The Maildian

I know it is the silly season but this takes the proverbial.

The Graun led today (yes, led) on a big story about how the NHS will collapse if the EU employees go home. This is the prediction of a thinktank the IPPR,describing itself as 'progressive'.There is no actual evidence that anyone wants to go home and join a supposed brain drain from the UK post-Brexit (some data comes out today,but el Gruniado can't wait and it might not support them),but there are fears. Quite the most amazing sentence says that: 

While the IPPR says their deportation is ultimately unlikely, the lack of official reassurance is already having a chilling effect on those seeking jobs, housing, bank loans or making other long-term commitments.

Deportation! Queues of medics and nurses carrying only one suitcase waiting in transit camps! It is only 'unlikely' say the IPPR, and people are still anxious. I wonder why. Classic Daily Mail stuff, but from 'progressives'

Meanwhile, they could apply for British citizenship, I suppose, but the IPPR thinks the fee of £1200 might be deterring people from doing so, so they advocate its abolition for the skilled, and a loan to pay it for the unskilled. Presumably everything else in the process, like the citizenship test, is OK.

Then, in the same story, a flip-flop, or, as the Guardian  might call it 'balance'. I'm not really complaining -- at least it is not full on ReMail.

It turns out that:

The government’s outgoing chief advisor on migration, Prof David Metcalf, also called for a much stronger enforcement of minimum labour standards in the UK to ensure the country’s flexible labour market prevents undercutting by foreign workers and boosts the welfare of British residents.

It seems Metcalf blames local employers for not investing in training, for the most skilled jobs in Science or IT, meaning that they choose to rely on migrants , and that:

...while low-skilled migration benefited labour-intensive British employers and most such migrants, they also exerted a downward pressure on the pay of low-skilled workers and – in the worst examples – serious exploitation of migrant, and possibly UK, labour... Incomplete supervision holds for the national minimum wage, labour gangs (particularly in horticulture) and employment agencies for migrants.

Finally, Marina Hyde writes her usual (see this one for example) spiky column about the Olympics , especially about the solemn luvvie stuff about we must all 'learn' from it (that hard work pays off etc) --but then the scepticism vanishes when we turn to Brexit. She chides Leave.EU for trying to capitalise on sporting success (bit late -- all politicians have done that) to show how Britain is great and strong outside the EU etc,and suggests they have somehow deliberately left out black athletes in their videos.The old racist card again.

Marina is superb at pointing out substantial abuses of power by unelected mutlinational corporates like FIFA and the IOC, but sees only sweetness and light with EU multinational corporates

Out and proud!

Congratulations to the Guardian's Larry Elliott who came out as a Leaver. Couldn't have been easy at the Gudianer, and I'd keep an eye out for people pissing in his coffee if I were him (or 'he' as Guardina staff would insist, or probably 's/he' so as not to encourage cisgender identification).

The confession came after a piece discussing the evidence for and against the terrible economic catastrophe that was predicted after Brexit. Overall conclusion: small earthquake in largely unpopulated area, some trees damaged.

Then he finished with a succinct summary of his reasons for voting leave:

When I voted for Brexit on 23 June, I did so for three reasons: because the European Union is a failed project; because Europe is moving in an increasingly free-market direction; and because I wanted to shake up the status quo. It would take an extremely deep and prolonged recession to make me regret my choice. That prospect seems even more remote than it did eight weeks ago.

Elsewhere it was business as usual though  This from William Keegan:

It has been well established that the leading Brexiters, especially Box-Office Boris, lied their way right through the campaign and thoroughly misled people, contributing to an outbreak of buyer’s remorse.

But it is also obvious that there are many older people who manifest not an iota of remorse about the chaos they have helped to create, not least for their grandchildren....

Popular anger at the accumulated economic and social damage from the financial crisis and the counterproductive austerity policy was among the factors behind the Brexit vote. The more one reflects on the referendum, the more obvious it becomes that this is one of the most insane episodes in British public life since 1945.

He means it is well-established in the media, after huge ideological effort, to convince themselves mostly, that Leave propaganda was just straightforward lying, while nothing but truth and sincerity came from the other side, as indeed it does from all other politicians except Boris Johnson. I assume the main lie was the old claim that £350m went to Brussels every week, but that was the gross figure (the net figure was more like £110 million, a trifle), and the public was too dim to note the difference between gross and net (even though, as Farage said, every PAYE taxpayer sees that every time they open their pay packets).The other lie is that that sum would be spent on the NHS, although the actual claim was that it could be spent on the NHS,which seems perfectly valid if wildly over-optimistic.

How Keegan knows about these selfish older people is not clear, or indeed about the resentful opponents of austerity or the remorseful buyers. Perhaps he just MUST believe in them because someone has to be blamed. After all, rejecting the advice of people like him is clearly irrational.

Finally, what did he mean about insanity sinec 1945? The first Labour Government? Or was that just to equate Brexit with  the insanity of World War 2? Can a comparison with Nazism be far away?

Guardian stats

The Grudian leads this morning on a report by the Resolution Foundation (an apparently independent thinktank, 'balanced' in terms of people recruited from different political parties). Shock ! Horror! Restricting immigrants WILL lead to a modest wage rise among poorly-paid 'natives' (RF category). No need to apologise for alleging this was a lie though, because all is not lost -- the overall effect of Brexit will be to depress wages as a whole leaving a net reduction overall. So the remainers are still right overall.

Not only that, but British businesses are likely to go out of business if they are no longer able to pay migrant workers less than natives -- some £2.67 per hour less. What a lovely way to put it. The gap shows that migrant workers are indeed being exploited, but that's good because otherwise firms using sweated labour would go out of business. Oh for the days of the closed shop that enforced union rates (younger readers should ask their parents).

The stats are a bit odd as well. The categories are very broad and one table divides into Accession EU wage levels, Original EU, Natives and Rest of the World. The table gives median figures,slightly better than means but still concealing wide variations They have been adjusted but I don't know how. Nevertheless, the same errors affect all the totals so we still might have a valid comparison. Hence: 'While the wages of British workers are not likely to rise much as a result of a fall in migration, the biggest winners are likely to be those migrants who are already in the UK, particularly people from the countries that joined the EU in 2004'. This assumes wage differentials will remain the same, of course, which ignores occupational differences as we saw -- what if most of those original migrants were located in highly-paid jobs anyway?

However, the data only compares natives to EU originals, and notes that the wages of the latter are above those of natives ( by £1.57 per hour on average) , so the RF is able to argue that EU originals ( ie migrants from the original EU countries already in the UK) will probably continue to enjoy an advantage compared with natives. Whether this is so if we compared people in each occupation, rather than whole populations, is less clear.

What is clear, even from this graph,is that wage levels in EU accession countries ( those hoping to join) are disastrously low, -£2,76 per hour. This is the sum that employers would have to make up if those countries were not permitted to send migrants to the UK --employers would be paying local rates to make that saving, the old softies. I am sure lots more employers wold want to employ such people on those terms.Minimum wage legislation only applies to resident natives, so this would be a great way to get round it.

So natives are not likely to benefit much from restricting immigration -- but they would be much worse off if it continued? The RF also note the effects of things like the financial crisis of 2008:  'However, the effect is small compared to broader economic forces such as the squeeze on pay caused by the financial crisis'. Capitalism depresses wages long term,one way or another,but it can only be of little comfort to someone on a low wage now to hear that things were worse in 2008 and might be again if there is another crisis. Unless the argument is that such crises are more likely out of the EU?

What of future decline? It is based on calculations of 'the economic fallout of the vote to leave the EU if forecasts are remotely right.' Whose forecasts? IS all this inevitable or did it assume old Osborne would still be in charge? The assumption is also made that wage levels are somehow 'natural' or determined only by the market, and even that British businesses would be unable to adjust to higher wages (the RF does consider,only to dismiss,possible changes like automation).

Guardian values

Great example of the values of Grudian writers today. Owen Gibson, none other than the Paper's Sports Editor, says we should support the return of Premier League football today and the Olympics. True 'There are plenty of unwanted side effects, from the historic lack of trickle-down investment in the rest of the football pyramid to the rampant ticket inflation that has threatened to price out whole sections of the match-going public' Marina Hyde in the same newspaper has chronicled the ludicorus levels of corruption and fat-cattery of FIFA and the IOC --eg here (although she is also a Remainer)

But  'The real dent caused by the [Brexit] result is to the Premier League’s image, to the brand it has built over more than two decades'

 What could possibly do more damage than plutocracy and the rest?  Brexit is a blow to  'internationalism' and that is just what we need these days after Brexit! Internationalism -- solidarity with soccer-playing millionaires from different countries and a corrupt management with recruits from different nations,united in a common interest to screw everyone else.  

They all get on so well, see?

Coupnssberg

I missed most of L Kuenssberg's doc on Brexit but I caught the end. Or maybe I imagined it?

Kuenssberg seemed to say that Brexit was the result of a 'coup'. I'm sure she used that word. It was organized by a small tightly knit group taking advantage of a weak Prime Minister and a disorganized Labour Party.

I must check again.Poor woman.

Update: I think the programme was repeated 22/23 Sept. Again, I only caught the last few minutes but it seemed identical to the first broadcast -- except that the voice-over was a male one this time. No Laura!

Peers against calamity

Lady Wheatcroft writes in today's Garundia that the House of Lords should oppose or delay Brexit legislation. She admits the Lords are hardly democratic but says they have a duty nevertheless to oppose the 'calamity' of Brexit. Brexit voters are changing their minds, she says, so the small majority in favour might disappear anyway.

She also says the main reason for the Brexit vote was really resentment against the supposed metropolitan elite (in sneer quotes). She knows this from the contents of her inbox. (She has also been attacked in the Mail and the Sun). The UK Government could easily address inequality and this would further undermine the Brexit majority.

Overall, this would justify the unelected Lords delaying or preventing triggering Article 50,in the name of the historic role of the Lords to advise the Government. She thinks enough of the peers would 'stall' the initial legislation.

David Edgar's piece on the same day starts off with some useful analysis:

What have we learned about what happened on 23 June? Some immediate myths have been dismantled. The young didn’t stay in bed – 64% of registered 18 to 24-year-olds voted, overwhelmingly to remain. Not all those who voted to leave the European Union in the referendum were northern left-behinds – many were middle-class people in the south. And Labour delivered 63% of its 2015 vote to remain, not that much lower than the Liberal Democrats’ 70%, and way above the Conservatives’ measly 42%. In fact, Labour’s remain vote was only 1% lower than the SNP’s.

The piece goes on to say that Labour suffered most with its split between liberal globalised metropolitans and its traditional working class base. Some right wingers in Labour think the Party should go for 'traditional' values to win back defectors to UKIP --nationalism among them,and probably 1950s values (code for cultural conservatism). However,he finds hope in the SNP which managed to combine traditional concerns for economic inequality with liberal ones about things like gender equality. So far.

Polly semic

Polly Toynbee in yesterday's Grundian had a marvellously convoluted argument to show how Brexit won through 'lies'.

The article began with the crisis in road haulage, the shortage of qualified drivers and the dreadful conditions they face. She says that the failure of wages to rise to attract more applicants shows market failure. There is also a failure of Government policy to impose a levy for apprenticeships on the trade or to regulate wages with a revised Wages Council scheme.

A report shows that employers like to attract EU drivers instead and pay them really low local wages. They are locally organised and hard to unionise. So there IS something in the view that cheap EU labour is being exploited as a reserve army. That was not a Brexit lie?

What was? We don't know how drivers voted, but we could guess. Apparently, employers also largely voted to Leave. How irrational, for Toynbee. Apparently they feared even more inroads of European drivers taking their business.But THAT fear was not supported by the report, so it was irrational for employers to vote Leave on the basis of that specific fear, and that showed Brexit lies.

I'm impressed that she managed to find a lie somewhere.