Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[The Brain]

Now not to go full Brexit - but this is striking. This also reminds me of all the moaning in the US of the lack of skilled workers. If you're not able to hire people, maybe you need to increase your wages rather than engage in special pleading for why the state should help out:

In that American context, I get really impatient when I hear companies complain that the education system isn't producing the skilled workers they need.

Now while the education system has plenty of problems...it's purpose is NOT to provide skilled workers.  If a company wants skilled workers, it is their responsibility to hire people they think would make good workers, and train them to do the work they need them-fucking-selves.

For the individual it kind of sucks to go through the education system and still not have any marketable skills.

Untold thousands of sociology graduates volunteer, and pay, for that suck every year.

Yes, special needs education is also in need of reform.

[Tamas]

Now not to go full Brexit - but this is striking. This also reminds me of all the moaning in the US of the lack of skilled workers. If you're not able to hire people, maybe you need to increase your wages rather than engage in special pleading for why the state should help out:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/01/uk-restaurants-pubs-brexit-staff-covid

The industry wants government to re-think it's approach on immigration, while analysts expect profit margins to shrink in the short term as hospitality businesses increase their pay and spend more on training. I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing.

I saw reports that companies are having to pay around £15 an hour in parts of London and the South-East - which makes that wage pretty liveable for chefs and managers.

I've always kind of hated hospitality because I worked in it for a long time. I remember being told one company is quite high end in terms of the produce it uses, the prices it charges etc so it doesn't just pay the minimum wage; it paid 75p above the minimum wage Plus lots of owners who like to pretend that we're a tipping culture which, outside restaurants, we're not. And there were issues with tips not necessarily going to the staff - it's something I still always check before I pay service charge rather than leaving cash on the table

It's really annoying because on the other hand there's lots about the sector and work that I really loved

Edit: Also unrelated to the above but this seems like a good idea:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/01/salman-rushdie-and-bernardine-evaristo-on-shortlist-for-more-diverse-exam-texts

Basically one of the exam boards is expanding their literature curriculum to be more diverse and asking teachers to vote.

With all the talk about the need for a more diverse curriculum I had a look at a few of the course specifications and my impression was history courses have far more diverse and interesting options than I expected. But I suspect teachers don't take advantage of them because it's not stuff they learned or have had training in teaching.

However English literature courses are very white - especially in the post-1900 or post-1945 strands - and need urgent modernisation. I think in the one I looked at I counted two non-white novelists, no playwrights and no poets which is beyond poor.

[Sheilbh]

In that American context, I get really impatient when I hear companies complain that the education system isn't producing the skilled workers they need.

Now while the education system has plenty of problems...it's purpose is NOT to provide skilled workers.  If a company wants skilled workers, it is their responsibility to hire people they think would make good workers, and train them to do the work they need them-fucking-selves.

Yeah. I agree - and I think education should generally work with industry to make sure that people leaving school/uni have skills but they should be those general transferable skills that you expect an education system to produce: critical thinking, general life skills about showing up and doing the work and different transferable skills depending on the type of courses that student is choosing. I also think education should actually include more on things like personal finance as a mandatory course (I remember doing it for about one week in maths GCSE).

But I think that's entirely different from the skills your specific might necessarily need; that's not the job of the education system. And if you want people with those specific skills and there's a shortage then you either need to pay more or train people.

Restaurants having trouble paying people...it's tough. In London especially the minimum wage is crap and just doesn't go far enough. But by the same token that is an industry which often does have crap profit margins as it is. A lot just won't stay in business if forced to pay twice as much, and you just know it'll be the nice ones that close.

Yeah I mean the other factors are that in London especially rents and rates are a bit of a killer - and if I wanted a pro-business tax cut I'd focus on rates not corporate tax. I also think some issues in hospitality is because private equity has taken a big interest in that sector over the last couple of decades because there's lots of growth and consumer demand. But their focus is normally on rapid expansion and cutting costs (even if that means cutting quality). I can think of numerous small-ish London restaurant chains that have gone kind of crap since taking private equity investment. My understanding is that PE is now largely backing out of hospitality and I suspect some of the chains with that type of backer could face a lot of problems.

Edit: Incidentally it's really interesting how Breit has completely scrambled the reporting on this. Like I feel if you removed Brexit and were reporting on a staff shortage, the Guardian would normally be getting more quotes from workers and seeing increased wages and training as a good thing. Here they seem a bit more sympathetic to the poor businesses

[The Larch]

Can Boris Johnson afford to be prime minister?

The PM's friends blame 'Carrie Antoinette' for the opulent refurbishment of their flat. He now faces months of painful inquiries — and fresh questions into his private finance


Two comments made by people in Downing Street as the "cash for curtains" affair intensified sum up the predicament in which Boris Johnson finds himself this weekend as he faces growing calls to spell out how the refurbishment of the flat he shares with his fiancée, Carrie Symonds, was paid for.

When the story emerged that Johnson had had to find £58,000 from his own pocket for the renovations, on top of a £30,000 annual allowance funded by the taxpayer, a No 10 aide who remains loyal to Johnson said simply: "The bottom line is that he can't afford to be prime minister."

Johnson has told friends that he needs to earn about £300,000 a year — twice his salary — to keep his head above water, while a former No 10 insider said it was "received wisdom" that he is that he is permanently broke.

[Admiral Yi]

From what I read Johnson looks very rattled at PMQs and is kind of losing his rag.

I suspect you make most of these up just to fuck with us.

[Valmy]

Now not to go full Brexit - but this is striking. This also reminds me of all the moaning in the US of the lack of skilled workers. If you're not able to hire people, maybe you need to increase your wages rather than engage in special pleading for why the state should help out:

In that American context, I get really impatient when I hear companies complain that the education system isn't producing the skilled workers they need.

Now while the education system has plenty of problems...it's purpose is NOT to provide skilled workers.  If a company wants skilled workers, it is their responsibility to hire people they think would make good workers, and train them to do the work they need them-fucking-selves.

For the individual it kind of sucks to go through the education system and still not have any marketable skills.

Well typically they not only want you to have training but years of experience doing the exact job they are hiring for. How I am supposed to be trained and be experienced for every specific job in an industry?  At least that was my experience as a power engineer, I mean education cannot design workers specialized in every specific job in an industry. That's impossible.

[Valmy]

The response was never "oh you are a licensed Professional Engineer with a good degree, you should easily be able to figure this out." It is "do you have years of experience doing this exact job" no matter how fucking easy the job. It's infuriating.

[HVC]

The response was never "oh you are a licensed Professional Engineer with a good degree, you should easily be able to figure this out." It is "do you have years of experience doing this exact job" no matter how fucking easy the job. It's infuriating.

I blame HR for that attitude. In my experience they're the gateway and usually have no real idea what the job entails so they go by the job description. If you're not an exact match they boot you.

[Sheilbh]

(Snip)

Neither of those stories are particularly surprising - he is notoriously tightfisted. He has two ex-wives and an indeterminate number of children (but at least 6).

Before he became PM he made at least £250k a year on newspaper columns, plus after dinner speaking, plus media appearances, plus the occasional book (unlike, say, Cameron - Johnson doesn't have enormous family wealth he was a scholarship boy at Eton after all). From everything I've read he never spends money but I think he has had a very pleasant life style of being wined and dined etc.

There's a famous anecdote of when he was Mayor of London one of his former editors was retiring. So lots of journalists who got their start under him decided that they'd arrange a big group dinner - £40 a head - and they asked Johnson if he wanted to join. He did and I think said a few words at the dinner. But he didn't pay the £40. So the person who'd organised it kept chasing up to try and get this money back. They didn't get it until they got in touch with his office and said that he still owed them £40 and if he didn't want to pay it then they could always earn tha money back by selling the story about the mayor to one of the gossip columns. Someone in Johnson's team repaid it the next day

On the other hand I'm actually less concerned abut him doing lobbying after office like Cameron - that looks too much like work. Plus Cameron and Osborne have no other plausible income streams/skills. Johnson I suspect will go back to earning hundreds of thousands if not millions through columns, books and after-dinner speaking. Which he'll probably need because I imagine by then he'll have married and divorced Carrie and be paying for their kid's upkeep.

I suspect you make most of these up just to fuck with us.

Lose your rag is pretty standard

[Admiral Yi]

Lose your rag is pretty standard

For characters in boys' adventure novels, or for normal people?

[Sheilbh]

For characters in boys' adventure novels, or for normal people?

Normal people

[Tonitrus]

I will testify, that I've learned at least three new, never before heard (and I live here!) Brit slang terms from Shelf's posts in only just the last week. 

[Admiral Yi]

 

Face it Shelf, you're not a real person.

[Sheilbh]

Face it Shelf, you're not a real person.

[Sheilbh]

Proud of the British people supporting our hospitality industry

Risk of pubs running dry as drinkers wrap up for outdoor pint
Breweries have been cheering as demand has gone through the roof, even before pubs can reopen their bars and snugs
Rhi Storer
Sun 2 May 2021 11.45 BST

Glasses were raised in pub gardens across the country on Saturday as revellers wrapped in thick jackets and jumpers made the most of the spring sunshine – and the beer.

Publicans and brewery owners are quietly worried about how to keep up with customers' overwhelming thirst for beer, wine and spirits in the face of supply chain issues and staff recruitment problems.

Some pub-goers are reporting visiting pubs which have sold out of beer. Richard Whitaker, 36, was enjoying a pint at the Deviant & Dandy brewery in Hackney, London, but said many pubs he had visited had sold out.

"Two days ago I was at a pub in Deptford where they sold out of beer. I was disappointed."

However, he wasn't letting the prospect of a beer shortage spoil his fun. "I'm having a great time out and about, even if the weather is unpredictable.

"It's good to see friends again. I just hope the beer doesn't run out like the other day."

According to industry analysts CGA Strategy, the first week of reopening in England saw sales at a similar level to the same week in 2019. Heineken is said to have limited sales of two of their beers, Birra Moretti and Amstel, forcing it to restrict supplies to three kegs per pub.

Tayler Connoll, from Deviant & Dandy, said: "The first week we had a brew of pale ale, and usually that would last us a couple of weeks, and going out to sales as well. Within five days it was all out. We had to get the brewer straight back in again. We don't want to be a brewery that doesn't have any beer.

"Everything is always full now. It's a good problem to have. I'd rather run out of stock because we've sold it all."

Five Points Brewery in Hackney was taken aback by the surge in demand. Jack Thomson, its accounts manager, said: "Pubs are not able to reopen properly until [later in] May, so with any outdoors space we were expecting low demand. But it's been brilliant that there has been as much demand as there has been.

"People like the experience, and the moment of being in the pub, more than they like being at home in front of the TV with a beer."

Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer & Pub Association, said: "There has been lots of enthusiasm to return to pubs, which is great news for our sector. It does mean that demand has been higher than expected.

However, she added: "There is still plenty of beer for everyone. Pub-goers can rest assured that they can still visit their local and enjoy a fresh pint."

Landlords will have a chance to restock this week. Forecasters are predicting a bank holiday washout, with heavy winds and rain expected to move in across the UK throughout the week.

Sitting in a pub garden will only appeal to the hardiest of drinkers.

The first pub I went to with friends - which we booked for drinks and food - we arrived and were told there's no food and drinks take an hour to deliver. I think pubs have underestimated how profoundly socially starved we all are