JoeLeg

The legally required standards of 'free range' are pretty elastic. It doesn't mean the hens are outside all day, scratching around for natural food. It means they still live in barns, but have access to the outside. Not quite the same thing. There's a lot of 'interpretation' in farmers which allow them to call their eggs free range. This is an EU law, granted, and it's been challenged recently because of the risks of disease amoung fowl, which has caused some farmers to want to keep their flocks inside longer than normal. So I can see why the EU would be a target over this. But two questions - would British law neccesarily be any different? And is this actually a bad law? Personally I think there should be exceptions made if there is disease control involved, but generally stringent standards in food production are a good thing. I take issue with the idea promulgated by the farmer that leaving the EU will solve the issues farming faces in the UK; I'm not going to drone on again repeating things I've said in other threads, suffice to say that farming in this country is on far more trouble than politicians want to admit, and if it is to survive in any meaningful form them post-Brexit the government absolutely must lavish resources and cash on it to ensure we don't become even more dependant on food imports.

Ok Uncleglen, No, I have not heard anything about protectionism in the building trade. I don't doubt their are unacceptable rackets going on, and I personally believe the answer is a properly regulated trade staffed by properly accredited workers who can prove their credentials. we need legislation for that and government willing to stand the political weather that will come with standing up and admitting our industries need revitalising from the ground up. I'll support that 100%. There's no other way to root out gang masters and criminals. As for 'Bangladeshi kitchens', well the change in legislation from two years ago made importing their skills very difficult. You'd be amazed at the number of Europeans working in those restaurants. (You want British workers in there? Tell them to stop being so lazy and learn the value of hard work.) I would point out though that the protectionism of the building trade is as nothing compared to what Trump will do. It will have international ramifications - do you feel confident predicting that the UK is going to benefit from a trade war between China and the USA? You're a very angry man, and I can see why. You feel that you've been sold out by successive governments who have allowed the immigrants in and stolen your country. Fair enough. It's not something I've experienced, and I've lived here since the 70's, but I'm not going to tell you your experiences are false. Not got a lot of time for your religious bigotry though. I hope you feel you get what you want from Brexit, but immigrants have been coming here for centuries, and we've been hating Catholics for centuries, and since 2001 we don't seem to like Muslims much, and given that just over 50% of immigrants aren't from the EU I'm not really sure what you're hoping this country will become.

Pato - you make good points, but believe me, there's a lot of people who aren't 'pretending'. We're well aware of the directions some groups of society are moving, as they feel empowered to let their inner fool out. It's a problem, but I'm hopeful that over time it will subside. Firstly, we simply aren't as racist as we used to be generally; the days of 'no blacks no Irish' are gone. Secondly, not everyone who voted for Brexit is a racist, we all know that. There's a lot of Leave voters unhappy at the incidents you described, and I'm optimistic that ultimately these horrific attitudes wil change. I could be wrong of course... People protest against Trump because he openly represents some pretty unpleasant attitudes. True, there's a lot of it everywhere, but when you've got an administration that so openly tries to screw with a free press and is blunt in its aims of protectionism and isolationism, the policies necessary to achieve that are going to be divisive, to say the least. Trump scares me far more than May. For all that I may disagree with certain Tory policies, even many of them, the Comservative party is one of intense pragmatism. They aren't willing to destroy entire political and international structures to achieve grandiose new aims, whereas Trump and his team are ready to rip up the rule book in order to get what they see as necessary. Trump is doing exactly what he said he would, unusually for a politician. Fuelled by a populist movement which will tolerate any message from him so long as it's couched in words which make them believe he will always put them first, he's ready to fuck the rest of the world in order to win. And he's surrounded by true-believing acolytes who sense that this is their real opportunity at power (Steve Bannon being the worst, most obvious example, but there are many), who will use this administration to pursue their own private philosophies. So yes, Trump poses are far greater threat than May. (Apologies for going so far off topic. My essential response is that yes, you're right about some of what's going on in the UK now, but I'm hopin we as a nation will remember what benefits inclusivity bring. I'm in an interracial marriage, so I feel I have an interest in that aspect.)

???? - you and me may know that immigration and immigrants are not the same thing, but I respectfully suggest that a lot of people out there don't see a difference. There's an awful lot of anti-immigrant feeling in this country, and it mostly comes from poor white communities which desperately need help but also need to recognise that IF immigrants are taking their jobs, it's usually because immigrants do them better. This is not to ignore cash on hand workers, gang masters and out and out human traffickers, but the overall impact of the criminally controlled job market on actual employment is negligible. We need governments who invest in the education of communities and create conditions for thriving local economies to help these communities to recover, and we have to remember that economic migrants don't go where there are no jobs that they can get. "BTW How about Labour shortage will actually result in an increase in wages for traditionally piss poor paid occupations - though our next latte or hipster burger or cleaner's rates or Farmer's Market vegetables may go up a few pence..." Well now this is an excellent point. But I'll tell you now we're talk oh about increases of more than a few pence. Much more. Hey, if people are willing to pay more then we'll happily pay more. But you're talking about increase of around 10%-20%. It will make eating/drinking out pretty expensive, possibly sending places out of business and losing jobs. Or it might stimulate growth and be really good for everyone. We won't know until we try.

It's only automatic if one of your parents is a British citizen, either born here or naturalised. If both parents are not British citizens then it gets much more complicated. And is certainly not guaranteed.

I'd agree that - again, especially at the higher end - it's as much the applicant interviewing the restaurant as the other way around. Part of that is because over the last ten years chefs have simply refused to work the insane hours for pitiful pay that the fine dining world offers, especially when they can go to an agency, and make a lot more getting sent into exactly that same kitchen because they can't find good staff. It's a corner that the top end of the industry painted itself into and is now having to work hard and adapt to get out of. It's certainly an applicants market at the moment - two people I know were recently able to slide into higher paying roles with better prospects than they had before with ease, and that's fairly typical. There's simply not a lot of competition for jobs. For most of us though, we're looking at people who don't want to work a lot of weekends, or who want more money than the role generally pays. "Millennials", as they're being called, have a bad reputation, but not all of their grievances are unfounded. However, there is no escaping the fact that many entry-level positions are low-skilled because you need those entry skills upon which to build the higher ones which will bring you success. And so the problem continues. I'm really surprised to hear Westminster College is having trouble turning out chefs with required skills. They were usually on the ball. A lot of the other colleges are pretty useless frankly, where chef skills are concerned at least. There's only one way to address it, and that's to bring back a good apprenticeship training system. Perhaps they intend to do that, and that's what they mean by it taking years. Many industry's would benefit immensely from it. Not going to hold my breath though, and as I get tired of saying, it's a change in mentality that's needed.

Seabag Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The restaurant industry is struggling to recruit > already here in London. Yes, very much so! As if suffering from years of decline in skills as a result of the destruction of the old (very good) City and Guilds apprenticeship schemes, and the subsequent mismanagement by governments from both parties of skilled training programs (as in, we don't really have them any more), we now have trouble recruiting in general. Before we could be reasonably certain of getting good people from abroad, but now there's a sense that potential applicants don't want to commit to a job that (they worry) might not be there in two years. It's affecting the upper echelons of fine dining more so at the moment, but the rest of us are starting to feel it too. When we advertise a post we just aren't seeing the same quantities of applications that we used to.

If someone who threw themselves on a grenade walked into a room where I was I'd probably applaud too - I hope I'd have as much courage as him. But we live in a society where people are free not to applaud. That's who we are - this isn't Starship Troopers. We live in a pluralistic society and tolerate those who hold opinions we disagree with. Personally I'd rather know who they are, so we can ignore/monitor them. It's the ones who applaud while secretly plotting violence that I worry about. Yaqoob was just being a twat; when you're already a Respect (ha!) councillor, such foolishness is expected of you. And the rest of us just have out low opinion of you confirmed.

Toffee Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Suffernot. Be prepared for all the liberal left > on this forum to tear you to pieces. How bloody > dare a British soldier look after his mates? Good > job the guy was totally disrespected. Wow.sorry to > both my grandfathers who lost their lives. Screw you Toffee. Absolutely no one on this thread said anything against the Marine (he's a Marine, by the way, not a soldier - they emphasis the difference). Don't go tainting us by association. All you've read here is a bunch of people pointing out the Yaqoob is a tool, and that it's totally wrong to say what she did has any bearing on how this country is going forward. If you can't handle that then maybe stop thinking that when people point out the strawman nature of a post like that, that it equals disrespect for service personnel. Here's a suggestion - swing over to ARRSE and post on there asking what they think of Yaqoob. You'll find most of them can't be bothered wasting time thinking about her. People like Yaqoob and their infantile gestures only succeed when others give them credence. If you haven't figured that out then good luck to you. And by the way, before I was a chef, I was a Fusilier.

Jeremy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > JoeLeg Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > A little over ?3 an oyster is pretty steep > > Think your sums are a little off, Joe. I think you're right. Mea culpa. Sounds about right for fines de clare though.

A little over ?3 an oyster is pretty steep if they're selling fairly 'standard' Dorsets or such. If they're splurging on the more expensive Mersea or some of the high-end French one's them it'd be about right. If they're importing from the continent or Republic of Ireland then the euro exchange rate won't help that price.

Are you reading the same post as the rest of us fruityloops, or putting your own spin on it? It addresses exactly the actual issues going on. Maybe not the issues that SSW think should be dealt with, but then they seem to think the cemetery has a different function to the one it actually does.

So you're saying that in an incident that occurred six years ago, someone who repeatedly failed to be elected as an MP, and who could only become a local councillor as part of the widely discredited personal vanity project that is George Galloways 'Respect' party, became somehow indicative of the future of the U.K.? Yaqoob failed as a politician, is remembered mainly for that crass attempt at provocation which you describe - and which was roundly condemned, and has not been part of public life since 2012. She in no way represents the future of this nation. I'll have some of whatever you're drinking.

I think EU migration is just under half the total amount, so it's quite a lot, especially when we factor in that some of them come here looking for work, ie, without a job already lined up. But that's partly the point, economic migrants go where there are jobs they can get. If Davis himself is admitting it will be years before we're in a position to replace those people with UK workers, and people are being surprised and angered by that, then it tells us that they didn't really understand how dependant we are on those workers right now.

Yeah, now it's all coming out. All those cries of "it's about sovereignty!", all those people who said "we're tired of Brussels telling us what to do", all the visions of a Britain better off able to negotiate trade deals outside of the EU? Well, they were in the minority weren't they? I don't doubt they're out there. I don't doubt a lot of people sincerely believe there are many reasons why we would be better off out of the EU. And they might even be right, I'm not so full of hubris to believe that there's no way we could be in a better position (though I'm extremely sceptical). Most of those who voted Leave did so because of immigration. And again I recognise they have a point, a huge one. And now the vote is done and that's that, but this is what happens when you vote for an idea and not a plan. Hardly anyone thought about what we would actually do next - all that guff about how it wasn't the Leave campaigns responsibility to have a plan?! Yes it bloody well was, because they wanted it! So now it's being admitted that immigration is an horrendously complex issue to solve, and some people aren't happy about that. I'd love to be pleased at their stupidity but I can't be, I'm too busy being really worried at what this fractured view of what Brexit should be is going to do to us over the next few years. I think we're in for a really rough ride.

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > rahrahrah Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > > This is fine - but do you or would you willingly > accept that many people who say vote Tory do > exactly the same thing? Because they do - but most > people from the left are completely unwilling to > accept this. Tories are all selfish, > self-interested, not believing in society etc I > think that the new Virtue Signalling and the old > champagne socialists give a chance for those not > enamored with Socialism to give the, ahem, > 'Righteous ones' a dose of their own Medicine - > and they don't like it much do they Ummm, have you seen (or rather read) how many on the right are referring to those the left these days? 'Snowflake', 'Libtard', and worse; indeed 'Liberal' is often a term of abuse by many these days. If we want to talk about how people are referring to those whose political opinions are different to theirs, then I'd say there's a lot of mud being thrown around these days and it's sticking to everyone. The left has a lot of problems, I find a lot of what gets spouted by the extreme parts of it repugnant, but the moderate voices get drowned out in between the crap being slung around. I don't have to like a lot of Tory policies, and I remember the 80's, but I know there's more than one opinion on this country and they all have as much of a right to be heard as mine. I guess what I'm taking too long to say is that I'm pretty fed up of being told that 'most people' on the left think this way or that way. It's not really about left or right any more, hasn't been for a long time. Most people's opinions cover a pluralism of ideology, in a way that surpasses centrism or bi-partisanship. It's what allows the rise of populism because they can't be pigeonholed politically like in the 20th century, and neither main party has begun to address their concerns.

Loz Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Austria works this way, and works very well > indeed. As far as I could work out, there was a > percentage levy paid by both employees and > employers that went into an 'insurance' fund. > Free at the point of delivery like the NHS, but > more complex in its underlying funding. Interesting. I overheard on conversation the other night which described how Austria is the hardest country to get a passport from - the speaker was a man with an Austrian mother who said that he had been unable to obtain one, and that they hardly ever give them out. I'm unsure of how immigration in Austria affects their health service (obviously they have some very right wing politicians), but if they're already very picky about who they let in it must make it easier to control a scheme like that surely?

A viable idea, if you have enough people earning enough money to support that. A quick glance at wages and cost of living in this country will rapidly dissolve the idea that private healthcare schemes are affordable to the majority of families, and probably to many individuals too.

teddyboy23 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Joe would you agree concerning the house of > lords.some of the peers who are getting EU funded > pensions or payments.debating on our exit from the > EU.when it would suit them to remain.also > mandelson suggesting who receives EU funding to > endorse the EU telling the house to make things as > difficult as possible with delaying tactics. > unlike you mandelson and the rest shouldn't have a > leg to stand on. These are good points, and the HoL has always been something of mixed blessing; any way one looks at it there are potential conflicts of interest all over the shop. Trying to answer as objectively as I can (speaking as one who plainly supported Remain and believes that we have handed an unelected PM too much of a blank cheque, but who also would like to see an elected second chamber, or at least a total end to heriditary peerages), I think the Lords provide, as they are intended to, a useful oversight on all legislation and this should be no exception. Like large amounts of the Commons, they have self-interest affecting their judgement, and when this crosses over into actual conflict of interest it can become a problem. But a fact of being a Lord usually means that you have quite a lot of money - I'd be interested to see exactly how much these pensions are for? The Daily Mail (sorry to quote them but if anyone has dug into the figures it's them!) quotes it at a total of ?500,000 per year, with Mandelson on ?35,000. Now, that's a lot of money to many of us, but I would suggest not really game-changing to many of them. I'd say that their are undoubtedly EU-related financial inducements that are swaying the minds of 'noble Lords', but I doubt it's those pensions. So to answer your question, anyone looking to show conflicts of interest from the HoL needs to be digging deeper, in my view. And I suspect there are many examples, and I suspect they're staying quiet because there's dirt on everyone, on both sides.

Power corrupts, as they say. There's not a single politician that's climbed above back-bencher level who cannot be accused of this fault of self-interest; it sees too often like they seek and then cling onto power for its own sake. Even Corbyn is now in this trap (don't get me started on Diane Abbot). So I struggle with the idea that just because Blair (and many others) have soiled themselves - in his case copiously - with the dirt that comes with high office, they are unable to contribute to debates. At what point do we draw the line, where do we say 'no, you are no longer entitled to be part of public life'? And who makes that decision? I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of limiting people free speech on the basis of past mistakes, no matter how large. I agree no one should take policy initiatives from former South American dictators or convicted sex offenders, but beyond that I think it's a dangerous path to take. It smacks of censorship. Plus, they may actually have a point worth making.

But if you ask people to fund their healthcare directly they will reasonable expect their tax payments to go down. Otherwise what's the point? And then it's a choice between the same level of service, just paid differently, or a better service that costs more, or a worse service if you can't afford it.

???? I have no > idea > > what the solution might be. > > > Theoretically loads: > > New Treatments that are more cost effective > Technology that delivers services/treatments more > effectively - from profound changes in say laser > surgery technique to simple appointment/reminders > setting delivered better but basically technology > can reduce cost in myriad ways > Better management all round to improve > efficiency > Better procurement practice > Better non=-medical 'practice' eg, I read that > the recent change to giving people with fluey type > symptons anti-biotic perscriptions but framing > this as "This is in case you don't feel better in > 2 days then get the subscription' has had a > material impact on subscription costs > Further Devolving of some 'medical' powers and > applications down the chain (see Jabs via > qualified Nurses as an eg of standard practice now > - used to just be doctors) > Self- monitoring via technology/apps - is already > but could be massive in reducing GP pressure > and/or 'preventetive' practice > > These are just off the top of my head in 5 mins I welcome the sound of all of those, and some of them sound like innovative ways of reducing stress in the system. I am however sceptical of management and procurement improving!

That's exactly the point I'm making; first-world medicine costs more and more all the time. Look at immunotherapy, described by the late AA Gill as "every oncologists weapon of choice...but only if you can afford it". It will extend your life, but it costs a lot, and isn't (as far as I'm aware) available on the NHS, which can't afford it. More and more in the west we view medicine as some kind of all-conquering thing which can always help us. But no one wants to know how much it is. What's the answer? More money. As so often in life the answer is more money.

The increase in the use of NHS services is far more to do with a population that lives longer and people who cannot/will not access more appropriate services, than any increase in immigration. The fact is first-world healthcare to the standard we all expect it is incredibly expensive and people don't like dying. The modern NHS is criminally underfunded, and I would say the tragic circumstances surrounding Stringvest's examples are far more a result of bad management and lack of money than anything else. As Stringvest points out, large numbers of jobs in social and medical care are done by immigrants too, but she describes an all too familiar situation of staff that are badly supervised and controlled. These are problems that can only be addressed by real, systemic changes to an organisation that everyone wants, but hardly anyone is willing to admit the real cost of.

Yup, there's that double standard, nice to see you're at least consistent. Question - if someone is a self-interested politician, does that mean their views should be dismissed?