Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[crazy canuck]

I recall back in the noughties when I'd dream of a golden age where the Tories are dead and buried and the Lib Dems take their place as the other main party.
If only the Lib Dems had their shit in order then we could actually be heading there.

But yes. The Tories have a floor that is even harder to break than the Labour one.

The thing is - if this happened the Lib Dems would eventually be pretty much exactly like the Tories.

I can point to an example of this: British Columbia.  There wasa long-time "Conservative" Party that ruled the province for a number of years called the SoCreds.  SoCreds collapsed in scandal, leading to a left-wing NDP government.  With a giant void on the right side of the spectrum the provincial Liberals stepped in - but this pretty quickly made the Liberals the "Conservative" party in BC.

For readers who won't be able to spot the error, the BC Social Credit party was not a Conservative Party.  It was a coalition party of supporters of both the Federal Conservative and Liberal parties.  That coalition of supporters then went to the BC Liberal party which had no affiliation with the Federal liberals.  It went on to hold power for more than a decade.

That party continues to this day as the coalition party opposing the NDP.  Although it has undergone a name change.

TLDR, coalition parties do work, but beware the ideological purists.

[crazy canuck]

The thing is - if this happened the Lib Dems would eventually be pretty much exactly like the Tories.

I can point to an example of this: British Columbia.  There wasa long-time "Conservative" Party that ruled the province for a number of years called the SoCreds.  SoCreds collapsed in scandal, leading to a left-wing NDP government.  With a giant void on the right side of the spectrum the provincial Liberals stepped in - but this pretty quickly made the Liberals the "Conservative" party in BC.

My understanding is that ex-SoCred folks directly took over the BC Liberal party. It's not that the BC Libs "stepped in", it's that the SoCreds continued as they were, wearing the skin of the BC Liberal party which they took over after the collapse of the SoCreds.

That's not the only place BB goes wrong. The BC social credit party included federal liberals. The coalition just moved to a new brand after the Social Credit brand became tainted.

And now the coalition party is moving to another new brand after another tainting.  Although this move has not been very smooth.  And the Conservative part of the coalition seems to be bolting for a Conservative Party.   BC might to undergoing its own Reform moment and the NDP could not be happier.

[Sheilbh]

Maybe. But at the same time we've we're rapidly toppling over the pit into a trades black hole. The last people to qualify over the apprenticeship system are hitting retirement age right now. Over the 80s we were training basically nobody and then when we realised this and started it again the numbers just weren't enough.

We need to increase the numbers of apprenticeships for sure. Although, again, the lines are blurrier now - for example when I was in a lawfirm I was a mentor for a solicitor apprentice, they will get a law degree but came straight out of school on an apprenticeship route. There's similar schemes in IT, accountancy, education etc.

I think we are at about 10-20% of the government's target for number of apprentices.

But with trades I also slightly wonder about perhaps sector specific issues. I've said before but the UK has an incredibly fragmented construction and trades sector with well over 50% being micro-enterprises (low turnover and 10 or fewer employees). I feel like consolidation would possibly increase the number of apprenticeships - I also feel like there could be a role for something like a UCAS for apprenticeships with a single space advertising them all.

I also have read that they have a real problem attracting women and minority applicants and again I wonder if there's possibly something for that industry/sector to look at. I think there's been good work on increasing diversity in, say, IT or engineering - and I feel like something similar might be worth looking at (but again really difficult with lots of very small businesses).

Fair enough to say we're a services economy so lots of people with humanities degrees is exactly what we need... but we also need builders.
And when many of these degree educated people are earning 30k a year in call centres vs. 70k a year for a decent plumber....It is in the best interest of many of them for this to be more of an even choice.

But again you've immediately slipped into Sir Gavin Williamson territory

My point was that 75% of university students are studying degrees that I think are vocational in a service based economy: law, medical professions, accountancy, business (this doesn't include creative arts courses either). And you've straight away read that as "not really vocational" and basically humanities.

Our biggest export sector is unidentified professional services which the FT did some digging in and worked out was largely consultancy. Those business degrees aren't loads of "humanities" students - they're our equivalent of highly skilled workers in the Mittelstand.

Honestly I'd go further than domestic students and have spots for local students. The town and gown divide you see in places like Durham is just insane.
I loved that in Uppsala going to one of the top universities in Scandinavia was something locals would just casually decide to do without much stress over it.

No Maybe if we had regional universities like a US state system - I feel like the University of London is probably the closest to that?

Incidentally another place I think the UK system sucks and needs smashing- the way you broadly decide what you're going to study at 16 and then are really railroaded into it at 18 and then after you've left uni going back and doing any education is a really weird and special thing to do.
We should have things a lot more open to do a course here and there and cobble together degrees.

Speak for England. It's not a thing in Scotland where you do more highers and there is more openness to changing degrees or doing a major/minor thing. I agree, I know Gove has supported it but I think moving to something like the IB would be better - and I think there should be more flexibility once you're in university, possibly like in the US.

And I don't know about not doing any education again. I know loads of people who are older and going back to study - and it's something I want to do at some point although it's time and money depending so probably never

[Sheilbh]

In big news at the moment, the Tory defection is pretty dodgy.

So the Tory whips have clearly dumped a lot on the Sunday Times over her. I'm not sure it fully works - and I feel in part it must be trying to warn off any other possible defectors.

On the other hand this Telegraph story is too perfect to be true - inevitably it is possible it's all about a planning dispute

bat020
@bat020
"It has also emerged that Ms Elphicke is seeking planning permission to convert a garage she owns in Dover into a two-storey house, and needs the support of the Labour-run local council to overrule objections from neighbours."

The proposal:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/10/sue-gray-faces-questions-role-natalie-elphicke/
Love the opening line "questions to answer" about "turncoat MP"

[Zanza]

Our biggest export sector is unidentified professional services which the FT did some digging in and worked out was largely consultancy. Those business degrees aren't loads of "humanities" students - they're our equivalent of highly skilled workers in the Mittelstand.

One of these services is apparently recruiters headhunting for specialists / managers. I get calls or LinkedIn contacts fairly often from England, but these people always seems to be fairly clueless about everything. They do not seem qualified to actually find fitting people for the roles. I guess it is always contingent on actual success, so it does not matter much for the potential employer that this service sucks.

[Sheilbh]

Estate agents of souls They don't require a degree.

And yeah my experience is very mixed (there's a large specialist legal recruitment sector). I have been recruited by a recruitment consultant and there has been use in them bringing roles I wouldn't necessarily have known about to me and seemed to tailor what they phoned about to what I said I might be interested in. Others were basically just scatter gun.

As you say though it's all based on success fees all the way down, just like estate agents. I suspect the headhunters who are actually paid to find x specific person are a bit more skilled/targeted in their approach.

[Tamas]

I talked to a lot of recruiters for a few years and apart from maybe two exceptions they were utterly useless  at what they were supposed to be doing, even if they were nice people (most of them weren't).


BTW as hilarious as the planning permit angle is, I think it was a serious own goal letting this woman switch to Labour. She will smear Tory all over Labour news for who knows how long.

[Josquius]

We need to increase the numbers of apprenticeships for sure. Although, again, the lines are blurrier now - for example when I was in a lawfirm I was a mentor for a solicitor apprentice, they will get a law degree but came straight out of school on an apprenticeship route. There's similar schemes in IT, accountancy, education etc.

I think we are at about 10-20% of the government's target for number of apprentices.

Oh yeah. They definitely exist but in pretty pathetic numbers.
It is a common populist chant from old folk out of touch with the real world - "you shouldn't just hire foreigners. You should train up local kids instead! "
Which... Aye. Naiive in the extreme. I completely understand why companies tend not to do this. Do it and your less socially conscious competitors can just use the money saved not training to poach any good people you've trained or hire in people ready to go without having to wait years for them to skill up.
I do think this is where it works well with trades and less academic stuff, as very often a lot of the work is just about having an extra body to help with the heavy stuff. Apprentices aren't just a drain as they can be in professional jobs.

But with trades I also slightly wonder about perhaps sector specific issues. I've said before but the UK has an incredibly fragmented construction and trades sector with well over 50% being micro-enterprises (low turnover and 10 or fewer employees). I feel like consolidation would possibly increase the number of apprenticeships - I also feel like there could be a role for something like a UCAS for apprenticeships with a single space advertising them all.

That would definitely help. I've regularly heard of people looking for apprenticeships and having no clue where to start, basically just asking if anyone knows anyone.

I also have read that they have a real problem attracting women and minority applicants and again I wonder if there's possibly something for that industry/sector to look at. I think there's been good work on increasing diversity in, say, IT or engineering - and I feel like something similar might be worth looking at (but again really difficult with lots of very small businesses).

The women thing is a problem.
My joiner-dad had a female apprentice a decade or so back.
I've heard tell she has had big trouble getting work since with a lot of management saying amongst themselves "so if we have a woman on site then we would need an extra toilet and a special bin for pads and all that. It's just extra trouble"
Considering exactly following the rules is rare in that industry... They're keen to avoid being stuck to them.
Illegal and discriminatory and shit but I do get their reasoning within their own thought process. I suspect the solution can't just lie in threats for discrimination.

But again you've immediately slipped into Sir Gavin Williamson territory

My point was that 75% of university students are studying degrees that I think are vocational in a service based economy: law, medical professions, accountancy, business (this doesn't include creative arts courses either). And you've straight away read that as "not really vocational" and basically humanities.

Our biggest export sector is unidentified professional services which the FT did some digging in and worked out was largely consultancy. Those business degrees aren't loads of "humanities" students - they're our equivalent of highly skilled workers in the Mittelstand.

And you've slipped into just looking at the higher end.
There's tonnes of graduates out there in call centres and other low paid white collar work.
Yes, in terms of overall export value to the economy it's services that really do it. But how many people actually work in this top end consulting place?
There's a whole economy of less immediately rewarding not particularly exportable work providing a foundation behind this, which is suffering.

And I don't know about not doing any education again. I know loads of people who are older and going back to study - and it's something I want to do at some point although it's time and money depending so probably never

In the UK I don't know anyone (well. Garbon? Ish?) unless it's someone making a big conscious career switch.
The cost is a huge part of it absolutely.
But then just signing on to do a course at a local uni is a pita. Admissions are very focussed on this yearly cycle for whole degrees.
Pre brexit I did quite a few courses over the years with Swedish unis. The only thing hindering me being the low number of remote courses that were relevant and I was qualified for (Swedish being a key thing missing) . If it was local and in my language....

[viper37]

North Yorkshire apostrophe fans demand road signs with nowt taken out

Council says punctuation mark must go to suit computer databases, but grammar purists see signs of falling standards 


A council has provoked the wrath of residents and linguists alike after announcing it would ban apostrophes on street signs to avoid problems with computer systems.

North Yorkshire council is ditching the punctuation point after careful consideration, saying it can affect geographical databases.

The council said all new street signs would be produced without one, regardless of whether they were used in the past.

Some residents expressed reservations about removing the apostrophes, and said it risked "everything going downhill". They urged the authority to retain them.

Sam, a postal worker in Harrogate, a spa town in North Yorkshire, told the BBC that signs missing an apostrophe – such as the nearby St Mary's Walk sign that had been erected in the town without it – infuriated her.
"I walk past the sign every day and it riles my blood to see inappropriate grammar or punctuation," she said.

Though the updated St Mary's sign had no apostrophe, someone had graffitied an apostrophe back on to the sign with a marker pen, which the former teacher said was "brilliant".

She suggested the council was providing a bad example to children who spend a long time learning the basics of grammar only to see it not being used correctly on street signs.

Dr Ellie Rye, a lecturer in English language and linguistics at the University of York, said apostrophes were a relatively new invention in our writing and, often, context allows people to understand their meaning.

"If I say I live on St Mary's Walk, we're expecting a street name or an address of some kind."

She said the change would matter to people who spend a long time teaching how we write English but that it was "less important in [verbal] communication".

North Yorkshire council said it was not the first to opt to "eliminate" the apostrophe from street signs. Cambridge city council had done the same, before it bowed to pressure and reinstated the apostrophe after complaints from campaigners.

There was also an outcry from residents when Mid Devon district council considered making it a policy to do away with apostrophes to "avoid potential confusion".

A spokesperson from North Yorkshire council added: "All punctuation will be considered but avoided where possible because street names and addresses, when stored in databases, must meet the standards set out in BS7666.
"This restricts the use of punctuation marks and special characters (eg apostrophes, hyphens and ampersands) to avoid potential problems when searching the databases as these characters have specific meanings in computer systems."

[Sheilbh]

Oh yeah. They definitely exist but in pretty pathetic numbers.
It is a common populist chant from old folk out of touch with the real world - "you shouldn't just hire foreigners. You should train up local kids instead! "
Which... Aye. Naiive in the extreme. I completely understand why companies tend not to do this. Do it and your less socially conscious competitors can just use the money saved not training to poach any good people you've trained or hire in people ready to go without having to wait years for them to skill up.
I do think this is where it works well with trades and less academic stuff, as very often a lot of the work is just about having an extra body to help with the heavy stuff. Apprentices aren't just a drain as they can be in professional jobs.

I think it works very well with vocational areas - which includes law, accountancy. I'd also welcome nursing and teaching going back to having a purely vocational route.

There are big tax benefits for having an apprenticeship scheme which is part of why law and accountancy firms have invested into it.

But is a different type of route and needs resourcing from the company and a bit of thinking about how to make it work.

That would definitely help. I've regularly heard of people looking for apprenticeships and having no clue where to start, basically just asking if anyone knows anyone.
[...]
The women thing is a problem.
My joiner-dad had a female apprentice a decade or so back.
I've heard tell she has had big trouble getting work since with a lot of management saying amongst themselves "so if we have a woman on site then we would need an extra toilet and a special bin for pads and all that. It's just extra trouble"
Considering exactly following the rules is rare in that industry... They're keen to avoid being stuck to them.
Illegal and discriminatory and shit but I do get their reasoning within their own thought process. I suspect the solution can't just lie in threats for discrimination.

Yeah and as I say I think this would be helped by a more consolidated industry. I'm not sure how you encourage that though.

And you've slipped into just looking at the higher end.
There's tonnes of graduates out there in call centres and other low paid white collar work.
Yes, in terms of overall export value to the economy it's services that really do it. But how many people actually work in this top end consulting place?
There's a whole economy of less immediately rewarding not particularly exportable work providing a foundation behind this, which is suffering.

Not really. My point is that higher education is shaped by our economic structure and people are doing vocational degrees because there's demand from both sides for it - and are in every other sector. The reason 75% of students are doing law, accountancy, business, medical professions is because our big exporters are professional services and (as everywhere else in the West) healthcare is also a sector with a lot of demand for graduates. It's not culture and we can't just magic that economy into something else (I'm not sure we should necessarily want to either).

Call centres typically don't require degrees - as I say this is the Tory line of higher education churning out people with shit degrees going into shit jobs and it's not really true. It's people doing pretty useful degrees and going into everyday jobs. All of the administration and management and project management etc in the NHS, all across the civil service, in every big-ish company (it's just we also export it as consultancy). But the reality is the vast majority of students are not doing Media Studies and then ending up trapped in a call centre they're vastly overqualified for. That's a tabloid stereotype.

In the UK I don't know anyone (well. Garbon? Ish?) unless it's someone making a big conscious career switch.
The cost is a huge part of it absolutely.
But then just signing on to do a course at a local uni is a pita. Admissions are very focussed on this yearly cycle for whole degrees.
Pre brexit I did quite a few courses over the years with Swedish unis. The only thing hindering me being the low number of remote courses that were relevant and I was qualified for (Swedish being a key thing missing) . If it was local and in my language....

Universities normally run all sorts of short courses and certificates, same for FE colleges (which are funded by local councils so fucked). But looking up stats and apparently 44% of adults in the UK have taken part in some sort of formal learning in the last three years and 55% of full-time workers are doing it right now.

It looks more common as you get older (wealth and, I suspect, kids growing up probably being key factors) and there's a big socio-economic split.

[garbon]

University here is pretty cheap...all things being relative. 

[crazy canuck]

The biggest factor in adults obtaining more education is that our economy has been transitioning away from resource extraction for some time.

But even younger people continue with training after university.  At the British Columbia Institute of Technology, our largest vocational training institution, over 80% of it's graduates already have a university degree.

[Josquius]

Yeah and as I say I think this would be helped by a more consolidated industry. I'm not sure how you encourage that though.

Is this another area where we curse Thatcher?
Small entrepreneur's, white van man, etc... it has those vibes.
I don't know nearly enough of the history of the industry to say anything with authority on that but I do wonder how the number of sole traders has changed with time. Strikes me as something where the mid 20th century might have seen some consolidation which then reversed?
Purely guessing.

I do hear anecdotally its going very much the other way at the moment, with the decline in trade numbers increasing the money to be earned and slashing the risk of self employment, quite a lot of trades people I know are taking that path.

Things aren't helped from the fact a lot of the big companies employ people who are rather shit and more expensive than small ones. It seems very franchise oriented.

Not really. My point is that higher education is shaped by our economic structure and people are doing vocational degrees because there's demand from both sides for it - and are in every other sector. The reason 75% of students are doing law, accountancy, business, medical professions is because our big exporters are professional services and (as everywhere else in the West) healthcare is also a sector with a lot of demand for graduates. It's not culture and we can't just magic that economy into something else (I'm not sure we should necessarily want to either).

Call centres typically don't require degrees - as I say this is the Tory line of higher education churning out people with shit degrees going into shit jobs and it's not really true. It's people doing pretty useful degrees and going into everyday jobs. All of the administration and management and project management etc in the NHS, all across the civil service, in every big-ish company (it's just we also export it as consultancy). But the reality is the vast majority of students are not doing Media Studies and then ending up trapped in a call centre they're vastly overqualified for. That's a tabloid stereotype.

Not sure I'm reading what you're saying here right- 75% of students are doing these subjects you mentioned? Where'd you get this? That seems crazily high even considering you're grouping a few big ones.

I  know tonnes of people who went to uni and ended up in low grade white collar work like call centres and the like. My dad's current apprentice is a 30 year old guy with an English Lit degree who hadn't really done well in the professional world.

Shit degree is an exaggeration. All education from reputable unis has value. Even just learning how to think and analyse sources and stuff like that has big practical uses in the real world. But is university the right choice for every single person who goes? Will they all get value from their degree or are they just going into it as its the expected path?
Conversely for those who do have more of a practical inclination- are they aware there's university courses offering this sort of thing or do they think its all just school mark 2?

As I say my thoughts in this area aren't about the overall national economy but the working class kids losing out and how we can improve things there.

Universities normally run all sorts of short courses and certificates, same for FE colleges (which are funded by local councils so fucked). But looking up stats and apparently 44% of adults in the UK have taken part in some sort of formal learning in the last three years and 55% of full-time workers are doing it right now.

It looks more common as you get older (wealth and, I suspect, kids growing up probably being key factors) and there's a big socio-economic split.

That's amazingly high.
Though from the wording, I suspect this includes stuff like training at work and informal stuff like google certificates et al?

[Sheilbh]

The biggest factor in adults obtaining more education is that our economy has been transitioning away from resource extraction for some time.

But even younger people continue with training after university.  At the British Columbia Institute of Technology, our largest vocational training institution, over 80% of it's graduates already have a university degree.

Don't know if it's as high here - but similarly people who have already done a further or higher education course are far more likely to be in some form of training or education as an adult.

As I say I think one of the trends is simply that the clear boundary between vocational and academic education is increasingly blurry.

Now having said all of that and the funding challenges - there is a huge amount of pressure on staff in all of this (not least because we've gone from  and around what a university or further education college is for. And I think there is a wider question of what higher and further education look like in the future - how you balance research, study, community work.

My instinct which is closer to Jos' and far more radical would be that you perhaps separate them out a bit and move a lot of the research focused universities to post-grad only but affiliated with institutions (universities, further education colleges etc) who award degrees or do short courses. Plus I love the idea of every adult getting an education budget/voucher they can use.

University here is pretty cheap...all things being relative. 

Big factor there must be that they're basically all public so...

Is this another area where we curse Thatcher?
Small entrepreneur's, white van man, etc... it has those vibes.
I don't know nearly enough of the history of the industry to say anything with authority on that but I do wonder how the number of sole traders has changed with time. Strikes me as something where the mid 20th century might have seen some consolidation which then reversed?
Purely guessing.

I do hear anecdotally its going very much the other way at the moment, with the decline in trade numbers increasing the money to be earned and slashing the risk of self employment, quite a lot of trades people I know are taking that path.

Things aren't helped from the fact a lot of the big companies employ people who are rather shit and more expensive than small ones. It seems very franchise oriented.

I'm not sure. I remember reading about it and it was really striking how much higher the proportion of micro-enterprises was in the UK compared with any other European country.

I wonder if in part it's a bit like with how planning more generally impacts the sector? In the UK there are very large developers who do a lot of it because you need to be very large to take the risk of the process. It's uncertain, it can drag on unpredictably and it can be expensive - so ultimately you need size as a business to bear that risk and you probably need a large volume of projects going through at any time. At the same time that also means you probably need flexibility around construction workers and tradespeople - so it makes sense to contract out (which also reduces risk) and flexibly with self-employed/micro-enterprises. Perhaps if there was more predictability and certainty in the system smaller developers could take the risk and, for developers, it'd be more useful to have the predictable but less flexible contractors who can provide all the workers you need (which again, is predictable and likely to happen at the time planned)?

Not sure I'm reading what you're saying here right- 75% of students are doing these subjects you mentioned? Where'd you get this? That seems crazily high even considering you're grouping a few big ones.

Yes - it's from Sam Freedman who's an education policy wonk. Those are the examples he gives but the point was more 75% are doing what are in effect "vocational" or "professional" degrees.

Incidentally I think it's probably linked to where education is a bit like your Swedish example, which is minority students and working class students. Those groups are significantly more likely to choose more vocational/professional subjects than average. But are also more likely than most other groups to study at their "local" university where they can stay at home, even if they are less selective.

While, say, privately educated kids are more likely to go to the most selective universities but also most likely to study less "vocational" courses like foreign languages (significantly more likely), history, philosophy, geography and politics. The only "vocational" degree that the privately educated do more than average is medicine - it's a really striking contrast with law which is more popular with the bottom and second quintile and less popular with the top and fourth (and the privately educated). My suspicion is that's at least in part because the richer kids do a conversion course - law firms are getting better on diversity, particularly at recruitment but barristers are quite far behind.

Shit degree is an exaggeration. All education from reputable unis has value. Even just learning how to think and analyse sources and stuff like that has big practical uses in the real world. But is university the right choice for every single person who goes? Will they all get value from their degree or are they just going into it as its the expected path?
Conversely for those who do have more of a practical inclination- are they aware there's university courses offering this sort of thing or do they think its all just school mark 2?

As I say my thoughts in this area aren't about the overall national economy but the working class kids losing out and how we can improve things there.

My thoughts are basically that this is a sector where the UK is good in international comparisons, so it's one we should be focusing on and improving if we want to see (as Starmer needs) stronger growth. It is also broadly speaking an engine of social mobility and it's positive that about 60% of young people are going to university which is one of the highest rates in Europe (with Ireland - another services heavy economy) and comparable with Canada and South Korea.

But also that the nature of higher education is more structured by our economy than it structures it. There may be a case for a long terms strategic focus in ensuring that there are certain industries in the UK which would, in turn, sustain the education/training necessary for that sector (I can think of a few like nuclear). There are cases where we should probably subsidise the whole chain from training to work.

But treating that as a "higher education" issue and trying to shift the types of courses or qualifications available or commonly gone into seems like a fools errand if our economy there aren't sectors of the economy to qualify into or work available. And also I think there is a risk of it turning into a "know your place" style policy closing off more possibilities for working class kids than it opens up.

[Sheilbh]

Obviously very early days. But - yikes
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/priti-patel-next-leader-tory-party-rishi-sunak-general-election

Wildly unpopular (including, according to ConservativeHome polls, with Tory activists), more baggage than the QE2, pretty unpleasant - and yet, somehow, not their worst option. Which rather sums up the situation for them.

I think still will probably be Badenoch or, possibly, Cleverly as the unity/safe pair of hands candidate. But a lot will depend on who the remaining MPs are and I think many of the more head-banging MPs are actually in relatively vulnerable seats.

Edit: Although who is still an MP will matter I'd still fully expect them to go through a lunatic/"no compromise with the electorate" phase - like Labour under Foot or Corbyn, or the Tories under Hague (sort of) and IDS before they start moving towards someone electable again.