The Conservatives can be ignored. Naturally they hate the unions but would also be split over their anti-immigration yet pro free-trade stance. So other than take lame pot-shots at the government they’ll have nothing ideologically consistent to say.

.
Wrong . Conservatives understand and respect the old unions because , unlike you ,we both value loyalty . In any case ,so what ,this is not a child’s meeja game . “ Don`t worry about being unemployed ,Sunny Hudal has found a good anti Tory spin…” great . You have done nothing but attack this country a country which is only “Many identities “ as you would put it, anyway . For some of us it is not fancy dress and we will place our fellow countrymen first before foreigners whether of not we disagree on the relatively footling matter of politics . The Conservative Party believes in free trade but not granting foreigners equal access to jobs home , welfare or anything else about our country because it is our country not theirs . Clear ?
On the Unions you can stick ideological consistency into your darkest fundament. Yes we disagree with the Unions holding the rest of the country to ransom . We entirely agree with their right to protect their members jobs from the vile internationalist schemes of the arrogant elite for whom they pay and on whose backs their pointless establishment lackey jobs are built .
These are people not gnats , they cannot ditch solid jobs for which they are qualified and uproot their family to go grape picking in France . Labour `s sophist chaterers have never understood that the working class is not one thing and much of it has highly skilled jobs which are as not transferable .This is what gives countries comparative advantages which makes free trade in goods and services worthwhile in the first place .
If I could be bothered I could quite simply make an ideologically consistent case that would stand up against people who have only read about work . Its hardly the point

Yep, Sunny, you’re absolutely right.

To add to your case studies, you can take examples like careworkers who have reported to me that their private sector employers have taken trips to countries where they hoped to recruit people who would take lesser wages and conditions.

Their concerns about this were not racist – simply that their terms and conditions would be undercut so badly by workers brought in this way that they wouldn’t be able to live on comparable wages.

I think this government has been a bit cute, trying to pass privatisation and worsening conditions off as the slightly more positive globalisation of economies.

The problem that trade unions face now, and I’ve wrote about it myself yesterday:

http://hangbitch.com/node/195

is that these strikes seem to be taking place outside trade union structures. It may be that people are so concerned about their jobs now that they have lost patience with slow trade union processes (balloting for strike action, having to provide notice to employers, getting permission from strike committees, etc), that they’re taking matters into their own hands.

Trade unions are so hamstrung by anti union laws that they can’t move quickly enough to deal with the concerns that people have. It’ll be very interesting to see what happens if people are taking the law into their own hands and you’re right – the government ignores the passion and anger that motivates that sort of direct action at its peril. They can control unions with threats of fines for illegal actions, but it’ll be a hell of a lot harder to control thousands of people who’ve decided to go for it off their own bat.

Sunny, your solution is… ?

If we have free movement of workers within the EU, then situations like this are inevitable. They are, as a software developer would say, ‘features’ rather than ‘bugs’. This is meant to happen. As for whether or not people give a flying fuck, that is neither here nor there; the law is the law.

What is emphatically not meant to happen is a situation where British workers are unable to find work at all, where they lack the training or education necessary, or where they are prevented by some other means from being able to win work.

Successive British governments have denigrated the importance of manufacturing and engineering work, regarding it as an unfortunate legacy that needs to undergo a ‘managed decline’ – quite possibly this is an artifact of the post-imperialist mindset that has blighted the imagination of British society. Our education system is geared entirely towards awarding academic degrees, with scarcely a thought for the fact that such qualifications are of little use for many of their recipients. Those who don’t go to university are looked down upon unfairly.

Manufacturing, far from being a dead industry, is flourishing in many parts of the world. Innovation continues at a great pace. The leading manufacturing practices of the day, such as lean manufacturing, do place a huge emphasis on efficiency and reducing waste, but there’s also a strong emphasis in practice and theory on the idea of retraining workers when their existing roles become obsolete. I was at a Manufacturing Institute event a few months ago and all of the speakers – consultants and managers, generally – were clear in saying that a skilled, engaged workforce is crucial. Their difficulty was in finding people who were capable of doing the jobs!

I don’t see anyone talking about how to deal with the fact that, actually, there’s no good reason at all why Britain can’t have a strong manufacturing sector. Everyone seems intent on making excuses for failure and making those who lose their jobs feel better about it. That Barack Obama has another fine set of phrases to “address people’s concerns” is bloody irrelevant. So did Tony Blair 10 years ago, and what good did that ever do anyone? Let’s hold off praising Obama until we see some policy and some long-term commitments.

If we want to reverse the present situation, it will require change to the education system and some long-term work to change attitudes and train people up. There’s certainly no quick fix, and the idea that this problem can be solved by some fancy media footwork is silly. Pandering to the BNP agenda won’t solve anything either.

If Britain had produced a highly skilled workforce such as Germany then we would be in a much better position. In Germany , as a generalisation, Germans undertook better paid skilled jobs while immigrants undertook poorer paid unskilled jobs. Consequently Germans and immmigrants were not competing for the same un/semi-skilled jobs. If one looks at the middle to top range Italian fashion and goods industries( located in the North) , then the work is undertaken by highly skiled Italians working in family run firms. In Britain , because we are not prepared to spend the same amount on better quality clothes we do not support an industry which is of sufficient size to be able to export it’s goods.

We can only compete if we produce high quality goods the the rest of World wants to buy. Look at the success of Porche. The cost of living in the UK makes it impossible to compete with poorer paid people from Portugal or s Italy undertaking unskilled o semi skilled work.

The unskilled and semi skilled unions have only being a brake on trying to move the unskilled and semi-skilled classes into a skilled working force as they would lose members. The craft unions have lost out in the power struggle with the un skilled and semi skilled unions.

Take rowing as an example . The UK was unable to win until it imported a East German coach who developed a training programme which was far more comprehensive and rigorous in it’s scope than anything else in the World. The same rigour to training which has made our rowing, sailing, swimming and cycling teams so successful in the last Olympics now has to be applied to the technical education and training of this country. As they say in boxing ” Train hard, fight easy.”

2. Rob Knight. Excellent piece. Totally agree.

> That Barack Obama has another fine set of phrases to “address people’s concerns” is bloody irrelevant. So did Tony Blair 10 years ago, and what good did that ever do anyone?

I think you’re missing the symbolic importance of Obama saying that. No US president since FDR has given such an explicit endorsement of the labour movement (and I don’t believe Blair ever would have done either).

No, it’s the symbolic importance that makes me dubious of its importance in the real world. If all that’s needed to impress people is to say the right things, why bother going further? I’m sorry to say this, because I know that Obama is Santa Claus for adults, but what he says is irrelevant, it’s what he does that matters. No amount of symbolism is going to create jobs or improve education.

Manufacturing, far from being a dead industry, is flourishing in many parts of the world. Innovation continues at a great pace

It is flourishing here “British manufacturing exports are worth six times as much as financial services exports
(Prospect)”

R Knight has the problem right but not the solution. The thing that makes trade worth having is that different areas build up skills and infra structure in different areas of production . As anyone who ahs done a real job knows it takes years to be able to do it well , training and “education” cannot supply this , protecting people from international Capitalism can . I do not favour the German solution of having second class citizens as Gastarbeiter , this would not work in our relatively open country which already has a huge illegal immigration problem .
We simply need to see settled communities and industries as valuable . We do not let foreigners buy up Sussex Churches and turn them into car parks because the market says so , we subsidise farms because their investment is generations long . We must similiarly protect British skills and infra structure , up to a point .
There is only one solution , control our borders , control our country and trade with other countries in good s and services which is all anyone thought we were doing the only time we have been asked
It was of course the Unions who resisted the Heath administrations shocking betrayal (Heath on Europe 1973 )“ There are some people who fear that in going in to Europe we shall in some way sacrifice independence and sovereignty .These fears , I need hardly day , are completely unjustified”. He had read the Werner report which correctly foretold a “ massive transfer of powers from national centres if decision “ and he knew precisely what he was really doing .

There is of course a balance to be struck but let us do a deal that suits us , not Germany and the tribes of parasitical Euro Empire builders. Its interesting to see the Unions and the right once again uniting to protect the country as they did over the so called Common Market ( In the persons of One A Benn and one E Powell)

If we have free movement of workers within the EU, then situations like this are inevitable. They are, as a software developer would say, ‘features’ rather than ‘bugs’. This is meant to happen.

Rob, in the short term more power to unions to stop companies from doing this so easily.

Over the longer term – yes, we need to talk about manufacturing and we need to talk about skills.

As for Barack Obama’s words – as Marcus says the President has been one of the few in recent decades to aligg himself so closely to the labour movement.

Furthermore, if you look at the article I linked to, he’s already signed in a few laws to that effect which the unions were pressing for. So it’s not just rhetoric he’s actually done it.

Rob, in the short term more power to unions to stop companies from doing this so easily.

What about the 80% who are not unionised ? Are they expendable because they do not pay the Labour Party protection money .Thought hard about this have you ? Training .. Useless . In house apprenticeships maybe , but how do you run them when there is no-one left there to do it . We need to control our own country and anyone who think Germans will refuse to let us buy their BMW`s as a result is a sad strange little person who has my pity

“Rob, in the short term more power to unions to stop companies from doing this so easily.”

So it becomes a battle of who shouts the loudest in the back-room’s rather than skills? How is that any better?

Brown has handled this completely wrong, no doubt about that, but the essence of his argument is absolutely correct. Once you start undermining the ability for a company that (allegedly) is not undercutting the national minimum wage to compete naturally for a contract in a free movement of workers you’re treading a really rocky path.

you’re treading a really rocky path.

A rocky path for who? The workers? Local communities? They’re shafted aren’t they?

So it becomes a battle of who shouts the loudest in the back-room’s rather than skills?

As I said, there needs to be a discussion of skills over the longer term anyway, although I don’t think the government has exactly avoided that discussion over the past decade. I’d be interested in knowing how they should do things differently on that matter.

(Lee @ 11) Once you start undermining the ability for a company that (allegedly) is not undercutting the national minimum wage to compete naturally for a contract in a free movement of workers you’re treading a really rocky path.

A rocky path for who? The workers? Local communities? They’re shafted aren’t they?

Immigrants? Those are the people who benefit most from free movement and have the most to lose from seeing it undermined. In fact, if we can now decide that free movement is a bad thing, perhaps we might start to think that all of those people who have already come here in the last few years shouldn’t have been allowed in. And hey, maybe we might want to go a little further back than just the last few years…

Like I said earlier, free movement is non-negotiable and I don’t care how many people want to wave placards or get upset about it.

Sunny, are you really arguing that the unions should have been able to “stop companies from doing this”, where “this” means “employ foreign workers”?

12. Sunny Hundal . How about looking at the education system. We ban competitive sports from schools , allow children to drift through an education system where excellence is considered elitist and then ridiculed. We then wonder why they lack the drive to persue excellence when to comes to obtaining a technical skill and thrive in industry. Look at the skill, drive and unremitting pursuit of excellence requited to become a Michelin starrred chef. That is the attitude we need to instill in our children at school. Once when Gary Player holed a very difficult shot to win a major , a spectator said ” That was a lucky shot Mr Player”. “Yes it is amazing, the harder I practice the luckier I become” replied Player. 30 -40 years ago or so top French chefs , working in Britain, would not employ Britons as they lacked the right attitude to achieve excellence. We are now producing trainees who are willing and capable of enduring the prolonged and rigorous training to become Michelin starred chefs.

Of the 20 principal ballet dancers , 2 are British. When asked why, the Royal Ballet said rest were not good enough. Just about every FE college and university has dance courses, yet they cannot produce 20 good enough to become principal dancers with the RB. This would suggest the sums spent on dance in this country are largely wasted because standards are not high enough. Labour is only interested in quantity not quality. Blair wanted 50% of British children to attend university . Does Blair think 50% of children in the Uk could cope with a Oxford, Cambridge or Imperial degree course? In order to fudge the results standards are dropped. Look at the number of grade A “A” levels warded nowadays. Our education and training systrem is not good enough because expectations are too low, excellence is mocked as elitist and pupils cannot cope with rigorous training . In China they consider to give up or complain about the hardship of the training is a sign of mental weakness.

The underlying cause of this dispute is not the “free movement of labour” but the free movement of “contractors” which I consider no better than gang-masters. The sight of these workers living on a multi-storey barge is food for thought. Also, John Cruddas on Newsnight said that this firm was “notorious” but then didn’t have the time to explain why. For someone like IMRE to take on British workers would expose what they actually get up to and a “captive” work force avoids any such embarassment. As a frequent traveller to southern Italy I can assure you that employment practices there have more in common with the feudal lord-serf relationship than what we might regard as the modern world. A signature to a EU treaty or legislation only costs the price of the ink and the fancy pen but some governments and employers often fail to implement what they have signed up to.
As you can tell from my name I’m Italian but I have no hesitation in wishing the strikers every success.

“A rocky path for who? The workers? Local communities? They’re shafted aren’t they? ”

Only if they’re not competitive. Local communities don’t lose out either, they have the same number of people living and working there as they would if they had British workers there (let’s not pretend that all 5 companies would have employed british workers from that community either), unless they actively try to segregate out the foreign workers.

“And hey, maybe we might want to go a little further back than just the last few years…”

And as I’ve said in previous threads, we might as well stop people moving from county to county to work. In my place of employment there are those that live outside this city and even outside the “county” and commute in to work from a fair distance, taking up the work places of people in the Bristol community. Should they be vilified for destroying the local community and taking local jobs?

There is no argument against free movement of workers, there is only argument about poor investment in appropriate business, appropriate skills and poor management of employment aspirations that lets more people get skilled for jobs in the EU than there are jobs available.

The idea that the Unions should be able to “stop” the foreigners getting in may solve the British “problem” in some way, but it’ll leave foreign workers without work in their own countries, bringing down their own communities and causing their own depressions. But that’s ok as long as it isn’t happening in Britain, not our problem despite being part of the EU, right?

“The sight of these workers living on a multi-storey barge is food for thought. ”

What are they meant to do? They can’t integrate in to the community and any available housing there because either a) the housing in the area isn’t ready to cope for the surge in jobs or b) because this jingoistic and nationalistic country has made it all but impossible to house foreign workers without an almighty shit-storm over “They took our houses!”

In fact, if we can now decide that free movement is a bad thing, perhaps we might start to think that all of those people who have already come here in the last few years shouldn’t have been allowed in.

Well it obviously was bad thing but we are stuck with it now . That is not an anti immigration point its an anti torrential aggressive settlement point. 97 levels were already high enough.. The problem with all you people is that either you live on another planet or , liken the Victorians with poetry you regard politics as place in which to forget everything you know to be true .
In your world people can move any time they like , retrain , change job why not Mandelsohn got a good job in Europe , why not Mr. Smith? English people do not want to live abroad . Here are some facts about real people , 25,000,000 of them listen to local Radio next contender R2 with 14mio. Wolverhampton’s Express and Star sell 180,000 copies which is about what the Independent used to sell before it went tabloid . The majority live and work their whole lives in or near the small town where they were born .
No-one was asked if they wanted to participate in an international experiment in bussing despised “workers “ around the continent and there is bugger all chance of anyone agreeing to any such silly idea. Once again labour have betrayed the working classes once again the Metropolitan court has sh0own it does not live in its own country and does not care either .

Non negotiable , you are free to leave my house abt=y time yiou like ,You are not free to sit on my chair watch my telly and eat my biscuits

I meant this as an instance of the miserly arrangements made by the “contractors”. They must have made these arrangements before the dispute materialised. They could have, alternatively, put them in hotels and bussed them in – again before anyone was aware of the dispute – but that would have cost the misely so and so’s.
No doubt, some of the strikers will be protesting for jingoistic reasons but it would be unjust to suggest that it is only about that. In amidst the media smokescreen – which as usual always paints the protestors as unreasonable – some sensible comments have begun to filter through but these are sadly rare. When “freedom of movement of labour” actually means the freedom of each individual looking for work to move around the the EU, then its worth defending. When it means the freedom of gang-masters to do what the hell they want then – bring on the jingoists!

“When it means the freedom of gang-masters to do what the hell they want then – bring on the jingoists!”

But they can’t do what they want? Where is the problem? 5 British companies went up against 2 foreign ones, and the British ones were seen as uncompetitive. The contractors used aren’t paying their people less than British workers would expect. Where is the problem here?

As Jon Cruddas MP rightly says, this will become a race to the bottom.

Indeed, which means that the best we can hope for is for our politicians to ignore the issue for as long as possible.

The underlying cause of this dispute is not the “free movement of labour” but the free movement of “contractors” which I consider no better than gang-masters.

So you have no problem with immigrants, just the people who make it possible for them to get employed in this country? If the people they employ had any better opportunities, you can be sure that they would, on the whole, have taken them.

“The Conservatives can be ignored. Naturally they hate the unions…”
True but it would also be true to say,
“New Labour hate the unions (but love their money)…”
Let’s face it, it’s remarkable how the unions have persisted in putting money new lab’s way, while New lab have consistently operated to favour the bosses.The party created and funded by the trade unions, has become a vehicle for full-on attacks on working people especially in the public services, with out-sourcing (even of bleeding welfare) to the cheapest, not the most decent, employer.
no, the tories wouldn’t be any better, but how can the unions actually bankroll those who’ve pushed policicies that have seen impoverishment and misery for the poor bloody masses and members of those same unions.After all, whose money is it originally but those workers’ and members’.
It’s like an emblem for the whole of new labour: pay more for someone to kick you in the teeth.

“How about looking at the education system. We ban competitive sports from schools”

FFS, why do people have to exaggerate so much to make a point?

Schools still play Football, Rugby, Hockey etc. Despite the efforts of the conservative party in the 1980s who sold the playing fields. Indeed I’d argue sports and PE are a higher priority for schools now than before, with compulsory PE lessons and emphasis on fitness. Gordon Brown also said in the observer that ideally he’d like every child in school to be doing 5 hours of sport a week instead of the 2 they are supposed to do now.

Despite the efforts of the conservative party in the 1980s who sold the playing fields.

The Conservative Party had nothing to do with this and would have stopped it the loathing of the left for competitive sports is well documented ,. Now ,as I well know , your child has every opportunity to throw a foam ball in a mixed gender play context but a great veal less chance of playing Rugby.
One good thing about the dereliction of school sport is that it has encouraged clubs sport which now takes up the weekend of many a father desperate to balance the effeminate baby world of school.
Considering the resources sprayed at the educational system it has been yet another magnificent failure. Yet again working class boys have suffered most

Lee (18): you are still throwing around words like ‘jingoistic’ and ‘nationalistic’ as if name-calling is a trump card.

Just how are local families with mortgages to pay to compete with people housed on barges?

All of your arguements could be used in support of pimps and gang-masters.

It is really wonderful isn’t it to see Lee Griffin`s slavish addiction to the “Market”. I have no doubt he would want to see valuable habitats protected from the market , historic sites , public decency , arms , drugs monopolies animals . People it seems are the one category where he could not care less.

How bizarre

Moronic troll “What about the 80% who are not unionised ? Are they expendable because they do not pay the Labour Party protection money .”

Ahh yes, the old Tory chestnut about the funding of the Labour party. Never a mention from the troll about all those corporations and wealthy businessmen who fund the Tory party. A small group of rich businessmen who have funded the Tory party for the last 150 years. The Tory party like the public to believe that it is funded by millions of old ladies making jam at the WI. But the truth is that the vast majority of its funding comes from less than 10,000 people and of those, probably only about 5000 give substantial donations.

Contrast with the unions who though the Tories like to think that Queen Thatcher abolished them, still have about 7 million members. Think about that for a moment? 7 million British workers who support the unions ,against a handful of greedy business men who fund the Tory party. What is more, anyone can find out exactly how much each union gave the Labour party, and they can find out exactly what policies that union want. No such transparency from the hypocritical Tories. For most of the last 100 years we have no idea where their money comes from. Except we get a few clues every now and again like when Polly peck went tits up. I believe that man is still on the run from British justice. As was revealed by the story of Tories on Russian yachts, and how they were telling donors that they can make it look as if the money has come from a British company.

The Unions represent far more British people than those that fund the Tory party.

“The Conservative Party had nothing to do with this and would have stopped it the loathing of the left for competitive sports is well documented ”

Oh dear oh dear the troll is now just lying through his teeth now. It is well known that Thatcher had no interest in sport, and the market had to rule. So supermarkets were far move wealthy that state funded schools. So off the playing sites were sold. The troll is too ashamed to even admit it now

.

“All of your arguements could be used in support of pimps and gang-masters.”

Interesting how people are throwing around words like “gang-masters” as if they trump anything…

“Just how are local families with mortgages to pay to compete with people housed on barges? ”

Compete on what? Jesus, this reads like one of those automatic daily mail headline generators! Compete on what grounds? If they need a specific job then perhaps they should be more willing to do like our european counterparts are and move to find it. Except of course there aren’t enough jobs for that type of work force and it would appear the contractors on the British side can’t fight their corner.

Again, the problem is with British Skills and this out-dated mentality that we should have everything we want on our doorstep just because we are either interested or skilled in it. It’s a fantasy land argument that ignores the real issues!

“It is really wonderful isn’t it to see Lee Griffin`s slavish addiction to the “Market”.”

People need help, trying to force the market to favour one set of disadvantaged people over another doesn’t (overall) help anyone except politicians.

‘If they need a specific job then perhaps they should be more willing to do more like our european counterparts are and move to find it’

How’s it feel to channel Norman Tebbit, Lee?

‘People need help, trying to force the market to favour one set of disadvantaged people over another doesn’t (overall) help anyone except politicians.’

So much for New Deal for 18-24′s or the governments attempt to get single parents or the disabled back into work and out of poverty, so much for Local Employment Partnerships to raise the standard of living in deprived areas, so much for the only worthwhile things this otherwise lousy government has brought in.

“How’s it feel to channel Norman Tebbit, Lee? ”

Got a point as to why I’m wrong, in the modern climate, or are you too afraid of facing the county-level migration argument again and being unable to counter it?

“So much for New Deal for 18-24’s or the governments attempt to get single parents or the disabled back into work and out of poverty, so much for Local Employment Partnerships to raise the standard of living in deprived areas, so much for the only worthwhile things this otherwise lousy government has brought in.”

More irrelevancies that don’t relate to a free movement of work force?

‘More irrelevances that don’t relate to a free movement of work force?’

LEP is keyed to particular postcodes, so how is it ‘irrelevant’? And the rest of that paragraph addresses the claim you made in the quote I labouriously retyped.

And have you looked up the word ‘jingoism’ yet because I’m waiting to hear how the striking workers are exhibiting an aggressive foreign policy?

Sally I have no objection to Union memers contributing to the Labour Party .I do object to it contribution being linked to jobs perks and so on. If it is not then they will presumably contribute outside the union in accordance with the £50,000 limit per person Conservatives have suggested .It is the Labour Party who refuse to accept the deal so they can continue to extort funds from people who hate their policies but whose” Contributions” are linked to working conditions and jobs .If this was not true the Labour Party would let them donate outside the Union which they claim they would be more than happy to do

It is quite clear who is lying

You

I have to say , blaming the Conservative Party for the end of school sport when we have read and witnessed the left decrying it as a concept for a generation takes the crumbly baked wafer. Do you think all those earnest silly women claiming that if little Johnny lost he would cry and not be able to do his mutli-cultural awareness were Conservatives ?

I think not

Newmania (33): I’m a union rep and I’d gladly give up the ‘influence’ we have over the labour party and spend our money on a party which doesn’t regard the unions as scum.

New mania ,

I went to school in the 1970s at a comprehensive school under a Labour govt. We had 4 full time PE teachers. 2 male 2 female. Plus other teachers would take sports after school. They did this in their own time and were not paid to do it.

Not any more.

Thanks to Thatcher’s small mindedness where she convinced herself that teachers were not working a full amount of hours , she imposed contracts on them that were truly stupid. The result? Teachers gave up the after hours work they used to do. Plus, the selling off of the playing fields. Over a decade later I returned to my old school, and could not believe what had happened to it under a Tory govt. But then as most Tory politicians have never be inside a state school it is not surprising.

I went to Direct Grant school in the 1970s . I played Rugby for the school as well as football and hockey. That school became a fee paying school when the Labour Party cancelled the Council places (one of which I won). Not an improvement but at least today they play a higher level of sport today than we ever did .( and that was a damn sight better than the local Comps who we slaughtered at everything ). There was no reason for the state schools not to do the same except the prevailing NUT wisdom that competition was bad,. It has certainly not been money . An additional £35 billion is being donated by the tax payer every year. Most of this has found its way into the pockets of Intervention Pathfinders ,Social Improvement Partners and the Byzantine \Empire of Labour sinecure Holders . Labour’s fault
Labour feel about school sport the way they do about the army . They despise it . They think it is wrong , they will not fund it . It makes me sick to hear Brown pretend the reverse is true but then he is a liar and always has been like his chum Blair .
People are beginning to notice , British jobs for British workers , end of boom and bust , a weak currency means a weak movement , the 40% golden rule , a cancelled Lisbon referendum , no tax rises ( ha bitter ha) and his deathless promise to protect pensions . In fact he has destroyed them. Lies lies lies and the problem is you are so used to it you accept it , who do you think taught Blair ?

Teachers work a part time job get full time pay (over-pay) and a golden pension , they cannot be fired and the amount they do compared to those of us in the teal wolrd is pitiful. If they are too idle to undertake any more after that there is little anyone can do for them . Whatever Thatcher may have required by way of endeavour has been multiplied many times by the Brown Diktats .
Ask any teacher if you can find one sober or not on holiday . Still they are doing so well , the ONS stated that between 1988 and 2006 two grade inflation in most subjects and three in maths .Prizes for all and that’s why they hate sport

I don’t even know why anyone is bothering to engage newmania, its a complete waste of time.

Rob:
Immigrants? Those are the people who benefit most from free movement and have the most to lose from seeing it undermined. In fact, if we can now decide that free movement is a bad thing, perhaps we might start to think that all of those people who have already come here in the last few years shouldn’t have been allowed in. And hey, maybe we might want to go a little further back than just the last few years…

I’m not saying free movement of people is a bad thing. However, there’s no black/white picture here. It’s also possible to make the non-economic argument that if the rate of adjustment to constant change, migration and companies being able to hire-fire at will is too slow, then it has a negative impact on the community.

That impact may not be easily measured in economic terms but it exists, by virtue of the emotions that people feel when confronted with rapid change. Now, I’m saying two things need to happen:

1) We need to make it easier and faster for people to adjust.

2) We also need to establish some mechanisms of stability so that local communities aren’t decimated in one stroke.

Obviously I’m not against immigration. But this free movement of people’s situation basically allows companies to shaft everyone – include the foreign workers… because once they settle down and increase their fixed costs, then the companies move on and they’re screwed again. In the long term they also don’t benefit if local people don’t adjust fast enough (and people generally can’t be forced to adjust quickly).

What I’m saying is, looking at this purely from an economic point of view isn’t the whole picture. A view that looks at quality of life would also look at how quickly people can adjust to change. And to me, this sort of rapid displacement is unhealthy in a society.

Would I be comfortable with everything possible being outsourced to foreign countries? No I wouldn’t. Because then it hollows out our industrial base completely, regardless of how much money (which will rapidly decline) into re-skilling.

If we can’t re-skill quickly enough, and new industries don’t spring up fast enough, then we have a situation where the economy relies far too much on the financial services industry – which itself has been built on a house of cards

23. Planeshift. The advantage of playing competitive sports to a high level means that people are fit and can work as a team. Also people learn when playing in a match that coming second means that you have lost. This dispute has occurred becaus the British team did not win the tender . Globalisation has meant that competition has become far more intense. Rolls Royce aero engines, BP, Shell ,JCB, Rio Tinto and many of out top consulting engineers and architects can compete and win in the global market, but not enough companies are good enough.

The middle class left were against competitive sports not the working class -what are the social backgrounds of most of the professional sortsmen ? Jasper Carrot once mocke the prevailing view ” Do you think Class 3 in the Karl Marx primary school in East Germany all run across the finishing hand in hand to ensure there are no winners or losers ?”

In 1945 West Germany and Japan realised they were going have to work incredibly hard and very effectively for decades in order to rebuild their countries. We in Britain now need this attitude.

“What I’m saying is, looking at this purely from an economic point of view isn’t the whole picture. A view that looks at quality of life would also look at how quickly people can adjust to change. And to me, this sort of rapid displacement is unhealthy in a society.”

Some really good points Sunny, however I have to question what displacement happens, certainly here in the UK where so few (by international comparison) would rather leave the country to find work than stay and remain unemployed or working in the wrong sector?

Also, it’s an interesting debate because from all the figures I’ve seen the worst problem when it comes to these communities breaking down is due to the unwillingness of companies to invest anywhere but the south east, and the government’s lack of emphasis on moving or facilitating new business elsewhere.

Indeed, when it comes to my lovely home-county the only reason it is getting any new business is by virtue of European funding, and nothing, relatively, on a national level.

Perhaps we should solve the UK problem with community displacement, that is much more prevalent and is actually propped up in places by immigration, before we start giving in to the rhetoric of the strikers and the media that the woes in the UK come from foreign workers.

@ Lee (40) “Perhaps we should solve the UK problem with community displacement, that is much more prevalent and is actually propped up in places by immigration, before we start giving in to the rhetoric of the strikers and the media that the woes in the UK come from foreign workers2
Not sure the first part of that sentence and the second half are terribly well connected. How would a shift to a UK, indeed Europe wide nomadic,transient population assist in standing against racist rhetoric?

Alisdair: They’re not connected. I’m wondering why there is even an argument about community cohesion in here when the only thing that is happening is that it is being added to by foreign workers.

“ow would a shift to a UK, indeed Europe wide nomadic,transient population assist in standing against racist rhetoric?”

I’m not sure I quite understand what you’re getting at here, but the problem is with people. People need to change their attitudes, society has moved fast in the last couple of decades and perhaps has left some people behind…but that’s no excuse for people to stick with outdated preconceptions of what they should expect in the employment market.

and the government’s lack of emphasis on moving or facilitating new business elsewhere.

You can’t be against govt intervention in such cases and then say they should emphasise or facilitate where businesses should be located. I don’t really want the govt to play a stronger role in all this. I merely want more rights for workers, so that they have more stability than they have now.

.“I merely want more rights for workers, so that they have more stability than they have now.”

That of course will not be allowed under EU law . You cannot have you cake and eat it , The fact is you and your silly visions of a Socialist European Empire have stuffed the people you want to pay for you.
“A view that looks at quality of life would also look at how quickly people can adjust to change. And to me, this sort of rapid displacement is unhealthy in a society.”
The beginnings of wisdom , who would have thought it , already you are starting to see the Conservative case . Its only a pity it is too late for those you have sacrificed .

You may make a good Conservative yet Hundal

“You can’t be against govt intervention in such cases and then say they should emphasise or facilitate where businesses should be located. I don’t really want the govt to play a stronger role in all this. I merely want more rights for workers, so that they have more stability than they have now.”

I’m with Newmania here, I don’t think you can simply get more stability under EU law, not without the appropriate interaction from the government with business to provide for that stability. I’m against the idea that the government should do anything to change this EU law, that doesn’t mean I’m against government intervention as long as it’s useful intervention that doesn’t holistically result in no change.