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@JRB_O_Liverpool @NeilDotObrien But surely with higher salaries you get a higher calibre of people - just like anywhere else

@catharfury @NeilDotObrien There is a lack of talent and high calibre people in the CS, it’s why we cannot justify higher salaries. We need to cut at least 50-100k jobs, with a focus on keeping higher performers with increased pay and attracting genuine talent with higher base salaries

This is why we can cut the size of the civil service to that of a decade ago and still increase productivity

@YoshiJoshi_ @NeilDotObrien Not disagreeing with you, it should be easier to reward good performance and remove poor performers. But if you just make the job really unappealing then the people who will leave first are the ones who can easily work elsewhere

@catharfury @NeilDotObrien CS have vastly better pensions, job security and far less accountability on performance outcomes There will remain lots of reasons a certain type of person will choose that career path

@NeilDotObrien The CS isn't some special environment - if you make it attractive to work there then you'll get good people working there, same as pvt sector. This clip is also surely fake and no one gets 41 days of annual leave

@cooksimon @jo3hill If salaries are sufficient then that could work. Both right and left need to realise that straightforward incentives apply to CS: you need to be able to attract good people (+ remove bad people). 'Punishing' the CS will just mean good people leave.

@catharfury @jo3hill Of course. And go to a DC pension scheme

I’m all for people enjoying themselves, but the ‘flexi time’ culture in the civil service is not fit for purpose. Most jobs expect you to work a bit longer now and then, but the CS obsession with counting hours and then taking paid time off is damaging for public trust.

@ThatchEffendi Has to be done, otherwise you can't hold the line on illegal development- see the 'protected areas' in Georgia!

do they think this makes Kosovo look good?

@portraitinflesh Isn't that basically a weird form of ethno-narcissism? Be like someone from Croatia supporting Burnley cos they had (i think) an all-white team under Dyche

Being an outsider to football, I didn't really grasp, until this year, how ahead of the game Arsenal was in signing black players, which is why they're so popular in Africa. Today, it's all but impossible to imagine an all-white Premier League team, so they were highly prescient.

Time for the Antigone Spring Books Give-away! 40+ books and pamphlets on offer worldwide. Just repost this message and follow us, and on Sunday 3 names will be drawn. 1st chooses 20 things, 2nd 12, 3rd gets the rest. We'll add details of the items over coming days. Good luck all!

@ChuckPfarrer I don't understand - what are they even theoretically trying to achieve with this, just a total waste of life

@DavidGHFrost @defossardf Yeah cos so many people were drive into Oxford Street to do their shopping

Yes, @defossardf is right. These schemes are often remarkably ugly while at the same time creating deadzones in which crime and antisocial behaviour can prosper. The City, formerly the bustling heart of the metropolis, now feels like East Berlin a lot of the time. Oxford Street will go the same way.

@DavidGHFrost @defossardf Deadzones?? Oh for the glorious lively hustle and bustle of the north circular.

@MonkEmma @Rob_ThaBuilder Yep fair point, I was thinking of the care sector specifically, where 59% were for family members of care workers. Stand by my overall point that it was an unplanned shambles rather than a specific Brexit response

@catharfury @Rob_ThaBuilder Student visas most definitely do boost the economy. Family is v low compared to work

This is insane. I obviously have a position on this, but forget that for a second. Just from a basic democracy perspective, you simply cannot make a fundamental change to the immigration system that cuts immigration from similar cultures (i.e. EU migratjon) to zero while exponentially increasing migration from cultures massively different without public buy in. You cannot sneak something in like this through the backdoor without a public debate Look, if an election was fought on this, if one party said "we want to massively increase the number of foreigners with a different culture and different religion, while will inevitably change the culture and demographics of the country " as their election platform, and then they won and enacted that policy, I wouldnt like it, but i would accept it. If thats what the people want, even though I disagree, I accept it. Thats democracy. But they didnt do that. Instead, they snuck a wholesale change to immigration policy in through the backdoor, and hoped you wouldnt notice. And when you did, they gaslit you and called you racist. And when the rape rate went parabolic, and ppl started noticing they didnt recognize the towns they grew up in, and ppl complained on social media, they brought in the jack boots and started hauling grandmothers out of their beds at 2 AM for making posts critical of immigration policy. This is not democracy and there is somethibg very insidious about all of this. Why did they do it? Because "economics"? None of this makes any sense.

@MonkEmma @Rob_ThaBuilder Only a small proportion of that influx came in directly on work visas. Huge numbers on family/student visas i.e. not boosting economy or easing labour shortages. Just hugely incompetent management of the system by the Tories

You’re being pretty disingenuous. This was largely because of Brexit. And everyone was warned that stopping easy free flowing back and forth EU migration would likely lead to a big spike in non-EU migration as the jobs still needed doing and now people would have to come and stay as it was so much harder to get here, they weren’t going to leave! So yeh, we had an election on this issue. Voters were warned this would happen. They decided to vote for it anyway because Boris was a “laugh” and Farage was a “man of the people”🤷🏼‍♀️

@StephenWicks83 @MonkEmma @holland_tom Why? How can you justify a kid's parents' arbitrary set of beliefs influencing a curriculum set by the state. The curriculum should be for all

@catharfury @MonkEmma @holland_tom Schools should be able to teach the curriculum while respecting religions.

“Respect for religious traditions should not undermine the requirement for all pupils to have a broad & balanced curriculum.” “[Students should not] reproduce images of Jesus, Prophet Mohammed or other figures considered to be prophets in Islam.” 🤔 new.calderdale.gov.uk/sites/default/…

@MonkEmma @holland_tom Your only real debunking here is that it was a Tory govt doc. People object to the fact that schools should have to worry about religious sensitivities, when they should be able to teach the curriculum to all kids universally

@holland_tom Tom, you’re a smart guy. Please don’t perpetuate this Daily Mail nonsense

@arisroussinos Canterbury is particularly bad for this - so much hollowed out beauty

Checking in on Canterbury:

@MonkEmma @GoodwinMJ I take your point (but it does make the c'nwealth vote even weirder - they don't need to have lived here long). But I think if you want to commit to a place then get citizenship - that demonstrates you are tied to that place enough to have the right to help decide its future

@catharfury @GoodwinMJ I’d argue EU citizens are different. When they’ve lived here for decades, worked, lived, loved, paid taxes etc I don’t see why they shouldn’t get a say in how their country of choice is governed

2.5 million people from Commonwealth nations are eligible to vote in UK elections and of those 1.6 million are registered to vote This is outrageous -only British citizens should be able to vote. We must prioritise electoral reform. Source: Pimlico Journal

@MonkEmma @GoodwinMJ Yes, and nor should they - the vote should be for citizens only, or what is the point of citizenship? There is a fundamental difference between a citizen and someone studying/working abroad. Only citizens have a stake in the country, as often they have no other country to go to

@catharfury @GoodwinMJ EU citizens don’t get a vote in general elections (or referendums!) in this country.

@smahlatz @MonkEmma @GoodwinMJ A lot of the commonwealth don't have the King as head of state

@catharfury @MonkEmma @GoodwinMJ EU countries don't share the same head of state