• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

The Brexit Thread

While that's true, if nobody travelled and we never imported or exported goods, the country would be incredibly poor. There's tradeoffs to be had.
 
Alsty said:
While that's true, if nobody travelled and we never imported or exported goods, the country would be incredibly poor. There's tradeoffs to be had.
Click to expand...

I think you can make that argument for trade, less so travel (tourists would just spend their money more locally instead).
 
Dave said:
For NHS courses Universities can’t fill the spaces, no one wants to train as wages have stagnated and the Bursary was removed. On top of that record number of people are leaving the profession because the stress levels far exceed the wages paid.
Click to expand...

Some may argue that you don't need to keep increasing wages and providing a bursary when you have a steady flow of immigrants willing to do those particular jobs for the current wage. They've now re-introduced the bursary for nursing courses just as we've left the EU.
 
BarryZola said:
Some may argue that you don't need to keep increasing wages and providing a bursary when you have a steady flow of immigrants willing to do those particular jobs for the current wage. They've now re-introduced the bursary for nursing courses just as we've left the EU.
Click to expand...

That wouldn’t be a completely odd assumption to make, however the issue is the NHS hasn’t been at a healthy staff ratio for 7 years. This would suggest the EU immigration was not impacting these political decisions. Nurses from Poland expect similar wages in Poland as they do in the UK.

A £5,000 a year bursary is returning but before 2017 NHS courses didn’t have tuition fees, this has been the biggest hit on incentivising people taking up NHS courses and this isn’t coming back.
 
I liked how Boris called it an "Australia style Brexit". I guess that sounds better than WTO to the uneducated.

Either this is just brinkmanship to try and get a better deal with the EU, or he genuinely is bonkers and believes WTO will be fine. The problem with Boris is you can't actually differentiate buffoonery from genuine ignorance. Maybe that's the idea?
 
It seems to be brinkmanship...I suspect the EU will break first but if they don't, then I don't fully trust him to follow through with the threat.
 
Britford said:
It seems to be brinkmanship...I suspect the EU will break first but if they don't, then I don't fully trust him to follow through with the threat.
Click to expand...

Why would the EU blink first? They didn’t on the withdrawal agreement, Boris did.
 
They need us more than we need them.

That's why they'd siding with Spain over Gibraltar. And why they'd side with the RoI over the Good Friday Agreement. Because they look out for their best interests as it's the whole point of such a bloc.

But we were told we could have all the benefits and leave. Even when the EU negotiators kept saying "no you can't because of these reasons".
 
Lurker said:
And how many more people will starve? Once foodbank use is back down, and fewer people live in poverty perhaps prices could be allowed to rise. In the mean time take all that spare money you'd want to spend on groceries and donate it to a food bank. Hard working adults, and their dependents and struggling to support themselves in the skewed economy.

A better suggestion might to be to buy locally. From the farm shop (if you are lucky enough to have one, of course). This cuts out the middle men and makes sure those growing and picking the food get a better cut of the money.
Click to expand...

Well, if we all stop using self service check outs, and scan and shop, and stop buying online, then hopefully more jobs will be available in the UK and less people will rely on food banks. If we eliminate cheap labour, this should hopefully get more people in to jobs, even if it is just picking fruit from a field. And in turn it should hopefully increase wages as businesses benefit from the increased customers.

As for buying locally, I do when I can. Living in Devon we are quite fortunate in the number of local independent shops. Likewise if I can buy fairtrade then I do. The past 12 months in particular I have been trying to not buy anything made in China, and buy goods from the UK if at all possible.

On a sidenote with regards food banks, I read an interesting article about them a while back which mentioned that its not just peoples income which causes people to use food banks, but because home economics is not taught anymore, many people dont know how to cook, so foods which cost very little, eg veg, some people just dont know what to do with it. For example, one food bank didnt want bags of potatoes, which you would think is a staple food. The reason was that people wouldnt pick any up, as they wouldnt know how to cook with them. Bags of frozen chips, microwave chips, dry mashed potato mix etc would be picked up however. I'm not saying its the case with everyone of course, and many people do know how to cook, but it did make me wonder if the lack of knowledge about how to cook basic foods thesedays is another problem.....
 
GaryH said:
Well, if we all stop using self service check outs, and scan and shop, and stop buying online, then hopefully more jobs will be available in the UK and less people will rely on food banks. If we eliminate cheap labour, this should hopefully get more people in to jobs, even if it is just picking fruit from a field. And in turn it should hopefully increase wages as businesses benefit from the increased customers.
Click to expand...

I don't think self-service checkout usage will have any future effect on jobs, supermarkets are past the point of return. Also the predominant use of self-checkouts are in smaller (Express/Local) supermarkets that didn't have as many tills previously. One small M&S I went into recently had changed from 8 staffed tills (of which no more than six were often open) and now had at least 16 self-service tills and two staff, yes the store had moved two staff off the checkout, but they queue moved so much quicker due to having 10 additional tills open.

For home delivery internet supermarket shopping I think that is actually creating a lot of jobs in supermarkets, there is the person who packs the shopping for you and then the driver. Considering how many banners I see outside supermarkets I think they actually struggle to recruit drivers.
 
Sorry but I totally disagree. For the sake of waiting a few minutes in the M&S they have now reduced 8 staffed tills down to 2. Thats 4 possible members of staff gone - per store. Same with banks, my local Barclays have removed 4 staffed desks and replaced them with 4 machines, and have 1 member of staff wandering around to help - I hate it. It actually takes longer now! Give me desks and tills with a human behind them over a machine any day. Even if it means I wait another 5 minutes!
 
I look forward to it Rob! Seriously though, its not just the fact that people are losing their jobs, but society is becoming more insular. We hardly speak to each other any more unless its through social media or email, at least when going to a manned till you get to interact and speak to another human being!
 
GaryH said:
Sorry but I totally disagree. For the sake of waiting a few minutes in the M&S they have now reduced 8 staffed tills down to 2. Thats 4 possible members of staff gone - per store. Same with banks, my local Barclays have removed 4 staffed desks and replaced them with 4 machines, and have 1 member of staff wandering around to help - I hate it. It actually takes longer now! Give me desks and tills with a human behind them over a machine any day. Even if it means I wait another 5 minutes!
Click to expand...

Whereas my (London-based) experience is that there often isn't less staff in the store, just that they can now do other tasks easier too. It doesn't feel like less staff, it feels like more tills and shorter queues, I'm waiting 30 seconds instead of over five minutes.
I rarely need to visit a bank branch but when I did there was only ever a couple of counters open. Now there is still two counters plus the option of machines so I can get in and out a lot quicker (although the fact that most people also don't need to visit a branch also helps make the queue shorter).
The post office used to have about three or four counters open. Now there are three counters plus four self-service machines and the person to run them. Same number of staff, but twice the opportunities for me to pay for postage on a parcel. In general as well I find the self-checkout less stressful personally as I don't have to answer as many questions and I know exactly which service I want, but there are customers who obviously do need more assistance.
Also the staff at a checkout have never added any value to my experience, its not like I'm buying something where they may be able to answer questions. Stores where you want to ask questions (such as when buying a TV) and get real help have plenty of staff available (Richer Sounds, John Lewis, Currys etc).
 
From the BBC

Frictionless trade with the EU will end in 2020

The government has told businesses frictionless trade with the EU will end this year with the introduction of import checks at the UK border.

EU trade will not be waved through with zero checks which had been the plan under a no-deal Brexit.

Traders will not be able to use special arrangements to lodge new paperwork after a grace period at a later date.

---

I could've sworn we were promised frictionless trade and no tariffs in the referendum, even a FTA with no tariffs in the election. This doesn't sound much like having our cake and eating it to me.

If this happens then it's bad news for business. Certainly the car manufacturers have said tariffs and customs checks would not be acceptable to their business. I wouldn't want to be working in those car plants right now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top