The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[choffer]

18 hours ago, ml1dch said:

 

I'm shocked. SHOCKED. 

Actually, not that shocked. 

 

[bickster]

59 minutes ago, choffer said:

Cadbury Club at lunch for a quick pint when I worked at Bournville

That Cadbury actually had a workers social club is fairly outrageous in itself considering the Quaker roots of the company and the fact that the Cadbury family by virtue of the fact they owned all the land effectively banned the sale of alcohol for over 120 years

[bickster]

1 hour ago, choffer said:

Desperately trying to work out the joke about all that drinking being bad for Royal Livers. 

There were a considerable number of people who worked there that may have had issues with alcohol

[Genie]

1 hour ago, choffer said:

 

Probably the number one thing people hate about politicians, they can act despicably and have no repercussion. He’s absolutely guaranteed to get re-elected.

[Davkaus]

I'm certain that he's a comedy sketch that got out of hand.

[sidcow]

6 hours ago, bickster said:

That Cadbury actually had a workers social club is fairly outrageous in itself considering the Quaker roots of the company and the fact that the Cadbury family by virtue of the fact they owned all the land effectively banned the sale of alcohol for over 120 years

Tell me about it. I went to Dame Elizabeth Cadbury School and if you went to a a party on Bournville Estate you better have taken enough booze with you because it was a hell of a walk to the nearest off licence to stand outside waiting for a bloke willing to go in and get booze for you. 

[ml1dch]

If reports are to be believed, Sue Gray's report isn't going to be as whitewashy as first expected and will be pretty damning.

Believe-it-when-you-see-it etc, but here's hoping.

[bickster]

 

 

[Straggler]

For anyone who wants some really powerful analysis of the cost of living crisis I would heartily recommend:

Jack Monroe

Quote

Former foodbank user. Campaigner against poverty and inequality. Budget recipe book author. Writer for hire. I don’t write the headlines.

She is an amazing person and has 100% lived the life she is talking about.  She has a really good thread about the true cost of living increase for the poor that shows 5% inflation may be an average, but on a budget inflation is many many times higher.  Illuminating stuff.

 

sod it thought I'd embed the tweet for the lazy sods round here.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Straggler
to help the motivationally challenged.

[Genie]

I expect the “get back in the offices” plus £1.47 a litre for fuel, and paying for childcare is going to tip more people over the edge.

Then there’s the impending increase in NI which will reduce take home pay even more. 
 

Edited January 24, 2022 by Genie

[desensitized43]

17 minutes ago, Genie said:

I expect the “get back in the offices” plus £1.47 a litre for fuel, and paying for childcare is going to tip more people over the edge.

Then there’s the impending increase in NI which will reduce take home pay even more. 
 

The "Back to office" calls infuriate me so much. As a business we've decided to go hybrid. It's working for us, we're getting great results, everyone is super happy with the flexibility to come in or wfh.

We've decided to keep doing what we're doing because it's not up to us as a business to provide passing custom for Subway and Greggs.

[bickster]

6 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

The "Back to office" calls infuriate me so much. As a business we've decided to go hybrid. It's working for us, we're getting great results, everyone is super happy with the flexibility to come in or wfh.

We've decided to keep doing what we're doing because it's not up to us as a business to provide passing custom for Subway and Greggs.

It's your duty to keep the rental prices up because the next business saving will be smaller offices and cheaper rents, some have already done it, others will naturally follow when their current arrangements are up for renewal

There will be an absolute glut of office space at some point and that will drive rents down. Rents going down will eventually affect property prices and that in turn will eventually have a knock on effect in the housing market. And that is what they don't want

[Straggler]

13 minutes ago, Genie said:

I expect the “get back in the offices” plus £1.47 a litre for fuel, and paying for childcare is going to tip more people over the edge.

Then there’s the impending increase in NI which will reduce take home pay even more. 
 

Don't worry, working class hero David Davis has stepped up to the plate to say the NI increase should be scrapped.  He does not think the government should be associated with a policy that drives more people into poverty and disproportionately impacts lower and middle income people.  Bless him for not wanting to add to the financial burdens of Britain's already struggling families.  I'm struggling to think of a single reason why his credibility on this sort of thing is completely shot.

[Genie]

My wife works for the local council and they’ve left their office block and moved all staff to WFH contracts. They have to go into an office (location TBC) 2 times a month. 
They were told they could accept the new arrangement or find another job.

[Genie]

3 minutes ago, Straggler said:

Don't worry, working class hero David Davis has stepped up to the plate to say the NI increase should be scrapped.  He does not think the government should be associated with a policy that drives more people into poverty and disproportionately impacts lower and middle income people.  Bless him for not wanting to add to the financial burdens of Britain's already struggling families.  I'm struggling to think of a single reason why his credibility on this sort of thing is completely shot.

I do agree the NI increase should be scrapped, or at least deferred.

It’ll push inflation up higher, and how do they control inflation? Increase BoE base rate which costs people on variable mortgages more money.

What do people now have because of the surge in property prices (fuelled by an unnecessary stamp duty discount) at the moment? Massive mortgages…

Edited January 24, 2022 by Genie

[The Fun Factory]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

My wife works for the local council and they’ve left their office block and moved all staff to WFH contracts. They have to go into an office (location TBC) 2 times a month. 
They were told they could accept the new arrangement or find another job.

Yes loads of local councils have used this as a excuse to get rid of property to save money. Staff wouldn't be able to go back to the offices full time as most don't have the capacity anymore. Also if its believed that all council will soon become unitary that will be another excuse to streamline property portfolios.  Going to be nice and democratic having voting areas 600,000 or more in population.

[desensitized43]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

It's your duty to keep the rental prices up because the next business saving will be smaller offices and cheaper rents, some have already done it, others will naturally follow when their current arrangements are up for renewal

There will be an absolute glut of office space at some point and that will drive rents down. Rents going down will eventually affect property prices and that in turn will eventually have a knock on effect in the housing market. And that is what they don't want

So we should all revert back to a mode of working that's expensive, inefficient and negatively impacts my workers mental health to protect other businesses.

It's crazy. The world has shifted and we're in the middle of a reconfiguration of the way we work and how our economy works but we have a government that still wants things to operate as they have in the previous century. That doesn't want businesses to change and adapt to new technologies. We've heard them banging on for years about how we're so inefficient compared to other economies, but when we try to get efficient, it's bad.

I feel for those working in those jobs that'll be affected by the drop in office working, but I think we all know there's way too many fast food and coffee places, and that was before covid.

Regarding the rents and house prices etc. As a home owner I don't want the value of my house to go down, but as a father it's plain to see what we have right now is unsustainable and I want my daughter to be able to get on the ladder when the time comes (she's 18 months old so not for a good few years yet!).

The problem is capitalism is a broken system. The obsession with growth and inflation is really unhealthy. Stuff can't just continue to get more expensive forever. What we have now only works for people who have investments and shares, it doesn't work for anyone else.

[blandy]

1 minute ago, desensitized43 said:

The problem is capitalism is a broken system. The obsession with growth and inflation is really unhealthy. Stuff can't just continue to get more expensive forever. What we have now only works for people who have investments and shares, it doesn't work for anyone else.

There's a load of stuff around this.

I mean firstly the Government can say whatever they like about going back to offices and stuff, but it's not up to them. It's up to the businesses to determine how and where their employees work (with Employees and Unions having a clear influence in that outcome).

Secondly, you're spot on about Economic growth being the wrong measure to measure the "success" of our economy or nation. It should be a small factor, but having it as the sole measure has just led to trashing everything.

The thing about it working for people with savings and even shares is not really generally valid, I think. I mean savings get less interest than inflation, so become worth less over time. And shares - well with the Pandemic haven't they pretty much all taken a massive hit? (obviously PPE and pharma has done better). I think the real beneficiaries of Reaganite/Thatcherite capitalism have been a relatively small group of already super rich people. The rest of us - shafted really, with the degrees of shafting varying, admittedly, depending on where we sit in the order of things.

Capitalism isn't the problem - someone owning a shop or whatever and making a profit isn't inherently "bad". The problem is unrestrained, unregulated capitalism. The problem is where capitalism is taken as an ideology that must prevail above all other factors and influences. A degree of capitalism is basically necessary, as is a degree of socialism. When you have solely one or the other that's when it doesn't work.

[StefanAVFC]

A little off topic but we have a mortgage. We got it June last year. The way it works over here is that interest rates are a total of the Warsaw central rate + the bank's rate.

When we took the mortgage the Warsaw rate (WIBOR) was 0.24% meaning our mortgage was fairly cheap from an interest perspective. It's now gone up to 2.8% and our interest rate has doubled. This hits us fairly hard but this WIBOR is the same for everyone so everyone's interest rate has doubled. In the same time, inflation has gone through the ceiling, meaning everything is more expensive. In the context of Poland, me and my wife are doing really well. Probably combined top 10% of earners (me top 5%, her top 15%-20%) yet we are hit hard by it. What about the other 90ish%? How can it continue like this? It's that question that gives me hope that it absolutely can't. How can the world function if everything is too expensive for 95% of us?

Edited January 24, 2022 by StefanAVFC

[Genie]

I’m grateful to have 4 years to run on my 5 year fixed rate. At least that isn’t going to nobble me in the short term.