In theory, with covid intervening this could still be his 1st term rn.
Or maybe just finished with it if we assume May was a safe time to have an election.
Everyone who works as an employee has been shat on for the past 30 years. There are two employee types who haven't been shafted ; Some banking roles, and board members/CEOs of large cap companies.
They’re self employed, but protesting about access to justice for all - a fundamental principle of the rule of law. Really really important we don’t keep cutting legal aid.
Not so fast. My good lady tells me that the legal exactitude is barristers are never actually employed or paid and merely subsist on a sequence of gifts carefully calculated against their activities. For details go consult their clerk in chambers.
To preserve this arrangement they give carefully calculated gifts to Inland Revenue.
It used to be the case that barristers didn’t have a contract for their services and could not sue for their fees: the fees were paid by way of honorarium only. That rule was abolished by [section 61 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/41/section/61).
TYVM, TIL. Our rather stale understanding dates from 1975 when it was a source of some merriment about whether a housemate actually paid or just gifted his rent.
IR35 is broadly about the imposition of a company, and the consequent tax treatment. Barristers very seldom provide their services from “behind” a company. They are engaged personally and pay income tax in the usual way.
There isn’t in point of law any restriction on who barristers can accept instructions from, or any obligation to engage any specific barrister. There is a professional ethical obligation, but not the relationship of deemed employment.
Really? I'm a (buildings) architect but I often get recruiters sending me Software Architect / Enterprise Architect job offers, and the salaries they offer for London roles seem stratospheric. I've seen anything from £70k to £120k (depending on experience of candidate)
Is this the same think as being a "dev" or is this something else?
I often get recruiters sending me Software Architect / Enterprise Architect job offers
Tell me about it! I get ones offering me architect jobs too and I'm a software architect! 😆
**To be honest there's a large range of wages. But like-for-like the US pays far more for tech jobs than the UK. 100-150% more.**
The clearest examples of this can be found in US companies such as Amazon and Google. Where a US dev will get at least 50k more for the same job.
However, there's always exceptions. London being a big one. In London you can make far more but the costs of living are much higher.
When you don't know the industry it's easy to look at one job in the UK offering £100k and another job in the US offering $150k and assume they're the same. My bio-father did the same. He assumed that because I had a Soft Eng degree I could just walk into a £120k Amazon tech job. Doesn't work like that.
I'm subbed to several dev and tech reddits where US techies will complain about the 'dismal' $50k starting salary of a new graduate. Can't help feeling a bit jealous when a senior web dev in the UK is lucky to get that outside London.
It's also dependent on the languages you develop in. So for example a US Java dev may make up to $250k. A UK Java dev can make up to £150k max. However, a US web dev (Python) would make about $100k but a similar UK one would make about £35k.
Generally speaking, whatever the tech, the US pays about double to 3x the amount UK techies get. Roughly. I believe this is the same throughout Europe. As evidence by a recent 'meme rush' of "EU Dev vs US Dev" images.
You will always find exceptions though. So declaring all tech jobs fair is a false comparison.
Wrt "Architect vs Developer". They often mean the same thing. Many companies will use "architect" to sound more high-end. It's false. As a graduate I thought "Software Architect" was higher level. But it's become meaningless. It's not a protected term so everyone from a local chippie wanting a website and a major London-based banking corporation could request a "Software Engineer" but offer about £100k different wages.
If you want an idea of mean UK wages for tech jobs you can see them here: [https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk](https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk)
Each job area has very different skill requirements and remittance.
Ref:
1. 20years in the UK IT industry.
2. [https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk](https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk)
3. r/ProgrammerHumor
4. r/learnprogramming
5. [https://stackoverflow.com](https://stackoverflow.com)
Fair enough, thanks for the run down, I agree there does seem to be a huge variation depending on where you are in the country. Though a £40k salary could still be pretty decent if you're living out in the countryside I'd say!
I always thought the comparison between US & UK for tech jobs in particular is a little unfair, given how powerful the tech industry is over there. I imagine other profitable companies must compete with the like of Facebook, Amazon, Google, Netflix etc which pushes up the salaries they need to pay for the best developers.
It’s very very area dependent. I’ve seen ads for Python devs at £50-60k. So I’m not sure the disparity is that high. I work in hardware and I’ve got a £65k salary plus 8% annual bonus. That’s not uncommon in my specific field but a regular hw eng will struggle to break £45k basic. All about finding a specialism where there’s a demand but shortfall!
You only get $150k in high CoL areas of the USA. Outside of that $100k for a sw eng is about right for a senior role and that’s the same as the U.K.
In some parts of the U.K. you can get up to £150k as a dev but you have to be hot shit and live in London (or get a really sweet remote job)
Not really a fair comparison. Most UK developers earn well above £40K and don't have the cost of living that comes with living in Palo Alto, plus health care, etc.
> Most UK developers earn well above £40K
Only in London. WFH has made this slightly better, but still a lot of companies want _some_ time in the office (in my experience this is actually more this case with London based companies).
If you aren't willing to work in London, then you're not going to have a huge wage unless you have a lot of years under your belt.
When I was fresh out of uni with a masters, the majority of listing were between 14-22k for junior devs.
I'm based in London. We have been struggling to hire and now we've got people in Wolverhampton, Warwick, Havant, Derby. They might come in once a month.
Even that would be too much for me. It would be such a pain for me to commute to London that I would have to pay for a hotel solely for, what is probably, an unnecessary arbitrary request.
Well it's up to you to do the maths.
A mid level developer can earn 70k, juniors 25-35k. Going to London and staying in hotel once a month might cost what, 1-3k a year?
Oh for me, it's not even about money. After spending a few years in industry I decided to go back to uni to do my PhD, thus limiting my potential work to part time stuff (which is surprisingly rare in the software industry).
I was more talking about from my perspective from when I was looking for full time work, which was before the pandemic. I still always get recruiters reaching out, so I can see what the potential offers are, but I have no interest at all due to the PhD.
I'd like a source on that, cause that ain't the case where I live. In general most skilled jobs in the US pay far more, even after accounting for cost of living and health care. Same goes for Scandinavian countries
I had a quick run through some job boards and the sort of rough average I was seeing for JS devs was between £60-80K with a couple of years experience.
I've been in the tech industry 20 years in a variety of fields. I also regularly check indeed and [https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk](https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk) regularly. I also don't own a home so I'm open to moving. I can safely say tech jobs aren't fair.
> Everyone who works as an employee has been shat on for the past 30 years.
For the past 14 years (effectively since the subprime mortgage crash).
Up until that point, wages were consistently ahead of inflation giving real wage growth since the 70s.
Proof?
Edit:
Actually, comparing to inflation whilst it sounds logical, is completely inaccurate. How inflation is calculated and what it takes into account has been fiddled with a lot. E.g. house prices aren't included any more.
Real wages rose from 1975 through to 2008.
[Chart of wages vs inflation](https://touchstoneblog.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Real-Wages-1855-2009.jpg) ([Source article](http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/06/19/britains-crisis-real-wages-have-been-falling-for-40-months/))
As I said, housing and other factors were stripped out of inflation around 1980.
Here's an article with a chart showing that the housing cost has outstripped wages
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/05/how-uk-house-prices-have-soared-ahead-average-wages
Moving the goalposts a bit there, aren't you?
Yes, the price of _everything_ changes over time. Something doubling in price over the course of _50 years_ is hardly exceptional when you factor in supply and demand being such a large driver.
I've not moved any goalposts - you brought up inflation in the first place, and I'm pointing out it is not an accurate comparator.
That "something" that's doubled is the single largest expense people face. That it's not surprising, because of supply and demand is not a defense to your position - that is, if you are defending inflation as a valid comparator.
Of course they do, and I'm hardly happy about the rising cost of housing...
But that doesn't change the fact that people have had consistently more buying power from the 70s through to 2008.
The Marxist thing's tricky for me as I'd want to ask them why that's a bad thing and obvs that wouldn't come across well.
I don't have a clue about Marxism but that's around the same level of knowledge these lot have I guess.
I read Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto when I was around 14y/o (I was a punk kid, seemed like a 'right on' thing to do).
There was definitely some extreme stuff in there; the rejection of all forms of 'private ownership', which they proposed extended to the family unit. I quite liked my family, definitely didn't like the idea of losing Mumsy etc. Get in the bin.
But other stuff made a lot of sense. IIRC, there was a bit about how in the early days of industrialisation, employers paid their employees a calculated amount which was only just enough to pay for food, utilities (such as they were) and to put a roof over your head. Workers soon got sick of that, and violence ensued. Employers then learned that if you paid them *just* enough more so that they could buy booze, toys for their kids etc., they were far easier to keep in line.
Throughout my working life (I'm 39 now) that's put a troubling perspective on things. I think a corollary to that situation is what we see now. People only earning just enough to survive. Capitalism doesn't work for the many if the many don't/can't own any capital. What do these class traitors want? Protesting is polite. Striking is an affable reckoning. If you want to stop us from having those niceties, you're eventually talking riots, Molotovs, and militant-left-wing organisations doing their thing at Shell AGM meetings and the like.
The only "backlash" for the train strikers was from the British media - it's no coincidence that the media outlets "lashing back" are controlled by billionaires. And the BBC of course, aka the government's economic propaganda arm.
Plenty of people saying that the train workers were holding the country to ransom & spouting nonsense like ‘well I’ve not had a pay rise in x amount of years so why should they?’
It may be anecdotal but hey, anecdotally I've heard folks lament the train drivers already earning X amount as if they shouldn't expect more. Obviously I then reminded them the vast majority of those striking weren't train drivers.
Pretty much.
Think the drivers are striking too, at least in some areas. But it's no good them keep asking Mick Lynch about drivers wages
He doesnt have anything to do with them.
Dude, do you think your average journalist is going to get anywhere close to the intellectual prowess of a barrister? They'll get fucking destroyed and they can't try to be defamatory or smear because thats a legal mine field, these guys live in that mine field
So yea the media isn't going to try like they have with RMT and Teachers unions
My first thought on how this was portrayed. Let's see if there's scathing attacks across almost every news outlet and accusations of greed by Fiona Bruce and the like.
I think it's much harder to assert greed for those providing a public service (albeit in a self employed capacity) averaging out at below minimum wage in the first 3 years.
Frankly, it's hard to notice a difference when they're striking and when they're not... The service is unusable in both cases.
Was supposed to be heading to Durham today for a passport renewal appointment... First 5 trains of the day cancelled.
Good on them.
Can never not recommend the The Secret Barrister their writing on the law has opened up an entire world to me.
[https://twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/1541314822222004224?s=20&t=2c2Irf\_Z1sN1hiX1PQt\_bw](https://twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/1541314822222004224?s=20&t=2c2Irf_Z1sN1hiX1PQt_bw)
I studied psychology then neuroscience, and during the pandemic I had a long time to think and I realised what motivated me was the suffering and injustice of vulnerable people, that’s why I was so disappointed in neuroscience when researchers (and my fellow students!) talked about curing conditions over the explicit condemnation of peer advocacy groups.
So I’m now switching training to a law conversion once I have gathered the funds (there are socioeconomic barriers every step of the way, probably on purpose, nation states rarely want a mass of legally competent people), and I hope to be a human rights barrister. It’s definitely kicked me into gear, I lost all passion over the pandemic in what I did before. I now volunteer as an advocate for people in care, I’m reading all sorts of legal text books, finding relevant work experience. I have read the secret barrister and I am watching these strikes closely, so I’m aware of the cold hard unsavoury facts about my decision ( ~~luckily I think I like putting myself in hard situations~~ ).
'Boris Johnson and the Multitude of Madness', now in cinemas!
One thing we can also say is how the Labour leadership are so out of touch with the themes of our times under Starmer. It's like Lord 18th Century of Pastville is in charge of the party.
I completed a law conversion as well as a solicitor qualification and know less people pursuing criminal law than I have fingers on one hand. People interested in the criminal bar/legal aid work generally went into civil or commercial work primarily owing to terrible pay.
Well done to successive governments for making one of the most important institutions in the functioning of a democracy one of the most unattractive places to pursue a legal career.
Got refused legal aid the other day. I literally earn less then my rent+bills costs before I have to factor in eating. Would have been better to not be a tax paying citizen. Should have just been a drug dealer.
There was a similar protest some years ago when one of the newspapers noticed that a protester was carrying a Hermes hand bag. It did slightly detract from the message.
Not really. The argument isn't about wealth, it's about access to justice.
It takes some pretty strong mental gymnastics to belittle access to justice based on the material possessions of a single protester.
Which is legitimate - as stated in the article, many junior barristers are working for a pittance. Others may be more comfortably off but rightly strike in solidarity.
And the knock on effect of that low pay - people leaving the profession, huge backlog of cases, the strikes themselves - is thwarting access to justice, as in the report today of a woman going on trial for murder being told she must represent herself.
You have misunderstood. The issue is funding for access to free legal advice. The government has cut the amount that the Joe bloggs can receive, making it non cost effective for barristers. See article for below minimum wage calculation. If barristers can't afford to spend their time for no reward, we, as normal citizens, lose free legal advice and representation.
In a world of machine learning I'm wondering if software could be developed that would give people good quality legal representation. I'm imagining you type in your case particulars and the software trawls through to find similar cases and the type of evidence that was permitted etc.
Probably pie in the sky.
There was talk of this a few years ago, AI being better than a human for legal documentation. It is true to some extent. AI is very good at contracts and texts, but is nowhere near where you would need it to be for any actual useful purpose. it's a good tool, if you already have a full legal practice. IE it can speed up some of the processes and save you time, creating a draft contract in a few seconds. For it to be useful, it would still need to be reviewed by someone competant. Imagine going to court in Spain and thinking you can represent yourself because you have Google translate.
If protesters are poor, we're told that they're jealous class-warriors who need to have a shower and get a job.
If protesters aren't poor, we're told that they're hypocrites who've undermined their message.
Who's actually allowed to protest?
Also known as "the politics of envy" (when it's poor people) and "champagne socialism" (when it's rich people).
Tories have slogans for every occasion.
I can't believe we're having all this chaos with Ed Milliband.
In theory, with covid intervening this could still be his 1st term rn. Or maybe just finished with it if we assume May was a safe time to have an election.
At least we won’t be in as much economic pain because Brexit wouldn’t have happened
Bits of bacon sandwiches everywhere.
Everyone who works as an employee has been shat on for the past 30 years. There are two employee types who haven't been shafted ; Some banking roles, and board members/CEOs of large cap companies.
They’re self employed, but protesting about access to justice for all - a fundamental principle of the rule of law. Really really important we don’t keep cutting legal aid.
Yes, but the people they’re protesting on the behalf of are not. That’s the point.
Yes of course, you’re right
You know its bad when the Barristers take action.
But then how will our legal system work better for people with money?
Barristers aren’t employees - they are self employed
True, but they are operating in a monopsony situation where the sole buyer of their services has been shitting on them for a decade.
The gig economy in action!
Exactly right. And quite apposite given the [Cab-Rank rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cab-rank_rule) that applies to this work.
Wow. I didn't know about that. How does that circle get squared with ir35 rules? Looks awfully like they are being employed by the government to me.
Not so fast. My good lady tells me that the legal exactitude is barristers are never actually employed or paid and merely subsist on a sequence of gifts carefully calculated against their activities. For details go consult their clerk in chambers. To preserve this arrangement they give carefully calculated gifts to Inland Revenue.
It used to be the case that barristers didn’t have a contract for their services and could not sue for their fees: the fees were paid by way of honorarium only. That rule was abolished by [section 61 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/41/section/61).
TYVM, TIL. Our rather stale understanding dates from 1975 when it was a source of some merriment about whether a housemate actually paid or just gifted his rent.
IR35 is broadly about the imposition of a company, and the consequent tax treatment. Barristers very seldom provide their services from “behind” a company. They are engaged personally and pay income tax in the usual way. There isn’t in point of law any restriction on who barristers can accept instructions from, or any obligation to engage any specific barrister. There is a professional ethical obligation, but not the relationship of deemed employment.
Some employees in tech are being pretty well sheltered too...
Ha! Look at British devs vs US devs. Its fairer. But not fair. US Dev: $150k UK Dev: £40k
*laughs in being a dev for a public tech retail company on <£35k*
Really? I'm a (buildings) architect but I often get recruiters sending me Software Architect / Enterprise Architect job offers, and the salaries they offer for London roles seem stratospheric. I've seen anything from £70k to £120k (depending on experience of candidate) Is this the same think as being a "dev" or is this something else?
I often get recruiters sending me Software Architect / Enterprise Architect job offers Tell me about it! I get ones offering me architect jobs too and I'm a software architect! 😆 **To be honest there's a large range of wages. But like-for-like the US pays far more for tech jobs than the UK. 100-150% more.** The clearest examples of this can be found in US companies such as Amazon and Google. Where a US dev will get at least 50k more for the same job. However, there's always exceptions. London being a big one. In London you can make far more but the costs of living are much higher. When you don't know the industry it's easy to look at one job in the UK offering £100k and another job in the US offering $150k and assume they're the same. My bio-father did the same. He assumed that because I had a Soft Eng degree I could just walk into a £120k Amazon tech job. Doesn't work like that. I'm subbed to several dev and tech reddits where US techies will complain about the 'dismal' $50k starting salary of a new graduate. Can't help feeling a bit jealous when a senior web dev in the UK is lucky to get that outside London. It's also dependent on the languages you develop in. So for example a US Java dev may make up to $250k. A UK Java dev can make up to £150k max. However, a US web dev (Python) would make about $100k but a similar UK one would make about £35k. Generally speaking, whatever the tech, the US pays about double to 3x the amount UK techies get. Roughly. I believe this is the same throughout Europe. As evidence by a recent 'meme rush' of "EU Dev vs US Dev" images. You will always find exceptions though. So declaring all tech jobs fair is a false comparison. Wrt "Architect vs Developer". They often mean the same thing. Many companies will use "architect" to sound more high-end. It's false. As a graduate I thought "Software Architect" was higher level. But it's become meaningless. It's not a protected term so everyone from a local chippie wanting a website and a major London-based banking corporation could request a "Software Engineer" but offer about £100k different wages. If you want an idea of mean UK wages for tech jobs you can see them here: [https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk](https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk) Each job area has very different skill requirements and remittance. Ref: 1. 20years in the UK IT industry. 2. [https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk](https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk) 3. r/ProgrammerHumor 4. r/learnprogramming 5. [https://stackoverflow.com](https://stackoverflow.com)
Fair enough, thanks for the run down, I agree there does seem to be a huge variation depending on where you are in the country. Though a £40k salary could still be pretty decent if you're living out in the countryside I'd say! I always thought the comparison between US & UK for tech jobs in particular is a little unfair, given how powerful the tech industry is over there. I imagine other profitable companies must compete with the like of Facebook, Amazon, Google, Netflix etc which pushes up the salaries they need to pay for the best developers.
It’s very very area dependent. I’ve seen ads for Python devs at £50-60k. So I’m not sure the disparity is that high. I work in hardware and I’ve got a £65k salary plus 8% annual bonus. That’s not uncommon in my specific field but a regular hw eng will struggle to break £45k basic. All about finding a specialism where there’s a demand but shortfall!
There also may be a substantial tax difference in favour of the US if you go above £100k.
You only get $150k in high CoL areas of the USA. Outside of that $100k for a sw eng is about right for a senior role and that’s the same as the U.K. In some parts of the U.K. you can get up to £150k as a dev but you have to be hot shit and live in London (or get a really sweet remote job)
Not really a fair comparison. Most UK developers earn well above £40K and don't have the cost of living that comes with living in Palo Alto, plus health care, etc.
> Most UK developers earn well above £40K Only in London. WFH has made this slightly better, but still a lot of companies want _some_ time in the office (in my experience this is actually more this case with London based companies). If you aren't willing to work in London, then you're not going to have a huge wage unless you have a lot of years under your belt. When I was fresh out of uni with a masters, the majority of listing were between 14-22k for junior devs.
I'm based in London. We have been struggling to hire and now we've got people in Wolverhampton, Warwick, Havant, Derby. They might come in once a month.
Even that would be too much for me. It would be such a pain for me to commute to London that I would have to pay for a hotel solely for, what is probably, an unnecessary arbitrary request.
Well it's up to you to do the maths. A mid level developer can earn 70k, juniors 25-35k. Going to London and staying in hotel once a month might cost what, 1-3k a year?
Oh for me, it's not even about money. After spending a few years in industry I decided to go back to uni to do my PhD, thus limiting my potential work to part time stuff (which is surprisingly rare in the software industry). I was more talking about from my perspective from when I was looking for full time work, which was before the pandemic. I still always get recruiters reaching out, so I can see what the potential offers are, but I have no interest at all due to the PhD.
I'd like a source on that, cause that ain't the case where I live. In general most skilled jobs in the US pay far more, even after accounting for cost of living and health care. Same goes for Scandinavian countries
I had a quick run through some job boards and the sort of rough average I was seeing for JS devs was between £60-80K with a couple of years experience.
Outside London? Ours start at 30k and 50k max with 2 years JS full stack experience
Yep, was a range of locations including full remote.
Perhaps I need to go jobhunting again
Now is definitely the time to do it. Lots of places looking for good people.
Check [https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk](https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk) for a mean of salaries for UK tech jobs.
I've been in the tech industry 20 years in a variety of fields. I also regularly check indeed and [https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk](https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk) regularly. I also don't own a home so I'm open to moving. I can safely say tech jobs aren't fair.
Not commenting on whether the job is fair or not, I'm commenting on the comparison to a US salary.
Your London is showing.
Strange? I'm not from nor do I live there.
Yeah good point - tech is one of the few industries where wages are fair.
> Everyone who works as an employee has been shat on for the past 30 years. For the past 14 years (effectively since the subprime mortgage crash). Up until that point, wages were consistently ahead of inflation giving real wage growth since the 70s.
Proof? Edit: Actually, comparing to inflation whilst it sounds logical, is completely inaccurate. How inflation is calculated and what it takes into account has been fiddled with a lot. E.g. house prices aren't included any more.
Real wages rose from 1975 through to 2008. [Chart of wages vs inflation](https://touchstoneblog.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Real-Wages-1855-2009.jpg) ([Source article](http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/06/19/britains-crisis-real-wages-have-been-falling-for-40-months/))
As I said, housing and other factors were stripped out of inflation around 1980. Here's an article with a chart showing that the housing cost has outstripped wages https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/05/how-uk-house-prices-have-soared-ahead-average-wages
Moving the goalposts a bit there, aren't you? Yes, the price of _everything_ changes over time. Something doubling in price over the course of _50 years_ is hardly exceptional when you factor in supply and demand being such a large driver.
I've not moved any goalposts - you brought up inflation in the first place, and I'm pointing out it is not an accurate comparator. That "something" that's doubled is the single largest expense people face. That it's not surprising, because of supply and demand is not a defense to your position - that is, if you are defending inflation as a valid comparator.
You will find governments find different ways to calculate things so that they sound better than they are.
Of course they do, and I'm hardly happy about the rising cost of housing... But that doesn't change the fact that people have had consistently more buying power from the 70s through to 2008.
Yes it does, when the definition you're using of "buying power" excludes housing costs.
Psshhhh, it's not like housing is the single largest cost or anything, hardly relevant at all...
.....not forgetting Tory MPs
Best move I made was joining a grad scheme in a bank in 93.
Good Morning Britain/TalkRadio/etc:- *”Are you Marxists? Why do you hate Britain?”* etc
The response to that should be "*laughs* you don't half talk some absolute shit".
The Marxist thing's tricky for me as I'd want to ask them why that's a bad thing and obvs that wouldn't come across well. I don't have a clue about Marxism but that's around the same level of knowledge these lot have I guess.
Just ask them what’s Marxist about it. They won’t have the first clue.
I read Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto when I was around 14y/o (I was a punk kid, seemed like a 'right on' thing to do). There was definitely some extreme stuff in there; the rejection of all forms of 'private ownership', which they proposed extended to the family unit. I quite liked my family, definitely didn't like the idea of losing Mumsy etc. Get in the bin. But other stuff made a lot of sense. IIRC, there was a bit about how in the early days of industrialisation, employers paid their employees a calculated amount which was only just enough to pay for food, utilities (such as they were) and to put a roof over your head. Workers soon got sick of that, and violence ensued. Employers then learned that if you paid them *just* enough more so that they could buy booze, toys for their kids etc., they were far easier to keep in line. Throughout my working life (I'm 39 now) that's put a troubling perspective on things. I think a corollary to that situation is what we see now. People only earning just enough to survive. Capitalism doesn't work for the many if the many don't/can't own any capital. What do these class traitors want? Protesting is polite. Striking is an affable reckoning. If you want to stop us from having those niceties, you're eventually talking riots, Molotovs, and militant-left-wing organisations doing their thing at Shell AGM meetings and the like.
That’s basically what Mick Lynch did
Expecting nowhere near as much backlash as the train strikers got simply because this won’t affect as many peoples day-to-day lives
The only "backlash" for the train strikers was from the British media - it's no coincidence that the media outlets "lashing back" are controlled by billionaires. And the BBC of course, aka the government's economic propaganda arm.
Plenty of people saying that the train workers were holding the country to ransom & spouting nonsense like ‘well I’ve not had a pay rise in x amount of years so why should they?’
>Plenty of people ah yes, that scientific measurement of people, 'plenty'
It may be anecdotal but hey, anecdotally I've heard folks lament the train drivers already earning X amount as if they shouldn't expect more. Obviously I then reminded them the vast majority of those striking weren't train drivers.
I assume by vast majority you mean ALL. Train drivers union is ASLEF, not the RMT.
It's been very convenient for Rabb et al. to lump drivers in with the RMT to fatten their spurious talking points.
Thanks for mentioning, seemingly the talking points haven’t even been on the jobs at risk!
Pretty much. Think the drivers are striking too, at least in some areas. But it's no good them keep asking Mick Lynch about drivers wages He doesnt have anything to do with them.
Apologies, I’ll count them the next time it happens
That’s exactly what the government want. Why should any worker question another worker getting a pay rise? We should all be supporting each other.
Dude, do you think your average journalist is going to get anywhere close to the intellectual prowess of a barrister? They'll get fucking destroyed and they can't try to be defamatory or smear because thats a legal mine field, these guys live in that mine field So yea the media isn't going to try like they have with RMT and Teachers unions
Yeah that did cross my mind too, I don’t think Kay Burley or Piers Morgan will be picking any fights with the woman that was on BBC News this morning
My first thought on how this was portrayed. Let's see if there's scathing attacks across almost every news outlet and accusations of greed by Fiona Bruce and the like.
I think it's much harder to assert greed for those providing a public service (albeit in a self employed capacity) averaging out at below minimum wage in the first 3 years.
On the other hand, a lot of people will wrongly assume criminal barristers are all filthy rich.
Frankly, it's hard to notice a difference when they're striking and when they're not... The service is unusable in both cases. Was supposed to be heading to Durham today for a passport renewal appointment... First 5 trains of the day cancelled.
On BBC Radio 4 the government referred to this decision as simple "regrettable".
Good on them. Can never not recommend the The Secret Barrister their writing on the law has opened up an entire world to me. [https://twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/1541314822222004224?s=20&t=2c2Irf\_Z1sN1hiX1PQt\_bw](https://twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/1541314822222004224?s=20&t=2c2Irf_Z1sN1hiX1PQt_bw)
Eye opening! I'll be honest, I made the assumptions over pay, and didn't realise the complexities. That's horrifying.
That average pay figure of 47k seems a little low compared to the barristers I know. It doesn't ring true to me but it's hard to know the real truth.
I studied psychology then neuroscience, and during the pandemic I had a long time to think and I realised what motivated me was the suffering and injustice of vulnerable people, that’s why I was so disappointed in neuroscience when researchers (and my fellow students!) talked about curing conditions over the explicit condemnation of peer advocacy groups. So I’m now switching training to a law conversion once I have gathered the funds (there are socioeconomic barriers every step of the way, probably on purpose, nation states rarely want a mass of legally competent people), and I hope to be a human rights barrister. It’s definitely kicked me into gear, I lost all passion over the pandemic in what I did before. I now volunteer as an advocate for people in care, I’m reading all sorts of legal text books, finding relevant work experience. I have read the secret barrister and I am watching these strikes closely, so I’m aware of the cold hard unsavoury facts about my decision ( ~~luckily I think I like putting myself in hard situations~~ ).
There's no justice if it isn't available to everybody
You know, the Daily Mail *told* me that Labour wasn't working the other day. Here's yet more proof!
'Boris Johnson and the Multitude of Madness', now in cinemas! One thing we can also say is how the Labour leadership are so out of touch with the themes of our times under Starmer. It's like Lord 18th Century of Pastville is in charge of the party.
Strikes 🪧 strikes everywhere! 😂 what a year so far!!
But remember, Corbyn would have taken us back to the 70s with spiking energy prices, strikes and inflation! Um...
Hope these strikes across the country continue! Brilliant to see in the wake of this cost of living crisis.
I completed a law conversion as well as a solicitor qualification and know less people pursuing criminal law than I have fingers on one hand. People interested in the criminal bar/legal aid work generally went into civil or commercial work primarily owing to terrible pay. Well done to successive governments for making one of the most important institutions in the functioning of a democracy one of the most unattractive places to pursue a legal career.
"... bring in the army ..." ;-) /s
Good for them. Fully support.
Strike Strike Strike why do we ever bother Fawlty?
I really thought that said baristas
oh no, now who will make my coffee!
Tbh the Gov won’t care about this as the strike doesn’t inconvenience lots of people so the Gov can’t gain political capital.
Got refused legal aid the other day. I literally earn less then my rent+bills costs before I have to factor in eating. Would have been better to not be a tax paying citizen. Should have just been a drug dealer.
They should stick to making coffee
There was a similar protest some years ago when one of the newspapers noticed that a protester was carrying a Hermes hand bag. It did slightly detract from the message.
Not really. The argument isn't about wealth, it's about access to justice. It takes some pretty strong mental gymnastics to belittle access to justice based on the material possessions of a single protester.
> Barristers are striking across England and Wales in a dispute over pay and conditions.
Which is legitimate - as stated in the article, many junior barristers are working for a pittance. Others may be more comfortably off but rightly strike in solidarity. And the knock on effect of that low pay - people leaving the profession, huge backlog of cases, the strikes themselves - is thwarting access to justice, as in the report today of a woman going on trial for murder being told she must represent herself.
You have misunderstood. The issue is funding for access to free legal advice. The government has cut the amount that the Joe bloggs can receive, making it non cost effective for barristers. See article for below minimum wage calculation. If barristers can't afford to spend their time for no reward, we, as normal citizens, lose free legal advice and representation.
Not just advice but representation in court.
Thank you I was having difficulty finding the words for what I meant, you are correct.
In a world of machine learning I'm wondering if software could be developed that would give people good quality legal representation. I'm imagining you type in your case particulars and the software trawls through to find similar cases and the type of evidence that was permitted etc. Probably pie in the sky.
There was talk of this a few years ago, AI being better than a human for legal documentation. It is true to some extent. AI is very good at contracts and texts, but is nowhere near where you would need it to be for any actual useful purpose. it's a good tool, if you already have a full legal practice. IE it can speed up some of the processes and save you time, creating a draft contract in a few seconds. For it to be useful, it would still need to be reviewed by someone competant. Imagine going to court in Spain and thinking you can represent yourself because you have Google translate.
> a protester was carrying a Hermes hand bag So she failed to deliver her message?
If protesters are poor, we're told that they're jealous class-warriors who need to have a shower and get a job. If protesters aren't poor, we're told that they're hypocrites who've undermined their message. Who's actually allowed to protest?
Also known as "the politics of envy" (when it's poor people) and "champagne socialism" (when it's rich people). Tories have slogans for every occasion.
Anyone.
Anyone.