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Quite so Rachel, quite so

Britain must learn to stand on its own two feet again, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, Rachel Reeves, has said, outlining an emerging Labour plan for building a stronger country after the pandemic.

A key theme will be fostering resilience in families, communities and public services, to protect people from shocks in their personal or national life.

Reeves is struck that, despite being the sixth richest country in the world and having a proud manufacturing history, the UK couldn’t even muster enough protective clothing for its own key people in a pandemic.

“I want us to be a more resilient country. I want us to build up our capacity to be able to stand on our own two feet, to build our manufacturing and productive capacity again so we’re not having to go cap in hand

Absolutely…..

A union claims production of some of the UK’s favourite biscuits will be halted at an Edinburgh factory as staff plan to stage a series of strikes in a pay dispute.

The GMB union has accused bosses at Burton’s Biscuits Co in Sighthill of making a “derisory” pay offer, saying it shows management “do not value” the workers.

The manufacturer makes well-known biscuit brands including Jammie Dodgers and Wagon Wheels.

Therefore we need many unions to ensure they don’t all go on strike at the same time and thus provide us with resilience….

26 thoughts on “Quite so Rachel, quite so”

  1. I suppose it comes down to just how much you want to pay for rubber gloves. I’d buy a pack for a fiver but some people would employ a Filipina to do the washing-up for less than minimum wage

  2. “The first duty of a country is to keep its citizens safe” – she should be thrown out of the Labour party for supporting an expansion of the armed forces, a reintroduction of stop and search to reduce the number of black teenagers murdered in London, an abolition of release from prison of murderers after seven years of their “life” sentences, the right of homeowners to defend themselves against violent burglars …

  3. john77,

    How would decreasing the number of black teenagers murdered in London make us safer?

    Not advocating, just observing the typical black teenage murderee.

  4. “Jammie Dodgers and Wagon Wheels”: pah! The best biscuits made in Edinburgh were Healthy Life. Googling suggests that they aren’t made any more. Pity.

    The factory was on Peffermill Road – near one of the University’s playing fields, with its fine little golf course. Them wuz the days.

    But I digress. My real point is Fuck the Labour Party, fuck the trade unions, abolish the lot of ’em.

  5. “…A key theme will be fostering resilience in families, communities and public services, to protect people from shocks in their personal or national life…” In other words not ‘fostering resilience in families’ but increasing there dependence on the State. Why doesn’t she and her kind just eff right off. And having done that eff off some more?

  6. This wasn’t the real problem though. There were plenty of companies, like Burberry, who were knocking on the door of the Men at the Ministry and asking if they could help and being basically ignored, or told to go away as they didn’t have the kitemarks.

    Government will just build PPE factories that will then just create stockpiles of PPE even though we don’t get another pandemic for a century, like they always do. The next danger might be C.H.U.Ds or people breeding mutant smart lions. Try dealing with them with a mask.

  7. “GMB Scotland organiser Benny Rankin said: “Burton’s stubborn stance on this year’s pay offer is an insult to staff that have worked throughout the lockdown at management’s insistence.”

    Yeah, it doesn’t really work like that. Because competition.

    Maybe, along with Labour and the other unions, you should have asked for a bit more recognition from the government towards the bus drivers, factory workers and shop girls in the private sector, rather than making the Hallowed NHS the big thing in this crisis.

    I think most people who were furloughed should have had it as a zero-interest loan to be repaid within 5 years.

  8. So Much For Subtlety

    The Labour Party embracing Dominic Cummings’ anti-fragile rantings? Which I guess come from Taleb. Tell me it ain’t so.

    Reeves is struck that, despite being the sixth richest country in the world and having a proud manufacturing history, the UK couldn’t even muster enough protective clothing for its own key people in a pandemic.

    Yes because a great way to remain the world’s sixth richest country is to stockpile against unknown pandemics that come along once every few hundred years. When was the Black Death again?

    Idiots.

    I know, if she cares about the health of the nation – require a test for TB and HIV as a condition of getting a visa. Half of East Asia does. It seems to work for them. Africans are the third highest source of HIV in Britain after an anal sex and IV drug use.

  9. Does she mean Britain or Britons? More likely she deliberately confuses the two.

    I’d stand more comfortably on my own feet if the government would stop treading on my toes.

  10. If the UK is the 6th richest in the world, presumably Rachel Reeves would argue that a large family on welfare is nearly always going to be richer than a single claimant with one child, that the Chinese are richer than the Brits, and cows are worth more than horses.

  11. “I’d stand more comfortably on my own feet if the government would stop treading on my toes.”

    I’m nicking that.

  12. @ Commander Jameson
    Most of the black teenagers murdered *are* citizens – and quite a lot of those who die are innocent bystanders, or trying to stop a fight: the ones without weapons are the most likely to get killed.

  13. BlokeInTejasInNormandy

    Yep. If there are to be unions, then we need many of them. All as weak as possible, and with no separate communication channel to any government.

    Luckily, they’re businesses, so monopoly laws can be used against them. Plus the “conspiring to defraud the public” stuff that forbids companies conspiring on prices.

    Well, I hope.

  14. ‘Leeds West MP and shadow Cabinet Office minister argues for . . . onshore manufacturing capability’

    You ran them off, creep. You created an environment hostile to manufacturing.

    ‘despite being the sixth richest country in the world and having a proud manufacturing history’

    Seems your people have done what was necessary to be the sixth richest country. ∴ manufacturing not needed for it.

  15. This is coming from someone whose suggestion for fixing the PPE shortage was to get Bunty Fotherington-Smythe from Little Witless, Surrey, who makes underwear for period dramas at the rate of one item a week to do it, I seem to recall.

  16. Off topic but a question a friend of mine asked Spud which he didn’t publish.

    “Your YouTube videos are currently getting between 500 and 1,500 views. This compares with a recently published video of a skateboarding dog which has had 380,000+ views.

    Have you thought of recording your videos while skateboarding down Ely High Street?

    Or at least making them interesting?”

    Spud has no sense of humour.

  17. fostering resilience in families

    Yep, that would be a good start. Unfortunately Labour don’t like families:
    Husband + Wife + children is bad
    Woman + Children is good

    GMB? Oh dear Rachel, you missed message they are sexist misogynists then?

    Strike? 4 million at door saying “employee me instead” Burtons should tell GMB: FO, we’ll reopen a mothballed factory down south

    iirc Sighthill did some M&S biscuits too

  18. Paul Robson, haha! Little Witless! Halfway between Coldharbour and Holmbury St Mary, quite sure it was Bunny, not Bunty. The posh side of Surrey, the proper Surrey.

  19. SMFS
    Pandemics may be rare but considering SARS, MERS, H5N1, bird flu and pig flu, new and interesting respiratory viruses seem come along about every five years ish so a modest stockpile is not unreasonable.

    It will also be interesting to see what effect social distancing, hand sanitizer and masks have on the coming flu season. Because if there is no noticable effect then they’re not doing anything for CV19, either. If on the other hand there is an effect, then we should have probably been doing that all along.

  20. It will also be interesting to see what effect social distancing, hand sanitizer and masks have on the coming flu season.

    Unfortunately for the study, the impact of this coming winter flu season will be lessened due to the brushwood being burnt away earlier this year.

  21. Gamecock,
    Sure, flu and sars2 are different, but they are both respiratory viruses, and the precautions are the same. Masks and hand sanitizer are not covid specific.
    BiW,
    You’re quite right. I hadn’t considered that.

  22. @Roué le Jour
    As ten times more dying with Flu than with C-19 right now, I’d say social distancing, hand sanitizer and masks have little or no effect on reducing viral spread – plenty of negative side-effects though

    @Gamecock
    Flu & C-19 are both SARS virus

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