UK Politics Thread (Part 1)

Did someone say New Zealand?

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Whenever someone in London asks me if I am a Kiwi I ask them when they moved down from Scotland (Scottish people excepted of course, but they’re usually not that fucking stupid).

My thoughts go out to Frank Field and his loved ones.

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Can you summarise? It’s confusing and reading anything by Cummings leaves me feeling soiled somehow.

In short Cummings is arguing that the UK media is dominated by those on the left. If Labour were in power it could control the media as the personal views of journalists are on the left (irrespective of the paper they write for) As his example he uses a respected (and very good) journalist Peter Foster who worked for the Telegraph and now Financial times :exploding_head:

Peter Foster has been from my perspective the exemplar journalist on Brexit. A proper fact-based journalist (not someone simply offering opinion pieces). He is not anti-brexit but he is clear on financial impacts, and repercussions. He calls a spade a spade.

It would be like calling Rory Stewart or Kenneth Clarke as secretly left-wing because they dont follow the current tory values.

It looks like Cummings losing the plot. Shows he is no mastermind. Also shows anyone not 100% on board is “left”.

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Thanks. Sometimes these Twitter trails are hard to follow, especially if you don’t live in the UK

NZ to me is the most beautiful country in the world but I really don’t fancy paying 3 times more for my Roasted Duck Rice

chinese food zhong guo cai GIF

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Why over 23s? I’ve never understood this.

I’d be interested in what you think as an employment lawyer. Why should people under 23 get less money for exactly the same work?

And why should Ole get paid for even less work? :thinking:

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The reasons usually given are proficiency and competence.

A 16-year-old construction apprentice adds pretty much zero value to site - in some cases a negative value.

By 21 they should have all the skills necessary to complete the same level of work and so should be paid the same.

If you are packing tins into a box 8 hours a day, a totally unskilled task, it seems hard to justify any differences in pay.

21 for pay equity seems reasonable, 23 seems like an arbitrary figure plucked out of the air.

I think any job paying minimum wage on an hourly rate isn’t going to have any kind of recognisable experience gradient.

The kind of jobs where experience has an impact, are likely to be paying a bit more than minimum wage.

Not only does this feel like age based discrimination, it also surely open to abuse by employers. As in, find a reason to bin off your employees at 22 and get another 18 year old in. Happy days.

Good point,

Not if he’s being trained correctly!

Anyway surely a minimum wage should be just that whatever your age or job except as you point out training situations as long as there’s a valid certificate at the end of it in a well programmed scheme.

This coming from a Conservative MP who was formerly Shadow Home Secretary and then Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.

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As somebody who’s currently employing somebody under 23, because even if I burried the c@@t at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, he’d still be annoying me in 15 years.

Sorry, stress ain’t in it.