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[phisheep]

Unless we turn every space square foot of the UK into a wind turbine and surround the coast with wave then it is all but impossible to supply the UK with renewable.

A lot of this depends on what you compare with. For example, the proposed Severn Barrage is reckoned to be able to supply about 5% of the UK's energy requirements - which sounds like a whole load of money for not much. But that equates to the whole domestic consumption of Wales and the South-West of England (from Bristol downwards), or the the whole domestic and business consumption of either of them - which sounds like a lot more sense.

 

[twobear]

Tidal generators seem like they should be pretty great for the UK, given that it has the 12th longest coastline of any country in the world.

[edit]Strange thing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_length_of_coastline

Not really sure how the World Resources Institute calculate the USA as having the second longest coastline in the world. Even eyeballing it, it's nowhere near Russia or Canada.

[edit 2]Oh, I guess they include Alaska.

 

[killer_clank]

Yeah, Alaska is deceptively huge.

 

[Meadows]

We need to give rich people a tax break, then they can afford more people to clean their toilets.

That's not what I said, I'd appreciate it if you didn't put words in my mouth.

 

[twobear]

I think part of the problem with, for example, the fact that there are cleaners jobs available in a new office block is that it might have, say, ten cleaners and ten security staff. You can't close the employment gap for unskilled workers by having them ride the coattails of jobs for skilled workers in that way.

 

[Meadows]

I think part of the problem with, for example, the fact that there are cleaners jobs available in a new office block is that it might have, say, ten cleaners and ten security staff. You can't close the employment gap for unskilled workers by having them ride the coattails of jobs for skilled workers in that way.

I think it helps (along with manufacturing and other non-clerical skilled jobs)

 

[twobear]

I think it helps (along with manufacturing and other non-clerical skilled jobs)

Sure it helps, but it's like putting a plaster on a severed limb.

 

[Meadows]

Sure it helps, but it's like putting a plaster on a severed limb.

I don't think that's a particularly apt comparison.

 

[twobear]

I don't think that's a particularly apt comparison.

Aside from the fact that it's a very clumsy analogy, what do you object to?

 

[Meadows]

Aside from the fact that it's a very clumsy analogy, what do you object to?

I think that those jobs make up a large part of our economy.

Also, the aim of our education system is to produce as few unskilled workers as possible, so we should be trying to give jobs to the skilled that we already have in our country's employee pool and educate those who aren't skilled through night-classes/BTECs etc.

 

[twobear]

I think that those jobs make up a large part of our economy.

Also, the aim of our education system is to produce as few unskilled workers as possible, so we should be trying to give jobs to the skilled that we already have in our country's employee pool and educate those who aren't skilled through night-classes/BTECs etc.

I can't find figures for the UK, but http://www.ehow.com/about_5080101_definition-janitorial-services.html says 2.4 million jobs in the USA in 2006 were janitorial/cleaning. That's not a negligible proportion of the population, but it's not huge (it's about 1% of the total population).

I agree that we probably want as many skilled workers as possible, but I'm not sure how feasible that is in the UK. We're always going to need unskilled workers.

 

[Meadows]

I agree that we probably want as many skilled workers as possible, but I'm not sure how feasible that is in the UK. We're always going to need unskilled workers.

I'd argue that the unskilled workforce could be maintained by students/people otherwise studying towards higher education/ROBOTS

 

[twobear]

I'd argue that the unskilled workforce could be maintained by students/people otherwise studying towards higher education/ROBOTS

So you think students could moonlight as construction workers?

 

[defel]

Closing the income gap is not about improving the outcomes for each individual, rather it is about improving the opportunities. I dont want equal pay, I want each individual to earn money that is reflective of their skillset and their effort. What I want is equal opportunity. Everyone should have to opportunity to get the best education and experience possible. If someone wants to be a cleaner then thats fine. I can think of many people who earn low wages who are intelligent and highly employable who choose to do what they enjoy (rather than what earns them the most money) and thats a model I personally hope to follow.

 

[Meadows]

So you think students could moonlight as construction workers?

Construction work is unskilled?

If it is, my intention was to say that builders could be studying towards further qualifications.

And the rest?

Immigants

 

[twobear]

Closing the income gap is not about improving the outcomes for each individual, rather it is about improving the opportunities. I dont want equal pay, I want each individual to earn money that is reflective of their skillset and their effort. What I want is equal opportunity. Everyone should have to opportunity to get the best education and experience possible. If someone wants to be a cleaner then thats fine. I can think of many people who earn low wages who are intelligent and highly employable who chose to do what they enjoy (rather than what earns them the most money) and thats a model I personally hope to follow.

I think it's enormously difficult to untangle equality of opportunity and equality of outcome, because once some people get ahead in the race they can rig the system to benefit themselves. Moreover, guaranteeing better equality of outcome better improves equality of opportunity: when you concentrate on equality of outcome, you improve social mobility and thus equality of opportunity.

Construction work is unskilled?

If it is, my intention was to say that builders could be studying towards further qualifications.

And the rest?

Immigants

Unskilled work is virtually defined as being manual labour and construction work. Of course some construction is skilled labour, too.

What kind of economy do you see the UK having? Some kind of post-industrialised 'service economy'?

 

[Meadows]

Can we have a sane discussion about the stupidity of the general public when it comes to Politicians.

Their pay is shite (compared to what they could be doing)
Their name is dragged through the mud
Their private lives are invaded
There will always be a small group of people who want you dead
Everyone hates you if you do something wrong
Everything bad is blamed on you

Who'd be a politician?

What kind of economy do you see the UK having? Some kind of post-industrialised 'service economy'?

Yes, for the most part. It's what we already have anyway.

 

[travisbickle]

That's not what I said, I'd appreciate it if you didn't put words in my mouth.

It's how a lot of people think, a lot of people in very prominent postions in our society.

Look into large scale projects in the UK, private companies who are given grants from the government because they will provide "jobs for the area"...then you read the details and it's short term, part time contract jobs picking up litter on event days.

Peel Holdings is a good company to investigate if you want to see the workings of a corrupt organisation that takes millions of tax payers pounds and uses them to bank roll projects to make their friends rich, all under the guise of providing boosts in economy to the local area.

 

[Xun]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17576745

Any thoughts? I'm not entirely sold that this wont be liable to abuse.

Some of my friends are stupidly thinking this is just an April Fools joke.

If only it was.

 

[killer_clank]

Can we have a sane discussion about the stupidity of the general public when it comes to Politicians.

Their pay is shite (compared to what they could be doing)
Their name is dragged through the mud
Their private lives are invaded
There will always be a small group of people who want you dead
Everyone hates you if you do something wrong
Everything bad is blamed on you

Who'd be a politician?

Every time someone brings up the expenses scandal as a way to rubbish every politician I wince. It's such a terrible argument.

 

[twobear]

Yes, for the most part. It's what we already have anyway.

Have you read '23 things they don't tell you about capitalism'? One of the 'things' is that we don't live in a 'post-industrial' world and that transitioning to a 'service economy' would probably be a bad idea. It's well worth a read, it's written by Ha-Joon Chang who is the hot commodity in the heterodox economics world at the moment.

 

[killer_clank]

I think the economy could do with a fair bit of shifting away from service industries. We're too reliant on them. Obviously they have their place and should make up a large chunk, but we really should try to promote more manufacturing and research and development in our economy, not in stereotypical 1970s/80s factories or mines, but in stuff like Life Science and renewable energy tech.

 

[defel]

It's how a lot of people think, a lot of people in very prominent postions in our society.

Look into large scale projects in the UK, private companies who are given grants from the government because they will provide "jobs for the area"...then you read the details and it's short term, part time contract jobs picking up litter on event days.

Peel Holdings is a good company to investigate if you want to see the workings of a corrupt organisation that takes millions of tax payers pounds and uses them to bank roll projects to make their friends rich, all under the guise of providing boosts in economy to the local area.

Im not going to defend examples like Peel Holdings because a) I know nothing about it and b) I have no doubt that there are corrupt companies who are taking the Government and taxpayer for a ride, but there are so many unobserved and ignored knock on effects. We cant simply measure the benefits of private, or indeed public companies, simply in terms of the number of people they employ or jobs they create. Creating a job is a far more complicated thing than just inventing a new position at a company by giving a grant. A job is an easy thing to measure and such a simple yardstick but we ignore so many other factors.

 

[War Peaceman]

Can we have a sane discussion about the stupidity of the general public when it comes to Politicians.

Their pay is shite (compared to what they could be doing)
Their name is dragged through the mud
Their private lives are invaded
There will always be a small group of people who want you dead
Everyone hates you if you do something wrong
Everything bad is blamed on you

Who'd be a politician?

Not often this happens, but I completely agree.

 

[phisheep]

We're always going to need unskilled workers.

Sorry to pick you out here godelsmetric, it's just a good line to pick up on.

Lets not confuse unskilled work with unskilled workers for starters. The work may be (relatively) unskilled, but that says nothing about the skills/knowledge/potential of the person doing it. We had that whole workers education movement through the beginning of the 20th Century for starters that shouldn't be wasted.

Plus, not all apparently unskilled work is as unskilled as it seems. One of my closest friends is a farmhand, the farmhand, on a small farm somewhere north of London. And he's one of the smartest guys I know. He knows everything about his job, everything about the marketplace, the competition, the weather in Spain and how it affects when to cut in his farm and so on and so forth; and is searingly insightful on political economy, local politics, the local and national economy. And not only does he know when to cut the cabbage, he has to cut the damn cabbage himself. Maybe for you guys he's a mere labourer because of his job. But just because that is his job I wouldn't say it (or he) is unskilled by any means. Just because there's a manual component to it doesn't make him unskillled, he's a knowledge worker PLUS actually gets the job done. Not his fault that the margins in farming aren't as big as in something else.

He's still better company than most market analysts I've met. Correction, than all market analysts I've met.

 

[killer_clank]

David Davis quit as an MP and stood again on a civil liberties ticket when Labour were doing it, so it's good to see he still has a backbone, unlike the Lib Dems seemingly. How in the HELL is this even a thing/proposal? They were totally against similar attempts by Labour, and I thought at the time at least the coalition would be better on civil liberties.

If the government takes this forward, especially the Lib Dems, I wish them electoral annihilation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17580906

 

[Meadows]

A few bits and bobs from the latest YouGov polling report http://labs.yougov.co.uk/news/2012/04/02/none-above/ (30th-31st March):

- Voting Intention:
Labour - 42%
Conservatives - 33%
Lib Dem - 8%
UKIP - 7%
SNP/PC - 3%
Green - 3%
Respect - 1%
BNP - 1%

- Government Approval:
Approve - 26%
Disapprove - 62%
Don't Know - 12%

- Cameron Approval:
Approve - 42%
Disapprove - 53%

- Miliband Approval:
Approve - 25%
Disapprove - 62%

- Clegg Approval:
Approve - 23%
Disapprove - 69%

- Pasties:
Should be VATed - 21%
Should be tax-free - 69%

- Fuel:
Government handled fuel situation well - 7%
Government handled fuel situation badly - 86%
Support the strike - 25%
Against the strike - 52%

- New security measures for internet surveillance:
In favour - 18%
Oppose - 69%

"One in nine people who voted Conservative in the 2010 General Election now say they would vote UKIP."

Bad times for the Tories.

 

[killer_clank]

Bad for the government, but alarm bells should be ringing at Labour HQ with that Miliband approval rating. Barely better than Clegg's. The voting intentions are pretty good for them but in an actual election campaign they'd really struggle with leader ratings like that.

 

[J Tourettes]

The monitoring shit they're trying to pull is fucking ridiculous, think I'd end up wasting my vote on the Pirate Party if they put up ion my area.

 

[travisbickle]

Bad times for the Tories.

No one brings in a pasty tax and doesn't face the consequences.

 

[Meadows]

Zomg, you got manufacturing order book figures for different countries around the world?

UK's went up today which is good.

 

[twobear]

Sorry to pick you out here godelsmetric, it's just a good line to pick up on.

Lets not confuse unskilled work with unskilled workers for starters. The work may be (relatively) unskilled, but that says nothing about the skills/knowledge/potential of the person doing it. We had that whole workers education movement through the beginning of the 20th Century for starters that shouldn't be wasted.

Plus, not all apparently unskilled work is as unskilled as it seems. One of my closest friends is a farmhand, the farmhand, on a small farm somewhere north of London. And he's one of the smartest guys I know. He knows everything about his job, everything about the marketplace, the competition, the weather in Spain and how it affects when to cut in his farm and so on and so forth; and is searingly insightful on political economy, local politics, the local and national economy. And not only does he know when to cut the cabbage, he has to cut the damn cabbage himself. Maybe for you guys he's a mere labourer because of his job. But just because that is his job I wouldn't say it (or he) is unskilled by any means. Just because there's a manual component to it doesn't make him unskillled, he's a knowledge worker PLUS actually gets the job done. Not his fault that the margins in farming aren't as big as in something else.

He's still better company than most market analysts I've met. Correction, than all market analysts I've met.

This is reasonable but not at all what I intended when saying 'unskilled workers'.

 

[Brera]

And yet Brown and Major, who tried to go for a less presidential style, were both hugely unpopular compared to their more dictatorial predecessors. Apparently Tony Blair rarely held proper full cabinet meetings, while Gordon Brown was keen on attempting a more collaborationist, Cabinet-led approach to governing.

My small experience in leading teams is that a collatorationist approach leads to team members thinking they know best, weakens your own leadership and leads to a great big mess and ego-wars. Sounds like the Brown and Major governments to me?

Like it or not, a dictatorial style gets things done and you end up with a bit more cohesion.

 

[louis89]

Bad for the government, but alarm bells should be ringing at Labour HQ with that Miliband approval rating. Barely better than Clegg's. The voting intentions are pretty good for them but in an actual election campaign they'd really struggle with leader ratings like that.

The election is three years away. None of this matters.

 

[StealthGoblin]

What is the argument against VAT being applicable to everything? Much easier system.

 

[killer_clank]

What is the argument against VAT being applicable to everything? Much easier system.

VAT is incredibly regressive, so charging for essentials would make it even worse. Unless it goes along with a big reduction in the VAT rate for everything, it would be incredibly unfair to those on low incomes.

 

[zomgbbqftw]

The monitoring shit they're trying to pull is fucking ridiculous, think I'd end up wasting my vote on the Pirate Party if they put up ion my area.

I'll tell you one thing for sure, I won't be voting Tory if these crazy surveillance laws are brought in. Even if they have done a great job on the economy I will probably abstain or vote UKIP. I also know quite a few Tory members ready to rip up their membership cards because of this. It would be the worst defeat of civil liberties this country has ever seen introduced by a Tory/Lib coalition. I expected this stuff from Labour, never from the coalition. Anyway like I said, if they pass it both parties will have lost my support probably forever.

 

[StealthGoblin]

VAT is incredibly regressive, so charging for essentials would make it even worse. Unless it goes along with a big reduction in the VAT rate for everything, it would be incredibly unfair to those on low incomes.

Yeah, It'd definitely have to come down. I just think a one size fits all system would be better than a 'tax chocolate digestives but not ordinary digestives biscuits' system. Its a freaking mess.

 

[twobear]

'even if they have done a great job on the economy'

:lol

 

[killer_clank]

So the Lib Dem briefing document about the communications surveillance thing has leaked:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/1_wMtlFHrktpyOEFSkRSmBnOBPYDkPF6y-gL7Es_h0tu58aPVeHq9p45ulRcX/edit

It's AMAZING. Especially the Q and A.

 

[Misfits]

I'll tell you one thing for sure, I won't be voting Tory if these crazy surveillance laws are brought in. Even if they have done a great job on the economy I will probably abstain or vote UKIP. I also know quite a few Tory members ready to rip up their membership cards because of this. It would be the worst defeat of civil liberties this country has ever seen introduced by a Tory/Lib coalition. I expected this stuff from Labour, never from the coalition. Anyway like I said, if they pass it both parties will have lost my support probably forever.

sarcasm?

 

[Dambrosi]

So the Lib Dem briefing document about the communications surveillance thing has leaked:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/1_wMt...9p45ulRcX/edit

It's AMAZING. Especially the Q and A.

That's...just...

WOW.

Talk about completely missing the whole damn point.

The Government shouldn't be snooping on their people's communications at all, period. Therein lies the potential for fear of free expression, and from that, the end of free speech.

Thing is, as I remember it, Jacqui Smith's little Nazi database had little to no chance of ever getting off the ground, not least because (at least at the time) Labour were apparently very good at reading the people's mood regarding such things (how do you think they lasted so long as a government?). This law, under this spectacularly gaffe-prone, out of touch, shower of shite government? I dunno. And in that uncertainty lies the danger.

It's a shame that the current political elites don't seem to give a shit what their people think or what kind of country they want to live in. It's as if they've forgotten who they work for.

EDIT: Just in case the Fingermen intercept this message -

Spoiler

no, I wasn't advocating sedition or terrorism against the Government, please don't disappear me.

 

[Meadows]

It goes without saying that if this went through the Lib Dems would lose my support for a generation.

I'll either be voting in Aberconwy (soon to be North Wales Coast - Plaid Cymru vote there) or Manchester Central where it doesn't matter what I vote because it'll be redder than the sunburnt faces of people from Ordsall coming back from the Algarve (probably an independent or something) if this is the case.

 

[phisheep]

That LibDem document is mostly right, and mostly (relatively) reasssuring in trems of the scope of the porposed Act. I'd want to look at the Bill in detail before deciding whether it is on balance a good or bad thing.

Probably the one thing that most worries me is the one thing most often referred to as a safeguard - that access to content needs a warrant signed by the Home Secretary. And the reason that worries me is because the Home Secretary - whoever it is at the time - is likely to err on the side of whoever is doing the persuasive asking. Whatever's wrong with doing the old-fashioned thing of requiring the a warrant to be signed by a magistrate or a High Court Judge? At least then there's some chance of Government interests being challenged.

At least some of the purported bill has some justification behind it. RIPA has got way out of hand - far from regulating investigatory powers it appears to have been handing out licences willy-nilly - but I can't see it being an improvement to pull that power to the Home Secretary.

 

[Meadows]

I'll just remind people that New Labour's "Anti-terrorism" stop and search scheme was used 75,000 times a year, mainly on young, poor, ethnic minority people on inner city estates.

We cannot trust our government with this kind of power, no matter what they say. Governments inevitably grab at as much power as they can get the further they get into office as they start to see that their "civil-liberties" campaign platform got in the way of them actually doing what they want to with the country.

Fortunately our civil society is very strong and we have excellent pressure groups like Liberty and the Internet Providers Association, on top of a relatively conservative (with a small "c") upper house to stop this buffoonery.

Get a warrant from a magistrate. If you can't get one, you shouldn't be snooping in the first place.

And don't let all of this "but it's the olympics soon!" business from supporters win you over, this legislation won't be in until at least mid-late 2013.

I'm actually starting to think that the Lib Dems and Conservatives are trying to get out of council politics. They seem to be doing a good job of destroying their chances in May.

 

[Bo-Locks]

Michael Gove wants universities to create new A-levels

Education Secretary Michael Gove has sent a letter to examinations regulator Ofqual in which he says universities should create a new set of A-levels.

In the letter, seen by BBC Newsnight, Mr Gove says he "does not envisage the Department for Education having a role" in developing the new qualifications.

Mr Gove says he is concerned that A-levels are failing to properly prepare students for university.

He goes on to say preparing students is the primary role of the A-level.

What does GAF think? I can remember taking my A-levels and my Chemistry tutor made us practice with past papers for the last 15 years that ran way back into the early nineties. The further back you went, the questions became increasingly difficult and complicated. If you compared a science A-level paper from say 2005 to one of 1995, the difference was night and day, and it wasn't just because of a change of syllabus.

Standards really have fallen at the GCSE/A-level level. I've got a lot of friends who are just going into teaching and they all have the same opinion.

The Government seem to be heavily reforming the education system, which is sorely in need of it. Remember the God awful GCSE ICT classes? Thank fuck they have been updated to include aspects of computing other than filling in a spreadsheet.

 

[StealthGoblin]

Gove needs to sit down, prepare a massive document with his proposed changes and we'll go from there.

At the moment it comes across as if he has random dreams and tries to make policy/recommendations based on them. He'd do much better if he actually tried to get education professionals on his side.

As it is teachers are overworked and his constant 'Teachers are shit they need to do more' doesn't help.

1) Prepare a document with all of your proposed changes.
2) Cost them
3) Seek the advice of education professionals
4) Adapt

 

[defel]

Wow GCSE IT really was a waste of time. I was really into computers at the time and I was all into web design, photoshop, 3D modelling etc and I thought that my GCSE IT was going to be along those lines. Instead it was incredibly dry and impractical. I would have loved my GCSE IT to be a proper computing session where we actually developed real software. Looking back its the only part of my education in which I really resented the system.

 

[SteveWD40]

Wow GCSE IT really was a waste of time. I was really into computers at the time and I was all into web design, photoshop, 3D modelling etc and I thought that my GCSE IT was going to be along those lines. Instead it was incredibly dry and impractical. I would have loved my GCSE IT to be a proper computing session where we actually developed real software. Looking back its the only part of my education in which I really resented the system.

Yeah I did IT at College and it was shit, they are so far out of the loop as that industry moves too fast. I got 97% on my written exam and hardly studied...

Obviously at Uni that changes (so I am told).

 

[Jackpot]

Natural conclusion of Argentina's nationalist-baiting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/03/falklands-protesters-attack-british-embassy

Several hundred demonstrators pelted police officers with homemade firebombs and threw rocks and flaming bottles at the embassy as a series of events were held in Argentina and the UK on Monday to commemorate the 1982 conflict.