General News Discussion

[Spindles]

Again wishing for a like button on your posts.

I personally feel that, handled right, this could be an issue which brings consensus and allows sensible debate on an issue that does need tackling but if it dissolves into knee jerk argument (for example, the NUS taking the view that every student needs defending or UKIP taking the view that every student needs kicking out) then we lose the chance to deal with a genuine problem that hurts our economy and leads to public discontent.

[Spindles]

Non EU students are a very important source of income to Uk universities though

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Again wishing for a like button on your posts.

I personally feel that, handled right, this could be an issue which brings consensus and allows sensible debate on an issue that does need tackling but if it dissolves into knee jerk argument (for example, the NUS taking the view that every student needs defending or UKIP taking the view that every student needs kicking out) then we lose the chance to deal with a genuine problem that hurts our economy and leads to public discontent.

[Spindles]

Well, always a contentious opinion to state, but by leading to increased welfare where jobs are filled by people working illegally and not paying tax/NI.

I have done the same low paid temping jobs myself, where agencies who are supposed to (by law) see proof of ID such as a passport or visa or an NI number do not and pay you as self employed, as then they themselves avoid the employers NI contribution. This is harming our economy.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Well, always a contentious opinion to state, but by leading to increased welfare where jobs are filled by people working illegally and not paying tax/NI.

I have done the same low paid temping jobs myself, where agencies who are supposed to (by law) see proof of ID such as a passport or visa or an NI number do not and pay you as self employed, as then they themselves avoid the employers NI contribution. This is harming our economy.

[Spindles]

Indeed, I was one such worker for a short period of time some years ago (2004 and homeless at the time is how I justify it to myself). Not suggesting for a second that it is entirely people on student visas who are being exploited in this way, just that they are being exploited and that this is the harm.

Our previous government tried to tackle this by making it a law that certain requirements needed to be met by agencies, which on the surface sounds great, but the lack of teeth in the legislation, the lack of enforcement means that 8 years later the same issues continue unabated.

Just to be clear, in my mind it is those that profit who are at fault, closing such loopholes can only benefit the country in my opinion.

[Spindles]

To say again, I have an open mind on this, I can't say to what extent this harms our economy, whether this is a small issue that is being blown up by the government/media to distract from larger issues like wholesale tax avoidance by the ultra rich. I just know that it is a genuine issue and feel that it has failed to be tackled for the reason that it is too easy for a contentious issue such as this to become a political football and any sensible debate be suppressed as a result.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Double post oops

Edited August 30, 2012 by Rufus Gwertigan

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I work with a lot of foreign workers especially over Christmas. I have worked on a casual basis for 6 years or so now and when I first started I was shocked at the lack of white faces among those I work with. I asked the agency why and they said they had a problem with the hours and English workers unwilling to do god awful hours, starting at stupid o'clock, for the money. To start off with I thought this was balls but the more people I spoke to I realised it was true. In fact the other year I started to think the same. I took a contract on nights to find I was getting 30p an hour more than I would on days (£6.28 in total). Most of there jobs end up getting taken by people on student visas, dodgy or otherwise, and I dont think the company could operate over Christmas without them. Many of these poor c**ts live in wretched conditions as well and get taken advantage of all the time. One year our employer did not tell them they had to claim holiday pay online when the contract ended. As we all accrued over 40 hours and there were over a 1000 workers they would have made a killing not paying out. Until someone started telling everyone and showing people how to make the claim.

[Spindles]

Indeed. I think it is because I have worked at the same level and with people in similar circumstances that I am aware of some of the issues. As I say, it is exploitation, much like companies putting student part time workers on basic rate tax, knowing that they are never likely to claim it back and a few years later, when the deadline for claiming passes this money is moved from the PAYE account of the company to profits.

I believe that sorting out the problem will reduce exploitation and help our economy, I just can't say to what extent.

I also believe this is made possible by the kind of person who says "I wouldn't get out of bed for that", some of us have to

[lost]

I've noticed similar around here. I sorted mail in 2001 for £12k the night shift got £18k. Now eastern Europeans do the same job on nights for £13k, plus you could get a nice house around here for £50k back then so that sort of wage would go somewhere

[Spindles]

Ah, EU Migrant workers and their effect on the economy are a slightly different issue, but I am not going to try and shout you down for voicing your opinion

I am not going to argue that market forces mean that if people are willing to do the same work for less money then wages will go down and that this can be a byproduct of legal migrant labour. I just happen to believe that this isn't necessarily a bad thing (again, I point to the people who "wouldn't get out of bed" for a low wage/crap job when personally I have always done exactly that rather than being unemployed)

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I've noticed similar around here. I sorted mail in 2001 for £12k the night shift got £18k. Now eastern Europeans do the same job on nights for £13k, plus you could get a nice house around here for £50k back then so that sort of wage would go somewhere

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

Exactly. Those people in the final year of their degree, who have worked hard to get where they are...

[Spindles]

That's the question that I was asking, there are clearly people who are abusing this, are people getting screwed, what is/can be done to prevent this?

I'm not saying "ship 'em all out" at all, thought I had been quite balanced and made that clear.

[lost]

Lol Thats what I do at the moment. It makes me laugh sometimes as some of the work can be quite heavy and I am not built for hard work. I will be sweating loads and all you hear is some of the foreign workers complaining about how hard it is and they thought they would walk into easy jobs.

[Spindles]

Well, I don't, but the law says that EU citizens can live and work within the EU much more freely than before, which some people have an issue with. I personally don't, I work and live among people here in this way and the only thing I find to be different is the language they use and a few cultural differences (which I welcome, I do not understand the problem that some have with multi-cultural society, I believe we are enriched, not diluted)

The law however, says that non-EU citizens can live, study and work here within certain limitations only, this is being abused and the law is being broken. This, I have an issue with. If the law was different I wouldn't. It isn't about my view of the people, it is about the law itself and whether it is working, whether it is being handled right by the current government.

I wholly support the right to asylum, my kids grew up with kids who came here during the Yugoslavian conflict and one of my best friends and the people I most admire lived through Sarajevo and now lives in Montreal, I know that if my country went to hell and I was a parent I would want to get my family to safety.

So, I'm not talking about my opinion of people, their right to be anywhere, I'm asking about whether people feel that the government are right to focus on the provision of student visas for people who are not students, whether this is felt to be the right thing to do and (having no more knowledge on this than I have stated in my posts) whether people feel this is being handled correctly. I know that abuse IS happening, that there are cheap offices in cities that are not universities but are selling places as if they were, I know that the university in question, from random sampling, found that 61% of cases couldn't be seen to be attending any course, I'd like to know if the other 39% are being tarred with the same brush or if provision is made to assist with genuine cases. That was the question I thought I had asked.

[Spindles]

Let's try this then:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6210255/EU-funding-Orwellian-artificial-intelligence-plan-to-monitor-public-for-abnormal-behaviour.html

[Spartacus Mars]

Let's try this then: http://www.telegraph...-behaviour.html

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

Let's try this then:

http://www.telegraph...-behaviour.html

[Spindles]

Ten million quid spent and I bet you a penny to a pound of gold 4CHAN will troll the thing into the ground.

I mean, it's going to give about half a billion hits from YouTube comments alone...

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

Brilliant!

Comments like this give me hope. The powers that be invest millions in computerised systems of control, a swarm of anarcho-libertarians will render the systems unusable through spamming the crap out of the available data to skew results.

An excellent comment.

@Yoghurt, £10m can buy you a room full of clever coders for a couple of years or it can buy you £9.75m of managers/consultants and a box marked "super powerful system" which if you power it up just gives a powerpoint presentation and then crashes, either option is likely to be bad news for the taxpayer (as the £10m when spent becomes £100m, becomes a rolling and ever growing cost we are all paying whether it works or not)

The idea that everything you post on a forum, facebook, twitter, google+ or ICQ could be being analysed for "abnormal behaviour" worries me though. What is abnormal behaviour, who makes that decision? Sounds more orwellian than orwell. Linking it to camera systems is likely the point of failure, simply because optical recognition is so complex and processor intensive that they haven't got a chance of getting that working for £10m, or even £100m

[Spindles]

Indeed. The best hope we have is like you say, that they will be as ineffective, incompetent and useless as they are in every other aspect of the work they do with our money that they couldn't identify a radical from a radial.

[Spartacus Mars]

You don't actually need a big computer system.

Just trace the IPs of "RIP Trolls" (a very specific breed of troll) and guarantee the riot squad that arrest them immunity from any prosecutions relating to allegations of misconduct during the arrest.

[Ed209]

Well Bill Roache (Ken Barlow) has lost his marbles in a big way

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bill-roache-coronation-street-ken-1304296