Westminstenders: The Tunnel or Bridge

[RedToothBrush]

Apparently negotiations are in the black hole of the EU tunnel or should that be on the back of the fantasy of the Boris Bridge?

Another week closer to complete meltdown.

I'm guessing that our world beating customs solution will be based on blackboard and chalk.

Presumably the careers "advice" was simply a way of diverting public money to a croney / Tory donor. No previous experience or significant work needed, but you do need some evidence of something having been produced, to avoid criminal proceedings. Just a guess.

I love the surgeon idea. But will they pay me while I spend the next however many years to qualify as a doctor?

ListeningQuietly
So, let me get this right the only person who got a remotely sensible answer from the Government quiz was Clavinova

Perhaps I am the only sensible person here.

...

BigChocFrenzy
Senate Majority leader McConnell supports Trump all the way

You might garner more interest if you moved some of your posts to the Trump thread on AIBU.

@Clavinova , I was given police officer and intelligence analyst as well as actor.
My fondness for thinking "fuck that shit" probably rules me out of the first two.

Ed Conwayy@EdConwaySky*

How much might those 1,114 Deloitte consultants be charging?

Here’s the Deloitte day rate table. In short, anything up to £2,360 a day.

It is hard to think of a project in recent governmental history that has been as lucrative for management consultants as Test & Trace

The jobs link that Dido Harding used should be available to all

.... without the qualifier of being a wealthy Tory married to a wealthy Tory MP and being old friends with the PM

Presumably the careers "advice" was simply a way of diverting public money to a croney / Tory donor.

Yes, I think so. I don't see any merit in it at all: it's just a bit of cod psychology of the sort that Facebook apps use, with no real world element at all. If the aim is to direct people into appropriate training/retraining the very first thing you need to know is the level of prior educational attainment.

What's more interesting is what they don't suggest. My answers would have made data analytics or programming an obvious retraining option (as it happens I am reinventing myself professionally for the age of big days)

Fucking Mumsnet app sent my unfinished post - I'm reinventing my career for the age of big data. But the government careers thing made no suggestion of software, or analytics, or anything like that.

So it's basically another money pit that we are chucking pounds into, foe the benefit of the Tory donors sitting at the bottom.

Obviously not all 'doom and gloom' -

Copyright protected articles;

"Brexit: UK Global Tariff positive for food industry."
"19-May-2020 By Rod Addy."

"Brexit trade tariffs will be applied to agricultural imports from 1 January 2021 under Government proposals, potentially protecting domestic producers against cheaper import prices and lower food standards."

www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Article/2020/05/19/Brexit-does-UK-Global-Tariff-benefit-food-industry

"Egg producers hail Government tariff proposals."
21-May-2020 By Rod Addy

"Proposals to maintain import tariffs on eggs and egg products have been welcomed by the British Egg Industry Council (BEIC)."

www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Article/2020/05/21/Egg-producers-hail-Government-tariff-proposals

Quality Meat Scotland - September;

"Soaring store lamb prices show no sign of let-up in the immediate future despite the “cloud” of Brexit uncertainty hanging over the sector."

"Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) director of economics services, Stuart Ashworth, made the comments during a virtual press briefing to launch the latest edition of the levy body’s Scottish Red Meat Industry Profile."

"He said the driving force behind “remarkably strong” lamb prices was not entirely clear, but more people cooking at home and trying new products during the pandemic, a decline in imported lamb and promotional efforts to boost sales of Scotch Lamb had helped."

“The terms and conditions might be slightly different, but there’s nothing to say the demand for the product will change and there’s nothing to say our consumers will not continue to enjoy sheep meat.”

"He said although the introduction of export tariffs would impact prices, the level they fall to may be deemed “reasonable” and not as low as in the past due to the higher starting point."

www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/business/farming/2475202/uncertainty-fails-to-slow-rise-in-store-lamb-prices/

The careers thing did suggest a couple of jobs for me that, given a Masters of PhD relevant to my degrees, would be suitable. But given that it had no idea what my degrees are in, it can only be by luck and not judgment.

Embalmer FFS.

@Mistigri

Presumably the careers "advice" was simply a way of diverting public money to a croney / Tory donor.

Yes, I think so. I don't see any merit in it at all: it's just a bit of cod psychology of the sort that Facebook apps use, with no real world element at all. If the aim is to direct people into appropriate training/retraining the very first thing you need to know is the level of prior educational attainment.

What's more interesting is what they don't suggest. My answers would have made data analytics or programming an obvious retraining option (as it happens I am reinventing myself professionally for the age of big days)

... Yes that was a glaring mistake

Surely qualifications matter hugely - including being a requirement in some of the jobs they were suggesting

I'm guessing that this has cost the government millions. I.e. it has cost us millions.
Is this really any different from theft?

That questionnaire looks as though it was thought up by someone in Y10 who was unaware of any sort of higher level qualifications or training.

The Results of that questionnaire sounds remarkably like one my DCs did in Year 9 when deciding their GCSE options, hence not taking qualifications into account. So it probably hasn’t cost millions as it has been wasting school careers budgets for years but it is about as much use to those of us who have qualifications, skills and experience as a chocolate teapot. But then we are the elite and they assume the left behind never got past Year 9

Surely qualifications matter hugely - including being a requirement in some of the jobs they were suggesting

It’s not just qualifications though, is it? Some of the suggested careers (athlete and actor spring to mind) might require some kind of talent, one would think. If it said ‘Cabinet Minister’, on the other hand...

TES -
"[Scottish] Careers website mocked for telling top pupils to become chimney sweeps."

"the usefulness of the Scottish government website has come under the spotlight after a teenager in Fife–in the top set for maths–was advised to consider pursuing a career as a chimney sweep, acupuncturist, bodyguard or hairdresser."

Maybe a tiny bit more sensible than telling a 60 year old IT specialist to re-train as a surgeon.

I'd have thought that a software designer straight out of college could have done a better job in a couple of hours?

It's theft of public funds, and those who commissioned it should be brought to account.

Ds (PIR student, just started his Junior Honours year) asked us yesterday how he'd go about becoming a SPAD.

I suggested that he answer one of Cummings' ads looking for weirdos and misfits

We did also make some serious suggestions

He'd like to be a Josh Lyman type special advisor (big West Wing fan) - he's studying American Politics this semester. Most recent tutorial was to rank the last 6 US presidents, from Reagan to Trump from best to worst. As you can imagine Trump is last , but the other 5 places depend on the definition of "best". Ds is doing it on the basis of "positive legacy".

The stupidest thing about that app (and the worst, if you're concerned about govt throwing money at consultants) is that there are already many free and often slightly more sophisticated career advice questionnaires on-line. They are still mainly pretty useless, but at least they are free.

It reminds me of one of those third party Facebook apps that exist mainly to harvest your data

Is there absolutely no limit to the incompetence of Dido’s treats and trace systems?

So Richmond’s public health strategy was swinging into action to address a rapid rise in cases that made it the worst hit borough in London with 112 cases per 100k, after having a fairly easy time of it during the rest of the pandemic. The Council Leader has addressed the borough looking genuinely angry and told people not wearing masks or socially distancing to “pack it in” and think of other people’s health and jobs. Information leaflets are coming through the door. People were worried. Then the local public health team finally got hold of the figures, they haven’t even finished the data cleansing yet but so far a quarter of the cases they have postcode data for (still only half of all cases ) are for 17-21 year olds in different cities, Leeds, Manchester, Durham, Exeter, all the popular destinations for affluent middle class Richmond students......

www.standard.co.uk/news/health/london-covid-stats-skewed-university-students-a4567441.html

And the government has finally held it’s nose and asked the Crick for help with testing but in a city with rising case numbers at the beginning of the week they could only manage 300 of the tests from the Deloitte testing centres out of the 1000 that they had arranged to provide. So it is the testing centre end of it that is failing as well as the labs.....