Retired Professor of Political Economy
(Lancaster University, UK - retired 2021)
(also #ProfDJ across the Lune Valley)
Contributor: North West Bylines #NoBridge
Migrant care workers are being betrayed by the tied-visa system that bought them to the UK... when sponsors are striped of their license, it tis the care workers who are effectively punished - forcing them into a precarious race for alternate employment.
This is just one part of a national political hypocrisy on 'economic migration'... we want/need workers to fill posts, but some just want to punish them for coming here;
Another day, another part of the NHS beset by crisis & workforce problems (here the toxic combination of de-funding & de-skilling) as cash-strapped GP practices cannot afford locus GPs & are shifting to 'associate' positions... if you think this looks like the Teaching Assistant move in schools you'd not be wrong.
Its just another aspect of the Tories attack on professions via budget cuts & 'facilitating' their work to be done by the un(der) trained.
'sources' are now saying that Natalie Elphicke did not so much experience a political conversion as storm out of the Tory party having twice been refused Ministerial posts.
And, more explicitly Tories seem to be happy to say that it was her conduct in trying to excuse her husband's conviction for sexual assault (for which she has belatedly apologised).
No surprise the Tories want to depict her as tainted... & perhaps no surprise Streeting is defending her!
I know what you mean... at each point when you think, 'well, now we've reached rock bottom'... after a few days, you find we're sinking that little but deeper.
Somehow I missed that David Marquand passed away a couple of weeks ago.
When I was a (mature) post-graduate student of politics, having recently been working for Charter 88, he was the towering figure of centre-left (centrist) academic political commentary/analysis.
Now perhaps somewhat forgotten (or under-recognised), at the time he was a major figure whose writing was fluid & well-argued & a major influence on many.
Its a good time to be a newly qualified lawyer (at the top of your game); competition for the best new lawyers saw (as previously posted) one 'magic circle' firm raise entry salary to £150k... this has now been followed by another bidding £180k for the best of the current crop of young lawyers.
But I'm sure the BoE will be relaxed about this as rather than money grasping workers looking to inflates their wage, these will be the sons & daughters of many of their chums.
Camilla Cavendish is too cynical about the BMA & its handling of the doctors' strike.
But she's right on the button when she points out much of 'junior' Doctor disquiet is not about wages but about working conditions.
And this, local Trusts can do something about by offering subsidised meals, free parking & better rests facilities (as has been done in Milton Keynes).
As she concludes, if we want Doctors 'to take care of us, we need to look after them'
Some (qualified) better news on the forced cashless society:
Cash Access UK (set up by the major banks) has committed to have opened 100 community banking hubs by the end of the year. This hubs offer joint services across the constituent banks.
It remains to be seen whether this deal with some of the companies about lack of banking services (including access to cash)... and from a local point of view, when one turns up in the Lune Valley's banking desert.
Meanwhile in Papua New Guinea, finding that export markets for coconuts are contracting, PNG is now using what was once a key export as a biofuel.
Not only is this a demonstration of the innovation that can be forced by circumstance, it is likely to reflect an interest in finding alternatives to fossil fuels across the world.
We'll be seeing a lot more stories like this as human ingenuity side-steps fossil fuels for the green transition.
Our nearby small market town used to have 3 banks; they're all closed (taking their cash machines with them), and this week one of the two remaining cash machines was removed from the supermarket where it was located.
So, we're down to a single cash machine in an area with a radius (I'm guessing) of around 20 miles.
The cashless society doesn't represent consumer choice, its pace is being forced by financial institutions keen to charge fees on transactions!
Yes, before I retired & was still teaching the core model on the PPE course, I did a sub-section of a lecture on Grazaini's theory of money & credit.... but now I can hardly recall it at all; such is retirement
Having wrongly imprisoned Andrew Malkinson (and only releasing him after nearly two decades), for having the audacity to prove the justice system wrong, the state (and justice system) seems to be going out of its way to make his life difficult.
Read his account & you get the feeling that that state has a vindictive interest in punishing its victim(s) for bringing the justice system into ill-repute.
Reform is needed of this unjust 'compensation' system.
If you're in Lancaster, but are not heading up to HighestPoint tonight, then you could do a lot worse than joining #ProfDJ for some jazz-fusion grooves tonight, at Runner Duck Wine Room (King's St. Lancaster).
You can enjoy that sweet spot between soul and funk and jazz alongside some lovingly curated wine, and a great atmosphere.
Yet more Tories to join Labour.... but only those with 'purpose'.... say Wes Streeting.
Sure they might turn away some token nut-jobs (but they'd be unlikely to seriously want to cross the floor), but the fact that they are taking anyone from this demonstrable corrupt, craven & toxic party will (and does) upset many....
And then of course there is the question of motive.... their 'purpose' will be to farm the opportunities Wes & other afford them.
Holly Pester's short novel The Lodgers (2024), is a timely mediation on the unanchoredness of the peripatetic life of the renter/lodger. At times elliptical, with two narratives whose relations remains unsettled, this is a book which offers a real feeling for a key element of modern life; moving from one lodging/rental to another. While at time wry, it remains elegiac in its approach to tenant's despair & longing.
I've just boosted this, but wanted to really stress how this simple message seems to me to sum up the manner in which the media colludes with our political elites to stifle & stamp down on dissent:
'Judging a demonstration by its most violent participants but NOT judging a policy force by its most violent cops is the language of the oppressor'!
We see this again & again, and I've seldom see the criticism so concisely or saliently put.
When 0.6% growth of GDP (for the first Q of 2024) is reported as stronger than expected... you know that we have seriously downgraded our expectations about the UK's economic plight.
0.6% might end up looking like 2% + growth over the year, but don't get all happy, most of this 'growth' took place in services, which continue to have (as is well known) problems enhancing productivity... and productivity is the likely key to a revival of workers' real wages!
Indeed, I'd expect that, especially with the mess the ONS has got itself into recently... the data collection issues in the Labour Force Survey are hardly likely to be isolated.... but to hear the Tories, its like we're emerging onto the sunny uplands - on this Rachel Reeves is right; they are gaslighting us
Having worked (many years ago) for an employer who saw 100% commitment to the 'project' as indicating a readiness to work on any day at any time as required by the 'project'... & having had so many students aspiring to find 'meaningful' work - a perfectly reasonable aspiration, let me note - I fully endorse this warning about how meaningful work can extract an unhealthy personal cost.
I've experienced it myself, and have seen ex-students get trapped similarly.
David Rowland (Centre for Health & the Public Interest):
'One of the things that people who promote a two-tier system never point out is how premiums can quickly rocket as soon as someone gets a chronic condition or develops cancer... In the event that someone’s condition becomes uninsurable or they can’t pay, what then? A depleted NHS might not be there as a safety net to look after them'!
Looking across the Atlantic this warning looks like a massive understatement!
