Saturday 9 September 2017

Weekend Roundup - All the news we didn't print




Weekend Roundup


A few items that we didn't have the time, wish or will to comment on last week.

Jeremy Corbyn and his Backers managed to persuade the media that an unofficial, unrecognised strike at a McDonald's, that has the union's coal and ink stained fingers all over it, was a clear sign that broken Britain has abandoned capitalism. Or something..

The Great Oz went on to demand a £10 an hour minimum wage for  these essential workers in a key hospitality industry. 

Somehow or other the High Sparrow must have missed this hideous, unwelcome and unwanted intrusion onto the supermarkets and high streets. 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Self_checkout_using_NCR_Fastlane_machines.jpg
Primarily caused by the rising cost of wages at a time when most other fixed costs for the industry have been falling for a decade the self serve sucker has become a thing. I expect some bright university kid to be doing the fairly easy maths to discover how many jobs have been lost in the UK since these checkouts appeared and writing a mechanisation-unemployment paper on the results.

The most infuriating thing about these self-shaft machines is that we, who are now doing the work for the multiples, don't get any discount for using them. Not even a 5p free bag. 
{unless you press the button that says 'I have my own bag' and then take them anyway. The machine doesn't know. Its a machine.}

Where is my T.U.C representative? A fair checkout's pay for a fair self pack.


In almost the same breath that the unofficial Prime Minister was getting angry about low skilled workers receiving low pay, he did a U-turn on EU membership and decided open borders with the free, unlimited, unrestricted, unchecked movement of unskilled labour is the best way to achieve that higher wage aim.
 Is there any attempt at even a mild look at cause and effect of the policies they propose at Labour HQ? 
Probably not.

David Lammy MP, had articles on a report he helped to compile in favourable media outlets complaining about the number of minority kids in jail.
 How likely they are to go to prison for drug and firearms and offences and how unlikely they are to receive jobs once they are released. And his stats on the face of it are quite shocking. 
41% of under 18's are from minority backgrounds. But 48% of all prisoners are Christians. So do they also need special treatment? The 41% stat is only 5% of all prisoners. The total stat isn't given. If it was still 41% of ALL prisoners that would be a shocker. 

HMG gives the total figures, which have not changed much since 2005, as 12-13% black. 7-8% Asian. 4% mixed race. That's still bad as 2011 census tells us that only 3-4% of the country identifies as black. 

Where Lammy says this "I expected to find the youth justice system laser-focused on this issue. Instead, I have seen large parts of the system indifferent to issues of race," he is an idiot.
Of COURSE the justice system isn't concerned about race. Justice is blind. 
There is no quota system or each minority with excess offenders being let off. 
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/labourclp27/pages/220/attachments/original/1429203192/BAME-Labour-New-Logo_%281%29.JPG?1429203192
Where he says "The disproportionate number of BAME young people in the justice system is a social time-bomb. It is beyond time to stop talking about this problem and to act" he is partly right. 
Asians making up 7-8% of the population make up 7-8% of the prison population, don't seem to be the problem.  So its more of a BME problem.

On the point of giving re-offenders a job, he might be right that only something like a tax incentive or salary payment will help.

As a young interviewer doing the choices for a shop management position I was going to propose someone with a spent criminal conviction. My boss advised against.
"Even if this person turns out to be manager of the year, you personally won't gain anything from it. No one will thank you. if they turn out to still be a criminal you have a lot of explaining to do."
The re offending rates are huge. The best risk would be a fifty-fifty. So I left it.

That said , my most senior manager was a black guy from a Croydon gang background. He always gave other BAME, and white bad news kids a chance. Always. Despite all my protestations not to do it. And he had about a 50% success rate with them. 
but I doubt this manager,  my friend, even with his gang tats and gold tooth and bandana would agree with much of where Lammy lays blame.

Feel free to comment away.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of the 100,000+ plus people employed by McDonald's, 14 went on strike.
Was all a bit of a Nothingburger that was just doughed up by the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union.

Anonymous said...

Last Night Of The Proms

Hyde Park - loads of flags, not an EU flag to be seen
Glasgow - not an EU flag to be seen (despite the Scots vote)
Swansea - loadsa flags, no EU flags
Enniskillen - no EU flags
Albert Hall - so many EU flags they got in the way of the cameras, and nearly all at the front. I know metropolitan types are more pro-EU, but the discrepancy with the Hyde Park audience is staggering. Someone spent a lot of money to get all those activists tickets.

Bill Quango MP said...

Someone spent a lot of money to get all those activists tickets
BBC ?

Of the 100,000+ plus people employed by McDonald's, 14 went on strike.
Was all a bit of a Nothingburger that was just doughed up by the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union.


odd the media went all in on it. they knew it was 'fake news' as much as we did. Yet chose to report it as if it was a real event and not a union PR piece.

Electro-Kevin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Electro-Kevin said...

"Thank EU for the music" said one banner at the Proms.

So yet again the EU appropriates credit for achievements before it even existed. One Remainer commented stupidly that Beethoven would not have been accepted in post EU Britain.

As Chopin was accepted in pre EU Britain (twice) I suspect that is a falsehood.

Anonymous said...

Handel and Herschel seemed to manage OK, not to mention Holst's forebears.

formertory said...

Splendid fellow, Lammy. Clever, well informed, a good performer. The thinker's Thinker.

Oh, wait............

Anonymous said...

re the EU flags in Albert Hall, I wonder if some of the same people arranged this - from Hitchens' The Abolition Of Britain :

"Mr Blair's actual arrival at Number Ten, choreographed in every detail by Labour Party officials, was the first example in British history of a fake spontaneous demonstration. It consisted of Labour Party headquarters staff and their families, issued with special passes to the Downing Street high-security zone, marshalled by stage-managers wearing head microphones, and handed Union Flags to wave, as if they were patriots. Such people, in fact, generally despise the
Union Flag and it would be interesting to know what arguments were used to persuade them to wave an emblem they find embarrassing and kitsch. Those few observers who had visited dictatorships and people's democracies, and realized what was going on, were disturbed as they witnessed this sinister and fraudulent event. Many reporters did not appear to notice the fraud they were watching, and so
became part of the deception."

Dick the Prick said...

Lammy's report perhaps signifies the end of the day for triangulation. Cammo asked him to do it knowing full well what he'd report, presumably with an eye to mildly torpedoing May's (lack of) grip on the Home Office. It's a shame, really, as had they given it to a guy with a brain and not a race-hustler, it could have been alright but instead it managed to fill a couple of headline slots on the Beeb and in the Graun and has already died its death.

Some cynics may think that doing Government work is almost a waste of bloody time!

dearieme said...

My wife points to an interesting discrepancy: she says the words of the songs were put up on the screen - except for Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory.

Electro-Kevin said...

The alleged poor prospects for BAMEs runs contrary to claims from the CBI that we need mass immigration to prop up our economy.

I see plenty of respectable BAMEs working hard in London so I am confused as to why second or third generation BAMEs with families secure and well established in London - often in free housing in coveted post codes - cannot take advantage of job opportunities and live wholesome, productive lives in the 'jobs creation capital of Europe'. Plenty of less advantaged new arrivals manage to do so.

Alas it is taboo to tackle the issues which cause such high rates of imprisonment for those of certain cultures - most obviously those with absent fathers; secondly the state system which takes the paternal role but does so only in funding combined with an 'anything goes' attitude at home - so mum turns up to school on the first day in the onesie she slept in and the boy in a nappy, aged 5.

In this brave new world all family arrangements are equal and now it can be a job-risking venture to argue otherwise.

Again Peter Hitchens is bang on the money today.

Thud said...

EK.Hitchens can be hit or miss and today was a hit.

Electro-Kevin said...

Thud - A Government sleight of hand is the use of the classification Not Employed, in Education or Training (NEET) to keep many youth off the unemployment stats.

"42% of all young people in the UK who were NEET were looking for work and available for work and therefore classified as unemployed. The remainder were either not looking for work and/or not available for work and therefore classified as economically inactive."

Therefore 58% of NEETs do not register.

Others are kept from the UE stats on useless degree courses.

Peter Hitchens attributes the 'need' for mass immigration on drugs abuse but I think it's probably more truthful to say that our young deem menial work as beneath them.

I never did. I cleaned toilets and shovelled shit when I had to - the 'discriminated against' next to me in the job centre declined this work (that said, when I arrived at the factory there were plenty of BAMEs working harder than me there.) If only it could be imparted on these people that taking on such work nearly always leads to better things.

Elby the Beserk said...

Rod Liddle's very funny on Lammy in y'days Sunday Times. He says that the logical conclusion of Lammy's complaint is to randomly jail white people to level the playing field. Lammy also demanded the government apologise for slavery. When he was a member of the government. Lammy also, I recall, said we shouldn't leave the EU, as Parliament was sovereign. Apparently not realising that millions of us proles voted Leave because Parliament is NOT sovereign.

Clearly, intelligence is no longer a factor in becoming an MP.

Anonymous said...

"In this brave new world all family arrangements are equal and now it can be a job-risking venture to argue otherwise."

Yes. If, say, you tried to object to the chose-to-be single parent put on accommodated easy shifts, their difficult shifts covered by you, who stayed in the two-parent arrangement.

No.

Can't be outspoken on this.

Steven_L said...

I cleaned toilets and shovelled shit when I had to - the 'discriminated against' next to me in the job centre declined this work (that said, when I arrived at the factory there were plenty of BAMEs working harder than me there.) If only it could be imparted on these people that taking on such work nearly always leads to better things.

Is this the real EK or has someone hacked his google account in order to parody him? I nearly spat my coffee all over my keyboard when I read this.

Anonymous said...

Whilst others were on the lookout for EU flags at the last night of the proms I was looking at the sea of faces. I hate to say it but I didn't spot one black face there in any of the audiences and the people appeared to be predominantly middle class and midddle aged. I found that quite depressing.

Similarly when recently watching the degrees in engineering being awarded to graduates at a middle-ranking university there were very few females (although plenty of black faces there!) and far too many firsts.

Nothing much has changed for decades in some parts of our society.

Elby the Beserk said...

Anon 12:25

There have always been far far more male than female engineers.

Maybe there's a reason for that? Despite current propaganda, men and women are better at different things. Engineering suits the male brain much better than the female brain. Get over it.

Man I'm fed up with the new Captcha. On the fifth iteration, I'm told I've lost the connection and must start again.

Bill Quango MP said...

No one on the self-serve ?

Partner's doing the shopping? Or Mr Ocado ?

Anonymous said...

Last call on the EU flags at the Proms - this morning BBC Today interviewed Adiyta(?) Chakrabarty, Guardian columnist, about the decision of the BBC to drop Rule Britannia and LOHAG from the Welsh and Scottish live shows. His thoughts (that it was OK) were what you might expect, what was interesting was that he said he attended the Albert Hall Last Night for the first time.

Tickets for the last night are gold dust, and I'm pretty sure he didn't queue for 23 hours to get his. Who gave him his ticket (and his EU flag)?

Electro-Kevin said...

Steven L

I definitely did shovel shit for a living once (Field Airmotive in Croydon)

I recognise that most BAMEs pull their weight. If you think I think otherwise then you have me wrong.

Steven_L said...

Sorry EK, it was just about the funniest paragraph I've read on the internet for a long time (admittedly from my own warped point of view / twisted sense of humour).

Electro-Kevin said...

OK Steven. I've re-read my comment and see what you mean. Of course things can only get better after that.

But seriously. Shovelling shit looks good on the CV. It helped get me a job on the railway as the work is similar in some ways. Also my police background helped - having had experience of inconveniencing the travelling public (road blocks.)

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