If you lost your job during the pandemic, it's your own fault (apparently).

[Johnny Vodka]

Story to piss you off first thing in the morning.

Job losses in pandemic due to performance issues, say nearly half of Britons | Inequality | The Guardian

What the fuck does this say about the sort of society we've become?

 

[planetgeli]

I was going to post this.

Then I thought fuck that depressing shit.

What a country to be alive in.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

I was going to post this.

Then I thought fuck that depressing shit.

What a country to be alive in.

Indeed. If so many people think like this, how do you ever change things for the better?

 

[existentialist]

The press and Conservative Party HQ have been working hard for decades on this. They will be delighted.

 

[izz]

Indeed. If so many people think like this, how do you ever change things for the better?

Things do change for the better I think, but the pace of change is glacial with the occasional setback.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Nobody is making any other arguments in any kind of visible way so it's not surprising unfortunately.

 

[brogdale]

My eldest lost his job yesterday, after working the whole pandemic.
UC interview today (website was down yesterday)
Just what I want to read.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

There was a story in The Scum the other day about getting office workers back to the office because (apparently) they don't produce as much at home.

 

[SpookyFrank]

But it is a little disheartening to learn that so many people are sufficiently dull that they're willing to ascribe the timing of this sudden mass increase in job incompetence alongside a global pandemic to mere coincidence.

 

[SpookyFrank]

There was a story in The Scum the other day about getting office workers back to the office because (apparently) they don't produce as much at home.

Most of them don't produce much in the office either.

E2a: Except rent for people who own office buildings. And income for places that sell depressing sandwiches and tepid coffee. And wear and tear on their cars.

 

[existentialist]

But it is a little disheartening to learn that so many people are sufficiently dull that they're willing to ascribe the timing of this sudden mass increase in job incompetence alongside a global pandemic to mere coincidence.

For me, this is the greatest disappointment. Not the politicians, because I tend to assume they'll be serving their own agenda, although this lot have taken that to a new level...but to realise how credulous and unwilling to think beyond what they like of what they're told a significant proportion of the general public are - that's grim.

 

[ska invita]

However this:




Is fundamentally correct

https://inequalitybriefing.org/graphics/briefing_43_UK_regions_poorest_North_Europe.pdf

 

[brogdale]

But it is a little disheartening to learn that so many people are sufficiently dull that they're willing to ascribe the timing of this sudden mass increase in job incompetence alongside a global pandemic to mere coincidence.

Not just dull; don't you remember all the reflexive impotence (k-punk for instance) and negative solidarity stuff? It's just more of that, innit?

 

[redsquirrel]

The headlines are depressing but I want to see the proper report not the Guardian summary of it which is a prime example of the Guardian's own politics and biases.

 

[ska invita]

I googled so you dont have to

k-punk: Reflexive impotence

k-punk.abstractdynamics.org

 

[MickiQ]

Job losses in pandemic due to performance issues, say nearly half of Britons

Yet Boris stll has his

 

[izz]

There was a story in The Scum the other day about getting office workers back to the office because (apparently) they don't produce as much at home.

bollocks

 

[ska invita]

However this:

View attachment 256001


Is fundamentally correct

View attachment 256002

View attachment 256003

https://inequalitybriefing.org/graphics/briefing_43_UK_regions_poorest_North_Europe.pdf

btw these figures have changed since 2014 according to this

Does the UK have the poorest regions in northern Europe? - Full Fact

The UK has six of the poorest 10 regions comparing GDP per person against nearby countries, but this doesn’t mean the people who live there are poorer.

fullfact.org

worth reading
fact remains though, the UK has serious regional poverty

 

[BobDavis]

This just usual Tory mo though. Get people to blame other people not the government. People have unshakeable notions. Mention the NHS to my neighbour & he will say the NHS should get rid of “the bureaucrats”. He knows zilch about the NHS but that is what he believes & he wants to believe it. He would not thank you if you stood there & explained it all to him & proved him wrong.

 

[izz]

This just usual Tory mo though. Get people to blame other people not the government. People have unshakeable notions. Mention the NHS to my neighbour & he will say the NHS should get rid of “the bureaucrats”. He knows zilch about the NHS but that is what he believes & he wants to believe it. He would not thank you if you stood there & explained it all to him & proved him wrong.

I haven't 'like'd this because I don't like it, however I do concur absolutely. We as a species seem to form our opinions very early on in life and have no intention of changing them.

 

[ska invita]

This just usual Tory mo though. Get people to blame other people not the government. People have unshakeable notions. Mention the NHS to my neighbour & he will say the NHS should get rid of “the bureaucrats”. He knows zilch about the NHS but that is what he believes & he wants to believe it. He would not thank you if you stood there & explained it all to him & proved him wrong.

its almost as if we live in a country utterly dominated by the tories!
i came across the term Elective dictatorship - Wikipedia recently. feels that way

 

[brogdale]

I haven't 'like'd this because I don't like it, however I do concur absolutely. We as a species seem to form our opinions very early on in life and have no intention of changing them.

I'm not so sure that's the take-away from Bob's observation, tbh.
Maybe this is just rose-tinted guff, but I seem to remember a time when more 'ordinary folk' being vox-popped or asked about current affairs would admit that they didn't know enough about (politics?) to comment or expand on a view.
In the neoliberal era of rolling news, billionaire press, false consciousness industries it seems that the norm is more often to offer a received viewpoint that simplifies an apparently complex world and allows folk like Bob's mate the opportunity to 'participate' and appear/convince themselves that they are an engaged citizen.
Sort of?

 

[Johnny Vodka]

The headlines are depressing but I want to see the proper report not the Guardian summary of it which is a prime example of the Guardian's own politics and biases.

It's a good point. It looks like participants were asked to put different types of inequality in order of seriousness. Not sure how you're meant to answer that when all of those mentioned are serious.

 

[Yossarian]

The headlines are depressing but I want to see the proper report not the Guardian summary of it which is a prime example of the Guardian's own politics and biases.

Unequal Britain

Unequal Britain is a major new study conducted by the Policy Institute at King’s College London, in collaboration with the UK in a Changing Europe, to inform the Institute for Fiscal Studies...

www.ifs.org.uk

 

[brogdale]

Unequal Britain

Unequal Britain is a major new study conducted by the Policy Institute at King’s College London, in collaboration with the UK in a Changing Europe, to inform the Institute for Fiscal Studies...

www.ifs.org.uk

The negative solidarity finding that gave the Guardian the clicks:

 

[bellaozzydog]

Tory voters are fucking shithouses shocker

 

[MickiQ]

Meritocracy is fine if it was real and we lived in a society where everyone starts with the same access to education and work opportunities as everyone else but we don't. Eldest Q briefly dated a guy who had graduated from Oxford with a law degree. He was an intelligent young man who had worked hard to get where he was and deserved credit for that but he just couldn't rationalise the fact that he already had a head start by going to a private school and having parents wealthy enough to hire tutors when he needed one.
He was convinced that everything he achieved was down to sheer ability on his own part and the reason there were no poor kids from council estates in his classes was because they lacked that ability not because the dice were loaded from the start.
I was glad when Eldest dumped him to be truthful.

 

[redsquirrel]

Unequal Britain

Unequal Britain is a major new study conducted by the Policy Institute at King’s College London, in collaboration with the UK in a Changing Europe, to inform the Institute for Fiscal Studies...

www.ifs.org.uk

Thanks.

As I thought if you look at the raw data you begin to see a different picture from the one the Guardian has run with.
Overwhelmingly people see income gaps as too large, majorities felt that society was unequal even before COVID-19. Most people see the increase in inequality in either income or life expectancy for any of the groups polled as a problem. Two thirds of people see COVID as negatively affecting those with little wealth and low paid jobs.

Significantly more people agree that the government should redistribute income than disagree, a majority believe that the government should take measures to reduce income inequality. 90% of people say that "the furlough scheme helps people who are facing difficult times through no fault of their own", 83% say the same about unemployment benefits.

And it is worth thinking about the headline 47% figure, while more people than not (47% to 39%) think "how well people are performing at their jobs" is important in someone losing their job that does not mean that they do not believe other factors are also important. The only two (non-exclusive) factors people are asked their views on are luck and performance, there is no questioning of the structural issues that the answers to other questions suggest that many people do consider problems.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Maybe, just maybe, once unemployment really rises and people know friends and relations who have lost their jobs, some may realise that they're not all just lazy gits. Not all of them.

 

[NoXion]

Thanks.

As I thought if you look at the raw data you begin to see a different picture from the one the Guardian has run with.

No! Surely The Guardian isn't pushing some kind of soppy liberal viewpoint? That's unthinkable!

Significantly more people agree that the government should redistribute income than disagree, a majority believe that the government should take measures to reduce income inequality. 90% of people say that "the furlough scheme helps people who are facing difficult times through no fault of their own", 83% say the same about unemployment benefits.

This bit in particular would seem to demolish the Guardian's inchoate thesis.