water. I've said it before, but what labour need is not a sober technocrat, but a loud and aggressive rabble rouser.
Dazh,
My point was that the North is lost to Labour for the foreseeable. The votes Labour can chase will be in the South, particularly in the Shires, where Starmer won't scare the horses the way Cornyn did.
I then went on to point out at length why he could come unstuck if he faced Sunak, who is rather Tony Blair like, or Javid who is Gordon Brown like, except he probably wouldn't sell the Nations gold at a discount and is a better politician than Brown tactically (and strategically for that matter).
Labour needs a leader with a bit more charisma I agree. A rabble rouser suggests to me that you think Labour can win back the North? I disagree, they've lost it, like they did Scotland. The battleground will be in the South.
Don't agree that
the North is lost to Labour for the foreseeable.
Voters in so-called red wall constituencies and their freshly minted MPs have, IMO, a clear expectation that johnson will keep his word about 'levelling up' and will measure tory performance against their own personal and individual interpretation of levelling up; then vote accordingly next time around.
Sunak will be measured nationwide in exactly the same way and principally by those who lose jobs and businesses; the only metric they will apply to him as chancellor will be...what did you do for me?
Moving on from that and getting the thread back on track - retail liquidations are boom time for auctioneers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53741321
I see the penny has dropped on the impact of mass home-working in cities. What are they going to do, force us to go back? Instead of wasting their time trying to get everyone to waste their time and money commuting, they'd be better off thinking about the long term and what they're going to do with all these decaying office blocks.
theyve got a bona fide superforecaster on the books, surely he predicted all of this
Interesting that hancock is out of step with rest of the cabinet on this.
We can see how this is shaping up:
- CBI siding with johnson in wanting presenteeism
- many major employers saying WFH is generally ok; we've had no adverse effects
- employees, generally, saying WFH suits us
There have been suggestions that the ad campaign might imply continued WFH could be bad for your career; denied, as you would expect, by un-named gov spox.
they’d be better off thinking about the long term and what they’re going to do with all these decaying office blocks
Despite all the short term noise being pushed out via the Telegraph and TalkRadio... it looks to me that they already doing this, in terms of change of use for office>home developments. Not sure what the plan is when to comes to collecting 'local' taxes though...
There have been suggestions that the ad campaign might imply continued WFH could be bad for your career; denied, as you would expect, by un-named gov spox.
Scaremongering. Get back outside and start spending money or you'll lose your job. Its that and a so-far inability prop up deficits in things such as public transport with a revised business model (google the impact on TFL) means they want us to do it with our wages.
There have been suggestions that the ad campaign might imply continued WFH could be bad for your career;
I guess it depends what you do. If you're a middle manager who spends your life sat in meeting rooms and workshops talking bollocks then it absolutely is bad for your career. For those of us who actually do real things and prefer that to sitting in pointless meetings it's much better for our careers. I'm very much hoping one of the indirect benefits of all this might be a reduction in the number of pointless management/supervisory roles and greater recognition of people who get things done with a minimum of management interference.
The other massive benefit is the culture of fake socialisation has effectively been stopped in its tracks. I no longer feel under pressure to be friendly with people who outside of work I would give a second glance, and I can no longer be accused of not being a team player if don't want to be best mates with the David Brent style boss. And if it results in the office gobshites not getting promoted beyond their ability then all the better. If one good thing comes out of covid then I hope it's the end of fake office culture.
Personally I'm not keen to go back to the office. I quite dislike cities! Hopefully wfh will become the norm for my job with the (much reduced in scale) office being a collaborative space. My only slight concern is that having effectively outsourced me to my home, I'll get outsourced a bit further afield!
So C(r)apita, the gov's favourite outsourcers, have confirmed they will be closing more than
1/3 of their offices; few, if any, job losses anticipated.
Can't imagine the closures will be welcomed ny johnson and his acolytes but it might help them to understand that their wish to get people back into offices is falling on deaf ears.
As for the widely used phrase '...getting people back to work' - it's complete bollocks as a lot of people are working but not from their previous office environment; what they should be saying is...we want, and need, you to work in an office with other employees and stop this WFH.
To misquote someone on twitter - if the economy can apparently survive us ripping up all our trade agreements and giving the finger to our biggest trading partner, then it can survive me not buying a bagette from a town centre pret.
what they should be saying is…we want, and need, you to work in an office with other employees and stop this WFH.
They're getting pretty desperate. Almost begging people to go back to their previously miserable commutes and be less well off as a result. I can see where this is going. Tax breaks and incentives to employers to force staff back to work, with no benefit being passed on to workers. If I were Keir Starmer right now I'd be thinking this was a gift to get white collar workers on my side. In the 70s the battle was about pay levels, now it's going to be about the right to work from home and maintain the flexibility it provides.
Just imagine...employees saying yes I'll return to the office provided, of course, you have covid proofed it as far as practically possible and maintain that level of cleanliness/hygiene but please be aware that I'll breakfast at home and bring my own lunch.
Let's call that turning back the clock to pre-Pret/starbucks/costa/leon.
It addresses the productivity/creativity line of argument as employees will be in the office; overall consumption is unchanged - the concern is displacement spending and the likely net reduction of expenditure.
Discretionary spending is under pressure; the UK's focus on a consumption based economy is coming unstuck.
What about volume manufacturing? Ah, yes, I forget...we gave that away 40+ years ago.
Whichever way you cut it, johnson's exhortations are both empty and pathetic.
If you're right Daz there will be court cases/class actions as there is no case law which would be applicable, as far as I know.
Contraventions of employment law.
Neither johnson nor any member of his clown circus have thought this through.