Westministers: Happy New Year?

[RedToothBrush]

And so we enter a New Year full of hope that things might just be about to recover from our national nervous breakdown... or perhaps not.

As we have Damien Green ejected from his role as Deputy PM over allegations of inappropriate conduct towards woman and use of porn at the end of last year, 2018 sees a bright new progressive dawn with the appointment to the role of universities regulator of Toby Young. A man who has deleted 20,000 tweets including many which are inappropriate and offensive to women, is a fan of eugenics and hates the working class and disabled.

Meanwhile the NHS is facing a crisis which is totally unexpected to the government and couldn't possibly have been planned for by a man who has over seen it for over five years. Which naturally bodes really well for Brexit planning.

We are apparently planning to join the TPP. Never mind geopolitics we can move the UK to the Pacific region.

We still are not ready for trade talks because the Cabinet can not agree on anything. Not that it sounds like they have actually discussed anything along these lines yet.

Rumours are that the Cabinet - including arch leavers such as Gove - are leaning towards supporting May and a softer option, despite the disgust of Johnson, who once again is the subject of malicious chatter about his sacking in a forthcoming Cabinet Reshuffle.

There is talk of further Tory Party war with the revelation that membership of the party has dropped to a core of just 70,000 hardline authoritarian men, most of whom are over 60. Tory HQ now wants to (perhaps with some good reason to prevent the loons) rewrite the constitution and limit the power of local associations to select candidates. The Tory party is now lining up to be a power struggle between internal authoritarians, who don't like democracy voices or structure.

Meanwhile the Labour Party membership now apparently overwhelmingly looks upon staying in the customs union and single market favourably and is in favour of a second referendum. In opposition to the leadership who are utterly committed to Hard Brexit. Much to the annoyance of Lord Adonis who is pitching a fit about government corruption and incompetence and being accused of being elite because he going skiing. Unlike of prominent Leavers who are in touch with the working class.

And finally Nigel Farage has got a meeting with Barnier. Farage, unlike Clegg, Clarke and Adonis, will not be accused by the Right Wing Press of undermining the government's negotiating position because...

It appears that we are in for another year of Brexit nonsense then.

We've not even heard mention of Gibraltar yet.

The Tories are listening to their grass roots, if that means their members.

Problem is those members are now mostly an extreme clique, completely untypical of the country wrt age, social views, % homeowners, retired etc

And those members are delusional about British power and very ignorant of Brexit trade / economic issues

Behind the hyperbola, David Aaronovitch is referring to detailled analysis
of the effect of "natural wastage" of Brexit voters

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-42574540/viewsnight-the-brexit-generation-is-dying-outt_

He quotes Peter Kellner in that 450,000^ of the 600,000 voters who die each year^ will be Brexit supporters

and most of the new voters who hit 18 will be Remainers.

So, in a new referendum in 2020, if the surviving 2016 voters stayed the same, the vote would be 51:49 in favour of Remain.

I think people are assuming that no one ever changes as the get older or circumstances change. For example the Brexit voters in their 50's and 60's who voted to leave in 2016 would have been the young remain voters of 1975.
If remain had won in the referendum the young remain voters of today might well be the old bitter left behind leavers of the future. Sitting around complaining about the good old days when we didn't have shanty towns and armed private police forces.

This is REALLY worth a read about problems with education and skill shortages

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/my-son-taught-me-a-lesson-about-university-jcbr9j79l?shareToken=8baff0e12b0e1afd3efe219893b35f7f
My son taught me a lesson about university
Trying to find an apprenticeship for my teenager exposed how biased we are against training

You could argue that one benefit of Brexit could that we will be forced to be provide decent vocational training for our young people. If we have a shortage of say plumbers government and employers would be forced to train you Britons from scratch rather than importing 25 year old fully qualified plumbers from Eastern Europe.
You could, although we probably wont, have a situation where young British workers are trained to build the affordable housing that they will then be able to live in and start families raising the birth rate so that we no longer need net immigration of around 300,000 a year. If we so chose we could ensure that everyone in Britain has a secure and decent roof over their head. With current levels of immigration that is virtually impossible.

IMO the above is why people voted for Brexit not an imagined past where Britain ruled the waves and great swathes of the world were pink on the map.

less The govt is in chaos over Brexit precisely because it can't reconcile the very conflicting aims of the main groups of Brexiters, left and right
Let alone while trying to avoid damage to trade and the economy.

Your hopes for more jobs & training for British workers are more typical of Lexiters (Labour Brexiters),
whereas Tory Brexiters are more likely be nostalgic about past British glory, delusional about current British power.

Business - who are more likely to donate to the Tory party - want lower taxes for business and for their most highly paid employees, also to reduce rights for workers who they regard as less valuable, to keep pay down by reducing rights of trade unions.
Usually, Tory Brexiters agree with this - and it's the main aim of Tory Brexit politicians; Lexiters don't.

Business also want to remain free to import workers at need.
The govt have repeatedly said they want this to continue

I see no signs that Brexit will force employers to train British staff
Fewer E27 workers are coming already, both because they face hostility and because the pound is worth much less now.
However, they will just be replaced by workers from the developing countries

Raising wages or training costs to employers puts up consumer prices
or taxes / council tax for public service employees
The govt wants to avoid further increasing inflation and the cost of living.

Doubtful that they intends to try to reduce E27 workers (they'll probably kick out some retired / SAHPs):

Theresa May, meeting the Polish PM, said she wanted the 1 million Polish citizens in the Uk to stay
The Polish PM, btw, said he wanted them to come home - Poland's economy is booming and they want their mostly fit, educated young expats to come back.

less There used to be an assumption that people were more likely to become more rightwing as they age
It is now thought that different age cohorts form their politics according to events that shaped their youth and also on how well they were able to progress in their life

so e.g. those brought up in the great poverty of the 1920s and 1930s, like my dad in the NE, appreciated far more the welfare state and the NHS - and were also prepared to pay the tax for it - than the boomers who had no direct experience of how life was before these.
Being conscripted to fight through years of bloody war, going through years of rationing probably also influenced attitudes.

Similarly, "Generation Rent" are likely to have different opinions to those who could much more easily buy in their youth and gain windfalls.

Why would British business think spending money on training Britons and then employing them is preferable to paying Poles and others who have been trained in their own education and apprenticeship systems, paid for by taxes in their own countries? British business culture is very short sighted.

I see very little evidence of what might be called the 'social contract' style of thinking that allows Germany and the Scandinavian countries to provide social welfare and other social programmes that are supported by taxes.

Place marking

I think it's helpful to separate out what we're talking about with 'training'. Do we mean training engineers, or hairdressers, or builders, or plumbers? Do we mean training as a euphemism for old-style professional apprenticeships or the lack of entry-level jobs, even clerical jobs, with training given over a few weeks/months that have been replaced by unpaid 'internships'?

It's a big area, with lots of competing determinants.

For what it's worth, I'm not sure old-style apprenticeships - of the engineering kind - can ever return, for many reasons. Likewise, the rise of short-term training for entry-level jobs, being replaced by the push for young people to train themselves, free, by taking unpaid internships, is fuelled by a very different job market. And I'm not sure it's easily solved.

What we do have is bespoke university courses, providing the accreditations that we associate with old-style apprenticeships (eg. nursing, engineering for the car industry), that you have to pay for yourself.

In some ways, it's better (the accreditation is objectively awarded, by a recognisable body; it's transferrable - important in a job market where no-one can stay with one firm for life) and in some ways, it's worse (it's very expensive; you don't get paid whilst doing it).

Moreover, there is a real question as to whether there is enough of a manufacturing base in the UK to make old-style apprenticeships viable. Is the manufacturing base in the UK large, secure and disparate enough for a firm to be able to guarantee the breadth of experience and opportunities to train and then retain its trainees?

I suspect there are many, many determinants to the 'training' situation in the UK, it's complex and heterogenous. Attempts to re-introduce apprenticeships have been a bit of a failure. And I suspect that is down to a lack of analysis of the present situation and actual needs (of potential employees and employers).

The one thing any serious change in the present set-up would require would be a massive investment in a re-organising of infrastructure (serious analysis, review, and establishment of overseeing bodies; analysis and reorganisation of need; re-organisation of tax system to acknowledge and fund training both by the state and by organisations that undertake training).

I can't see that happening with Brexit.

Moreover, what we have at the moment - training undertaken through university degrees, with links to business, both through businesses input into requirements and aims (present and future), practical experience, as well as subsequent recruitment of graduates - has been put at serious risk by Brexit already.

Those university-based training programmes attract recruits globally. They are a modern form of apprenticeship, I guess, that is non-local to the UK, and not tied to the UK. Teresa May's insistence that those global graduates be counted as immigrants was extremely threatening. No wonder she's being asked to climb down on that.

I think it's a shame that there was a move to reduce salaried apprenticeships. It's closed off an important avenue to professional employment for a whole section of young people and, for others, it has meant that avenue remains open only by incurring a lot of debt. But there are many reasons why it happened - and I'm not sure it's easily replaced.

What is the situation in Germany?

I thought that a lot of the third tier education system in Germany was very much geared towards training towards a particular career? In which case, it is not so dissimilar to the vocational degrees on offer in the UK? Are there more apprenticeships? How do they work? Is there more guaranteed employment within Germany after an apprenticeship or vocational degree? (In the UK, for example, those university-based vocational qualifications are popular with students who my not envision remaining within the UK). How is re-training organised?

By the way, RedToothBrush, I'm sorry to hear you've had a hard time with post-18 options for your child.

It's terrible, isn't it?

We found ourselves in a similar boat a year or so ago. We were looking into post-18 (19) options for education (re-taking A levels; training; other routes into higher education) and now know that that whole area has been quietly decimated.

The landscape is so different from the one I grew up with, where re-training throughout life was subsidised and available - for students and for people working and wanting to study/re-train/get qualifications outside of working hours.

It was an utter shock. I'd read about the assault on Further Education, and experienced it a little myself (I wanted to get myself some new qualifications and was amazed how little was available, even in London). It really is an utter (secret) scandal.

In opposition to the [Labour] leadership who are utterly committed to Hard Brexit

I think this is an unusually simplistic reading of an ambiguous position.

The manifesto: "We will scrap the Conservatives’ Brexit White Paper and replace it with fresh negotiating priorities that have a strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the Single Market and the Customs Union" ... "Labour recognises that leaving the EU with ‘no deal’ is the worst possible deal for Britain and that it would do damage to our economy and trade. We will reject ‘no deal’ as a viable option and, if needs be, negotiate transitional arrangements to avoid a ‘cliff-edge’ for the UK economy." labour.org.uk/manifesto/negotiating-brexit/

"Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, [Keir Starmer] said the party’s starting point would be viable options such as 'staying in a customs union and a single market variant which means full participation of the single market'." www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/10/labour-backs-easy-movement-of-eu-workers-after-brexit-says-keir-starmer

"Britain could stay part of a 'reformed single market' and must keep 'all the options on the table', Labour's John McDonnell said today, in a further sign the party is pursuing a soft Brexit ." www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/britain-could-stay-part-reformed-11675855

etc

Admittedly the party's position is not particularly coherent, with people like Barry Gardiner deviating from this line in the 'no deal' direction (contra the Manifesto), and no definitive word on this from Corbyn himself. So your declaration kind of makes sense if by 'leadership' you mean 'Corbyn' and by 'hard Brexit' you mean 'any kind of Brexit'.

Of course there are also problems with retaining the benefits of the single market and the customs union, and I'm not sure I like this talk of "a" single market and "a" customs union, as it's not clear that such a position exists (unless this just means Norway).

So there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the party's position, but I don't think it's helpful to express this skepticism in such reductive terms.

(Personally I think we will see more 'softening' of the position from senior Labour folk, and that Corbyn will fall in line when it becomes clear that this won't damage polling. I'm in two minds as to whether this is a sensible strategy and whether the 'more leadership' approach advocated by Blair et al would work better.)

((I know that this post will also brand me as a Momentum / Cobyn fanatic. Neither is true; but nor should it matter if I was))

... and bizarrely I seem to have an ally in Peter Mandelson: Single market and customs union essential for a Labour Brexit www.ft.com/content/fbed83ea-e182-11e7-a0d4-0944c5f49e46

(Might be behind a paywall, I found the text by googling the headline).

By the way, RedToothBrush, I'm sorry to hear you've had a hard time with post-18 options for your child.

I think.you've got the wrong end of the stick. Ive not had problems. The guy in the article has. Though I do know friends who have been in that situation.

RTB Oh! I see - you were giving a quick synopsis of the article! Oops.

Have to admit, I thought your children were too young for all that!!

Yes. We hit the post-18/19 training nightmare and it was an education.

Corbyn has messed about with the internal nature of the Labour party since becoming leader too, which has generally adjusted things to his favour and his agenda, rather than necessarily towards the mass membership.

This is possibly me not understanding this statement, but Corbyn was elected by the wider membership despite rules that prioritised MP votes over those of the membership. The ability for MPs to decide on who got to stand for election took the choice away from the membership as they could only vote for the people the MPs demeaned appropriate. I don't understand why you are saying Corbyn is not from and for the views of the mass membership unless you mean something other than the group of people who got to vote in the leadership elections.

Oh, I suppose you man specifically his views of Brexit. Which do seem right now to be at odds with the wider membership views. I don't think he has reduced their say though, just being an idiot.

Polls sow he Labour membership are about 88% Remain, significantly higher than the 66% of Labour voters

Corbyn - and to be fair also many Labour politicians not his supporters - are playing party politics:

Hoping to avoid losing votes from some of their Leave minority
and hoping the Tories destroy themselves with the poisoned chalice of Brexit they alone created.

"if your enemy is making a serious mistake, let them"

Shame about the country and the ordinary people, though

Polls show the Labour membership < smacks iPad >

(Germany) Frankfurt expecting rapid influx of Brexit bankers

https://global.handelsblatt.com/finance/frankfurt-expecting-rapid-influx-of-brexit-bankers-871077?ref=NzgzMjI2&utmsource=outbrain&utmmmedium=contentmarketing&utmcampaign=outbrain-retfeb17

There are more and more indications that London-based banks are planning to move their trading operations to Germany’s financial hub. And they’re likely to arrive sooner rather than later.
…
Firm commitments have already been made by the likes of Morgan Stanley and Nomura to shift staff from London to Frankfurt in light of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union,
and many others are expected to follow suit once details of the divorce have been hammered out.
…
The omens for a quick banking exit from London are increasingly positive.
According to the ECB, 50 London-based banks have approached euro-zone regulators about relocating key services within the block,
and 20 financial services providers have already applied for a euro-zone banking license.
…
But bankers agree that as soon as the transition periods end, the trickle will turn into an exodus
London has more liquid markets because more investors are based there.
But Brexit will prompt more of them to move to continental Europe.
“That’s a good starting point to set up a trading hub here,” said one top banker at a U.S. bank.

The trend could accelerate if Frankfurt manages to clinch the lucrative euro clearing business, a €1 trillion-a-day ($1.20 trillion) market that is currently dominated by London and consists of trading in euro-denominated financial products such as derivatives.
“If that happens, there will be no question where we’ll move a whole range of trading functions,” said one executive at a foreign bank.

Fifty London-based banks have approached euro-zone regulators about relocating key services within the block,
and 20 financial services providers have already applied for a euro-zone banking license

I just don't get why the govt don't believe that this will happen and just how serious this is. What is banking and services ?80% of our GDP isn't it?

A cross-party group of 20 MEPs have written to TM urging her to say in the single market - it's surprising that they haven't done this...

In a letter that lays down a challenge for the prime minister but also the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, the group claims the case for staying in the internal market has become stronger since the referendum.

They warn that crashing out of the economic grouping would make Britain poorer and suggest that voters should still be given a chance to rethink Brexit altogether.

haven't done this before

What is banking and services ?80% of our GDP isn't it?

Reminding us all who will ultimately benefit from Brexit:

Disaster capitalists.