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.

The North's, even though unashamedly pro-Brexit, at least bothered to put in the work to define what they thought Brexit should be and how they thought it could be made to work.

Things like the closure of car factories, (or any highly automated plant), will be hard to attribute to Covid-19. I agree that there is overcapacity in the EU car market - so why not close the ones where production is hampered by difficult trading conditions?

Obviously there is a COVID impact in car manufacturing, but of course other issues determine where closures happen, and also (and more importantly) where new investment in battery electric and hydrogen technology happens in future. At my employer (which operates in this space) the big question right now is where new investment will be directed. A bad Brexit deal, or no deal, unfortunately makes it less likely that it will be in the U.K.

@Peregrina

The North's, even though unashamedly pro-Brexit, at least bothered to put in the work to define what they thought Brexit should be and how they thought it could be made to work.

Things like the closure of car factories, (or any highly automated plant), will be hard to attribute to Covid-19. I agree that there is overcapacity in the EU car market - so why not close the ones where production is hampered by difficult trading conditions?

I don't think the Norths read enough history. If you fan the flames of a revolution, even with the best intentions and even with a reasonable plan for the post-revolutionary future, you are likely to be overtaken by the extremists and your project is likely to turn out to be a disaster.

Pete North, blogging on EU Referendum on Thursday while Richard was in hospital, said of Brexit "Since the whole thing is irretrievably wrecked either way I just wish they would do us the courtesy of ending it."

Well, Norths père et fils, perhaps you should have taken note of who your fellow travellers were, before it was too late.

I don't think the Norths read enough history. If you fan the flames of a revolution, even with the best intentions and even with a reasonable plan for the post-revolutionary future, you are likely to be overtaken by the extremists and your project is likely to turn out to be a disaster.

YY to this but will people admit to it?

@PawFives

I don't think the Norths read enough history. If you fan the flames of a revolution, even with the best intentions and even with a reasonable plan for the post-revolutionary future, you are likely to be overtaken by the extremists and your project is likely to turn out to be a disaster.

YY to this but will people admit to it?

The Norths have been challenged to admit it by BTL commenters on the Turbulent Times blog and so far the silence has been deafening.

I found R North's blog interesting for a time but I don't bother with it any more. The reason their vision failed is complex but it's personal as well as political: by all accounts, they are as unpleasant and difficult to like in real life as they are on the internet. North was involved early in the leave campaign but was sidelined at least partly because he was so obnoxious.

They are also far too dogmatically sure of their correctness even when out of their areas of expertise (in the case of the older North, food and phytosanitary standards; in the case of the younger one I'm not sure he's an expert in anything except being a complete and utter dick).

I really can't appreciate just what the local leaders describing the new furlough scheme as an "insult" and a "kick in the teeth" are expecting from taxpayers?

They must know that an 80% furlough in perpetuity is unsustainable (so is a 67% furlough) its just a little more sustainable for a little longer. Furlough means a person receiving 67% or 80% of their wages for not working, how long do those complaining possibly think those who are working, and who are therefore paying for all this can keep it up?

67% local lockdown furlough seems like a good, balanced measure to me, particularly if it is an alternative to supporting workers who aren't working who've already received 80% furlough for 6 months.

Peregrina
Things like the closure of car factories, (or any highly automated plant), will be hard to attribute to Covid-19.

September - "German car chiefs meet government to demand more aid amid COVID-19 slump."

PawFives
Finally caught up with the thread to find another C&P derailing argument because well known remainders including-checks notes - Michael Howard ?! aren’t Brexity enough.

But he's not an international lawyer giving a 'world-view' on the UK -which was the whole premise of the article in Big Choc's link.

(minor correction - the Ford link was to the BBC, not a newspaper article. I see that Yorkshire Bylines have now removed Unilever from their list - updated 5 Oct - better late than never.)

LouiseCollins28
67% local lockdown furlough seems like a good, balanced measure to me, particularly if it is an alternative to supporting workers who aren't working who've already received 80% furlough for 6 months.

I agree.

OTOH I'm not sure that "fanning the flames of revolution" is a fair characterisation of the Flexcit group, given that what they were proposing was perhaps politically non-mainstream but its practical endpoint was very close to the status quo.

I think that what's more interesting is how vulnerable to radicalisation many members of this group (including my father btw) turned out to be. The people who saw the light as their in-group became radicalised are very few - I can only think of two off the top of my head (Roland Smith and Ben Kelly, both of whom have interesting things to say on this topic).

@Mistigri

OTOH I'm not sure that "fanning the flames of revolution" is a fair characterisation of the Flexcit group, given that what they were proposing was perhaps politically non-mainstream but its practical endpoint was very close to the status quo.

I think that what's more interesting is how vulnerable to radicalisation many members of this group (including my father btw) turned out to be. The people who saw the light as their in-group became radicalised are very few - I can only think of two off the top of my head (Roland Smith and Ben Kelly, both of whom have interesting things to say on this topic).

I think "fanning the flames of revolution" is a fair characterisation. They were candidates for UKIP, both of them, at one time. They actively encouraged the movement to leave the EU.

They presumed that their proposal would be adopted - from, I suggest, hubris and ignorance of the people they were in bed with and of history.

"September - "German car chiefs meet government to demand more aid amid COVID-19 slump."

Yes and other manufacturing industries too; also hospitality & leisure sectors
Covid has caused a deep global recession

BUT
Only the UK is ADDITIONALLY suffering from leaving the SIngle Market - entirely a Tory Choice

A HUGE disadvantage for UK business, at a time when every country is scrabbling for any advantage it can find to avoid cuts being made in their country

Just because you are suffering from a serious illness, is it sensible to smash your kneecap with a hammer as well ?

Even without Covid, the car industry worldwide has to cut back because of new technology reducing the number of jobs

BUT
with all this happening, why choose to leave the Single Market and make UK businesses less competitive ?

That was not in the Leave campaign

@LouiseCollins28

I really can't appreciate just what the local leaders describing the new furlough scheme as an "insult" and a "kick in the teeth" are expecting from taxpayers?

They must know that an 80% furlough in perpetuity is unsustainable (so is a 67% furlough) its just a little more sustainable for a little longer. Furlough means a person receiving 67% or 80% of their wages for not working, how long do those complaining possibly think those who are working, and who are therefore paying for all this can keep it up?

67% local lockdown furlough seems like a good, balanced measure to me, particularly if it is an alternative to supporting workers who aren't working who've already received 80% furlough for 6 months.

.... Unsustainable ?

It's unsustainable to live off 67% of your former pay, especially after months of reduced income in the sectors most affected
and when there are hundreds / thousands of applications for the remaining jobs

What's "unsustainable" is e.g. HS2 - which will cost £200 million per week for the next 20 years
100 bn for Trident
100bn+ costs so far for Brexit

Government can always find money for what it wants

People in e.g. the hospitality and leisure sectors are being prevented from working by government orders,
to protect the vulnerable but also protecting the more privileged section of society who can WFH

When a government orders this, they - and those being protected - should compensate those forced to sacrifice

That's a fundamental difference to "ordinary" reduced hours,
which are not caused by govt cutting / shutting down whole sectors

If govt / society is not prepared to fully compensate working people ordered out of their jobs, then morally the case for these draconian measures collapses

I can't blame some of them for demanding a switch to herd immunity, when sacrifice is too much one way.

BigChocFrenzy

Is this extract incorrect re Germany?

"A two-thirds replacement rate is only slightly lower than the replacement rates of schemes in Italy and Spain, and similar to levels of Government support in France and Germany. For example, the proportion of their normal wage a worker on the new Job Support Scheme receives is identical to that initially received by workers with a dependent child in Germany under the Kurzarbeit scheme."

@Mistigri

Obviously there is a COVID impact in car manufacturing, but of course other issues determine where closures happen, and also (and more importantly) where new investment in battery electric and hydrogen technology happens in future. At my employer (which operates in this space) the big question right now is where new investment will be directed. A bad Brexit deal, or no deal, unfortunately makes it less likely that it will be in the U.K.

I think there needs to be (he writes knowing damn well that there won't be. And even if there is, no one will pay attention) a great deal more research and analysis into what changes that are happening aren't merely a direct response to Covid, but also changes that were happening anyway that Covid has accelerated.

And cars, personal and public transport - against a background of the shifting tectonic plates of employment patters - are almost certainly undergoing a paradigm shift of a few years compressed into a few months. TL;DR is I would not be investing in car or automotive manufacturing of the last century (see also: HS2).

Much as the World Wars saw the role of women in society change beyond recognition, this pandemic looks set to reshape the way we work. And so far it looks like rather than helping the UK in coping with that challenge, Brexit is actively hindering the countries ability to deal with that.

The government does not "find" money, it creates it or borrows it, at the expense of taxpayers either immediately or in the future. I really don't like this "pick a high spend programme I don't like" and blame that for our ills line of argument.

People in sectors which are closed down are being prevented from working in their current job and are consequently furloughed and I totally agree they should be being supported by the taxpayer, and have been for 6 months. What I disagree with is that this 80% thing should carry on indefinitely.

Those people in said sectors are not however being prevented from working full stop, and I would question when the scheme will change into one where employers are making more of a contribution to the wages of their workers on the basis of being able to reopen at reduced capacity. At what point does it stop, critics seem to want 80% taxpayer support for peoples wages to last forever.

@Clavinova

BigChocFrenzy

Is this extract incorrect re Germany?

"A two-thirds replacement rate is only slightly lower than the replacement rates of schemes in Italy and Spain, and similar to levels of Government support in France and Germany. For example, the proportion of their normal wage a worker on the new Job Support Scheme receives is identical to that initially received by workers with a dependent child in Germany under the Kurzarbeit scheme."

.... Wrong At least it's misleading for takehome pay

According to gym buddies, consensus is their takehome pay after deductions for tax, unemployment insuance, health insurance, old age insurance etc
leaves them at ~90% takehome pay

AND
it's not limited to £2,100 as in the UK - which would mean a much bigger cut for some on quite ordinary wages
That's something that keeps being overlooked - someone's mortgages etc are geared to their incomes, not NMW

This Kurzarbeit scheme is just the renewal of the one used for 2008 financial crisis (and earlier too, I think)

I was working then for a firm that was hit and we were on much higher salaries than the 2,500 UK limit
Even as a single person, no kids, with what the govt and my employer paid me, I took home ~90% of normal

"Those people in said sectors are not however being prevented from working full stop, "

There are very few other jobs, with hundreds / thousands competing for each

It is draconian and almost unprecedented in peacetime for a govt to force people by law to stop working
Quite different from the ordinary economic risks, even of a recession

it would morally be different if their jobs were cut because customers were staying home
However, when it is because of govt law, then govt should pay

Hence imo, 80% is the minimum that they should be paying - and without the 2,100 limit,
especially as so many cannot make up the 20% when so much else has collapsed too

If it is too expensive, then that is saying all of these SD rules are too expensive and maybe we really should consider herd immunity,
rather than pile the costs of saving other peoples' lives onto those of working age

Since I don't want the extra loss of lives from herd immunity, I am prepared to pay for these rules (German taxes)

The rule on MN is:

when someone is doing you a big favour, you pay them in full
e.g. all the posts that CFs should pay petrol for regular lifts

This is a compulsory "favour"

So 80% is already a compromise, which takes account of lower costs for transport, office clothes, meals out etc, but still leaves many people a bit out of pocket

BigChocFrenzy

Just to point out that my extract came from the Resolution Foundation (your link/unemployment/the Guardian).

Louise What about the businesses all these feckless people, expecting money for nothing indefinitely, actually work for? Although the Tory party have favoured the big business chains much of the hospitality sector, and I would argue the part of the sector that brings the most value to our national life, are SMEs who have already been hit by the last lockdown and investment in infection control and reduced capacity. The local government leaders are quite rightly highlighting that another period of enforced closure will be the last straw for SMEs who in any case have higher fixed costs than the big chains. This is not an issue of people wanting to be paid to not work indefinitely. Everyone in the hospitality industry I have talked to were really glad to be back at work. It is an issue about what sort of economy we return to when we finally control this virus (which of course we should have done already and have all our pubs and restaurants back open like New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong etc.)

Perhaps you will be happy if your high street is just one long row of spoons, zizzi and the like but mine will certainly be the poorer for losing our local landlords and restaurant owners.

Louise
People cannot get other work because the Government website is telling us all to become Lock Keepers.

Their employer's businesses were viable until random Whitehall diktat forced them to close
but funnily not forcing closure of the nice bars in the House of Commons and Lords

BigChocFrenzy
At least it's misleading for takehome pay

According to gym buddies, consensus is their takehome pay after deductions for tax, unemployment insuance, health insurance, old age insurance etc leaves them at ~90% takehome pay

That would include wages from their employers as well - not just government money?