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Post by davwel on Aug 27, 2022 11:57:37 GMT
I read in yesterday`s i newspaper of a woman in Weston-super-Mare admitting that she kept the temperature in the nursery she ran at 22 deg C.
Because she was now going to lose her profits, she was going to have to turn the thermostat down and heat rooms just at 20 deg C.
This is ridiculously high, and I see no reason why we should be risking future climate warming on such irresponsible behaviour. I also read in the i that the "UK" had to import energy at a very high cost from Belgium and France last month, in order to avoid power cuts in SE England.
When people there waste energy and run at unnecessarily high levels of heating, I am angry that the rest of the UK has to pay for this. It should be stopped as part of "levelling-up".
For the record, schools in Scotland have to maintain temperatures at least at 16 deg C.
""The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, which apply to all workplaces, including schools, set out requirements on minimum temperatures in workplaces. Regulation 7 requires that temperatures shall be “reasonable” and the accompanying Approved Code of Practice defines this as “normally at least 16°C” (60°F) (para 43) during “the length of time people are likely to be there” (para 49).
The School Premises (General Requirements and Standards) (Scotland) Regulations 1967"" includes provisions for minimum temperatures in different areas within schools. They are on Page 52 of the EIS Health and Safety Handbook which is available h
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Post by Mark on Aug 27, 2022 12:32:37 GMT
I watched the Norwich tory hustings last night (the video that The Sun had put up had some weird codec that my video-grabber add-on wouldn't work properly with so, had to wait for someone else to upload it).
Firstly, Julia Hartley-Brewer is utterly vile and makes even Truss seem sensible.
On the question about Macron ('Is he a frind or foe?'), to which Truss's answer made headlines, my first thought was "what the hell kind of question is that?".
Having said that, it showed a stark difference between the two candidates.
Sunak with a firm "friend". Admittedly, the answer you would expect and an answer pretty much required of anyone wanting to be the next PM....in a sane world anyway.
Truss's answer was, IMO, genuinely revealing, moreso than the learned soundbites coming from both candidates.
She seemed genuinely thrown by what should have been a piss-easy question with only one realistic - and obvious - answer.....and after a few seconds, her "the jury's still out" response was telling.
This was not some pre-planned xenophobic rabble-rousing of tory members. This was not some "anti-woke" bit of politicking, she seemed to have been caught on the hop by a question nobody could have seen coming...and her answer seemed to be as genuine - moreso even - than anything else she said.
...and that, for me, is deeply worrying.
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Post by leftieliberal on Aug 27, 2022 12:39:48 GMT
crossbat11 . Batty, I have had a fabulous afternoon listening to Test Match Special, so glad Radio 4 LW still has it. The rhythm, the cadence, the sheer battiness, the joy when it goes well. Ah lovely. Test Match Special, or TMS to its afficianados, used to be a staple part of the summer for me. But it did and always will. As you witnessed on your radio this afternoon, listening to events at Old Trafford, cricket goes on and has a surprising number of people who love it dearly. A summer in England without our flannelled fools would be a sad and withered place for me. And, of course, the discussions about the cakes that listeners had sent into them. I know that Ian Fleming named one of his villains Goldfinger, because he loathed the architect Ernő Goldfinger's work. Did he also hate cricket so much that he named another villain after Henry Blofeld?
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Post by leftieliberal on Aug 27, 2022 12:42:23 GMT
Surely this must be fake news? The Test match is at Old Trafford, Manchester so in traditional Labour territory.
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Post by RAF on Aug 27, 2022 12:44:25 GMT
Test Match Special, or TMS to its afficianados, used to be a staple part of the summer for me. But it did and always will. As you witnessed on your radio this afternoon, listening to events at Old Trafford, cricket goes on and has a surprising number of people who love it dearly. A summer in England without our flannelled fools would be a sad and withered place for me. And, of course, the discussions about the cakes that listeners had sent into them. I know that Ian Fleming named one of his villains Goldfinger, because he loathed the architect Ernő Goldfinger's work. Did he also hate cricket so much that he named another villain after Henry Blofeld? Haha, yes I believe so. Although, it was a bit rough to pick on Henry. He only seemed to be interested in pigeons.
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Post by mercian on Aug 27, 2022 12:55:06 GMT
, the only prople who will sail through this without any problems are those with massive resources. There is another group that will be substantially protected. The 3 or 4 million retired public sector pensioners with indexed pensions. But I suppose they all vote Labour anyway. The liability for public sector pensions exceeded UK GDP this year for the first time ( Bloomberg) I don't.
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Post by robbiealive on Aug 27, 2022 12:55:17 GMT
, the only prople who will sail through this without any problems are those with massive resources. There is another group that will be substantially protected. The 3 or 4 million retired public sector pensioners with indexed pensions. But I suppose they all vote Labour anyway. The liability for public sector pensions exceeded UK GDP this year for the first time ( Bloomberg) What a sour, silly, snide comment. (I thinks that uses up all the Ss, apart from stupid). My public sector pension goes up by 3%, as does my state pension. Given inflation is 10-12% how do you deduce substantial protection; there are millions of people on small public sector pensions whose increase will hardly "touch the sides" of the problem, to quote Sunak. & how many public sector workers will get a pay increase even half that of the rate of inflation. The point about this crisis is that everyone, or virtually everyone, is worse off. The worst-off will be those with no savings to speak of, who number about one-third of households. Why try and divide people, the vast majority of whom are in the same boat. Obviously you are v frustrated with the fact that the party you have loyally supported is proving so useless: bogged-down as it is in a fatuous leadership contest to elect an economics-illiterate PM. And how did we get here? Brexit old sport. It was Brexit that gave us Johnson's government & Brexit that, after Johnson's removal, drives the Tory party further and further to the right: a deeply-laid, rightist project of which Brexit was the mere 1st stage, something the more perceptive of us realised all along. Of course it would help if there were more pragmatic people of talent in the party: but droves of them were eliminated in Jonhson's post-Brexit purge. Truss's cabinet will be one of the true Brexit Believers- the ideologues & nutjobs. Those excluded: the technocratic Sunak, who at least has experience of a rescue project, as well as a number of Tories with executive experience, Gove, Javid, Hunt. Truss, the populist leader who lacks the populist touch, may find some powerful criticisms coming from these discards.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2022 12:55:46 GMT
The liability for public sector pensions exceeded UK GDP this year for the first time ( Bloomberg) An entirely meaningless statistic given that GDP represents one single year, whereas the total 'liability' of a pension fund represents the entire actuarially calculated future payments to all members of the fund over their expected pension receiving life - i.e. many years for each person. It does not all have to be paid in one go. Absolutely disagree. Of course its not all payable in one go. Thats not the point of the metric. Which is to quantify the extent of a largely unfunded state liability by reference to the source of the tax revenues which will pay for it over time-GDP.-ie its affordability * So the thing to watch is the growth in its relationship to GDP :- www.ftadviser.com/pensions/2021/02/09/uk-govt-pension-liabilities-surge-1-3trn-in-3-years/To me this issue is just one part of the burden on future taxpayers which an ageing population is producing. The deficit in NHS and Healthcare provision is another. This is an issue for many western economies. Economies which have seen their governments accept massive amounts of debt in fighting the pandemic. Governments contemplating more massive funding of citizens' energy costs. Governments doing this just as 15 years of ultra low interest rates and oceans of cheap credit are coming to an end. Governments which will face a truth they can only read about in the history books-all this debt is going to cost really significant sums of money now we have "normal" interest rates. ( for UK-£100bn pa ) * Actually there may possibly be another connection of interest -between unfunded pension liabilities & economic growth itself . www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7327461/ps -forgot to mention that there is a thing called Whole of Government Accounts in which pension and other contingent liabilities are shown. Its not prepared often ( and read less I imagine). For end 2018/19 -Total state assets were £2.1bn and total state liabilities were £4.6 bn -of which £1.9 bn were "state pension liabilities"
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Post by leftieliberal on Aug 27, 2022 12:59:21 GMT
, the only prople who will sail through this without any problems are those with massive resources. There is another group that will be substantially protected. The 3 or 4 million retired public sector pensioners with indexed pensions. But I suppose they all vote Labour anyway. The liability for public sector pensions exceeded UK GDP this year for the first time ( Bloomberg) The notional value of the public sector pension pot is irrelevant - all that matters is that there is enough raised in taxes or by borrowing to pay the pensions as they fall due. When I joined the Civil Service back in 1996, my offer letter specifically stated that I would be paid 8.25% less, it being my notional contribution to my Civil Service pension. So all these years the Government has been getting away with paying Civil Servants less than they should by promising them an indexed pension (which is only indexed to CPI, not triple-locked like the State Pension, and becomes worth less over time as incomes usually exceed CPI inflation).
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Post by mercian on Aug 27, 2022 13:01:30 GMT
I know that Ian Fleming named one of his villains Goldfinger, because he loathed the architect Ernő Goldfinger's work. Did he also hate cricket so much that he named another villain after Henry Blofeld? I believe Fleming was at school with Henry Blofeld's father (and presumably didn't like him much!).
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2022 13:24:21 GMT
There is another group that will be substantially protected. The 3 or 4 million retired public sector pensioners with indexed pensions. But I suppose they all vote Labour anyway. The liability for public sector pensions exceeded UK GDP this year for the first time ( Bloomberg) I don't. In fact you would be amazed just how many stupid turkeys continue to vote for Christmas
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Post by robbiealive on Aug 27, 2022 13:27:46 GMT
I watched the Norwich tory hustings last night (the video that The Sun had put up had some weird codec that my video-grabber add-on wouldn't work properly with so, had to wait for someone else to upload it). Firstly, Julia Hartley-Brewer is utterly vile and makes even Truss seem sensible. Julia Hartley-Brewer is a flat-earther, anti-woke, Brexiteer. Don't get stuck in a lift with her. It seems that Truss's growing confidence in recent weeks reflects the fact she has faced little real scrutiny in the campaign, has had great polling, & has refused requests for more daunting & confidence-sapping 1:to:1 interviews with Today, Neil etc: a sensible strategy given the audience she is trying to win over. That will change in a few days which may prove difficult for someone not blessed with a fluent articulation or much ability to think on her feet. The greatest legacy of her campaign is the huge emphasis on tax cuts: those have to be delivered, her feet will be held to the fire, which gives her restricted flexibility in dealing with the crisis. Sunak would have been in a much better position to deal with it, but . . . .
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Post by RAF on Aug 27, 2022 13:41:06 GMT
There is another group that will be substantially protected. The 3 or 4 million retired public sector pensioners with indexed pensions. But I suppose they all vote Labour anyway. The liability for public sector pensions exceeded UK GDP this year for the first time ( Bloomberg) The notional value of the public sector pension pot is irrelevant - all that matters is that there is enough raised in taxes or by borrowing to pay the pensions as they fall due. When I joined the Civil Service back in 1996, my offer letter specifically stated that I would be paid 8.25% less, it being my notional contribution to my Civil Service pension. So all these years the Government has been getting away with paying Civil Servants less than they should by promising them an indexed pension (which is only indexed to CPI, not triple-locked like the State Pension, and becomes worth less over time as incomes usually exceed CPI inflation). People tend to forget this. State employees significantly sacrificed salary in favour of their indexed pensions (when they were still available). To attack their pensions at this stage is unfair and unjust.
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Post by ladyvalerie on Aug 27, 2022 13:41:34 GMT
colin So, it wasn't the crowd at Old Trafford inviting the Tories to go forth and multiply, they were instead invoking the spirit of Old Jezza, a la Glastonbury. That's a turn up for the books I have to say and, if true, likely to endanger Old Trafford's Test venue status into the future. The ECB will take a dim view of such heresy. I actually quite like Cricket as a spectator sport but I've always tended to avoid it for those reasons, the stifling sense of conservatism and particular kind of Englishness surrounding it that I've never got on with. That might be the case in the south but it’s not like that in Greater Manchester. As Has been said, loads of kids, of Indian and Pakistani origin are always playing in parks and playing fields. And matches at Old Trafford are certainly not stuffy or full of gammons. Maybe you should get out more 😀
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Post by mercian on Aug 27, 2022 13:47:18 GMT
robbiealive"Truss's cabinet will be one of the true Brexit Believers- the ideologues & nutjobs. Those excluded: the technocratic Sunak, who at least has experience of a rescue project, as well as a number of Tories with executive experience, Gove, Javid, Hunt." I find that it's more constructive to discuss things that have actually happened rather than what is imagined.
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Post by alec on Aug 27, 2022 13:53:08 GMT
johntel - "I don't really get that statement Alec? What will the huge impact in the UK be? Personally I would prefer to live in a climate more like southern Europe." And so will a couple of billion other displaced and starving people.......doh!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2022 13:53:32 GMT
chrisaberavon“I think Truss and her team will trump Labour and win the next GE.” I’m shocked.
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Post by mandolinist on Aug 27, 2022 13:58:05 GMT
chrisaberavon “I think Truss and her team will trump Labour and win the next GE.” I’m shocked. It's the very definition of cognitive dissonance for anyone to believe this.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2022 14:03:35 GMT
chrisaberavon “I think Truss and her team will trump Labour and win the next GE.” I’m shocked. It's the very definition of cognitive dissonance for anyone to believe this. It’s the very definition of rather bizarre, wishful thinking.
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steve
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Post by steve on Aug 27, 2022 14:03:56 GMT
As a matter of interest Faith's nhs pension this year went up in April based on the cpi rate when it was calculated of about 2% .As a very senior member of staff before she was retiring she paid in excess of £1000 around 15% of her pay every month into her contributory scheme. Yes it's not surprisingly a decent pension.
I took my police pension fund out a few years back when transfer to private schemes were permissible and the equity based scheme I use gained five times the value of Faith's pension, still lower than inflation.
With other investments we thought we were comfortably off, current inflation, supporting our children and energy and water bills for a house soon likely to be stacked with disgruntled young adults are huge drains. Can we manage , probably , will we have anything left over to support the hospitality , entertainment or discretionary spending sectors. Nope. The catastrophic impact on millions of jobs by making middle income earners poor and the poorer impoverished is obvious , apparently to everyone other than tweedle dumber the likely next prime minister.
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Post by alec on Aug 27, 2022 14:07:23 GMT
Level up! -
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steve
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Post by steve on Aug 27, 2022 14:09:26 GMT
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Post by mercian on Aug 27, 2022 14:17:04 GMT
With other investments we thought we were comfortably off, current inflation, supporting our children and energy and water bills for a house soon likely to be stacked with disgruntled young adults are huge drains. Can we manage , probably , will we have anything left over to support the hospitality , entertainment or discretionary spending sectors. Nope. Presumably you'll charge at least a nominal rent?
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steve
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Post by steve on Aug 27, 2022 14:23:43 GMT
mercian Maybe we can screw every penny out of them we can. Alternatively we could give them a break to build up some savings in what's likely to be a very bleak near future.
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on Aug 27, 2022 14:31:20 GMT
I know that Ian Fleming named one of his villains Goldfinger, because he loathed the architect Ernő Goldfinger's work. Did he also hate cricket so much that he named another villain after Henry Blofeld? I believe Fleming was at school with Henry Blofeld's father (and presumably didn't like him much!). Almost right. Fleming was actually friendly with the Blofeld family, especially Henry's father, and just thought the family name with a small change in spelling would make a good villain name. It was almost a joke rather than a put down. Heard that from the great man himself during an evening of tales from his career at a local theater. The most alarming was the time he was kidnapped by armed bandits in a rural part of India and the most interesting to me was how close he got to accidentally playing for England in a test in India when the touring squad had only 10 fit players and Blofeld was the most recently retired first class cricketer among the press corps. England's team was totally unbalanced and included only 2 fit specialist batsmen, 2 wicket keepers and 4 non-batting* fast-medium bowlers. Remarkably they escaped with a draw. This is the match in question: www.espncricinfo.com/series/england-tour-of-india-1963-64-61794/india-vs-england-2nd-test-62940/full-scorecard*Edit: Well three non-batting and Barry Knight, who certainly could.
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Post by robbiealive on Aug 27, 2022 14:35:02 GMT
I actually quite like Cricket as a spectator sport but I've always tended to avoid it for those reasons, the stifling sense of conservatism and particular kind of Englishness surrounding it that I've never got on with. Most spectator sports are reactionary, & does it matter if some are more reactionary than others: they are elitist -- they focus on success & the most highly paid participants -- & they record the activities of males: golf, cricket, footie, rugby, snooker, boxing, sumo, horse-raing (I mean the jockeys) etc & those weird American sports, rounders, netball & ice hockey. Sports are soaps: so footie fans agonise over whether such-&-such a player will recover from his groin injury, whether manager Klomp will be enticed from Real Bravo etc. I note that the broadcasters employ more women commentators, no doubt Sue Barker's success in commenting on a sport in which she had been a fine exponent had a lot to with this: but how many women comment on matches in which women are actually playing. They are there to attract a female audience not celebrate female participants. I know the recent women's Euros (I can't just say Euros) are an exception: but how much national interest would there have been if England had been knocked out early on. The only sports I can think of in which women attract as much interest as men are tennis & multi-sports, periodic events like the Olympics. I note that sportsmen can be socially progressive: taking the knee in UK & USA. But, on the other hand, washed-up, v rich golfers are quite happy to sell their souls to the Saudis. But spectator sports in general emphasise men watching other men doing things & controlling the contexts in which things are done. This is not a progressive message.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2022 14:41:58 GMT
mercian Maybe we can screw every penny out of them we can. Alternatively we could give them a break to build up some savings in what's likely to be a very bleak near future. Oh dear, oh dear. We are never going to make a capitalist out of you Steve.
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on Aug 27, 2022 14:44:30 GMT
An entirely meaningless statistic given that GDP represents one single year, whereas the total 'liability' of a pension fund represents the entire actuarially calculated future payments to all members of the fund over their expected pension receiving life - i.e. many years for each person. It does not all have to be paid in one go. Absolutely disagree. Of course its not all payable in one go. Thats not the point of the metric. Which is to quantify the extent of a largely unfunded state liability by reference to the source of the tax revenues which will pay for it over time-GDP.-ie its affordability * So the thing to watch is the growth in its relationship to GDP :- www.ftadviser.com/pensions/2021/02/09/uk-govt-pension-liabilities-surge-1-3trn-in-3-years/To me this issue is just one part of the burden on future taxpayers which an ageing population is producing. The deficit in NHS and Healthcare provision is another. This is an issue for many western economies. Economies which have seen their governments accept massive amounts of debt in fighting the pandemic. Governments contemplating more massive funding of citizens' energy costs. Governments doing this just as 15 years of ultra low interest rates and oceans of cheap credit are coming to an end. Governments which will face a truth they can only read about in the history books-all this debt is going to cost really significant sums of money now we have "normal" interest rates. ( for UK-£100bn pa ) * Actually there may possibly be another connection of interest -between unfunded pension liabilities & economic growth itself . www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7327461/ps -forgot to mention that there is a thing called Whole of Government Accounts in which pension and other contingent liabilities are shown. Its not prepared often ( and read less I imagine). For end 2018/19 -Total state assets were £2.1bn and total state liabilities were £4.6 bn -of which £1.9 bn were "state pension liabilities" This from the OBR: "In our latest forecast, we expect unfunded public sector pensions spending in 2022-23 to total £2.5 billion (reflecting £49.7 billion of total payments less £47.2 billion of contributions). That would represent around 0.2 per cent of total public spending, and is equivalent to £89 per household and 0.1 per cent of national income.UK public sector pensions are entirely affordable. Get over it. obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/public-service-pension-payments-net/
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2022 14:53:14 GMT
pjw1961“ UK public sector pensions are entirely affordable. Get over it. ” Well, even if that were true, they definitely all vote Labour.
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on Aug 27, 2022 14:58:31 GMT
pjw1961 “ UK public sector pensions are entirely affordable. Get over it. ” Well, even if that were true, they definitely all vote Labour. I know many that don't and that's not counting Mercian.
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