What do you think of Farage's "shadow" cabinet?

I'd love to think, but i very much doubt it. Not to mention, crawling back cap in hand will guarantee a much worse deal than we left with.

The referendum onwards has been such an embarrassing and avoidable shitshow.

Brexit is going to be reversed....this year

I was wondering about this .... I thought Brexit was meant to increase wages for "home grown" talent.

Braverman will approach this role entirely ideologically and do extensive damage.

She does!

Professional dealings with Suella Braverman in an education context, when she was part of the Conservative Government, showed serious concerns.

There was consistent meddling without grasp of context, reliance on media/journalist narratives over professional expertise and reading reports, seeking first hand information, and decisions that worked against those doing the job on the ground.
Complex issues were inflamed rather than understood. Each time the issues were dealt with by a professional team and calmed. She interfered again, with another news report, sometimes weeks after the event.

Religious sensitivities — critical in education settings and in this case — were disregarded, despite clear guidance from professionals. That lack of cultural and contextual awareness caused avoidable harm and division.

Leadership demands listening, nuance and respect for expertise. That was not the experience here.

The economy is rebounding, it's on the turn. Yes youth unemployment is up but that's temporary. 2026 is primed for recovery and all the data supports it.

Businesses need people and the idea that AI is going to replace people is very naive. All these tech bros are going to fall into a very deep trap. It's called believing the hype. Meta told us that we would be living virtual lives ten years ago....yet his project has lost billions.

AI has it's uses as an aid but it can't replace a human...it's nonsense. People are sick of bots in call centres and it won't help the economy if there are no customers.... because customers need jobs to buy things. So the concept that AI will mean we won't have to work is simply flawed..... because with people earning and spending there's no need for Google, Facebook, Amazon

Where's Truss and Karteng? Nigel said her Budget was the best since 1986. Give them a job , don't be a meanie....

14.4% was the figure i saw for 2024... or are they responsible for rises in unemployment before any NMW increases in April 2025?

As i said earlier, Labour have raised NMW by 6.7% and 16% for u21's....

The Cons raised the NMW by 27% (in 3 years) & the u21 rate in 2022 by 10% in 2023 by 10.1%.... & in 2024 by 14.4%

So the Tories have increased the u21 rate by over 34% in 3 years.

Yet the rise in youth unemployment is all on Labour......

Made money from renewable energy before he u-turned

Hmm. Public school. Worked for his grandfather’s property ddevelopment company. Lives in Dubai. Ever so real life! 🤣

Bunch of clowns, completely incompetent and shouldn't be serving the British Public.

The wheels are falling of the reform chariot and it's downhill from here for the clowns.

By the time the election comes reform will be done.... destination no place in history

Brexit was supposed to deliver a high skilled, high wage economy.

But now we shouldn't pay young people a slightly higher minimum wage? Businesses rely on cheap labour?

@Alexandra2001
In June 2024 the unemployment rate for 16-24 year olds was 13.4% and now it is 16.1%.
The rise in employer national insurance combined with an increase in the national minimum wage is making employers much less likely to employ young people. It is more important for young people to have a job of some kind than be unemployed even if the wage is low. If young people have not got a job by 24, they are more likely to rely on benefits for the rest of their life (not including those in education or training).
Many businesses cannot afford to pay young people the increase. Apparently pubs are closing at a rate of around one per day. This will lead to more unemployment. Home-to-home care costs are increasing and some companies may struggle to survive due to higher wages, employer national insurance etc. Operating costs for home-to-home care increased by 10-12% over the last year, while local authority funding has only risen by 5-6% so the disparity means some companies have a risk of going out of business.

When I saw your thread title @MellersSmellers , the "cabinet" was on the next line. I thought you were asking what we thought of NF's "shadow", suggesting that he has constructed a fake shadow as he doesn't have an actual shadow.

That is the level that on which I would prefer to engage with him and the Reform party TBH.

I don't have the best track record with this stuff, I thought Brexiteers and Trump were absolute loons and look how that turned out.

You've moved the goals posts... now moving on from NMW to NI rises & youth employment.

So wage increases of 27% in 2/3 years under the Tories, is explained away by inflation (large wages rises can drive inflation, as employers hike prices....) which they failed to manage (we had far higher rates than our competitors, esp food, reaching highs of 30%) but with Labour its all their fault.

Youth unemployment is about 1.4% higher than it was when they took over in 2024, not good i agree, but also not the catastrophe you are making it out to be.

On rate differentials, its still £2.21 between over 21 and 18 to 20 per hour, similar increases in under 21 rates occurred under Sunak too.

What this means in practice is an older worker gets offered less shifts working in hospitality then a 18 to 20yo (happening right now to my partners son) & why employ a 21 yo in a bar when you can get a 18 yo far cheaper?

I accept we need to give younger workers work opportunities but in "low skilled" work, is it really fair to pay people doing identical work, significantly lower pay?

On a U-turn, the nmw increase was in the manifesto but never a policy or as Farage would say an "aspiration"

Perhaps call it the Ghost Cabinet or The Dementors Locker.

Harriet Harman helped Braverman fight for her maternity leave when she was Attorney General and now she’s pulling up the drawbridge behind her!
And I thought Brexit was going to push up people’s wages by eliminating the cheap labour coming from the EU? You know one of those elusive Brexit Benefits! I don’t understand why everyone is so cross about the Govt doing it?

I hope she had a better time than your post suggests ;

But also the remain campaign wasn’t very good compared with the leave one.

😱

I'm not sure I would class a 22 year old as older and more experienced... if you had intended 32 then maybe, but not sure 22... as I'm sure most employers wouldn't see that much difference between a 18 and 22 year old - hence why so many 16-25 years are struggling to find jobs?

Thoughts and prayers.

Weirdly, I worked with Robert Jenrick on the remain campaign and once got banged up in a country cottage for an absolutely dreadful hen weekend with Suella Braverman.

Imagine if these things actually do come in threes vom emoji

I meant 22 instead of 18

This bit of your comment has surprised me..

Which is fine until the young can't get an entry into work because if it's going to cost the same employers would prefer to employ someone older, steadier, with some experience of work and life. And that's exactly why Labour is currently mulling yet another u turn, this time on the latest rises for young people, having seen the rise in youth unemployment.

As in my experience many employers actually don't want to employ older more experienced worker. Not sure how old you are but age discrimination is a thing anyone over 50 worries massively about this. I'm sure this varies from job to job. But definitely a problem for many of my friends. I would also suggest that the rise in pension age is not helping to free up jobs for young people either... many 60 year olds are being forced to work longer for various reasons which certainly is not helping.

2022 was actually real terms decrease and most of the rest was due to inflation and not a real terms increase. The increases were from a base which was widely recognised as too low, in an attempt to shift towards a living wage. They were also across the board, so rates for the young remained much lower than for older people.

I should have made it clearer but the increases I was particularly concerned by were those for the young. The cost of employing an 18 year old rose by nearly 20% in Reeves first budget and has gone up beyond inflation again in her second. The cost increase was even greater for the part timers suddenly caught in the NI for reduced hours trap that Reeves set. They hit employers particularly hard because businesses employing a lot of young people are very often those operating on low profit margins with a product or service with limited scope for raising prices without losing sales.

The rise for young people in the last 2 rounds of rises has deliberately been well over inflation because Labour has forgotten that the lower rates were designed to encourage employers to offer people with no experience a chance to get into a job. Instead, Labour are focusing on the equality agenda that two people ostensibly doing the same job should be paid the same no matter their age.

The real terms increase in the cost of employing a young person on minimum wage in the last 2 years has been huge.

Which is fine until the young can't get an entry into work because if it's going to cost the same employers would prefer to employ someone older, steadier, with some experience of work and life. And that's exactly why Labour is currently mulling yet another u turn, this time on the latest rises for young people, having seen the rise in youth unemployment.

The Shadow Cabinet is defined legally and constitutionally. He can call this bunch what he likes but it isn’t a shadow cabinet. His relationship with the truth is elastic even for a politician.