Tory gobshites.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/aug/22/britannia-unchained-rise-of-new-tory-right
It is rarely difficult to hate the Conservatives. Unless, of course, you are one of the 30-35% of the country that regularly votes for them, which means oods on you're a fairly wealthy middle / upper-middle class private sector worker with affluent parents.
Really, the idea is that to compete with China, we have to be like China. I might point out here that China has a GDP per capita of about £3500 per annum. So, peons, you should be working harder for less pay with no job security and minimal rights. 12h a day at £1.50 an hour and retirement at 75. Now give me my burger and fries! Even if not manufacturing jobs, unemployment lowers because it'll be much easier to hire a cheap butler / maid / servant / flunky or eight to wipe the arses of the wealthier.
This is of course very appealing to the scions of affluence with Oxbridge degrees, cushy jobs and investment wealth. They're doing jobs with considerable protection from globalised competition, so none of this really applies to them. Not least because half these guys can probably earn a living wage off capital gains even before the salary cheque drops into their account. The Tory heartland might not be quite so well off, but it's still not going to affect them greatly. In fact, it's great news. Impoverished proles underdeveloped by a gutted welfare, health and education services are much less competition for degrees and cushy jobs.
This is fashionable employer-friendly guff blasted out by UK and US neoliberal ultra-right think tanks and the despicable Adrian Beecroft, with their usual intellectual standards. They're smart guys - just shame it's smartness directed at how to fiddle data, lie, present dubious opinion as fact, and dutifully write up the propaganda their corporate paymasters have written for them.Much of what they claim is not well defended by evidence. A modest minimum wage has negligible effect on employment. Our current worker protection rights are actually weak (weaker than some of the upcoming BRICs). And so on. We might, for instance, point out numerous reports that suggest the UK has a poor quality management compared to our international peers. It would be very interesting for the Tories to address the shortfalls of their social chums and general backers, but it's understandable they'd rather blame the proles and make them work harder for less to compensate for it instead.
All of this rather reminds me of WWI field marshals 40 miles behind the frontline, telling the troops to buck up, get out of that trench and charge the machine guns for the good of the country. This is now the affluent sitting in 8-bedroom mansions and London townhouses telling the proles to buck their ideas up and slog away at the coalface for the good of national GDP. And by national GDP, we mean the big shareholders who see the gains whilst the majority who derive income from labour stagnate and decline. And by big shareholders, we mean key Tory voters.
It is rarely difficult to hate the Conservatives. Unless, of course, you are one of the 30-35% of the country that regularly votes for them, which means oods on you're a fairly wealthy middle / upper-middle class private sector worker with affluent parents.
Really, the idea is that to compete with China, we have to be like China. I might point out here that China has a GDP per capita of about £3500 per annum. So, peons, you should be working harder for less pay with no job security and minimal rights. 12h a day at £1.50 an hour and retirement at 75. Now give me my burger and fries! Even if not manufacturing jobs, unemployment lowers because it'll be much easier to hire a cheap butler / maid / servant / flunky or eight to wipe the arses of the wealthier.
This is of course very appealing to the scions of affluence with Oxbridge degrees, cushy jobs and investment wealth. They're doing jobs with considerable protection from globalised competition, so none of this really applies to them. Not least because half these guys can probably earn a living wage off capital gains even before the salary cheque drops into their account. The Tory heartland might not be quite so well off, but it's still not going to affect them greatly. In fact, it's great news. Impoverished proles underdeveloped by a gutted welfare, health and education services are much less competition for degrees and cushy jobs.
This is fashionable employer-friendly guff blasted out by UK and US neoliberal ultra-right think tanks and the despicable Adrian Beecroft, with their usual intellectual standards. They're smart guys - just shame it's smartness directed at how to fiddle data, lie, present dubious opinion as fact, and dutifully write up the propaganda their corporate paymasters have written for them.Much of what they claim is not well defended by evidence. A modest minimum wage has negligible effect on employment. Our current worker protection rights are actually weak (weaker than some of the upcoming BRICs). And so on. We might, for instance, point out numerous reports that suggest the UK has a poor quality management compared to our international peers. It would be very interesting for the Tories to address the shortfalls of their social chums and general backers, but it's understandable they'd rather blame the proles and make them work harder for less to compensate for it instead.
All of this rather reminds me of WWI field marshals 40 miles behind the frontline, telling the troops to buck up, get out of that trench and charge the machine guns for the good of the country. This is now the affluent sitting in 8-bedroom mansions and London townhouses telling the proles to buck their ideas up and slog away at the coalface for the good of national GDP. And by national GDP, we mean the big shareholders who see the gains whilst the majority who derive income from labour stagnate and decline. And by big shareholders, we mean key Tory voters.