ChrisMayLA6

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to climate

Local #bus services remain in a vicious spiral of reductions in funding causing reductions in services, causing fewer people to rely on them, causing further reduction(s) in services....

meanwhile the #ClimateCrisis rages & people suggest significantly enhanced #publictransport is the answer!

If you wanted a demonstration of why the electoral cycle & the centrality of #austerity as the logic of public expenditure underpin the failure of the UK to really adress #climatechange, this would be it

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to random

Here's William Davies (in the Guardian) setting out on why the marketisation of #highereducation was never really going to work as its architects intended, drawing Govt. into a regulatory 'fine tuning' that makes a mockery of the idea that #universities operate in a market

As he concludes: 'what greater confirmation could there be that marketisation has failed than a government getting to stipulate how many students are permitted to take a given university course?'

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/19/rishi-sunak-rip-off-degree-courses-education-crackdown

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to productivity

A report by Be The Business (a Govt. supported charity) reported in the FT, interestingly puts a large part of the blame for the UK's stagnated #productivity growth, not at the feet of #workers, but rather as a direct consequence of complacent management with a miss-placed confidence in its abilities.

This chimes well with my recent conclusions on the problem with #managers in a piece for @NWBylines

UK has a #management problem that needs urgently addressing/solving!

https://northwestbylines.co.uk/business/whos-responsible-for-reduced-productivity/

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to Economics

@sjwrenlewis argues that the problem(s) with #nationalisation, however popular it might be in the wake of considerable service failures, is that it is subject to a political pendulum that will merely see a future #Tory govt, re-privitise to gain the electoral effects of the bribe to #voters it can entail.

While, the #economics may favour nationalisation, the political economy may instead require a response the re-invigorates & solidifies regulatory oversight?

https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2023/07/why-nationalisation-can-be-gift-to.html

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to random

When all else fails, #Tories decide 'lets make this a #terror election';

#SuellaBraverman has declared prominent terrorist groups showing 'signs of resurgence'!

It may or may not be true, but its an awfully convenient time to try & make contemporary politics about the threat/danger of terror attacks... when nothing else is going your way, just ahead of three by-elections you're wondering whether your party might win.

Just remember when assessing any threat; the messenger(s) are proven liars!

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to random

The UK is not suffering wage-price spiral #inflation, it is experiencing the continued impoverishment of anyone outside the #financialservices sector;

the UK's rentier #capitalism continues to be a machine to enrich one (small) segment of society through #wagetheft on a societal scale.... this is the system the #Tories have engineered whatever their rhetoric.

In others words; this is what you get when #bankers run your economy in their own interests!

#GTTO

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to random

The flow of money in the #housingcrisis is all about #political choices.... if we had directed the money paid to private landlords into the social housing sector, how different would things be now?

We'd have millions more #houses in the social housing sector, and (perhaps) not have the housing crisis we currently experience.... ut of course then the buy-to-let crowd would have had to find another way to fatten their #pensions

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/18/vast-growth-in-value-of-england-rentals-since-1990-would-have-built-3m-council-homes

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to random

#Universities are warning that they are heading towards a (renewed) financial crisis, as support from the EU evaporates, costs spiral & questions about how to fund #HigherEducation remained mired in the #culturewars...

What we see in international comparisons is that the UK has (so far) managed to maintain a world class university system on the cheap... but as economists say 'If something cannot go on for ever, it won't! - tie to fund HE properly, not by extracting more money from #students!

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to Russia

#Russia looks to have pulled out of the #Ukraine grain deal which allowed food exports out of the country, partly because Russia's reciprocal arrangements fro its own food exports have not (in its view) been open enough....

Whether talks in #Africa will make this a second short suspension, or fail to convince #Putin to (re)allow exports remains to be seen, but for many poorer countries this could signal further food shortages & price rises...

The impact of the #UkraineWar continues to spread

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to feminism

Its 35 years since the Guerrilla Girls, first cicyulated 'The Advantages Of Being A Woman Artist' poster.

The Q. is how much has changed for #WomensArt?

In somes ways, quite a lot, in others not so much.

#arthistory
#feminism
#art

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to politics

More #Tory declaratory #politics:

Andy Haldane, chair of the levelling up advisory council, now admits, 'If you ask most people across the UK right now, have you felt the fruits of having been levelled up, they’d say ‘no’, or ‘not really’, or perhaps most optimistically ‘not yet'!

Admirably honest, I suppose, but once again it a Tory policy that is over-promises but under-delivery;

the only Q. that remains is: was #levellingup ever a serious intent?

To which the answer is, of course, NO!

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to random

For some years the growing gap between income & expenditure for #localcouncils has been a problem that occasionally surfaces but seems to have been kept as a 'local issue';

Now there's a likely shortfall (funding gap) of around £3bn in the next two years.

So we can expect more councils in extreme financial difficulties, more cuts to local services & more chaos caused by the decline adult & child care services Councils can no longer afford to run.

The #Tory wreckers have been hard at work!

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to renewableenergy

One of the key arenas for the #Tories declaratory politics is the #GreenTransition

whether its our record on #emissions, or the installation of #heatpumps;

whether its our use (and further exploration for) #fossilfuels, or the barriers put in the way of #renewableenergy production...

UK claims to be a 'world leader in green issues' but remains a reluctant laggard on #greenenrgy, #environmental policies & any shift to a new greener #capitalism...

Lets hope a new Govt. can shift the dial!

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to Teachers

I understand #teaching unions were told there would be no offer at all if it wasn't recommended to members;

However, it now looks possible that #Teachers have seen though the under-funded promises & the thinness of the promises for future (staged) rises;

But, if rumours are right, teachers may vote to reject the offer, leaving the teaching unions in the same place as the #Nurses unions, with a rejected offer but little appetite for further #strikes;

meaning the #Tories have sort of won?

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to random

Dr Alex Chapman (New Economics Foundation) on the spurious claims that #airport expansion contributed to #economic development:

'The reality is declining business air travel, declining wages for air travel workers, declining job numbers & declining domestic tourism spending in the UK. And that’s before you consider the rise in noise, air pollution and dangerous emissions'.

We need to stop believing the self-serving claims that more flying is a good thing for the UK!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/17/airport-expansion-no-boost-productivity-growth-report

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to random

In the USA, #inflation is down to below 4%... in the EU, inflations is down to below 6%, with some countries below 3%, but i the UK it remains around 8%.... so, why has the UK become an outlier in developed country inflation rates?

Key candidates are:

• how #Tories handled the #energycrisis;
• Continuing shortages #workers (compounded by #Brexit);
• #supplychain issues (again compounded by Brexit);
• The role of oligopolies in #greedflation....

More declaratory politics will not help!

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to random

What your job is effects how likely you are to become too ill to work:

'The increase in those too sick to work is driven by those in lower-earning, customer-facing work (think carers, cleaners or those in sales or leisure) and renters. It’s poorer Britain that is getting sicker'!

The incidence of 'bad work' not 'good work', tells us much about how the UK's dysfunctional #capitalism is run for the rich with the rest of us just disposable fuel to be consumed & discarded!

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/16/stuck-in-a-badly-paid-job-youre-also-more-likely-to-become-too-sick-to-work

ChrisMayLA6, 10 months ago to london

That we are now seeing warnings about a potential #measles outbreak in #London tells you much about the state of the UK

Misled by charlatans, some have decided not to have their children vaccinated over the last decades (perhaps hoping that normal herd immunity would allow them to free-ride on #vaccination programmes, or perhaps thinking the risks from measles or other diseases were so low as to make the miss-conceived danger of harm of greater importance?)

Its a little like #Brexit isn't it?

ChrisMayLA6, 11 months ago to Nurses

Kevin Fong just made a crucial point on Phillip Hammond's R4 show 'How I ruined medicine' (which I caught the end of):

Only when the wellbeing of #NHS staff and patients are given equal weight will any NHS #workforce plan really stem the tide of #nurses & #doctors leaving the health service.

The wellbeing of patients is usually privileged in NHS planning but without being attentive to the wellbeing of staff who need to deliver & manage the health service, we will fail!

Absolutely right!

ChrisMayLA6, 11 months ago to random

From an earlier post; air travel #emissions (per person) are much higher than travel by car.... but, to put that into perspective, here's a breakdown of #oil use:-

Transportation:
Road 44.6%
Aviation 5.6%
Marine 4.1%
Rail/Waterways 2%

Industry:
Petrochemicals 14.2%
Other products 13.2%

Power:
Electricity generation 5.1%

Other uses 11.4%

Not flying reduces #fossilfuels use but we must also reduce our reliance road transport use!

more #publictransport!

[data IEA via Delayed Gratification]