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Tory MPs attack Brits as Lazy – labelling us “among the worst idlers in the world”

August 17, 2012 1:14 pm

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Mark Ferguson

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Some absolute charmers from the Tory 2010 intake have attacked the British as ”among the worst idlers in the world”. In a new book, Kwasi Kwarteng, Priti Patel, Dominic Raab, Chris Skidmore and Elizabeth Truss make the claim.

And Kwarteng in particular has done nothing to dispel those Boris for leader rumours, saying:

“Boris, when he talks about big infrastructure projects, deregulation and cutting taxes, is absolutely on the money.”

http://twitter.com/eljmayes Edward Mayes

Remember that Kwarteng used to work for Boris so he is going to big him up.
Exploit

At least Kwarteng didn’t complain about losing our old colonies. Which is good. I suppose.
- derek
  
  They were never ours to lose.
  - https://mikestallard.virtualgallery.com/ Mike Stallard
    
    Were you there?
    - Max Boyce
      
      I know ’cause… I WAS THERE!
Lemon Curry

The problem in making the argument that Kwarteng and Co., advance is that it implicitly requires that social conditions and social costs, e.g., working conditions, wages, health and welfare etc., be reduced as far as possible and ideally to levels similar to those in the countries that are held up as examples to emulate and compete with. Now anybody who has visited China or Brazil and similar will tell you that the vast majority of men, women and children in those countries lives lives of desperation and poverty compared to the lives that we “idler” live in the west. Somehow I really don’t think that, in a democracy, any government that pledged to reduce living standards that much could get elected in the first place or remain elected for long if they attempted to impoverish so many people so blatantly.

It’s ridiculous really.

Personally I’d rather MPs spent more time on their constituents than writing silly books.
- Exploit
  
  Agreed. This kind of show boating is just plain daft. The Brazilians and the Chinese want to live lives like us while we definitely don’t want to live lives like those of the Brazilians and Chinese. How can Cameron or indeed any politician even begin to alter opinions set in stone like these? Who on earth would support a government determinedly implementing policies that guaranteed a worse life for the next and subsequent generations as the current generation? Who would vote for a worse future for their children than themselves?
- John Dore
  
  I agree. Largely we need to focus on areas that we can compete in.
  
  But the biggest questions is how do we really drive the economic growth that we need. China has a plan where the state are heavily involved and it works. I dont think this is the same in India, its pure entrepreneurial spirit thats fuelling India.
  
  The big question is how do we drive growth? Its all well and good spending your time calling Byrne and co names but the reality is where is the growth and money coming from? Governments spraying money around is not sustainable. If Ed is going to win the election then he’s going to have to do a better job than whats being proposed at present.
  
  Can anyone answer the question on LL????? Any great sage’s out there with all the answers? Wise old birds????
  
  IMHO neither the Tories or Labour have convinced anyone as yet and that is why interest in politics is so bad.
  - JoeDM
    
    And that is the fundamental issue. We are competing in global markets where many of the goods & services which we used to specialise in are now being supplied by companies with costs much lower than our own.
    
    The whole western European model of economic and social welfare is broken. If we cannot produce and sell goods then we cannot afford the social welfare provisions that politicians seem to want.
    
    This is a long-term structural problem that short-term Keynesian demand management cannot address (even if it ever worked in the first place).
    - John Dore
      
      I think we’re on the same page, though I don’t think that politicians necessarily want welfare. Its a safety net and if we get to more employed then we can look at it as such.
      
      Germany has done well through specialisation, engineering and quality are the signature.
      
      We do high tech well, some specialist engineering and now quality manufacturing. If you look at Nissan and Toyota you’ll see that we can do volume manufacturing in the right circumstances.
      
      In the age of professional politicians where is the experience? Chukka Umuna business secretary? Where is his experience? I want to see politicians who’ve actually dome something impacting the jobs base. There are idiots turning their noses up at Lord Sainsbury, who wouldn’t know how to create jobs if it smacked them in the face. Better to have people like Sainsbury in the fold advising than fighting those who can help all.
      
      We have cultural barriers to success.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        He worked in the private sector on employment law, so he’s hardly unqualified.
      - John Dore
        
        No. Employment law is not the world of business. 8 years in law is not long..
        
        I do not deny he is a very intelligent man though.
      - derek
        
        Unless your setting up a stall at the local market and even that requires laws, employment law is pretty much a mandatory means.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        I think an understanding of how the labour market works is always useful. Didn’t you have trouble getting rid of employees?
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        I would not agree Brum: running a successful business seems to me to primarily need business skills and an idea about being better than your competition, what is a sensible risk and what is not, what the market will want in 1-5 years and being able to offer that, etc etc. If you need advice on employment law, hire an employment lawyer by the hour or if you are big enough, employ one.
        
        An employment lawyer with little or no business experience would not to me seem ideally qualified to be a business minister.
        
        But then, so very many ministers on all sides are either now or in previous governments complete novices at their portfolio**** that it would be unkind to single out Chuka Umunna, who I am sure is intelligent and hard working.
        
        *** I will mention no names, but if Peter Barnard is reading he will complete understand a reference to college lecturers of politics or to TV journalists whose degree was in history, and no doubt counter with mention of NHS data inputters or those who fold towels in the Selfridges shop. And I would agree: both made or are are making a colossal mess of the British economy, largely because they have not a clue as to the practicalities, but instead are consumed with some messianic “vision” of their own (which are both equally wrong).
      - PeterBarnard
        
        Jaime,
        
        Previous experience of business is not a necessary pre-condition for a successful Chancellor.
        
        Ken Clarke was a successful Chancellor inasmuch he almost doubled the gross public sector debt and no-one blinked an eyelid, hardly. He was a lawyer and entered Parliament at the age of 29 or 30.
        
        Dennis Healey was also a successful Chancellor who also had no business experience but he was possibly one of the best “friends” in that position that the business sector ever had. From memory, he served in the Second World War, reached Major, and then went into Parliament.
        
        There is more to a political economy than business …
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Clarke is a good illustration of deficit reduction done reasonably well, as Jonathan Portes has pointed out. He did it with a 50/50 split between tax increases and spending cuts, whilst waiting for the economy to improve before trying anything drastic.
        
        Healey remarked in his autobiography that he knew almost nothing about economics before becoming Chancellor in 1974, but he made a good fist of it.
      - PeterBarnard
        
        Brumanuensis,
        
        It appears that “managing the economy” is as much art (and politics) as science (despite the efforts of professional economists to have their discipline regarded as such).
        
        For Nigel Lawson, the “science” disappeared in his Mansion House speech (17 October 1985) when he declared that there appeared to be no relationship between money supply (however measured) and inflation (which was Public Enemy #1 in Conservative economic policy), and decided to monitor (and subsequently shadow) the DM exchange rate.
        
        On 10 March, 1988, Margaret Thatcher declared inter alia in the HoC that … “There is no way in which one can buck the market.”
        
        This single sentence was probably one of the most disastrous sentences ever uttered (for sure, since 1945) by any prime minister.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        Peter, I am sure you are correct (even if my point on Chancellors should rightfully be inferred to a knowledge of economic theory and practice, and not of business). However being “in possession of” a sensible outlook on life and not being prepared to ignore predictable consequences (good or bad) of certain policies probably is a pre-requisite for being a successful Chancellor.
        
        Being a lunatic who in one case through bullying and angry plotting, in the other through social connections become un-sackable is not a good start, and it is people of the country (and given the long term consequences of national economic decisions, the children of the country) who pay the price.
      - PeterBarnard
        
        Jaime,
        
        You really don’t “bring anything to the table” on these pages with your continuous obsession about Gordon Brown and his long list – in your opinion – of mega-minuses.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        Fair enough, Peter, but there’s nothing that a full public apology from GB for his activities from 2002-2010 on television would not do to begin to make amends.
        
        (I know he would not do so – it would be unusual for any politician to do so – even if he had the capacity to look at the outputs of that time and not the inputs that he made. I strongly suspect he thinks that what actually happened was someone else’s fault)
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Chile also arguably has a raging case of ‘Enfermedad Holandesa ‘, as the appreciation of the Peso illustrates.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        You are correct to worry, as do many others (and there is more than enough historical evidence, not just with Holland but other countries as well to observe and dissect).
        
        The balance between sectors is however generally stable, so the disease has not (yet) established itself. It is a matter of politics to ensure that it does not into the future.
        
        I believe it is time for some proper rules on the Sovereign Wealth Fund to be established, to counter the calls for immediate spending of any windfalls and surpluses, but this too is a matter of politics and not yet of general acceptance.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Yes, I quite agree, although there will be times when rapid disbursement of a surplus may be necessary. It could serve as a form of non-deficit financed stimulus, for instance.
      - jaime taurosangastre candelas
        
        …saving in the good times in order to have savings for the bad times. What a novel concept for a successful Chancellor to implement.
        
        (example scenario – UK 2001-2008, or (to save Peter’s hyper-tension), multiple examples in earlier years from the other lot)
      - derek
        
        Come on, are youonthe nachos again?
      - derek
        
        Can’t seem to find your reply? although there’s a partial comment in the in box? Hope all thing are ok? Chile seems to be 41st in a GDP league one step ahead of Greece.
        
        41 Chile299,63242 Greece294,339
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Jaime,
        
        My point was more that he is familiar with the operations of an important aspect of the business environment, i.e. HR and employment procedures. Obviously this is important, because as you note, people seek legal advice on these matters. Likewise, Adrian Beecroft is not really qualified to write about employment regulations, given that he has little practical experience in that area, but that doesn’t disqualify him from being able to give advice on business strategy.
        
        I don’t accept – as I think I’ve written before – your argument about ‘qualification’. Politicians are political figures whose remit is to graft an ideological vision onto their department. It would be strange to just hire a technocrat, because he’s not really suited for that role. If I went to your hospital – in anticipation of one of your potential counterarguments – I would hope that you and your colleagues were fully trained medical professionals, because that is a techincal matter. But if you are, say, Secretary of State for Business, Investment and Skills or SoS for Work and Pensions, is there a non-political career path that suits your ministerial mandate? There are some jobs that might offer experience, but politicians aren’t really in their role to work out the intricate detail of policy. That’s the job of the civil service, who make up the technocratic wing of the government.
        
        It’s always good to have life experience when coming into a public role, but for political decisions, as long as you’re reasonably intelligent and have taken the time to study your brief and familiarise yourself with the field, then you’re qualified to make the sort of broad strategic decisions that ministers make. These may be good or bad, but it’s something of a fallacy to simply expect that through putting ‘well-qualified’ people in charge of government posts – doctors for the Department of Health, soldiers for the Ministry of Defence – that we will naturally get better policy. All the people mentioned in the article – particularly Kwasi Kwarteng – are well-educated and in many cases highly intelligent, but they’ve still come up with what sound like some very foolish positions. Additionally, we ought to bear in mind the odd paradox that more educated voters tend to be more dogmatic in their political views, as their natural response to challenge is to look for more evidence to back up their views.
        
        One thing the last Labour government did that was unhelpful for departmental functioning, was to regularly change senior and junior ministers – something Chris Mullin identified in ‘Decline and Fall’. Some examples:
        
        Chief Secretary to the Treasury – 10 in 13 years, with Paul Boateng having the longest stint at 2 years, 11 months.
        
        Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (silly name) – 8 in 10 years, with Andrew Smith lasting longest at just under 2 years and 3 months.
        
        Secretary of State for Transport – 5 in 8 years, which gets worse if you recall that Alistair Darling served just over 3 years and 11 months, meaning the others effectively went at 1 a years. Both Blair and Brown had a mania for reshuffles that the current government, refreshingly, lacks.
      - http://twitter.com/mistyblulabour dave stone
        
        “ turning their noses up at Lord Sainsbury”
        
        I’ve always thought of him as a silver spoon merchant. Though, of itself, that doesn’t mean he isn’t any good at business. Certainly, three profit warnings were issued during David’s chairmanship and Sainsbury share price increased on the day David announced his retirement.
        
        I don’t think I would have employed him. But what do I know, I was able to start my business without the disadvantage of a silver spoon…
      - derek
        
        Fire up the Delorean, we’re going back to the whig days. Lordy! Lordy! Lordy!
      - derek
        
        Fire up the Delorean, we’re going back to the whig days.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
      
      Which is why protectionism is inevitable. We must be less wasteful and produce more which we then use ourselves. Continuing to back up slave labour wages in the name of choice will appear less attractive when the consequences are more apparent
      - derek
        
        Mike, would Britain outside the European circle be any better than it was say in 1832? I’d say this lot would repeal all until we reached that chimney sweep period once again.
      - John Dore
        
        “Which is why protectionism is inevitable.”
        Given that we lack natural resources, this is a laughable comment. You get debunked every time you raise this and yet you persist in this ludicrous thought.
      - Limp Richard
        
        What natural resources does Singapore have?
      - John Dore
        
        ……and what is the point of the question? The answers to the wider issues are that Singapore has few trade barriers, few natural resources and built its economy on manufacturing.
        
        Blue pills is what you need oh limp one.
      - Limp Richard
        
        As far as d1cks go I reckon I’d rather have one, albeit sometimes limp, than be one. Although I would imagine reading your comments that you’d passionately disagree.
      - John Dore
        
        Yawn.
      - Limp Richard
        
        Flaccid.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
        
        And how exactly do you propose we build a trading economy on manufacturing when we allow goods to flood into the country made at slave labour wages?
      - John Dore
        
        How do Toyota UK, Nissan UK, Jaguar, Land Rover, ARM Fosters & Partners, Honda UK, The British F1 industry, De La Rue, The Cambridge Pharma companies, Rexam, Carnival cruises, Harrods and other European companies such as the German car companies etc. do it?
        
        Hoe does the UK finance and Insurance industry do it?
        
        You wont know because you’re a socialist academic and haven’t the first idea about real jobs. You hate the very system that built the companies that provide employment. Please do come back to me if you’re interested in the answer. otherwise I suggest you stick to speaking about dumbing down in the pursuit of fairness and leave the real labour party to do its job.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        You’re confusing autarky with protectionism,
      - JoeDM
        
        No trading economy ever benefits from protection.
      - John Dore
        
        But Joe, its not about benefits, in Mike’s world everything needs to be levelled down to a grey clothes, grey food and a Trabant for all with uniform benefits and a big pig running the country.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        They can at the beginning. After a while, free trade becomes preferable, but many industrialising nations – including the UK and US during the nineteenth century – used protectionist policies. South Korea used protectionist policies during the 1960s and ’70s when it started to become a major industrial nation. China manipulates the value of the Yuan in order to make its goods artificially cheap relative to the US dollar.
        
        Subsidies are also generally preferable to tariffs. Yes, I am familiar with Bastiat’s ‘Petition of the Candlemakers’ and ‘The Broken Railway’. No, they are not catch-all arguments against protectionism.
    - Brumanuensis
      
      I think ‘structural reform’ is the new ‘long run’, in the sense Keynes meant when he wrote ‘in the long run we are all dead’. The right never stops going on about ‘structural reform’ and seems curiously unable to think of immediate action to take in the face of an immediate problem. It’s as if a young child has fallen in a river and is drowning, whilst by-standers talk about the potential benefits of more education on safe conduct around large bodies of water. Possibly germane, but not the right course of action at the time.
      
      Besides, what is the point of economic growth if we have to beggar ourselves to achieve it?
      - JoeDM
        
        Keynesian short term counter-cyclical policy is hardly the way to deal with major structural shifts in the global economy. Unless we deal with the major fundamental issue of our international competitivness we will just be fiddling a Keynesian tune on the deck of a sinking ship. We would be back to that 60′s and 70s mind set that we are ‘managing decline’.
      - Redshift
        
        It is funny how those banging on about competitiveness are the people backing the same old financial services based, neoliberal economic policies.
        
        I agree we need to develop a new economy (surely by the way we can use a Keynesian stimulus to get started?). This requires an active industrial policy.
        
        To think that competitiveness is a zero sum game of cheapest labour is a complete misreading of what we need economically.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        Yes, you’re rather proving my point. What exactly do you propose? The words ‘structural reform’ do not mean anything in and of themselves.
        
        It’s funny you should deride counter-cyclical policy, given that the Chinese have routinely used demand-management and the Brazilians have just embarked on a massive stimulus programme to boost their economy (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19274755). Investment in infrastructure is both counter-cyclical spending and longer term structural reform, but according to your rather odd understanding of Keynes, this is impossible.
        
        Additionally, the problem with trying to ape Germany or South Korea is that they rely on export-led growth and not everyone can be an exporter nation – although it’s better, all things being equal, to have a positive balance of trade.
  - Wei Wu Wei
    
    The trouble with Byrne is that he insists on spouting bilious rubbish about “cutting welfare” and “driving people into work” better than the Tories. Why? Because firstly the work doesn’t exist and secondly what work is slowly coming on stream is often poor quality and low paid. In an age of part-time insecure minimum wage employment work often does not enable workers to earn enough from their labours to support themselves without top-ups from the state; even if you manage against the odds by carnage or cajolery (and the Tories are trying both) to “drive” a portion of the economically inactive into such work you won’t be able to cut the welfare bill by much without causing terrible privation when judged by western standards.
    
    If you look at any of the Asian Tigers that are currently successful, e.g., Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea, you do not see countries whose internal markets are left to “market forces” to organise, what you see is long term planning and State support and intervention at every conceivable level educationally and economically. (Singapore is so buttoned up and governmentally organised in so many way it often appears Stalinist to outsiders.) Like Japan all of these countries have chosen to go down high-tech, quality-product roads and have invested fortunes in infrastructure and education to ensure they have both the facilities and people they need to stay ahead of the curve as far as technological research and development goes: these countries often send their most talented and brilliant students to study overseas, at the best universities in the world, in order to cultivate their talents as a deliberate policy rather than a decision by an academic individual. Politics, finance, education and business work hand in hand to produce favourable results.
    
    The Asian Tigers plan assiduously, invest wisely and make make optimal use of free-markets and what the world has got to offer, while we in the west tend simply to deregulate and lower taxes, hoping that the incentive of greater wealth will encourage risk and entrepreneurship amongst the population, and hope that freer markets will somehow solve all of our problems in some mysterious and unexplained fashion: Osborne’s “hands off” policies are running the British economy into the ground.
    
    The country needs realistic, compassionate, competent and principled government not bullsh*tters and dishonest politicos like Liam Byrne. That would be a first step towards a better future.
    - Redshift
      
      Very well said!
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZPXYLRVP4XOIGGDJWAL6HUO7U4 David
  
  * makes personal prediction about everyone’s favourite former Prime Minister/Chancellor being raised…
http://twitter.com/mistyblulabour dave stone

“worst idlers in the world”

Then surely we deserve another gold medal.
Quiet_Sceptic

It’s easy to dismiss China and Brazil but the article also refers to the work ethic of South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong and this is a far more challenging comparison to refute because these are not developing countries, their population are not living lives of desperation and poverty.

Within a couple of generations these countries have pulled themselves up to 1st world status with Singapore and Hong Kong now having higher GDP per capita than the UK.

Granted, the call to ‘work harder’ is grossly naive and ignores a raft of other issues which lie behind our economic underachievement, but the idea that we’re falling behind other nations has a grain of truth.
- Limp Richard
  
  I don’t know about South Korea, which has a strong connection with the United States - there’s something like 30,000 American troops permanently stationed in South Korea – but terrible poverty does exist for large numbers of people in Singapore and Hong Kong.
  - Timsharp1
    
    I think the comparison with developing economies is not helpful. Developing economies tend to have high growth rates and then settle down and develop mature economy problems Japan being the best example.
- PeterBarnard
  
  It isn’t quite a valid comparison to compare GDP per capita in Hong Kong and Singapore with that of the United Kingdom as a whole. HK and S are highly urbanised areas with population densities of 7,200 people per sq km (S) and 6,500 people per sq km (HK). Even London has a population density of only 5,000 per sq km.
  
  Economic output of London is about $60,000 per capita per annum ;
  - PeterBarnard
    
    (Added – fell foul of Disqus) : … no doubt if the population density of London was increased by around 50%, the economic output of London would exceed that of Singapore.
    
    Any takers?
  - Quiet_Sceptic
    
    Urbanisation does not equate to greater per-capita GDP though, there are plenty of sparsely populated countries with higher per-capita GDP and many countries with similar population densities, comparable to the UK, with higher per-capita GDP.
    
    It does not invalidate the comparison.
    
    The fact remains that compared to other countries we are gradually falling behind.
- Amber Star
  
  Singapore’s economy is boosted by poor Malaysians who travel each day, usually by motorcycle, to work for very low wages. Many die each year whilst commuting or at work.
  - Quiet_Sceptic
    
    I’m not sure what point you are trying to make, particularly given that the UK economy has also been boosted by a large influx of poor migrant workers.
    
    Besides, when comparing per-capita GDP the typical GDP of a poor migrant worker is likely to be less than the average, eg. reducing per-capita GDP rather than enhancing it.
    - Limp Richard
      
      Singapore has no minimum wage and one of the largest gaps between its poorest citizens and its richest. If a business can draw on a pool of labour forced or willing to work for next to nothing, or at least for very low wages, your labour costs plummet and you become highly competitive sacrificing the health and welfare of your workers in the process.
http://twitter.com/callumrsmith Callum Smith

Yes let’s deregulate a sector that’s cost the public purse something in the region of £850bn and helped push national debt over the £1tn mark. I honestly think some Tories were born on the moon they’re so out-of-touch!
- John Dore
  
  You’re very informed.
  - Callum Smith
    
    I’m also very well hung.
- PeterBarnard
  
  While I agree with your sentiment, Callum, it’s not quite correct to say that the cost to the public purse has been about £850 bn ; much of this figure was in the form of “guarantees,” ; these guarantees haven’t been called on so far, and so cash hasn’t been laid out. Indeed, I think that the outstanding guarantee element is now down to around £120 bn.
  
  The cost to the public purse so far has been about £120 bn, and this is not shown on the “conventional” national debt figures.
  
  HM Treasury/ONS publish two series for public sector net debt – one including “financial sector interventions,” and the other that doesn’t, and it’s “the other” that is usually reported in the media.
  
  As for this particular set of Conservatives – it’s the same-old, same-old supply-side/trickle down nonsense.
derek

Great Scot! there selling off playing fields then decrying us lazy?
- geedee0520
  
  ’they’re’ – can’t be bothered to spell properly?
  
  Anyway – the average sales under Twigg are greater than the last two years’ average.
  
  Twigg must be too lazy to bother checking!
  - derek
    
    Sorry for that, I know some get really cross at such slack spelling.
    
    Seems the secretary of education also has an adding problem.
- Limp Richard
  
  Not the playing fields of Eton, I hope? If they’re sold off what will the nation do if it ever has to face another Waterloo?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Graeme-Hancocks/1156294498 Graeme Hancocks

I presume that Kwasi Kwarteng, Priti Patel, Dominic Raab, Chris Skidmore and Elizabeth Trusset al consider themselves examples of hard work, sacrifice, industry and entreprenurial skill deserving of their inflated salaries? It is a pity they did’nt apply themselves a little more to their work as constituency MP’s and less to
writing self promoting drivel.
- PeterBarnard
  
  Oh, they really “work hard,” Graeme, especially on Wednesdays between 12.00 and 12.30(when Parliament is sitting), sitting on their backsides, braying their heads off and waving their Order Papers when DC and EM are in combat.
  
  They then go for a very well-prepared (and very well-subsidised) lunch in the members’ dining room.
  - derek
    
    Hee! Hee! @Peter, they prepare a white paper (like the privatisation of the forestries) bring it the HOC’s, spend hours debating the bill then decide to ditch it? wonderfully productive.
    - PeterBarnard
      
      Thanks, Derek, but unproductive effort is cross-party … “In Place of Strife” prepared by the wonderful Barbara Castle hit the buffers …
      - derek
        
        Jeez! @Peter, that 1969 bill was the longest knife stab ever, thank god for big Jim, however Thatcher did reignite it in the 1980′s. Agreed it’s from all sides. Some one yesterday was promoting our nation as a democratic institution for centuries? as far as I’m aware women didn’t get a vote until 1918 and they had to be over 30, it wasn’t until 1928 that we could really call ourselves a full democracy.I make that less than one century.
      - PeterBarnard
        
        Perhaps if “In place of Strife” had been implemented (or properly negotiated), Derek, the Winter of Discontent would not have occurred.
        
        This event was a material factor in the Conservatives winning the 1979 election, and we know what happened to the trade unions after 1979 (I think it’s called “castration”).
        
        Just a thought …
      - derek
        
        I dunno @Peter, perhaps if we’d adopted “In place of Fear” rather than suggesting it’s reworking, things may have been calmer? I think the employment minister at that time Michael Foot would go on to say that he wished he had settled the wage rise.The disparities in employment are always going to be a red hot area, where there’s austerity there is going to be disharmony.Over the last terms of the labour government 1997, 2010 industrial action wasn’t really a problem, however under this new government there are those who will stand and fight their corner and I’m with them, proud that their prepared to stand up for their working rights and hold firm against ideological attacks. I don’t think that’s a lazy thought nor a destructive thought.
      - Brumanuensis
        
        (In reply to Derek and Peter).
        
        ‘In Place of Strife’ was a good bill and shocking as this may sound, so, on the whole, was Heath’s Industrial Relations Act 1971. True, John Donaldson should never have been appointed to chair the NIRC and some aspects of the legislation were not well drafted, but on the whole it was a sensible middle-path that didn’t deserve to be completely repealed.
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray
        
        In Place of Strife came from a left wing Minister, Barbara Castle, and was largely opposed by right-wing (in Labour terms) union leaders. I’ve never been able to work out how you can believe in social democratic planning except for in the case of wages where its the free market all the way. Contradictory
David Brede

This book should be required reading for all Labour candidates seeking election so they can ram these issues down the Tory candidates throats.
Brumanuensis

Shame about Kwarteng. I met him once and we had a nice, albeit brief, chat about history. His book ‘Ghosts of Empire’, is interesting too. I thought Truss was cleverer than this, but she has said foolish things before. Raab and Patel are just run-of-the mill anti-union types.
- Brumanuensis
  
  I’ve been reading Raab’s ‘debate’ with Shami Chakrabati about the Human Rights Act. The man really is prodigiously unintelligent.
derek

The real travesty about these comments from the tories is, if their suggesting that workers should work longer hours ie say a 12 hour day above the standard 8 hours day then there also suggesting cuts to employment by 2/3.
- derek
  
  If I am to be challenged on my workings, I’ll submit them.
  
  If the tories are saying that the standard 8 hour day is to short, then their most definitely saying that the part time hours of 4 hours per day are far to short.So a working operation that covers 24 hours daily and employs 6 people working 4 hours per day is changed to 2 employees working two 12 hours shifts per day,(although there is no content on what the daily working hours should be, it’s far to assume they mean more than 8 hours and definitely not less than 4 hours) then that’s a reductions of 2/3.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002669439067 Wethe Communists

After all, a Tory is always a Tory. What more can
we expect from a blood-sucking greedy exploiter, who thinks workers should work
24/7 with a single agenda to fill the rich man’s bank lockers?

Shame on you Priti Patel, Chris Skidmore and Kwasi
Kwarteng on calling the British workers “the worst idlers in the world”.

Does an 8 hour shift look idling to you? Working in
factories and building sites is not like drinking tea in Parliament canteen. It
also does not provide added benefits of duck houses and secondary homes. It
definitely does not include cheating tax payers by … http://wp.me/p1FXBz-bv
AlanGiles

I think there ought to be an entirely new party constructed called the “politicians know best” party where attention seekers like this shower could join forces with bigots from other parties (like Hazel Blears, James Purnell, Liam Byrne, David Laws etc), could draw attention to themselves, suggesting that everybody (except themselves, of course) are lazy and workshy. They all have their little stories to “prove” how right they are – Blears with her “family-in-their-night-clothes-watching-daytime TV”, where they could dwell in this lovely little world of theirs where there is full employment, nobody ever becomes ill or disabled etc, and only people who want to be unemployed ARE unemployed.

Politicians are amongst the most pampered members of the workforce, with (usually) minimum contracts of 5 years, all kinds of benefits, golden pensions and severance pay even when their careers end in disgrace, and IMO most of the problems this country has faced in the last 30 years have been BECAUSE OF politicians, not those of us who did or do actually work for years, or those who, for a variety of reasons are unable to work or find work now. Sadly there will always be politicians like this shower who will say anything to win a few headlines, and it is sad even some “Labour” politicians are willing to denigrate people to get their names in the media.
Alan Giles

I
think there ought to be an entirely new party constructed called the
“politicians know best” party where attention seekers like this shower
could join forces with bigots from other parties (like Hazel Blears,
James Purnell, Liam Byrne, David Laws etc), could draw attention to
themselves, suggesting that everybody (except themselves, of course) are
lazy and workshy. They all have their little stories to “prove” how
right they are – Blears with her
“family-in-their-night-clothes-watching-daytime TV”, where they could
dwell in this lovely little world of theirs where there is full
employment, nobody ever becomes ill or disabled etc, and only people who
want to be unemployed ARE unemployed.

Politicians are amongst the most pampered members of the workforce,
with (usually) minimum contracts of 5 years, all kinds of benefits,
golden pensions and severance pay even when their careers end in
disgrace, and IMO most of the problems this country has faced in the
last 30 years have been BECAUSE OF politicians, not those of us who did
or do actually work for years, or those who, for a variety of reasons
are unable to work or find work now. Sadly there will always be
politicians like this shower who will say anything to win a few
headlines, and it is sad even some “Labour” politicians are willing to
denigrate people to get their names in the media.
- John Dore
  
  James Purnell is one of the best Labour MP’s of the last 20 years.
  - Alan Giles
    
    If you say so.
    
    Except that he is now an EX M.P.
    - treborc
      
      Your not biting, he will be annoyed.
    - John Dore
      
      …….and its a shame, he faced serious bigotry from the ideological illogical.
      
      He’s a nice guy and we lost a star.
      - Alan Giles
        
        If you are going to critizise benefit claimants for “playing the system” or downright fraud, it is a good idea not to make false expenses claims yourself, which is what Purnell did.
        
        You are entitled to your own opinion of course, and you think he is a “star”. I suspect that view is not a widespread one, and indeed, many people will have forgotten about him altogether.
      - treborc
        
        Can you imagine Bores work staff all four of them, bet they all take time off sick, well you would laughter can hurt.
      - John Dore
        
        You should look at Meacher’s blog, their was some guidance on what the left is, the Respect Party. Look it up you’ll like it I think.
      - treborc
        
        Bore returns to the right.
      - Max Boyce
        
        Although mostly wrong he’s always right.
      - treborc
        
        Well said.
      - Alan Giles
        
        Mr Meacher the “man of the left” who owned nine homes by the time he left office.
        
        A terrific source of enlightenment indeed!
      - Syg21
        
        About right for you champagne socialists isn’t it?
      - john p Reid
        
        Apparently Meacher has backed A repsect Candidate at an Upcoming election,the NEC has to get on top of this, Hinting at backoing Non Laobur Candidates, without the AV elections were people put in very small writing underneath only vote for teh Independent as your second choice adn vote for whoever the Labour person is for your first choice,Like Livingstone did with Lufthur for Tower Hamlets
      - Brumanuensis
        
        That article on Left Futures was not an endorsement and has been withdrawn.
      - treborc
        
        It was removed might quick as well
      - Limp Richard
        
        You’re just saying this to wind people up, right?
  - Limp Richard
    
    What were James Purnell’s achievements exactly?
    - John Dore
      
      1. Being a part of a Government that kept the Tories out.
      2. Thinking, sharing ideas and not just being a part of an outdated ideologically driven organisation. A moderniser.
      3. Working hard for the Labour party.
      
      He did more for the Labour party than most individuals and the witch hunt against him comes from the same quarters as those who rail against Progress. These people are a disgrace.
      - treborc
        
        Did not keep his flat clean was that due to hard work, yes must have been no time to clean up. He left labour knowing he would be kicked into touch now his CV says stepped down not kicked out.
        
        Well Mr Bore if keeping the Tories out for three terms is your idea of a great politician Thatcher must come high on your ranking she kept labour out for four terms.
      - John Dore
        
        Thanks for the personal comments, nothing less expected from a troll.
      - Limp Richard
        
        We are talking about this James Purnell, eh?
        
        http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1173769/Revealed-The-filthy-rental-home-vacated-James-Purnell–1-600-cleaning-paid-taxpayers.html
        
        The fact you couldn’t think of a single concrete achievement that Purnell made during his brief political career is not surprising – because there weren’t any.
        
        1. Could be said any ANY member of ANY Labour or Liberal government.
        
        2. Could be said about most Labour MPs, e.g., Neil Kinnock.
        
        3. Would be said about themselves by most Labour Party members and EVERY Labour MP without a doubt.
        
        The sideburned schmoozer isn’t and never was anyone to look up to. Disabled people whose lives Purnell’s vanity and incompetence utterly ruined can look down on him from a height no greater than that of a wheelchair. Purnell is everything that was wrong with New Labour personified. And as dead politically.
- TomFairfax
  
  Bad timing having this coming out during their recess, finishing just prior to another break for the conference season and then of course the other recesses at Christmas and Easter.
  
  Were they assuming most British workers were like them?
https://mikestallard.virtualgallery.com/ Mike Stallard

The lefties support “the working man” and “hard pressed families”, knowing full well that it really does not pay to employ someone who cannot read, stays in bed and is on drugs.

The righties support the bankers who pay little or no tax and who live abroad whenever they can on vast unearned bonuses with absolutely no regard for their investors, borrowers or savers.

Is it not just possible that we need to take a step back and take a long cool look at our welfare state? Maybe it is time to simplify the taxation system and to allow a little more freedom to employers?

Or is that going to bring back Utilitarianism and Mr Growler?
- Limp Richard
  
  How many of the 2.56 million currently unemployed are illiterate, lazy, drug addict junkies, Mike? Just asking.
  - treborc
    
    Must be all of them , otherwise they’d all be MP’s
Cockleshell Hero

Never afraid of a cliché I would advise Kwarteng and his crew to:

STOP TALKING THE COUNTRY DOWN!

That’ll show ‘em.
Brumanuensis

If Kwarteng is ‘serious’ about the deficit and wants to cut taxes, where is the money for those infrastructure projects going to come from?
NT86

Priti Patel is the worst kind of Tory imaginable. Plays to the gallery (made up of Express and Mail readers) with all kinds of ridiculous one liners on which basically amount to a friendly way of saying that she supports disproportionate cuts and only cares for the executive and managerial classes of the private sector. Really nasty piece of work.

Asian labour forces, as they mature, will start demanding more in the way of wages and employment rights as their societies mature. I’d love to see these Tories mention how Germany, with it’s more ample employment protections, has been able to remain relatively productive amid the woes in Europe. They’re simply calling for a return of pseudo-slave labour just to pander to all their poor little rich friends who are apparently finding the economy soooooooo hard to live in these days.

This is shameless attack on so many hard working and dedicated British workers out there. The Conservatives love to yap about their patriotism, but add the money element in (in this case, growing Asian economies) and they’ll have no problem slagging off their own.
- Brumanuensis
  
  Indeed. Chinese labour costs have been deflated – like in 19th-century Britain – by continual replenishment from rural areas. Demographic change means younger cohorts are now smaller than during the ’80s, ’90s and early ’00s. This has led to more independent trade unions and greater upward pressure on wages – see The Economist’s coverage (http://www.economist.com/node/21549956) and also another piece here (http://www.news.com.au/business/worklife/china-labour-costs-like-us-within-years/story-e6frfm9r-1226438065496). Both do note that increased productivity has mitigated increases in costs, but the upward trend is unmistakable and will undoubtedly continue.
  
  Independent trade union activism in China is on the rise – news that should be welcomed by left-wingers and right-wingers alike – as noted two years ago by the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/business/global/11strike.html?pagewanted=all) and more recently in Bloomberg (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/using-propaganda-to-stop-chinas-strikes-12152011.html).
  
  Interestingly, the Bloomberg piece ends by noting: “The only sure strategy to stop strikes may be to raise pay. The latest Five-Year Plan aims to increase the average minimum wage by at least 13 percent a year. Or machines can replace workers. After Hong Kong’s Milo’s Knitwear (International) added new Japanese knitting machines at its Dongguan sweater factory, it reduced line workers from 80 to 6. “All the headaches, the riots—gone,” says Managing Director Willy Lin. “Machines don’t complain about their salaries.”
  
  Could ‘Captain Swing’ be coming to China soon, I wonder? Certainly it shows that employers are the same the world over. I wonder how long it will be before Chinese employers bemoan lazy and unproductive Chinese workers?
trotters57

The real problem are the lazy capitalists sat on £800 billion not investing in new and better technologies and trying to grow.
Why would you when you have real wages falling, income tax down to 45%, corporation tax falling each year for the rest of this parliament and most of British industry set up as a cartel?
5 banks, 4 oil companies, 4 supermarkets, 4 mobile phone companies, 1 telephone company, 1 gas company, 2 electricty companies.

Why bother investing or growing when you have this backdrop?
Brumanuensis

So basically the Tories want us to become Ireland. A hard-working nation where people work 1,543 hours per year, on average. Not like the UK, a feckless nation of scroungers where people work 1,625 hours per year, on average.
PeterBarnard

Just looking at the cvs of this lot (official via the Conservative Party’s own website) – Kwarteng, Patel, Raab, Skidmore and Truss – there’s not one of them ever done so much as “run a whelk stall in their lives” with their own money.

It also seems that, as they espouse the virtues of the far east economies, they have no idea of “the question” posed by John Rawls.
jaime taurosangastre candelas

Derek,

when you are like this (re your “nachos” comment far below), it’s not really worth responding as though you have some meaningful point to make.

It’s also slightly insulting. Would you be as insulted if I took your Scottishness and asked if you were on the 80 shilling beer again? Perhaps you would like to offer your opinion on the laxity or strength of the investment rules surrounding Chile’s two Sovereign Wealth Funds? Or did you not notice that no British Chancellor ever bothered to create one, and as a result, “there’s no money left”, because like my 6 year old son and his pocket money, they like to try to spend it all (and more) as soon as they get it?

He is a lot less dangerous with his 50 pence a week money than a British Chancellor with a credit card backed by the British people’s future, and still young and can be induced into a lifetime of solid financial practice. He has to “earn” it, with keeping his room tidy, so I imagine you will accuse me of child slavery, but really, it is only establishing a sense of “put something in to get something back”.
- derek
  
  Sorry it took it so hard Jaime but Chile’s financial situation is about 41st in the league of national accrued monies. I happen to think you might have a p[oint though with the missed opportunity to create a financial bedding from North Sea oil but where the blames lies there is any one guess giving the production from the earlier 1970′s to today?
  
  I’m not going to accuse you of anything regarding the tasks you set for your children, they seem very sensible to me.We tried to create an it’s your own space type situation in our home and the boys declared their rooms as their’s, It might have backed fired a bit as their rooms can often be found untidy but mums always there to pick up, so you might have just given me a good idea. Cheers.
  - jaime taurosangastre candelas
    
    Derek, your two boys are far to old now for you to be paying them pocket money, and by your reports, doing more than well enough at their music, so you’ve probably done a fine job (with your wife) in giving them the right sort of grit and determination to succeed not just in music but in life. Nothing wrong with being successful musicians, and if they make it pay, so much the better.
    
    We’re moving my daughter onto receiving her element of the Child Benefit into her own bank account from her thirteenth birthday (but I still somehow have to contribute an equal amount to her university fund – my wife tells me I can afford it, despite her earning over twice as much as me – this is what happens when daughters and mothers gang up on the father. I am upgrading my demands for my office in our Canadian property to be wood panelled, as my wife is paying for the construction costs. Tit for tat as you say). My daughter is also learning negotiation skills as to what proportion she can spend, and what she must save, and will have to show the bank statements.
    
    I am sure that Clement Attlee did not intend the welfare state to allow well-off parents to use public money to teach their children budgeting, but this is a measure of how ridiculous the entire system has become.
    - derek
      
      Yeah! your probably correct there Jaime. Just some sentimental thing as the boys are 16 today and we picked their birthday cake up earlier yesterday with a picture of them on the cake when they were 5 years-old, I can’t believe time has went so fast and I’m so proud of them.The boys have filled in their forms for EMA and their young Scots cards which gives them train travel cost reduction plus plenty more, One of the boys wants to go for a musical military career and it’s to keen on doing a 5th year, he already had a heads up from a few Pipe Majors and could do really well, he spent sometime with the SDG’S at Edinburgh castle the other day as their there doing the tatoo, he really is Gold medal piping material(that’s an actual title win in the piping world) but he has a solid bases to do really well in educational terms also.Hmmm! I’m going to let him make the choice.
AnotherOldBoy

I suppose that Mr Ferguson thought that he had found an open goal into which loyalist Labour supporters would cheerfully kick or head the ball. But the Conservative MPs have a good point. Anyone who has seen the public sector “in action” has seen plenty of idelness and inefficiency. That is not to say that all public sector workers are lazy, only that many work at rates which would not be tolerated by half-competent management.

We need to increase efficiency in the public sector. Who could argue with that?
- JC
  
  We need to increase efficiency in the internal combustion engine. Who could argue with that?
Franwhi

Tory MP attacks Brits as lazy

Mark, I’m so proud that nobody (almost nobody) is taking the bite on this posting. We all know you could just as easily change the word “Tory” to Liberal Democrat or Labour. The truth is that MPs as a group earn more,work less, are less accountable and more self-interested than absolutely any group of workers on these islands. Let’s have MP job swap with members of the public who have a job and see how that goes. I predict few working class heroes among the MPs – including, shamefully, the Labour ones.

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Tory MPs attack Brits as Lazy – labelling us “among the worst idlers in the world”

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Where are the women over 50 on our TV screens?

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Watson urges investigation of “supressed” Leveson evidence – Media roundup: May 21st, 2013

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