Thursday 17th March 2022

[refitman]

Morning all.

[refitman]

[gilsey]

G business live is following the story.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/li ... iness-live

[gilsey]

Meanwhile, the BoE are determined that any hint of economic recovery should be strangled at birth.

Bank of England
@bankofengland
The Monetary Policy Committee voted by a majority of 8-1 to increase #BankRate to 0.75%.

[frog222]

Some History —

“”JOSEPH MCCARTIN: By 1982, there was a group at the Wharton School that came out with a manual which encouraged business leaders to learn from the PATCO strike. And this was widely disseminated, and business leaders were reading about it.

MALONE: Suddenly, around America, strikebreaking became the thing to do. Striking copper miners in Arizona – fired. Striking paper workers in Maine – fired. Meat packers, bus drivers – so many strikes in the 1980s were broken to the point where unions realized that employers wanted them to strike so that they could fire them and replace them with non-union workers. And if you realize that your boss wants you to strike so they can fire you and rehire somebody else, that is going to make you less likely to strike, the main piece of leverage unions have.

SIMON: The government keeps track of the number of strikes. And if you look at the numbers, you see a lot of strikes right after World War II, when unions were flying high. And the numbers trend downward slowly. But suddenly, in 1982, there’s this huge drop-off. That drop-off, that is the air traffic controllers strike.” “”

I'm damn sure this would be impossible in France . Alternative solutions and prolonged negotiations involving the local prefect, ministers, unions, and of course the workers would be occupying !

[AnatolyKasparov]

Shame he doesn't have to pay the (reportedly "substantial") damages personally. A man so toxic even the Tories won't have him.

[gilsey]

I'm damn sure this would be impossible in France . Alternative solutions and prolonged negotiations involving the local prefect, ministers, unions, and of course the workers would be occupying !

I hope that continues.

There was a sea change in the 80s when big employers realised that in most countries they could do as they liked, the defunding and closure of final salary pension schemes began then and gathered speed in the 90s.
Big employers prepared to buck that trend and treat their workforce well are harder and harder to find. Thatcher's legacy.

[gilsey]

I watched BBC lunchtime news to see if they'd report it without mentioning Brexit, of course they did.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Management must have the right to manage, though!

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Rather incredibly I'm seeing Manchester City supporters defending the sacking of the entire P&O crew because the parent company DP World is owned by the Dubai sovereign wealth fund so ultimately the same people who own their football club. I wonder, does having their team bought by a oil rich state or a Russian Oligarch turn football supporters into moraly repugnant dicks or were they like that in the first place?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Management must have the right to manage, though!

Won't somebody think of the shareholders?



Josh is a city fan, just one example of the shithousery they're indulging in.

[frog222]

@Sky -- reading those morons tweets is bad for your health !

Today's 'substantial' joke --

The Telegraph has apologised and paid £40,000 in damages for falsely describing a former aide to Jeremy Corbyn as an “anti-Jewish racist” and part of the “vile antisemitism of Corbyn’s Labour”, my colleague Haroon Siddique reports.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Robert Courts the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Department for Transport wants us all to know how angry he is with P&O, he was very cross when he phoned them earlier apparently, this type of behaviour is unacceptable he exclaims. What's he going to do about it? He's going to 'signpost those workers to the DWP'.

Yeah, that'll really show the Dubai sovereign wealth fund who's boss.

Asked why his government hasn't made 'fire and rehire' illegal...tumbleweed.

[AnatolyKasparov]

@Sky -- reading those morons tweets is bad for your health !

Today's 'substantial' joke --

The Telegraph has apologised and paid £40,000 in damages for falsely describing a former aide to Jeremy Corbyn as an “anti-Jewish racist” and part of the “vile antisemitism of Corbyn’s Labour”, my colleague Haroon Siddique reports.

Already mentioned upthread, together with the identity of the absolute slug who wrote it.

[frog222]

They had new crew ready, probably bailiffs or G4S mercenaries too -

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -zoom.html

Splendid stuff ! What happened to the earlier report of masked ‘Security’ hustling crew ashore in another port ?

[frog222]

Frances O'Grady on LB --

" When an employer lays off more than 100 staff at once they must consult workers and unions in advance. And they are required to notify the secretary of state in writing in advance too. The government must urgently explain what they knew and when.

If P&O breached the law they must suffer severe consequences – with ministers increasing the legal penalties if necessary. If one employer gets away with this, every worker is at risk."

If that is true , what will Security Starmer do ?

[AnatolyKasparov]

Starmer has a decent record on workers rights tbf, I would be surprised if he does anything other than support them pretty straightforwardly.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

[refitman]

[tinyclanger2]

Very good.
Except that there's no way the Big B (or rather Big Dog) would hang his head in shame.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Didn't I read that Stringer had pulled out of appearing with Farage after the Labour whips told him to stop being a dickhead?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Suella Braverman's been let out in public! .

[AnatolyKasparov]

Answer - they're not.

And tbh Stringer isn't even really a Labour "right winger", just a crank.

[PorFavor]

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Well it took a while but eventually Suella eventually had a meltdown.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Did she mention "cultural Marxism" at all?

[PorFavor]

And it was all going so well (by her [Suella Braverman's] standards, at any rate) . . .

[Sky'sGoneOut]

QT review from Kettering. A couple of idiots in the audience but most seemed like good, decent folk.

I'll just start by saying how hugely impressed I was by Lesia Vasylenko, I'm not saying this just because she's a Ukrainian politician returning there tomorrow, but because she's an impressively articulate and intelligent woman who frankly made our own politicians look like garbage. It was heart wrenching watching her make pleas that we know won't be answered. Yet at no point did she try to pull on anyone's heart strings, she made her case with dignity and we all know she's right. We just don't want to be nuked by a fascist lunatic.

Suella Braverman on the other hand has gone from bright eyed Brexit enthusiast during her last appearance a few years ago to an angry, miserable faced Attorney General. She managed to hold it together for the first couple of questions, but once again when the subject came to refugees it all went horribly wrong. She ended up arguing against a lady in the audience who wanted to bring Ukrainain children into the UK by going on a rant about how she wouldn't allow Russian terrorists into the country, it was truly unhinged. She refused to answer Wes Streeting's direct question about Johnson ignoring security service advice over Lebedev and then at the end yammered on about Corbyn. Which as Refitman has pointed out, is a little odd.

Wes Streeting did pretty well, he skewered Braverman on refugees and Lebedev and Johnson glad handing the Saudis.

The good old Reverend Richard Cole was as humane and lovely as he always is.

And Max Hastings was a doom mongering massive crashing bore. According to him Ukraine can't win this war and is in for decades of misery and Putin's going to invade the rest of Eastern Europe and it's all because we didn't spend enough money on our military because of some quote from John F Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis or something. It was hard to tell because he went on and on, repeating himself and even promoting one of his books. Lesia Vasylenko put him in his place with a few well chosen words.

[PorFavor]

Lesia Vasylenko (who was admirable) was as knowledgable as Max Hastings, and far less pompous and longwinded - thus rendering his presence totally redundant. And he knew it.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Did she mention "cultural Marxism" at all?

It didn't come up, though claiming Ukrainian children could be terrorists was, even for her, exceptional. Back of the net.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

[PorFavor]

[PorFavor]

Night night.

[Sky'sGoneOut]