Brexit, for once some facts.
- Thread starter flecc
- Start date
Well we've got plenty of plant based meats now.This is an amazing breakthrough for Vegan technology
I'm wondering how long it will be before we can have meat based vegetables on our plates.
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This is not a new idea, pioneered long ago in certain rain forest areas, along with quinine.
I believe they were called "missionaries"
I like starmers plan, it makes more sense than transferring £50 billion from the taxpayer to the bloated profits of commercial banks and energy companies
Industry unites behind plan for crisis fund to control soaring energy bills
A state-backed ‘deficit tariff scheme’ supported by banks would freeze energy bills at their current rate
www.theguardian.com
“cost of leaving crisis” - cost of EU workers leaving after we voted for brexit. 160,000 vacancies in social care, 110,000 in the NHS and a lot in agriculture.
It could have been predicted but at the time but did not get much attention.
Starmer may have to broach the subject eventually.
To me, replacing EU workers with rest of world workers is not a smart move. We have had and are still having a terrible endemic problem with low productivity. Replacing EU workers with those crossing the channel in dinghies is not going to solve that.
It could have been predicted but at the time but did not get much attention.
Starmer may have to broach the subject eventually.
To me, replacing EU workers with rest of world workers is not a smart move. We have had and are still having a terrible endemic problem with low productivity. Replacing EU workers with those crossing the channel in dinghies is not going to solve that.
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There is undeniably a shortage of workers here in the UK.
However, a very large number of vacancies are in unskilled and very low skilled occupations in the Agricultural, Care, Hospitality and even the NHS sectors.
So why do our 2600 food banks have well over 2.1 million customers who have no money at all for food, when there are all these wage paying jobs going begging?
This is nothing to do with the current high inflation since this situation has been with us for nearly six years now, since shortly after the referendum in fact.
The truth of course is that they don't want to do the jobs, preferring instead to draw benefits and get free groceries etc. This situation will undoubtedly have become even more entrenched with Rishi Sunak paying huge numbers not to go to work as a Covid protective measure, amounting to official approval for the lazy option.
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We are still not training enough doctors and nurses to be self-sufficient in future.
Which suggests that within healthcare, this is never-ending.
Two Countries
After escaping England and its costs and living in India and Pakistan for a number of years, followed by a couple of years in West Africa and two years in South America, my sister and her partner finally settled in Bulgaria for their retirement. There they bought a traditional farm house which needed quite a bit of doing up, which was no problem since it only cost them £10,000.
Bulgaria being in the EU she lives on her pension and has the full reciprocal free healthcare, which despite us leaving the EU, Bulgaria is kindly maintaining since they were pensioners there before the UK left the EU. They too are hit by the current inflation, now at 17.3% in Bulgaria, but she doesn't have a gas supply and the electricity there is heavily subsidised, so she's only affected by the price inflation of food and petrol for the car. Despite that the costs are so low there that her English pension equal to £147.50 per week is plenty. She also gets our Winter Fuel Allowance. This is what she had just included in writing to me:
"I always thought I might return to the UK if I was on my own but that would be impossible now. My pension is £147.50 a week, paid four weekly, and although I’d qualify for benefits, life would be a struggle. At least here I can have a comfortable life on little money."
Plus of course owning her home so cheaply, running a car on so little money and enjoying frequent trips to other countries.
Some of you will know I've had serious heart problems for the last ten years but have never had any adequate treatment in London's NHS from two different GPs and could get no consultant appointment when matters got serious in 2019. So this contrast with Bulgaria was interesting when my sister's English partner also started to have heart problems, quoted from her email:
"He developed heart problems this year. He had a bad cough and breathing difficulties in April which we thought was a chest infection. He went to our GP who did a routine test and sent him straight to a cardiologist who sent him straight into the general hospital. His heart was racing erratically and they stabilised it with medication and he was discharged after a week having had ECGs, echocardiogram, blood tests etc. We were due to go to Matera, Italy during this week so had to cancel. A month later he had a routine check and again the heart was racing out of control. The problem is he doesn’t feel anything - there are no symptoms. This time we were due to fly to Madrid to see the Rolling Stones but he wasn’t fit to fly! He was referred to the cardiology specialist hospital here and went in for a long weekend of tests including an angiogram which showed a slightly restricted artery but not enough to warrant a stent. They also diagnosed atrial flutter and changed his medication to control this and have been monitoring him regularly but it didn’t produce the results they hoped for. So into hospital again last Tuesday and on Wednesday he had Cardioversion which was successful and returned the heart to sinus rhythm. He came out of hospital today and they are monitoring him as an outpatient."
Overall what a stark contrast to here in England, in terms of home cost, living standards, travel, health care etc, all on our basic state pension. We really are somehow getting things terribly wrong in this country.
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After escaping England and its costs and living in India and Pakistan for a number of years, followed by a couple of years in West Africa and two years in South America, my sister and her partner finally settled in Bulgaria for their retirement. There they bought a traditional farm house which needed quite a bit of doing up, which was no problem since it only cost them £10,000.
Bulgaria being in the EU she lives on her pension and has the full reciprocal free healthcare, which despite us leaving the EU, Bulgaria is kindly maintaining since they were pensioners there before the UK left the EU. They too are hit by the current inflation, now at 17.3% in Bulgaria, but she doesn't have a gas supply and the electricity there is heavily subsidised, so she's only affected by the price inflation of food and petrol for the car. Despite that the costs are so low there that her English pension equal to £147.50 per week is plenty. She also gets our Winter Fuel Allowance. This is what she had just included in writing to me:
"I always thought I might return to the UK if I was on my own but that would be impossible now. My pension is £147.50 a week, paid four weekly, and although I’d qualify for benefits, life would be a struggle. At least here I can have a comfortable life on little money."
Plus of course owning her home so cheaply, running a car on so little money and enjoying frequent trips to other countries.
Some of you will know I've had serious heart problems for the last ten years but have never had any adequate treatment in London's NHS from two different GPs and could get no consultant appointment when matters got serious in 2019. So this contrast with Bulgaria was interesting when my sister's English partner also started to have heart problems, quoted from her email:
"He developed heart problems this year. He had a bad cough and breathing difficulties in April which we thought was a chest infection. He went to our GP who did a routine test and sent him straight to a cardiologist who sent him straight into the general hospital. His heart was racing erratically and they stabilised it with medication and he was discharged after a week having had ECGs, echocardiogram, blood tests etc. We were due to go to Matera, Italy during this week so had to cancel. A month later he had a routine check and again the heart was racing out of control. The problem is he doesn’t feel anything - there are no symptoms. This time we were due to fly to Madrid to see the Rolling Stones but he wasn’t fit to fly! He was referred to the cardiology specialist hospital here and went in for a long weekend of tests including an angiogram which showed a slightly restricted artery but not enough to warrant a stent. They also diagnosed atrial flutter and changed his medication to control this and have been monitoring him regularly but it didn’t produce the results they hoped for. So into hospital again last Tuesday and on Wednesday he had Cardioversion which was successful and returned the heart to sinus rhythm. He came out of hospital today and they are monitoring him as an outpatient."
Overall what a stark contrast to here in England, in terms of home cost, living standards, travel, health care etc, all on our basic state pension. We really are somehow getting things terribly wrong in this country.
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Postscript:
I replied to my sister reiterating the deficits in healthcare that I've suffered, and this is from her reply:
"We are so lucky with the healthcare here - it’s faultless. The locals moan but they have no experience of how bad it could be. I hear the same stories as yours from (Son) and (Daughter) who have been waiting for follow ups so long that they’ve probably fallen off the radar!"
Amazing isn't it how Bulgaria, a supposedly poor country with Covid like everywhere else, still manages to give such full and comprehensive GP and Hospital care for other conditions, without a mention of Covid as an excuse for not doing so.
And my sister and partner have both had their Covid jabs and boosters there, the first two jabs at the correct 21 day spacing, not the 10 to 12 weeks our English politicians thought better.
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I replied to my sister reiterating the deficits in healthcare that I've suffered, and this is from her reply:
"We are so lucky with the healthcare here - it’s faultless. The locals moan but they have no experience of how bad it could be. I hear the same stories as yours from (Son) and (Daughter) who have been waiting for follow ups so long that they’ve probably fallen off the radar!"
Amazing isn't it how Bulgaria, a supposedly poor country with Covid like everywhere else, still manages to give such full and comprehensive GP and Hospital care for other conditions, without a mention of Covid as an excuse for not doing so.
And my sister and partner have both had their Covid jabs and boosters there, the first two jabs at the correct 21 day spacing, not the 10 to 12 weeks our English politicians thought better.
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Distraction? Taking the urine?
GPs could prescribe money off energy bills under Treasury plan
Proposal would mean doctors would assess whether patients are struggling enough to require help
www.theguardian.com
Under a Truss government, who said patients should be fined for missing appointments and doctors should have their pay cut, and GP appointments can take weeks, and GPs are not in any way qualified to express opinions on affordability, ...
GPs could prescribe money off energy bills under Treasury plan
Proposal would mean doctors would assess whether patients are struggling enough to require help
GPs could prescribe money off energy bills under Treasury plan
Proposal would mean doctors would assess whether patients are struggling enough to require help
www.theguardian.com
Under a Truss government, who said patients should be fined for missing appointments and doctors should have their pay cut, and GP appointments can take weeks, and GPs are not in any way qualified to express opinions on affordability, ...
They truly get madder by the minute, with even the Civil Service joining in the idiocy.Distraction? Taking the urine?
GPs could prescribe money off energy bills under Treasury plan
Proposal would mean doctors would assess whether patients are struggling enough to require help
GPs could prescribe money off energy bills under Treasury plan
Proposal would mean doctors would assess whether patients are struggling enough to require help
Under a Truss government, who said patients should be fined for missing appointments and doctors should have their pay cut, and GP appointments can take weeks, and GPs are not in any way qualified to express opinions on affordability, ...
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I see the government is leading again with intelligence, sensitivity and logic:
Energy use is a ‘decision for individuals’ insist No 10 and Truss allies
Senior Tories rule out asking households to reduce energy use despite planning for winter blackouts
Thus, if you are well-off, you will be free to use patio heaters, have your house at tropical temperatures, use your swimming pool to boil tatties, recharge your Tesla and drive like a maniac. Open windows if it is a touch warm rather than turn heating down. And not even a tiny little "tut" from the government, nor a "please mister" asking nicely.
Even if it gets to revolving power cuts, as soon as their power comes back on, they can resume excess consumption.
Energy use is a ‘decision for individuals’ insist No 10 and Truss allies
Senior Tories rule out asking households to reduce energy use despite planning for winter blackouts
Thus, if you are well-off, you will be free to use patio heaters, have your house at tropical temperatures, use your swimming pool to boil tatties, recharge your Tesla and drive like a maniac. Open windows if it is a touch warm rather than turn heating down. And not even a tiny little "tut" from the government, nor a "please mister" asking nicely.
Even if it gets to revolving power cuts, as soon as their power comes back on, they can resume excess consumption.
In fairness this is not completely daft, given their experience with Smart Meters. The intention of those was for the people to be able to monitor their usage and be able to reduce it, the government hoping to reduce the need for new power stations.
Of course as I predicted that was a daft idea, most already only use what they need to so there has been no saving and the Smart meter scheme has been a stupid waste of over 80 billion pounds.
So having been stung once, it's entirely understandable that the government won't ask the public to save energy again, knowing it wont work.
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I don't know what type of smart meters are installed, but the obvious value is for demand level pricing. Here in France I am expecting mine to be installed on Thursday. It will allow me to interrogate it from Ireland
All they do is tell you how much is being used - to varying degrees of accuracy - and over varying periods (hours/days/weeks/months).
When you see a number it can be hard tracking down what is using the power. I was seeing something like 162W earlier and couldn't decide what was doing that. By the time you switch things off and allow the smart meter to tell you something has changed, you might have missed the culprit.
It's easy for things like the oven - such a big thing is obvious regardless of meter, display, etc. But a washing machine, which runs for three hours, cutting across many other devices, is difficult to check and assess.
The scheme got off to a bad start with large numbers of meters being installed that were incompatible and couldn't be switched between suppliers. By the time newer meters became available tens of thousands of them had to be changed.
Another major failing here is the large number of inoperative smart meters due to inadequate mobile phone coverage. That's true of mine and a large number of my neighbours, the government claims of 95% or more coverage falling far short even here in London. That of course means the hope of the suppliers that meter readers could be dispensed with has failed to materialise. Like many in various parts of the country I still have to feed my meter reading to the supplier every month and have a very occasional meter reader call to check. There's even been some companies set up to collect meter readings for suppliers.
But the biggest failing from the government's point of view is that there has been no reduction in usage, the very thing the government put them in for. They had claimed originally that the scheme would cost £11 billion and save as much due to a reduction in the need for more power stations, but it's now believed to have cost some £80 billions. Think of the generating infrastructure that could have built!
It was a crackpot scheme from beginning to end.
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If they told me it would benefit the country, I'd be happy to run my washing machine at almost any time. And my oven use is also very flexible (but not overnight). Those are the biggest electricity uses I have.
They just have to tell me and convince me what they are saying is true. They haven't even started to whisper...
I see Truss is as trussworthy as the lame duck:
Liz Truss has refused to commit to appointing an ethics adviser if she became prime minister, saying she has “always acted with integrity”.
If you check her definition of integrity, I think we have a mis-match with what many of us mean:
Between 2004 and 2005, she had an extra-marital affair with the married MP Mark Field, whom the Conservative Party had appointed as her political mentor.
Liz Truss has refused to commit to appointing an ethics adviser if she became prime minister, saying she has “always acted with integrity”.
If you check her definition of integrity, I think we have a mis-match with what many of us mean:
Between 2004 and 2005, she had an extra-marital affair with the married MP Mark Field, whom the Conservative Party had appointed as her political mentor.
She is also threatening to remove BoE's independence
Truss ‘irresponsible’ for threatening to review Bank of England remit
Labour’s Rachel Reeves says Conservatives are ‘playing blame game’ for UK’s economic problems
www.theguardian.com