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Just to remind everyone about the current state of play in " crisis " Blighty.
- Joint-highest employment rate since 1971
- Lowest unemployment rate since 1975
- Unemployment down 100,000 in 12 months
- Record number of job vacancies
- Largest Jan budget surplus since 1993
As you were.
BBC Reality Check asked the Office for National Statistics (ONS) whether working just one hour a week was all that was needed to be officially classified as employed?The ONS confirmed that was the case.
That's true, but actually it's a very tiny proportion of workers who work one hour per week, and that definition of unemployment is the same one across the OECD countries at least. The proportion of workers working under 8 hours a week is something like 5% and that is barely changed over the last 20 years. The average number of hours worked per employee hasn't reduced and apparently even for those on zero-hours contracts the average is about 24 hours a week. The problem there is that it can vary a lot from week to week which makes it very difficult to plan for anything, get a mortgage etc
The main issue with the large job growth in the UK over the past few years is that pay hasn't increased at anything like the same rate as the number of jobs, in fact average pay adjusted for inflation is still lower than it was before the 2008 recession. Of all the EU countries I think only Greece is worse for average real terms pay growth over the past decade.
To be fair a lot of that is because of the big drop during the recession, pay has been growing in recent years and is well above the trough in 2011-12, but then we also needlessly lost a couple of years to negative real pay growth after the referendum result because of increased inflation which itself was a result of the crash in the value of the Pound following the Brexit vote.
The City of London doesn't equal London as a city or its people. Many/most of the people who live in London (and those who used to live there but have moved out in droves over the last couple of decades) are in a similar position to the rest of the UK, and they bear the brunt of the exceedingly high housing costs that the issues highlighted in that article cause more than people elsewhere in the UK. And to be fair the actual people of London voted against Brexit by a large margin, and have mostly voted against Conservative governments over the past few decades.
It's true though that if Brexit leads to a further degradation of industry (which tends to be spread around the UK) and more concentration on the finance sector (which is mostly based in London) then anybody hoping that Brexit will rebalance the economy towards areas that have been struggling will be very disappointed. It will probably just make the imbalances worse if that is the route we go down.
That's true, but actually it's a very tiny proportion of workers who work one hour per week, and that definition of unemployment is the same one across the OECD countries at least. The proportion of workers working under 8 hours a week is something like 5% and that is barely changed over the last 20 years. The average number of hours worked per employee hasn't reduced and apparently even for those on zero-hours contracts the average is about 24 hours a week. The problem there is that it can vary a lot from week to week which makes it very difficult to plan for anything, get a mortgage etc
The main issue with the large job growth in the UK over the past few years is that pay hasn't increased at anything like the same rate as the number of jobs, in fact average pay adjusted for inflation is still lower than it was before the 2008 recession. Of all the EU countries I think only Greece is worse for average real terms pay growth over the past decade.
To be fair a lot of that is because of the big drop during the recession, pay has been growing in recent years and is well above the trough in 2011-12, but then we also needlessly lost a couple of years to negative real pay growth after the referendum result because of increased inflation which itself was a result of the crash in the value of the Pound following the Brexit vote.
Zero hours contracts represent a tiny and falling number in the workforce and most people on them do not wish to work any more.
My son is a student and perfectly happy with his zero-hours bar job and so are all his mates.
Women who only wish to work part-time and seasonal workers also enjoy these contracts.
And actually in the last couple of years real wage levels have risen as employers struggle to find good people to fill vacancies.
NO. But Brexit may be the beginning of the end for NATO (at least as we know it).
As others on this thread have stated, the most likely change in focus for Britain will be towards it's natural English-speaking allies. The so-called "Five Eyes" nations (or maybe "CANZUK" ?) will draw tighter explicitly. At first, through a major trade deal with the US. Both Trump and May will be eager for some kind of feel-good deal.
Britain was the greatest obstacle blocking the EU from becoming the "United States of Europe". After Brexit is complete, Macron and Merkel will go full-steam ahead creating their united EU army. Europe will effectively become one country, which will inevitably bump heads with the US, weakening the alliance. (Think about the current Macron vs Trump situation if Macron really was the President of a united Europe) You will have 4 major power-blocs in the world: Russia, China, EU, and the English-speaking countries. This won't happen overnight, but it looks more likely than not to happen eventually.
NO. But Brexit may be the beginning of the end for NATO (at least as we know it).
As others on this thread have stated, the most likely change in focus for Britain will be towards it's natural English-speaking allies. The so-called "Five Eyes" nations (or maybe "CANZUK" ?) will draw tighter explicitly. At first, through a major trade deal with the US. Both Trump and May will be eager for some kind of feel-good deal.
Britain was the greatest obstacle blocking the EU from becoming the "United States of Europe". After Brexit is complete, Macron and Merkel will go full-steam ahead creating their united EU army. Europe will effectively become one country, which will inevitably bump heads with the US, weakening the alliance. (Think about the current Macron vs Trump situation if Macron really was the President of a united Europe) You will have 4 major power-blocs in the world: Russia, China, EU, and the English-speaking countries. This won't happen overnight, but it looks more likely than not to happen eventually.
Is this a masterplan of pure malevolence or perhaps just inevitable in a shrinking world, I'm posing the question, not expecting you to know
NO. But Brexit may be the beginning of the end for NATO (at least as we know it).
As others on this thread have stated, the most likely change in focus for Britain will be towards it's natural English-speaking allies. The so-called "Five Eyes" nations (or maybe "CANZUK" ?) will draw tighter explicitly. At first, through a major trade deal with the US. Both Trump and May will be eager for some kind of feel-good deal.
Britain was the greatest obstacle blocking the EU from becoming the "United States of Europe". After Brexit is complete, Macron and Merkel will go full-steam ahead creating their united EU army. Europe will effectively become one country, which will inevitably bump heads with the US, weakening the alliance. (Think about the current Macron vs Trump situation if Macron really was the President of a united Europe) You will have 4 major power-blocs in the world: Russia, China, EU, and the English-speaking countries. This won't happen overnight, but it looks more likely than not to happen eventually.
I see you haven’t heard of Trump’s latest hair-brained scheme - Trump wants allies to pay the full cost of hosting U.S. troops abroad 'plus 50%'. That demand will surely lead to the end of NATO:
Trump has championed the idea for months. His insistence on it almost derailed recent talks with South Korea over the status of 28,000 U.S. troops in the country when he overruled his negotiators with a note to National Security Advisor John Bolton saying, “We want cost plus 50.”
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cdnirene
I see you haven’t heard of Trump’s latest hair-brained scheme - Trump wants allies to pay the full cost of hosting U.S. troops abroad 'plus 50%'. That demand will surely lead to the end of NATO:
Oh, geeze, he probably thinks that that's a source of money for his stupid wall. The Republicans need to attempt to get it through his thick skull that he can't run this country like his crooked company.
I still think that he's incapable of giving the UK a really good trading deal, but whoever's next will get it done.
Is this a masterplan of pure malevolence or perhaps just inevitable in a shrinking world, I'm posing the question, not expecting you to know
I'm not a big believer in conspiracy theories.... I just look at what's going on and think it's a natural result. So I guess I would go with the "inevitable in a shrinking world" as you put it. We're not ready for a single global society yet, so the common sense middle-ground would be these sort of regional/cultural blocs.
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