The Political Thread

[Jim_Campbell]

Inflation continues to be very low, employment continues to be very high.

Because we haven't done anything yet. Wait until that exchange rate feeds through into raw material and energy costs.

[IndigoPrime]

Plus employment figures are bolstered by people in jobs that aren't providing enough to make ends meet (zero-hours; people taking multiple shitty jobs; self-employed averaging non-sustainable incomes), while unemployed figures are lowered by it being increasingly tricky to be classified as a 'job seeker'.

[Jim_Campbell]

Plus employment figures are bolstered by people in jobs that aren't providing enough to make ends meet (zero-hours; people taking multiple shitty jobs; self-employed averaging non-sustainable incomes), while unemployed figures are lowered by it being increasingly tricky to be classified as a 'job seeker'.

Indeed. Under-employment is a very real element in these figures. Two people wanting forty hours a week but only getting twenty are functionally equivalent to one person in full-time employment and one unemployed, but the figures only show two employed people.

[Theblazeuk]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/15/riz-ahmed-typecast-as-a-terrorist

Interesting article on the farcical nature of security and the grinding effect it has on even the relatively privileged when their face isn't the right colour.

[Professor Bear]

Indeed. Under-employment is a very real element in these figures. Two people wanting forty hours a week but only getting twenty are functionally equivalent to one person in full-time employment and one unemployed, but the figures only show two employed people.

Are these numbers calculated by tax contributions or a reduction in the number of claimed unemployment benefits over a certain period?  I only ask because I'm curious how many cash-in-hand workers pay their taxes, and how many sick and disabled people might have successfully found work since dying.

[Jim_Campbell]

Are these numbers calculated by tax contributions or a reduction in the number of claimed unemployment benefits over a certain period?  I only ask because I'm curious how many cash-in-hand workers pay their taxes, and how many sick and disabled people might have successfully found work since dying.

The stats are usually described as 'unemployed and claiming benefits' so I assume the unemployment figure is a straight count of active claimants.

[Molch-R]

"The level and rate of UK unemployment measured by the Labour Force Survey (LFS) using a definition of unemployment specified by the International Labour Organisation. Unemployed people as those without a job who have been actively seeking work in the past 4 weeks and are available to start work in the next 2 weeks. It also includes those who are out of work but have found a job and are waiting to start it in the next 2 weeks."

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment

[The Legendary Shark]

[Jim_Campbell]

Interesting article on the farcical nature of security and the grinding effect it has on even the relatively privileged when their face isn't the right colour.

[Theblazeuk]

Yup!

Being dragged off by security services at Luton airport because he appeared in a Michael Winterbottom movie about Guantanamo made me realise our side is as crap at this intelligence stuff as the Iranians were when they believed that a man publicly announced he was a secret agent on The daily show (As featured in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewater_(film))

[JayzusB.Christ]

Dublin Bus are on strike (and my scooter is out of action).  I believe in trade unions; i believe in industrial action when workers are being treated badly. 
However, Dublin bus drivers are often late, and occasionally don't turn up at all with little or no explanation.  I've seen them be needlessly rude, and even openly racist, to passengers.  The fares are extravagant, and I truly hate taking the bus.
Take your pay rise, drivers; but let it reflect the job you're doing.

[TordelBack]

I'm better disposed to Dublin Bus drivers, it's a tough job (especially over the last couple of years with the city centre a 5km long building site) and they generally do it well. I'm also a trades unions man by birth, inclination and subscription, and support people's right to seek  better pay and conditions if they can.

However the seeming rush to serious levels of strike action has seemed very harsh, especially completely drokking up Culture Night for many of us last night. The strike programme appears more driven by a desire to outdo the Luas drivers, whose messing up of the Easter centenary admittdly took some beating. A more proportionate programme might have been better received by the travelling public, and instead it feels unhappily like everyone is going through the expected motions towards an inevitable end result, and the rest of us have to suffer while well-paid men on both sides wave their willies about to justify their parasitic existence.

And I do hate the careerist Ogle on a visceral level.

[Michael Knight]

Agree with the sentiments above regarding the strike lads. I too a Union man at heart 

[Professor Bear]

Britain's most unelectable politician has won another election - much as one might be said to have won the contents of a Christmas cracker.  Many ex-Labour members have rejoined the party so they can quit in disgust at this turn of events.

[Tjm86]

As a Labour member I'm really torn on this.  On the one hand there are a lot of Corbyn's views that I think the party needs to get back to.  On the other hand I'm not convinced that he is the man for it.  Whilst he has the backing of the party membership, he also has a responsibility to the PLP as well and needs to garner their backing.  This is the real schism in the party and the politicians need to get their head around this.  They have a responsibility to their electorate, to the party members and to the PLP.  The internecine rivalry that has generated this situation has given the Tories carte blanche and they are taking advantage of it to the detriment of the nation.  Mrs May has further muddied the waters by making the sort of noises that Labour should have been making for a long time.  She now needs to be called on it in the same way that she was over Grammar schools.

The most depressing thing at the moment is that politicians of all parties really do not seem to be getting their head around the divide between their views / actions and those of the electorate in general.  We've hd this, the referendum vote and the rise of UKIP but they continue to act as if it is the population that is the problem rather than them.  Cognitive dissonance?