In the news

I think working from home probably aids them as people are sympathetic and sympathy probably lasts longer when not being personally disrupted

Also CWU said they are going to ballot today and NEU have said they will if they don't get an inflationary pay rise so could be fun times ahead for the Government, Raab came out this morning and said they can't let the RMT "win" as it will let others get ideas above their station

I think it's outrageous that workers would like a pay rise in line with inflation. Don't they know their place?

I think as was pointed out somewhere, perhaps the government should be more proactive on the price component of the wage / price spiral?

perhaps the government should be more proactive on the price component of the wage / price spiral?

Ha

Merseyrail negotiated a 7% pay rise today. Not connected to the rmt dispute plus if you want to read what drivers say.
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/rail-strikes-discussion-thread.232993/unread

I thought Johnson wanted a high wage economy and work was the route out of poverty

Don't, they had a tory drone on last night saying this is still the case, they will train and educate anyone who wants it to get a job that is high wage or be promoted, not sure who then does all the low wage jobs that are left behind?

There was a great moment on Newsnight where they had someone on crowing that not a single Tory MP was supporting the strikers on the picket lines. I'm not sure it's quite the ringing endorsement they thought it was.

David Allen Green summary of the new Bill of Rights and links to other analysis, seems like we get the same rights but it is made harder to enforce them

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1539629280040292352

Robot & immigrants on exploitative visa conditions?

Somebody has to dig trenches and clean the hospital and deliver parcels, but instead we just see money being pissed up the wall for test and trace and banker bonuses.

Ideally, "low paid jobs" become more productive, so one trench digger gets a machine and extra cash and others move to green energy jobs, while some jobs like cleaning, well, you cannot always improve productivity so pay more.

And when it comes to jobs working with people, well, that's another area where you cannot really speed things up much (people gonna people) so......just pay more FFS.

But, it's pretty hard to pay more and not risk other problems, so it =should= totally happen but it's going to be a fight for any party. Tax system, education for life long learning, etc, it all needs changed, much easier to just blame Labour for supporting the strikes (for the right) while watch them fight over MPs going to the picket lines (because whatever they do, they will disappoint the left or the media goes after them)

Add Robert Jenrick to the list of Mick Lynch's victims
https://twitter.com/itvpeston/status/1539718403216363520

Hahahahhaha tore him a new arsehole.

And yes, fuck train ticket prices, a joke.

Jenrick: I’m no expert.
Lynch: I smell blood in the water

This is what you get when a government doesn’t have serious people.

They should be sending out their key rail person or transport minister instead of someone who’s happy to debase themselves after reading 3 bullet points in a WhatsApp.

Another analysis of the bill or rights, quite interesting I thought : https://publiclawforeveryone.com/2022/06/22/the-uks-new-bill-of-rights/

Reading some of the analysis it would appear that the effect of the bill is to make the UK's human rights law diverge from the ECHR version, and more amenable to direction by the executive where there's a potential clash between e.g. Patel wanting to send people to Rwanda and their status in human rights law that would exempt them.

But, that's domestic law, which means that lefty-metropolitan-remoaner-elite lawyers will take the case to Strasbourg, where the UK government will lose.

And, as it effectively says to UK citizens "you must go to Strasbourg to assert your rights" this is going to happen (I suspect, with our government) frequently.

Which means that the UK Gov are going to be found to be in-breach of their international treaty obligations, by dint of infringing their own citizens human rights, over and over.

Putting aside the lefty-remoaner side of things, does any government publicly want to be a loser, repeatedly? How's that going to play out with their base - "We try to send them home, then we lose in court, every time, and have to bring them back". Or, I suppose, we just ignore our commitments under international law.

Which brings us to the GFA, which requires a full inclusion into NI law of the ECHR schedules, not the diverged version that is the new Bill of Rights - being a member of the ECHR is not enough.

IDK how this pans out, but it's a fucking mess.

I’d imagine their key rail person and the transport minister aren’t up to the job either. So to save the people who should actually be in the best position to counter Lynch from failing they just send cannon fodder and can just say they weren’t the experts so it’s not a big issue that they don’t do well.

Jenrick: I’m no expert.

Shocked at his honesty

They should be sending out their key rail person or transport minister

Yeh, Grant Shapps says he won't engage the union and seems to enjoy going around saying he has never met Mick Lynch as a way to somehow distance himself from it, so can't see him going on a show with him

Oh dear, Vogue.

https://twitter.com/disappoptimism/status/1539882960761004034

A manifesto pledge from the Tories to take us out of the ECHR?

As Shapps has all the intellect of a dead beetle, Lynch would eat him for breakfast. I'd pay good money to watch that.

Would be pretty odd seeing as the new Bill of rights doesn't remove the ECHR from UK law.

A manifesto pledge from the Tories to take us out of the ECHR?

Just sets the current low level conflict with the US to a live issue as the GFA is contingent on continuing membership of the ECHR. I think the Tories are absolutely desperate for Trump, or a Trump analogue to replace Biden in the belief that they'd be A-OK with the UK wrecking the GFA, but my feeling is that that misreads bipartisan support for Ireland.

I suppose we will see.

does any government publicly want to be a loser

perhaps they see it as fuel for their misplaced victim complex, and can/will use it as culture-war fodder to rile up their voter-base?