humortimes--2019-06-12--Trump to Working Class Adios Chumps

Trump to Working Class: ‘Adios, Chumps’

### _Lavish payouts to top-floor bosses — combined with a miserliness toward rank-and-file employees who actually produce the corporate wealth — is creating an untenable income disparity in corporate America._  Congratulations on that nice pay raise you got last year, a 7% hike — wow!  Seven percent might not sound all that big, but after 40 years of stagnant wages, even a small uptick can help cover some of your old credit card bills or get an upgrade on your 10-year-old pickup.  Oh, wait… You say _you_ didn’t get 7%? Oops, my mistake. It was the CEOs of corporate giants who reported to the Associated Press that they enjoyed a median jump of 7% last year. And as their paychecks were already king-size, that uptick amounted to an extra $800,000 in their take-home, for a median yearly income of $12 million each. Bear in mind that “median” means half of the corporate bosses grabbed more than 7%. For example, David Zaslav, honcho of the [Discovery television network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Channel), had a 207% boost in pay, raising his total take in 2018 to $130 million.  These lavish payouts to top-floor bosses — combined with a miserliness toward rank-and-file employees who actually produce the [corporate wealth](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/24/workers-are- creating-massive-wealth-why-are-corporations-hoarding-it-all) — is creating an untenable income disparity in corporate America, stretching inequality in our Land of Egalitarianism to the snapping point. The pay gap between aloof CEOs and typical employees nearly doubled last year at a range of corporate giants, from PayPal to CVS Pharmacy, and it _tripled_ at Discovery. AP’s recent survey of 340 major corporations found that compensation inequality is now so extreme that a middle-wage employee would have to work _158 years_ to make as much as his or her chief executive was given last year alone. This separation is widening at warp speed, propelled by the boundless greed and narcissism of so- called leaders like Zaslav. To amass as much pay as he pocketed in 2018, a typical Discovery employee would have to work 989 years.  When you hear corporate chieftains and such corporate cheerleaders as [Donald Trump](https://www.humortimes.com/74143/donald-trump-flight-risk/) gloat that our economy is “booming,” ask yourself: A boom for whom?  We have a president who mistakes price for value. Thus, to measure America’s economic health is simple for him: Just check the price of corporate stocks and any fool can see that he’s the best president ever at running the economy. After all, since he’s been in office, Wall Street has been whizzing! Unfortunately, though, it’s whizzing on you and me.  Wall Street is an inequality machine. It encourages top executives to jack up their own wealth by artificially inflating their corporation’s stock prices. Then it rewards executives who offshore jobs, cut wages, monopolize markets, bust unions, gouge consumers and dodge taxes. Far from reining in Wall Street’s destructive plutocratic power, Trump has juiced it up with new tax advantages for big investors and the removal of rules to restrain banker scams.  Meanwhile, the guy who pretended in his campaign to be a champion for America’s workers has been a one-man working-class wrecking crew, systematically destroying employee rights and protections against income disparity and the abuses of corporate bosses. On everything from overtime pay and minimum wage to workplace safety and the right to form a union, Trump & Company has sided with corporate interests over working stiffs, essentially saying to workers: “You’re on your own. Adios, chumps.”  So, the economic “boom” that he so vaingloriously talks about is actually the sound of the middle class crashing. That thunderous boom-boom-boom represents millions of Americans who’re living paycheck to paycheck, who have little to no savings and inadequate health coverage, who can’t afford the rip-off drug prices Big Pharma is being allowed to charge, who’re sinking in debt. And all they’re getting from Trump are his vapid political rallies, shouting “MAGA” — “Make America Great Again.”  Inequality doesn’t just happen; it’s caused by the deliberate actions of power elites. Far from reducing inequality, Trump has intentionally escalated the corporate war on working-class Americans. Under his regime, nearly half of all new income today is going to the wealthiest 1%.  The following two tabs change content below.  National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, "Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow," Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks. Twice elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Hightower is a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, spreading the message of progressive populism all across the American grassroots. He broadcasts daily radio commentaries that are carried in more than 150 commercial and public stations and on the web.


Trump to Working Class: ‘Adios, Chumps’


labourlist--2019-02-20--To win power Labour must understand the new working class

To win power, Labour must understand the new working class

One of the central issues facing Labour is whether the party can hold together an alliance between its newfound support and its traditional base. Labour’s unexpectedly high vote at the general election in 2017, where Labour won every [age group under 50](https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles- reports/2017/06/13/how-britain-voted-2017-general-election), masked the further fracture in its relationship with Britain’s working class.  Labour has been losing support amongst working-class voters since 1997. Last year, the [Conservatives overtook Labour](https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/smo1w49ph1/InternalResults_170613_2017Election_Demographics_W.pdf) amongst voters in social grades C2DE, broadly considered to be occupationally working class. This is a serious problem for Labour if it is ever to win a parliamentary majority again.  **How the working class voted 1964-2015**  ![](https://labourlist.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/image1-440x185.png) Source: Goodwin/Heath for JRF (2017)  There is still a sizeable working class in Britain today, but it has significantly changed. The occupations of heavy industry, which formed the bedrock of the British working class for a century, have given way to a multitude of jobs in today’s economy. Four in five jobs are now in the service sector. Many of those jobs do not pay enough for people to make a decent standard of living and meet their rising costs. And the people being employed to do them are different, too.  This [new working class](http://newworkingclass.uk/) is made up of people living on low to middle incomes, employed as cleaners, shop workers, bar tenders, teaching assistants, cooks, carers and so on. It is multi-ethnic and much more diverse than the traditional working class. It makes up nearly half the population. Despite significant social and economic progress in the last 40 years, it turns out that we didn’t all become middle class. In fact, as wages and living standards continue to be constrained, it is entirely possible that this new working class will become yet more sizeable.  The argument that was once powerfully made by New Labour that society had changed and the Labour Party had not changed with it is true; but this time, it is the failure to respond to the creation of a new working class that is leaving it with an electoral hole.  I charted the values, attitudes and interests of this new working class in my book, _[The New Working Class: how to win hearts, minds and votes](http://newworkingclass.uk/)_ , and recommended policies likely to gain support. There are three main conclusions for Labour (I wrote about conclusions for the Conservatives’ [here](https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2018/05/claire-ainsley-there- is-a-new-working-class-with-different-political-concerns-and-motivations-from- the-old.html)).  The first is that it is vital to understand the changing working class, its values, attitudes and interests. This new working class is very, very different to the working class that has gone before it and much more diverse. It won’t answer to a label of class but it will pick up on signals – positive and negative – that a party is on their side.  The second is that the values the public associate with Labour are more closely aligned to their own, than the ones they associate with the Conservatives. This should be an advantageous position for Labour, but it is squandered if the party do not hear what matters to the public first.  **Six most frequent worries or concerns by income**  ![](https://labourlist.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/image2-440x264.png) Source: NatCen for JRF (2017)  The final conclusion is that despite deep divisions in British society, there is huge amounts of common ground to unite voters around. The public is very clear what their priorities are, and on what they think about many domestic issues. Vote-winning policies that reflect the public’s actual concerns, from genuinely affordable housing to a day-one employment rights charter, could be taken up but need to not be overshadowed by appeals to narrow party interest.  While elections cannot be won on this new working class alone, as parties must build coalitions in order to win power, understanding the values, attitudes and interests of the new working class is critical to success in British politics, and to Labour’s future as a serious electoral force.  _This piece was commissioned by_[ _Labour Together_](http://www.labourtogether.uk/) _, which is_[ _guest editing LabourList_](https://labourlist.org/tag/labour-together-guest-edit/) _this week._  ### Value our free and unique service?  LabourList has more readers than ever before - but we need your support. Our dedicated coverage of Labour's policies and personalities, internal debates, selections and elections relies on donations from our readers.  [Support LabourList](/donate)


rt--2019-10-09--Robin Hood in reverse: US billionaires paid lower tax rates than working class in 2018 in latest blo

Robin Hood in reverse: US billionaires paid lower tax rates than working class in 2018 in latest blow to capitalism

American billionaires have never had it so good – they’re actually paying a lower tax rate than the working class, according to two economists exposing the real beneficiaries of a system that has redistributed wealth to the top.  The 400 wealthiest families in the US paid a lower effective tax rate than working class families for the first time last year, economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley have claimed in their forthcoming book ‘The Triumph of Injustice’.  Billionaires, they say, were taxed at 23 percent, while working class families were taxed at 24.2 percent. Their calculations take into account state, local, and federal taxes, corporate taxes, and what the pair call “indirect taxes,” encompassing licenses and other fees paid to government.  While American income inequality was already considered to be at peak levels, Saez and Zucman cite the 2017 tax cuts that primarily benefited the rich and Big Business as the “tipping point” that has made the degree of inequality impossible to ignore – or allow to continue.  Decades of “trickle-down” economic policies, driven by economists who believed easing the tax burden on wealthy “job creators” would improve the fortunes of even the poorest citizens, have reduced the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans from 70 percent in 1950 to just over one-third of that.  The rich have seen not only their income tax rate lowered, but capital gains and estate taxes slashed by politicians looking to please their wealthy donors. Those who oppose a wealth tax on the principle that wealth redistribution smacks of socialism or excessive government interference must ignore the massive redistribution of wealth that has occurred over the last 70 years, as income for the middle and working class has plummeted and the rich have gotten significantly richer.  Saez and Zucman have called for a progressive tax, dramatically hiking the rate the wealthiest one percent pay and imposing a “minimum global corporate tax” to curtail the time-honored corporate practice of hiding wealth abroad.  Similar ideas are on the lips of Democratic presidential candidates, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both of whom have proposed some form of “wealth tax.” And Americans under 30 are much more supportive of the idea of wealth redistribution than previous generations, having been brought up in the aftermath of Reaganomics.  After over half a century of widening inequality, the richest 85 people on the planet have as much as the poorest 3.5 billion, and the trickle-down supply-side economic model is widely considered a failure. Americans under 30, having had such a negative experience with neoliberal capitalism, view socialism much more favorably than their parents and previous generations.  During the Great Depression, faced with widespread poverty and a robust communist/socialist movement, then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed the New Deal in order to “save” capitalism, reasoning that if the government did not provide some benefits to Americans, they would embrace socialism. One wonders if a 21st-century president would have the foresight to do the same.  Like this story? Share it with a friend!


slate--2019-09-26--emSuperstoreem Is the Only Show That Gets What Its Like to Be Working Class in America

Superstore Is the Only Show That Gets What It’s Like to Be Working Class in America

The NBC series Superstore starts its fifth season this week, and you should be watching it. This good-hearted workplace comedy about a big-box store in St. Louis is the only contemporary sitcom about American workers that threads class consciousness—the persistent low-level conflict between management and staff, the human impact of low pay and bad health insurance, the befuddling effect of managerial tactics that thwart workers’ solidarity—through every episode, without being too didactic about it. More than once, while watching an episode, I’ve had to pinch myself, shocked that we have a network show that talks about inequality so openly. Superstore’s radicalism, it seems, has been hiding in plain sight.  A lot of Superstore’s comedy has that familiar Kurt Vonnegut feel—a wry, ironic tone familiar to watchers of other workplace comedies, including The Office, where creator Justin Spitzer was a writer and producer. An organization led by fools makes irrational, penny-pinching decisions, and workers suffer the fallout with whatever humor they can muster. In Season 1’s “All-Nighter,” the whole staff has to stay late to replace signage, even though the new signs are almost identical to the old ones. After canceling their plans and hastily arranging for backup child care, workers get locked into the dark store and are unable to leave, because corporate controls the locks and lights. In another “lock-in” episode in Season 4, “Blizzard,” the staff gets stuck overnight after corporate refuses to let them leave early to beat an incoming blizzard.  Comedy ensues in each case, because these people are all flirting with one another and making up games and having heart-to-hearts. But Superstore never lets you forget about the underlying injustice. In Season 3’s “Lottery,” the clueless-but-kind store manager, Glenn (Mark McKinney), presents a training session on personal budgeting crafted by the store’s corporate parent, Cloud 9. On a whiteboard, he outlines a sample budget for a minimum wage worker; the numbers add up, but the budget includes no line items for child care, food, or medical care. Pressed on how to get around these basic needs, Glenn gives staff Cloud 9’s official advice: apply for government support.  Superstore is about service workers, and its stories often revolve around the problems of working-class women. (It’s decidedly not a show about the fictionalized American working class, better known as “hard-hat Trump voters who the New York Times finds in a diner.”) In Season 4’s “Maternity Leave,” Amy (America Ferrara), who has worked at the store for 15 years and has just had a baby, thinks she has a brief period of paid time off coming to her. She finds out only after she gives birth—she’s holding the baby, exhausted, in a half-unpacked nursery, when she gets the call—that because she has been recently suspended from her job, she doesn’t qualify. She has to come back to work, or she’ll lose her job.  America Ferrara had a baby around the same time as her character, and when Amy drags herself into the store, two days postpartum, the actress conveys that sense of bone-deep exhaustion perfectly. Amy suffers through the indignity of pumping in a utility closet, and limps through the motions of her job, but finally explodes when Glenn presents her with a tone-deaf “pick-me-up” gift—a package of bath bombs. Amy yells: “I have slept 90 minutes in three days. The lining of my uterus is coming out in clumps. I have hemorrhoids so big that my doctor looked at my [bleep] and said ‘Whoa!’ ” Glenn, true to his nature, is horrified and gets her an equally clueless make-up gift: a puppy.  The problems of insufficient health care are a recurring theme on Superstore. In Season 3’s “Health Fund,” everyone on staff is sick, but no one can go to the doctor, because their health plan has a $4,000 deductible. In the break room, the workers take turns recommending home remedies, like pouring root beer in your ear to fix an ear infection. Jonah (Ben Feldman) starts a “health fund,” and they all sign up to make monthly contributions to a mutual pot. Excited to finally be able to tend to all their nagging health problems, the staff collectively draws $37,000 from the fledgling fund in the first four hours of its existence. The failure of the fund shows the limits of Jonah’s perennial idealism but also the financial impact of continually delaying routine preventive care.  True to its covertly acerbic nature, the show doesn’t let you forget that some people have it better. In Season 4’s “Delivery Day,” Dina (Lauren Ash), a manager, and Amy, a staffer, go into labor at the same time. They are, at first, put in adjoining single rooms in the same hospital. Then Amy realizes that her insurance won’t come close to covering the fancy place, and she moves to a free clinic with dingy sheets, a doctor who’s extremely long in the tooth, and an elderly roommate who appears to be dead. “I want to be in the hospital where only rich white people go,” Amy wails. “I want to feel uncomfortable that I’m the only brown person there.” Meanwhile, back at the brightly lit rich-white-person hospital, Dina enjoys a C-section attended by many handsome doctors.  Part of the realism of these situations comes from the fact that the “haves” in the workplace—the managers—are quite often oblivious to the difference between their lot and their staff’s. Glenn, a vocal Christian, and Dina, a power-hungry oddball with a serious hard-on for security cameras, do soften somewhat in relationship with the workers. At the end of Season 4, Dina tries to help the undocumented worker Mateo (Nico Santos) escape from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid, which is not something she would have done back in Season 2 when she was unapologetically scabbing and spraying the picket line with a hose during a strike. But character development aside, the managers are still fundamentally different from the workers. When Glenn steps down as manager and realizes what a pay cut he’ll take, and then Amy lands the manager job and is floored by how much money she’ll be making, it feels a bit improbable, but it’s also astute commentary on the way that opacity about salaries aids and abets inequality.  The show makes sure that you know this lack of transparency about workers’ true situations doesn’t happen by accident. In the Season 1 episode “Labor,” when Jonah and Amy call corporate to ask about getting paid maternity leave for the teenage mother Cheyenne, they happen to mention that companies with unions provide leave, and Amy makes an offhand comment: “Nobody is planning to go on strike.” Immediately, a legion of worried managers and lawyers, triggered by the merest hint of a union drive, hop on the line. Corporate sends slippery Steve, a “labor relations consultant,” to talk to the staff the next day. Steve says Cloud 9 is “not anti-union” but repeats anti-union shibboleths like, “Unions are great for people whose companies don’t listen to them,” and “Cloud 9 is devoted to supporting the welfare and values of all of its workers.” The staff knows he’s bullshit, but they don’t quite know what to do next.  The Season 2 strike storyline showcases the powerlessness that workers often feel when they’ve been discouraged from organizing. After management fires Glenn for giving Cheyenne an ad hoc “maternity leave” in the form of a paid suspension, the staff walks out, led by Amy and Jonah. Management condescends to the pair, telling them they are “in over their heads”—but the truth is that they are! Nobody involved on the workers’ side knows what a realistic demand might be. When the staff meets to try to decide what they want from the strike, some propose valid, if ambitious, goals, like better health insurance or overtime pay, but some say they want the right to vape in the store, or for the store to be closer to their houses. Mateo, ever the striver, can’t decide whether to commit to the strike and runs in and out of the store to fake that he’s working. After the company calls in scabs from a nearby store, the workers cave one by one, fearing losing their jobs.  But perhaps the most radical indictment of the managerial class comes in the show’s portrayal of Cloud 9’s corporate overlords. In Season 4’s “Managers’ Conference,” Amy and Jonah take Glenn’s ticket to Cloud 9’s annual management summit, figuring at least they’ll get to stay in a hotel room for free. Passing themselves off as managers at the conference’s opening night party, the two debate whether the room is full of “D-bags.” “These are the kind of people who come here every year, eat a half a million dollars’ worth of shrimp cocktail, and then they tell us they can’t afford maternity leave,” Amy scoffs. She proves it to Jonah by starting up conversations with fellow attendees, mocking the idea of a $15 minimum wage and denigrating floor workers, to see how far they’ll go when they think they’re alone with fellow white-collar employees. The answer turns out to be “pretty far”—Amy gets a pair of managers to agree with her suggestion that they should “let us kill one of those entitled brats each year, just to keep us sane.”  Eventually, a tipsy Amy and Jonah figure out that the room is full of people giving out swag—free iPads, wine openers, expensive down jackets, aromatherapy diffusers—which they happily take. Money and privilege are tempting, and the stage is set for a conflict between workers and management in Season 5. In the last 10 minutes of Season 4, Homeland Security officers drove Mateo away in a van as his co-workers looked on. This long-delayed reckoning—Mateo’s immigration status had been a driving force of the show’s plot since Season 1—comes to pass after corporate bigwigs in a conference room decide to call ICE to raid the store, hoping to intimidate workers who have been talking about forming a union. Amy, now a well-paid store manager, must decide where her allegiances lie. Is this the season that Superstore’s workers finally stand up? Watch, and see!


thedailyblog--2019-05-04--Hadley Robinson-Lewis Working Class

Hadley Robinson-Lewis – Working Class

What do you stand for?  1 in 7 people live in poverty in NZ. 1/4 of a million kids are living in poverty.  No wonder we have a sky high suicide rate.  Working friends of mine mostly aged 20-30 fear homelessness and some weeks are unable to pay the bills let alone buy enough food.  It’s about time to start raising the minimum wage, provide people an affordable safe place to live and increase winz benefits so people have a chance to get on their feet.  Some of my friends have even completely gone off the idea of having children due to the poor living conditions in NZ.  Human beings are not supposed to be living this way.  Nobody should have to suffer so the few can live in luxury.  Imagine you’re living paycheck to paycheck, you lose your job, can’t pay rent, have nowhere to stay, call housing NZ and they can’t find anything (it happens), and then you’re officially homeless. You’re vulnerable, depressed and afraid.  Anyone can become homeless. I don’t think people realise how easily it can happen until it happens to them. The shame and stigma of living in poverty prevents people from speaking up- we need to talk about it.  If you want something better than living paycheck to paycheck you can have it if you fight back.  You should believe that you deserve better. No human deserves to suffer.  If you’re working- you are one of the working class. Don’t be a class traitor. Stand up for your people.  ABOUT HADLEY GRACE ROBINSON-LEWIS: I’m based in Ōtepoti and my iwi is Ngāi Tahu. I’m an RN, social activist and vice chair for NZNO/TR in the southern region. I’m passionate about psychotherapy, philosophy, charity, social activism and Māori health. My greatest achievement was raising $25,000 for a women’s refuge in Auckland with Habitat for Humanity.


theindependent--2019-11-25--Why claims from polls about what 'working class people' think are usually wrong

You may occasionally see claims based on political polls suggesting that "working class" people hold a particular view, or that "middle class" people think something else.  There's always been good reason to be sceptical of these claims: but some new research from YouGov offers more evidence of why you should probably ignore them altogether.  To understand why, a bit of background on what "working class" and "middle class" usually mean in the context of polls.  Pollsters don't actually ask or check whether people are middle class or working class, and they do not technically claim to report figures. Instead, they sort voters into two broad categories: ABC1 and C2DE. These are called the "NRS social grade" and they were invented in the 1950s for use in marketing.  Broadly, people who work in managerial, administrative, professional, or clerical roles – from doctors through to office interns – are in ABC1s. Meanwhile C2DC is made up of all manual workers – of all different skill level, including such different occupations as aeronautical engineers, street sweepers, factory workers, gardeners, and gas technicians.  It is common in political journalist to simplify ABC1 as "middle class" and and C2DE as "working class". If you haven't spotted them already, there are some big reasons to think that a classification system that made sense in the 1950s does not make sense now.  The first alarm bell is that a solid majority of the British population are now in ABC1: 55 per cent, according to the 2016 NRS calculation. C2DEs – which some journalists present as "working class" – are apparently a minority making up just 45 per cent.  This doesn't necessarily mean fewer people are working class: just that the kind of jobs they are doing has changed. Do you work in an office for close to minimum wage? Congratulations, you are middle class, according to people who interpret NRS social grade in this way. Are you earning a £50,000 salary maintaining aeroplane engines? You are a skilled manual worker, therefore in C2DE, and according to some journalists part of a dwindling working class minority. Even if you agree with this contrast, what does looking at the grades meaningfully tell us about the people being polled? The answer is not a lot.  The problem with NRS social grade become even more apparent when you consider the question of age: the C2DE category also includes state pensioners, who are not working at all. Far from asking what people who go out to work every morning are thinking, the views of C2DE are often just a reflection of what older people think. The fact that social change means younger workers are less likely to go into manual jobs than older cohorts exaggerates this effect.  The result is that a person who is retired, draws the state pension, but also owns a portfolio of Buy To Let properties which they rent out to minimum wage office workers would be working class... their tenants are, of course middle class.  As the NRS itself says: "Some people have questioned the relevance of social grade as society becomes more diverse, and targeting more precise. Social grade was never intended to describe every aspect of society. Nor does it describe consumer motivations."  YouGov's latest study, released on Monday, gives us some more hard data that shows the problems with NRS. As an experiment, the pollster asked people whether they identified as working class, middle class, or upper class, then sorted them by NRS grade.  41 per cent of ABC1s said they were "working class", and 51 per cent said they were "middle class". 66 per cent of C2DE said they were working class, and 25 per cent middle class. So massive chunks of both disagree with the classification they are given. YouGov also found that ABC1s who consider themselves middle class have more similar voting behaviour to C2DEs who consider themselves middle class than they do with ABC1s who identify as working class, and vice vera.  Whether you agree with people's own identification of their class (which has its own obvious problems) or think there us another criteria, NRS social grade is clearly a mess.  It may have some use in marketing or other applications: I will leave that question to marketing magazines. But it is absolutely not an accurate measure of asking what any meaningful "working class" or "middle class" think of an issue, and journalists should stop treating it as such.  Social media is an increasingly important battle ground in elections - and home to many questionable claims pumped out by all sides. If social media sites won't investigate the truth of divisive advertising, we will. Please send any political Facebook advertising you receive to digitaldemocracy@independent.co.uk, and we will catalogue and investigate it. Read more here.


theindependent--2019-12-30--The journalism industry is abysmal for working class women like me – in 2020, I'm ending the in

The journalism industry is abysmal for working class women like me – in 2020, I'm ending the inequality for good

When I was growing up, I was infatuated with women’s magazines. On a Saturday afternoon, as well as a bag of pic 'n' mix, I’d spend all my pocket money on them. Magazines have the power to influence and challenge. To inspire and motivate. To speak out truth and hope. However, a lot of the time, I felt like they were selling a fantasy.  It wasn't just the airbrushed models and insistent, pressurising narrative to look and act a certain, elusive way that jumped out of the glossy pages, but I didn't recognise the very woman the magazine was speaking to.  I used to wonder: do all women grow up to be middle class chic women, working in London, who wear designer and take weekend city breaks with their boyfriend? Is that simply just what happens to all of us when we hit our 20s? For the vast majority of the time, I couldn't relate to the articles being written across the UK's best selling women's magazines.  When I read female columnists, their middle class problems were my aspirations and their celebrations were things I could only dream of. From the way they spoke, to their fashion, to the way they dated, to their hobbies, even their sense of humour, most things were different. They weren’t writing every day life from a perspective I recognised – a working class perspective – they were writing from an upper-middle-class view. I couldn’t connect and desperately wanted to hear a voice like mine in my teens.  Subtly and perhaps unintentionally, they also often looked down at people like me and the lifestyle I had. As a working-class woman, you accept class discrimination very early on in your life and are taught that you are second in the pecking order. It's also ingrained that being southern and posh is something you should aspire to – it is the correct way to be and act.  The media for a long time has poorly served this particular demographic. Through blood (copious amounts of unpaid internships), sweat (classism in the office) and tears (more classism on the job), when I finally did become a journalist, I only then realised why so many working-class women were locked out from it. I understood just how hard breaking into big titles would be. And in an industry where companies are still offering unpaid internships or “all-expenses” paid placements, it means the wealthy can afford to do most journalism gigs over the working class.  There was a snobbery that came along with working in the industry. I was often the only scouser and working class person in the offices I worked in, especially when it came to high fashion magazines. I quickly learnt in the beginning stages of my career, wherever I went, that there was a permanent dark shadow of class discrimination in journalism. It was as if my posh colleagues and editors viewed me as less educated as a working-class woman, less “on-trend” as a northerner, and therefore, less able.  My really quite horrible, classist experiences prompted me to think about my fellow working class writers who are just beginning their own struggles in the elitist world of journalism. Eleven months ago, I decided to set up my own journalism consultancy, The Freelance Sessions, where I help people who aren’t in the elite or come from a privileged background, become journalists. Although the sessions I run are inclusive, I wanted to help those in particular from these backgrounds, get on the journalism ladder when it can seem impossible to do so.  When they broke in, I also didn’t want them to be held back by their class, background, accent or education. So in the sessions, we focus on their article ideas and how they can get them commissioned. Since launching, my clients have seen success in national and global publications, which has been such a win for working class women in particular in their journalism careers.  In 2020, I will be creating a women's magazine in that will not only help aspiring writers become journalists and help fight classism in the industry, but that will be brimming of relatable, interesting and fun content which appeals to a working class audience. I’ll also be commissioning working class writers. With more and more efforts like these springing up in the last few years, it seems there may well be hope for journalists like me in the future. I can’t wait to see it come to fruition.


thetelegraph--2019-11-14--Social mobility is the norm, with two-thirds of working class upwardly mobile, study reveals

Social mobility is the norm, not the exception, with two thirds of those born to working class parents upwardly mobile, according to a new study.  The report, by think tank Civitas, challenges claims that social mobility is stagnating with data showing it is “more unusual” today for someone to remain in their parents’ social class than to move out of it, whether up or down.  Some 65 per cent of people born to working class parents have moved up in social class, while 40 per cent of those born to professional-managerial parents have moved down, according to data from the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Labour Force Survey.  Of the working class children, a third (34 per cent) had leapfrogged the intermediate class for clerical, sales and service staff and jumped into the top tier of professional and managerial positions.  “This does not look like a static, rigid, closed society; it looks more like a remarkably fluid and open one,” said Sussex University sociology professor Peter Saunders, who produced the report for Civitas.  “Social mobility is the norm in Britain, not the exception, and it covers the range from top to bottom.”


thetelegraph--2019-11-26--Bias against regional working class accents develops in middle age, study finds

These differences in people's perceptions were, however, reduced in a second experiment where researchers imitated a job interview with more than 1,000 people listening to the same words of an applicant but in different accents.  “People were more careful about letting accent biases affect whether they thought the person was a good fit for the job,” said Professor Sharma, whose research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).  “Younger people didn’t judge accents differently at all. By contrast, those above the age of 40 judged speakers of working class accents to be less competent and less hireable, even though all candidates gave exactly the same responses.  “It’s tempting to interpret this age pattern as a decline in bias over time, but the same age pattern was found 15 years ago. This suggests that our attitudes become more conventional as we age. Bias was also greater among people who grew up in southern England and were from a higher social class.”  The researchers then tested professional hirers in the form of 61 lawyers who had appeared to have no bias when it came to replicated job interviews. “Their assessment of how good an answer was corresponded to what the person said, not how they said it,” said Professor Sharma.  However, this does not rule out potential discrimination, she said, as it was under test conditions and accents and the interview process is only one hurdle to cross.  “A working class or ethnic minority applicant may clear all of these hurdles and get that job, only to find that interactions in the workplace are a source of difficulty, impeding their ability to rise in seniority in the firm,” said Professor Sharma.  “Lawyers themselves reported such issues to us. In informal feedback, one told us that he had been told at interview that he would need elocution lessons before he could be introduced to a client.”  Another told the researchers: “I hate to admit it, but I will assume that someone with a posh accent is better educated, more intelligent and reliable than someone with a less smart accent.  “I should emphasise that I don’t think it’s right to do this, it’s just one of a series of snap judgements I make about people I meet.”


birminghammail--2019-01-17--This former Birmingham City and Manchester United striker has a new job

Andy Cole has linked up with Sol Campbell at Macclesfield Town.  The former England and Man United striker has joined the League Two side as an attacking coach, it has been announced.  Cole had a glittering career with Newcastle and at Old Trafford and played for his country alongside Campbell and was also a team-mate of the defender at Portsmouth.  He played five times for Blues in their 2007 Championship promotion campaign, scoring once - against Wolves.  He finished his playing career in 2008 and embarked on a coaching career that has seen him work at MK Dons, Huddersfield - under former Blues boss Lee Clark - and at Manchester United.  The Silkmen are 23rd in the table, three points from safety having won three and drawn three of Campbell’s nine matches.  Birmingham City have been given permission to extend the contracts of two key Under 23 players.  Midfielder Cameron McGilp and goalkeeper Michael Luyambula will remain at the club at least until the end of the current season.  The pair joined Blues in the summer but their deals expired on Sunday and there was concern that given the fact the club are working under an EFL business plan, they would be unable to retain them.  Indeed reports in the national media suggested McGilp was interesting non league Salford who hoped to capitalise on the situation.  That threat no longer exists and the duo can resume their campaigns.  McGilp joined Blues last August following a successful trial, after leaving Australian A-League side Melbourne Victory.  The 20-year-old, who grew up in Australia but was born in Glasgow, has featured regularly for Blues U23s, racking up 17 appearances and scoring two goals.  German stopper Luyambula has featured 12 time for Blues U23s since joining in August 2018.  The 19-year-old was a product of Borussia Dortmund’s Academy and was with the German giants for almost 10 years before electing to move over to England.  As well as playing for Blues, he has also turned out on loan for non-league side Hungerford Town in order to gain valuable experience.  That will come as good news but uncertainty still surrounds the future of Michael Morrison, the captain who is out of contract in the summer.  Morrison recently spoke positively about wanting to stay and it is thought Garry Monk wants to keep him but cannot yet make a contractual commitment.


birminghammail--2019-05-29--The Midlands and the North are suffering as half of new jobs go to London

More than half of new jobs will go to London while the rest of the country competes for what’s left, a major new study has warned.  The huge gap in wealth between London and the rest of the country is only going to get worse unless drastic action is taken, researchers found.  And they called on the Government to introduce a £10bn-a-year “renewal fund” to invest in the North and Midlands.  The findings are published in a report by the UK2070 Commission, chaired by Lord Kerslake, the former head of the civil service.  He said: “There is no logical reason why people and places in one part of the UK are bound to perform more poorly than others. There is tremendous untapped potential in the regions in particular and we need to put the structures and resources in the right places to release it.”  Members of the commission include academics from the universities of Cardiff, Manchester and Liverpool, and local government leaders from the North and Midlands. These included Julia Goldsworthy, Director of Strategy for the West Midlands Combined Authority.  In his civil service role, Lord Kerslake led an inquiry into the problems facing Birmingham City Council.  The report warned: “A huge gulf exists between the UK’s best and worst performing regions and towns.”  It said this had a direct impact on people’s lives.  “There is a clear connection between these regional variations and deprivation, educational attainment and skills. For example, a child who is poor enough for free school meals in Hackney, one of London’s poorest boroughs, is still three times more likely to go on to university than an equally poor child in Hartlepool.”  London and the south east were increasingly sucking up new jobs, making the huge wealth gap worse, researchers found.  The proportion of new jobs created in the UK that located in the London and the wider south east rose from around 26% in the 1980s to around 40% in the following two decades.  And they warned: “On mid-range projections, we have calculated that London and the wider south east this could rise to 55% by 2051, with 2.26m extra jobs, compared with 1.88m extra jobs across the whole of the rest of the UK.  “The concern is therefore that inequalities in the UK will continue to grow.”  The proposed renewal fund would last for 25 years, coming to a total of £250bn. It would be used to support investment in new infrastructure as well as inward investment, and business and skills development.  As well as funding, the report calls for much greater devolution of powers including spending decisions, and the creation of four new “super-regional” economic development agencies. This would include development agencies for the North, for the Midlands, for the South West of England and for London and the wider south east. Scotland and Wales already have their own bodies.  The UK2070 Commission warned that unless action is taken, quality of life in an over-heating south east of the UK is likely to suffer, whilst economic productivity and measures of deprivation in other regions will remain among the worst in Europe – increasing the tensions arising from political challenges like Brexit, and making it harder to deal with problems like housing affordability and the impact of technological and environmental change.  Lord Kerslake said: “The UK’s regional inequalities are well-known and there have been many well-intentioned efforts to address them. Despite these initiatives, these inequalities are widening, and our inquiry suggests that most policy responses have been like pea-shooters or sticking plaster – too small, short-lived or disjointed to have a lasting impact.  “The result is that in 2019 the UK suffers both stark differences in performance within a comparatively compact economy, and disturbing disparities in people’s life chances. A child poor enough to qualify for free school meals in the London borough of Hackney is still three times more likely to go to university than a similarly disadvantaged child in Hartlepool in County Durham.  “These inequalities have built up over many decades and many different governments. Without a radically different approach and conscious effort to rebalance, the gap will continue to widen.”


birminghammail--2019-11-13--Former Birmingham boss in the running for new job

Former Birmingham City boss Steve Cotterill has emerged as a contender for the vacant manager's job at Hearts.  The 55-year-old is to be interviewed for the post, according to the Edinburgh Evening News .  Cotterill's CV is said to have impressed the Scottish club's hierarchy after he applied for the position.  Hearts are looking for a successor to Craig Levein, who was relieved of his duties two weeks ago.  Motherwell chief Stephen Robinson and former Fulham and Bayern Munich boss Felix Magath have also been linked with the job.  Austin MacPhee is in caretaker charge of Hearts while the search for a new manager is completed.  Cotterill has managed the likes of Bristol City, Nottingham Forest, Portsmouth, Notts County, Burnley and Stoke City.  He was part of Harry Redknapp's coaching staff at Birmingham , before being appointed manager following Redknapp's departure in September 2017.  Cotterill was dismissed after five months in charge, in March 2018, following five league defeats in a row and with the team just above the Championship relegation zone.


birminghammail--2019-11-21--Thomas Cook saviour Hays creates 1,500 new jobs

The family-run business that bought Thomas Cook's high street stores after the tour operator collapsed will take on 1,500 new staff to help it fill its new stores, and provide back-up at its Sunderland headquarters.  Hays Travel, run by husband-and-wife pair John and Irene Hays, said it was looking for 500 new currency exchange staff at the new shops.  The company will also take on 737 apprentices, one for each of its branches across the UK, and 200 new posts at its head office in Sunderland.  "We have always recruited, supported and developed young people - they are the future of our industry. We are looking forward to expanding our apprenticeship programme and making sure there's at least one travel apprentice on most of the UK's high streets," Mr Hays said.  Hays said it had offered permanent jobs to 2,330 former employees of Thomas Cook and has opened 450 of the failed agent's stores since buying them out of administration.  "The former Thomas Cook managers have said the biggest difference for them is being empowered and valued - as an independent travel agent they are not tied to certain products or scripts and they feel trusted," Mr Hays said.  It marks a remarkable growth spurt for Hays Travel, which will have 5,700 employees after the recruitment drive ends. It employed around a third of that just two months ago.  Hays surprised many in October when it said it was taking charge of all of Thomas Cook's 555 travel agents across the UK, saving thousands of staff from losing their jobs.  It came after the 178-year-old firm went out of business in late September, months after reporting a £1.5 billion loss.  The collapse sparked calls from MPs to berate former bosses at the company.  Former chief executive Peter Fankhauser told a Commons' Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee hearing he was "deeply sorry" for the company's fate.


dailybeast--2019-10-08--Activists Entice ICE Agents to Quit by Finding Them New Jobs

Protesters at ICE facilities sometimes chant “quit your job” at agents outside the lockups. Now an activist group is taking the message further: they’ll help ICE agents quit and find new jobs.  Since its launch this summer, the immigrant-rights group Never Again Action has held regular protests outside Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. There have been confrontational encounters with agents, but also conversations that left activists wondering whether ICE employees might abandon the agency.  On Monday, Never Again Action’s Atlanta branch put that question to the test with a career services program for ICE agents who wanted to quit. Within 24 hours, two immigration employees had asked for help leaving their roles, the organization says.  Emily Baselt, an organizer with Never Again Atlanta, began considering the program in July, after a protest outside ICE’s Atlanta field office.  “A lot of the protesters were chanting ‘quit your job,’” Baselt told The Daily Beast. “I saw an interaction between one protester and a relatively young DHS [Department of Homeland Security] agent who was standing outside the building [...] The protester was asking him whether he was okay with what was happening at the border, if he was okay with kids in cages.”  The agent seemed conflicted, she said. “I could tell he was kind of wrestling with this a little bit.”  Morale in U.S. immigration agencies is reportedly low and sinking, likely a side effect of the Trump administration’s aggressive policies. Though Trump signed an order purporting to end a policy of family separations at the border last year, the separations reportedly continue under a loophole. The recent deaths of at least seven children in Customs and Border Patrol centers highlighted inhumane conditions, and an August ICE raid on Mississippi chicken factories became the largest workplace mass arrest in at least a decade.  In the CBP, which is a separate agency from ICE, plunging morale has reportedly contributed to an outbreak of officer suicides.  “My continuing thought has been that this level of activity combined with the disastrous policy of wholesale separating children from parents has a very negative impact on CBP personnel. They did not join to take a 2-year-old from his mother,” former CBP commissioner Gil Kerlikowske told Quartz in July.  Baselt said she is sure some people became ICE agents joined because they supported the agency’s mission. But she wondered whether other agents were eyeing the exits.  “I spent a lot of time thinking about the fact that it’s easy to say ‘quit your job’ but it’s not always easy to walk out like that,” she said.  She and other Atlanta activists were inspired by the career services departments at universities, and wondered whether they could also provide career guidance for disillusioned ICE agents. On Monday, the Atlanta group launched a website that matches ICE agents with confidential career advisers, and held a demonstration advertising the website outside the Atlanta ICE field office. The launch date also had religious significance for Never Again Action, a Jewish-led group, since it went live the day before Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement.  The launch went viral on Twitter—mostly to a positive reception, although it caught some flak from the left. “We’ve had a couple people criticize it, saying that if they want to quit, they should just quit,” Baselt said.  But for at least two fed-up agents, the campaign was a welcome one. “Within maybe three hours of launching, we got our first request from a conscientious objector who wants help defecting,” Baselt said on Tuesday.  Although the campaign launched in Atlanta, both agents who asked for help changing careers worked elsewhere in the U.S., she added.  “Based on the two people who reached out to us, there are definitely people there who don’t want to be there,” Baselt added. “The defector who came in overnight is a Customs and Border Patrol agent who has been there for many years. The comment that person left was something like ‘I’m drowning in this place.’”


nationalreview--2019-04-05--Market Rebounds Adding 196000 New Jobs in March

Market Rebounds, Adding 196,000 New Jobs in March

The job market rebounded in March, adding 196,000 new jobs and allaying fears that the ten-year expansion of the U.S. economy was nearing its end.  According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Friday, unemployment remained steady last month at 3.8 percent, while wage growth slowed, increasing only 0.14 percent from February. Wages were 3.2 percent higher year over year, as opposed to the 3.4 percent expected.  The February jobs report, which saw a mere 20,000 new jobs created out of a predicted 180,000, alarmed economists. But March’s favorable numbers eased some fears that the economy had begun to slip again, beating expectations and offering a 102nd consecutive month of positive job-creation numbers.  The economy added 16,000 construction jobs in March after losing 31,000 such jobs in February. 49,000 new health-care jobs, 34,000 new professional- and technical-services jobs, and 27,ooo new jobs at food and drinking establishments were also created. Meanwhile, 6,000 manufacturing jobs were lost.  As he has frequently done in the past, President Trump touted the positive numbers, tweeting them out and mentioning an increase in electrical-industry jobs in particular.


sputnik--2019-02-21--Nord Stream 2 Created 30000 New Jobs in Europe - Chamber of Commerce

Nord Stream 2 Created 30,000 New Jobs in Europe - Chamber of Commerce

“Over the past five years, the EU’s largest infrastructure project to date has created 30,000 new jobs in Europe,” the statement said.  Over 70 percent of German nationals welcome Nord Stream 2, as the pipeline would reduce prices for gas and electric energy.  "Apart from companies, European households and ordinary consumers will also feel a decrease in gas and electricity prices after the Nord Stream 2 project is implemented. German population appreciates these advantages. According to a poll on Nord Stream 2 conducted by the Forsa Public Opinion Institute in January this year, 73 percent of Germans support construction of the gas pipeline and only 16 percent reject it," the chamber said in a statement.  The German-Russian Chamber of Commerce supported the consistent implementation of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline, a statement released by the business community on Thursday said.  "In the discussion around the Nord Stream 2 project, the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce, representing more than 850 member companies,… stands for consistent construction and timely commissioning of the gas pipeline," the statement said.  Germany 'Routinely' Imposes its Will on the EU, Will Do So With Nord Stream 2 – Journo It said the companies involved in the Nord Stream-2 project insisted that the existing agreements on the project must remain in force.  The Nord Stream 2 is a joint venture between the Russian company Gazprom, Engie of France, OMV of Austria, the Anglo-Dutch company Royal Dutch Shell, as well as the Germany companies Uniper and Wintershall.


thegatewaypundit--2019-09-06--Jobs Jobs Jobs July Results Show 130000 More New Jobs Half a Million Enter Labor Market Un

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!!! July Results Show 130,000 More New Jobs — Half a Million Enter Labor Market – Unemployment 50 Year Low 3.7%… Trump Bests Obama by 9 Million Jobs in First 2.5 Yrs as President

The White House continues to report that this economy could arguably be the best all time.  According to data released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, President Trump has added more than 6 million jobs in President Trump’s term.  The same cannot be said for President Obama as during the same time he lost (2.8) million jobs. Obama was so bad at creating jobs that by the end of his second term he said that jobs were not coming back. This showed in his first two years with millions of lost jobs.  Overall President Trump has gained nearly 9 million more jobs than Obama in their respective first two and a half years in office!  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, under President Trump more Americans are in the work force than ever before. President Trump is working hard to bring good paying jobs back to the US and his efforts are showing historic results.  Also according to the the US unemployment rate stands at 3.7%.  Still More….   Over half a million Americans entered the labor market in July.   These are outstanding figures!


thesun--2019-03-24--175 new jobs for builders brickies and carpenters are created every day as Britain enjoys employmen

175 new jobs for builders, brickies and carpenters are created every day as Britain enjoys employment boom

BUILDERS, brickies and carpenters are relishing a work bonanza – with 175 new jobs created every day.  New figures reveal the construction industry are among the biggest winners as Britain enjoys an employment boom.  Hotel, restaurant, shop and IT workers also top the list of job generators.  An average of 1,000 people move into work each day as the employment rate hits the highest level since World War Two.  Staggering numbers of women and under-16s are joining the world of work as the jobs market defies Brexit chaos.  Sun on Sunday readers are gaining most from rocketing employment levels, according to analysis of official stats.  More than 350 jobs a day on average have been created in IT and business services and 230 a day in hospitality since this time last year.  Last week government figures showed there are now 32.7 million people in work – a record high of 76.1 per cent.  The breakdown shows that in the past year, 129,000 were recruited in IT and business services, 87,000 in hospitality, 64,000 in construction and 60,000 in retail.  Jobs minister Alok Sharma told The Sun on Sunday: “The number of people as bosses across the country invest in the Great British workforce.  “And that’s not just the case in a few industries. From builders and carpenters, to chefs and computer scientists, Britain’s skills are in demand.  “As we confidently prepare for the UK’s future outside the EU, its once again heartening to see the bedrock of our economy in full-time, permanent jobs offering opportunity to people across the UK.”  The latest figures also show that around three quarters of the new jobs since 2010 are in full-time, permanent work - putting an end to the myth that insecure work is widespread.  On top of this, the jobs created over the last eight years have predominantly been in higher skilled work, meaning better pay packets for people across the country.  Women are also benefiting more than men, as many employers open up jobs to more flexible working options.  There were 246,000 more women in work last year, compared with 226,000 men.


usnews--2019-11-11--Fired Wisconsin Agriculture Secretary Pfaff Gets New Job

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin agriculture secretary fired by the Republican-controlled state Senate has a new job, still within Gov. Tony Evers' administration.  Brad Pfaff has been hired as the director of business and rural development for the state Department of Administration. The announcement Monday comes less than a week after his confirmation as agriculture secretary was rejected. Republicans were upset with comments he made critical of them not quickly releasing funding for farmer mental health services.  In his new job, Plaff will be paid $120,910. The position is new and will have expanded responsibilities compared with the previous director of business development, whose salary was $86,736.  The statement announcing his hiring says his experience supporting and advocating for Wisconsin small businesses and rural communities will be used to help grow the state's economy.  Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


aljazeera--2019-05-03--US jobs market posts blockbuster gains in April

The United States jobs market kept powering ahead in April, adding a whopping 263,000 jobs.  The latest readings from the US Labor Department blew away analysts' expectations and signalled that the US economy continues to find solid footing after a wobbly start to the year.  "Employment growth grew impressively in April, and other than a weak reading in February, remains near its 200,000 jobs-per-month trend that has prevailed since the beginning of the expansion," Brian Schaitkin, senior economist with The Conference Board, told Al Jazeera.     The Labor Department also revised its employment figures for February and March to show a combined 16,000 more jobs were created than previously reported.  In a further positive sign for American workers, average hourly earnings in April were 3.2 percent higher than a year earlier, marking the ninth straight month wage growth has topped three percent.  And the unemployment rate continues to hover near 50-year lows, ticking slightly downward last month to 3.6 percent. The fall was driven in part by a drop in the number of Americans either working or actively looking for work.      As the data points to a tightening labour market, some economists believe the galloping pace of hiring will start to taper.  "We still expect hiring will slow over the course of 2019," Leslie Preston, senior economist with TD Bank, wrote in a note to clients. "With unemployment near a record low, supply constraints will begin to bind. This will mean more muted monthly payroll gains, consistent with a mature phase of the economic cycle."  There were some less positive aspects to April's jobs report. The average number of hours worked in a week fell back slightly, to 34.4 hours.  But overall, the labour market picture bolstered the view expressed by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell earlier this week that the Fed (the US central bank) can afford to be patient with interest-rate policy.  "I see us on a good path for this year," Powell told reporters Wednesday at the conclusion of the Fed's two-day policy meeting, where it voted unanimously to leave interest rates unchanged.  On Tuesday, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to pressure the fed to slash interest rates and even reinstate crisis-era economic stimulus measures.  But April's stellar jobs report raises the bar on potential interest rate cuts.  A key question for Fed policymakers is whether stronger wage growth will lead to higher prices. That could influence the Fed's thinking on whether to cut rates in order to boost inflation or raise rates in order to curb it.


cbsnews--2019-05-21--Workers find new bargaining power in strong jobs market

The United States labor market is as strong as ever: A near-record low 3.6% of Americans are unemployed -- giving workers an edge in negotiations with their employers.  The economy added more than 250,000 jobs in April and nearly 200,0000 jobs in March. That has restaurants, manufacturers and other businesses across the country reporting difficulties recruiting and retaining workers who find themselves in a position to seek more pay, ask for better benefits perhaps gain increased flexibility on the job.  "We've been on a tear, really, uninterrupted since the end of the recession," NPR's Chief Economics Correspondent Scott Horsley told CBSN.  Horsley gave the example of Kohler Co. which in 2010, in response to the Great Recession, imposed a two-tiered pay-scale system on employees, paying those hired after 2010 lower wages compared to longer-tenured workers performing the same tasks for the company, best known for its bathroom and kitchen fixtures.  Newer workers' pay only began to rebound in 2016 following a worker strike the year before. Kohler found itself unable to fill jobs in a booming economy and ultimately agreed to a contract that phases out the two-tiered wage scale by 2023, NPR reported.  "It's definitely the case that if you have a job, if you're looking for a job, this is a good time to be trying to flex your muscle a little bit and say, 'Hey, I probably deserve a little bit more pay,'" Horsley said.  So-called gig economy workers, including Uber and Lyft drivers, however, don't have the same kind of leverage. "They often don't have benefits, they don't have the same kind of security that you would have if you were working for an employer," Horsley explained.  The rate of unemployment is even lower in cities like Ames, Iowa, where the unemployment rate is just 1.5%. "There are lots of jobs there, lots of employers are looking for workers, and there are just not a lot of people moving to Iowa, to cities like Ames, so it's a real challenge for employers in those places," he said.  The jobs market is expected to be a hot topic for discussion in the runup to the 2020 presidential election, Horsely predicted.  "There's no question Donald Trump will be campaigning on a strong economy, on low unemployment, and wages that are finally starting to grow at a pace faster than inflation," Horsely said.  Democrats, meanwhile, will also claim responsibility for jobs growth that has been chugging away since the recovery started in late 2009.  "Democrats will try to frame this as the continuation of the Obama economy and in fact, if you just draw a straight line back to the recession and the recovery, there is no clear inflection point in 2016 or 2017 when Trump came into office. We are pretty much on the steady path we've been on since the previous president," Horsely said.


cnn--2019-05-03--Fact check Trump correct in touting historic job market performance

Fact check: Trump correct in touting historic job market performance

Facts first: The jobs report for April shows a very strong economy, with the unemployment rate at a 50-year low.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that in April, the US added 263,000 jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 3.6% from 3.8% in March. This marks the 103rd straight month the US economy has added jobs and the 31st straight month the unemployment rate has stayed below 5%.  A majority of these new jobs are in higher paying industries like business services, health care and construction. Hourly wages increased by 3.2% compared to a year prior -- while inflation rose just 1.9%, giving US workers a real gain in their pockets.  But the drop in the unemployment rate is also due to fewer Americans looking for work. The number of Americans in the labor market fell during April, decreasing from 63% in March to 62.8% in April. The US economy still has more job openings than unemployed people, which raises questions about how the US will work to expand the labor force, whether through training programs, high-skilled immigration and other efforts. The jobs numbers come on the back of a strong GDP report last week, showing growth at an annual rate of 3.2%, well above the projected 2.1%. "Everyone now has to revise upward their GDP forecast for this year," chief US policy strategist for AGF Investments Greg Valliere told CNN Friday, noting the popular wisdom among analysts of a 2% rate for 2019 should be increased to 3% for the year.


dailybeast--2019-12-30--Republican Telemarketer Stiffed the Feds Out of $411K. The Trump White House Gave Him a Job.

In the final two months of 2016, the Trump presidential campaign paid more than $1.2 million to a small Ohio telemarketer. At the time, the company, Victory Solutions, owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Internal Revenue Service and was facing a number of lawsuits from investors. The following year, it filed for bankruptcy.  Shannon Burns is an advance associate for the White House, a part-time gig that involves preparing and managing various official presidential appearances. “I work for the WH on behalf of the President advancing his events and rallies around the nation,” Burns told his Facebook friends earlier this year. “Have been doing it since last year.” He’s also done a little bit of work for the Trump re-election campaign this year.


freedombunker--2019-02-28--Government and Amazon Cant Save the Rural Job Market but Remote Work Just Might

Government and Amazon Can’t Save the Rural Job Market, but Remote Work Just Might

It’s no secret that many small towns in America are facing an economic crisis where there simply aren’t enough jobs to go around. As a result, many states are losing young talent to major metropolitan cities that offer better career opportunities—and rural America is being hit the hardest. Add in the reality that the millennial generation is saddled with record levels of student debt, and the chances of young professionals staying in their small cities and rural towns to pursue a career are lower than ever. Clearly, something needs to be done to keep local economies going, and that doesn’t mean government handouts.  Tax incentives and handouts are bad, crony approaches to fixing the problem, and ones that simply don’t work. In fact, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that states and localities across the country devote up to $50 billion to tax incentives every year hoping to bring in new business and create jobs. The results are often dismal, leaving struggling cities in worse condition.  There’s another, better solution: Companies and private organizations should offer more opportunities for remote work to stay competitive among young workers and help struggling cities thrive. Since the cost of living is much lower when compared to cities, this would give young professionals the opportunity to live in rural areas and have greater economic opportunities.  Thankfully, remote work is no longer as uncommon as it was decades ago. More companies are embracing telecommuting and remote work to attract and retain top talent. In fact, telecommuting rose 79 percent between 2005 and 2012, and by 2014, it made up 2.6 percent of the American workforce. This is a low-cost solution that could positively impact struggling towns.In a hyper-competitive market where hopping from job to job is now the norm, companies are forced to make their benefits more attractive and flexible—lest their employees leave them behind. Implementing remote work not only helps companies stay competitive, but it also saves money. When American Express adopted telecommuting as an option for workers, they saved between $10 to $15 million in real estate costs alone.  So the results are clear: Remote work works. But can it solve the talent crisis in our nation's most vulnerable communities? It certainly can’t hurt.  There are many complex issues that must be addressed before the job crisis in rural America and other small cities can be completely fixed, but implementing remote work on a larger scale is a step in the right direction. Increasing jobs' accessibility will keep top talent in the towns that need them the most, especially since most Americans would prefer to live in rural areas, anyway. If people are leaving these towns in search of jobs, remote work could bring the jobs to them. This is a low-cost solution that could positively impact struggling towns.  This a sustainable way to build up struggling cities—looking to the government for handouts is not.  Relying on government to solve these issues almost always does more harm than good. There have been countless examples of state governments promising to create jobs by giving companies tax breaks. The idea is that tax breaks and incentives will bring companies to struggling states, but the results disprove this thinking. Take, for example, New Jersey. After offering $11 billion in tax incentives to multiple businesses since 2005, the state is now struggling to prove those jobs were added. Out of the 15,000 jobs promised, 3,000 cannot even be verified.  Time and time again these promises are made, taxpayers front the money, and nothing changes.  Unfortunately, these types of crony deals have become the norm. Wisconsin bought into the lie that tax incentives would create jobs to boost their economy when they made a deal with the electronics manufacturer Foxconn. Wisconsin politicians offered $150 million in sales tax exemptions and $2.9 billion in tax credits to Foxconn thinking it would provide 13,000 jobs as early as 2020. As of January 2019, Foxconn reported only having hired 178 full-time employees in Wisconsin, missing its first-year hiring projections by 82 percent.  Time and time again these promises are made, taxpayers front the money, and nothing changes. Rural towns in vulnerable economic conditions cannot afford this kind of crony capitalism.  Despite this reality, politicians sing the same tune to struggling cities, promising jobs and economic prosperity by way of corporate saviors—and it’s the everyday citizens who are left worse off. Companies make their deals and get their tax breaks only to leave these towns behind.  Instead of the government making false promises to create jobs by giving companies tax breaks to move into these towns, companies should instead offer more remote work opportunities to cut their own costs, remain competitive, and practice conscious capitalism to offer their employees a higher quality of life.  The private sector has an opportunity to step up. Remote work presents a mutually beneficial solution for businesses focused on their bottom line and struggling cities looking to retain young talent. If businesses embrace remote work instead of shady deals with the government, everybody wins.


hotair--2019-12-06--NYT: Yeah, everything we knew about the jobs market was wrong

This admission is long overdue, but it’s less about the New York Times than on the media in general. For several years, media outlets claimed that we had reached peak employment in the latter half of Barack Obama’s presidency despite ample evidence of a massive overhang of discouraged workers weighing down the job markets. When Donald Trump ran on an agenda of deregulation and tax incentives to spark new hiring and drive wages upward, only a handful of media outlets managed to avoid outright scoffing at the very idea that we had any room to expand.  Today, NYT’s Neil Irwin deserves some kudos for admitting that the “experts” got it wrong — and that it was “an extremely costly mistake”:  This in fact was precisely the argument Trump made in 2015-16, and that the regulatory and monetary policies of the Obama era were holding back a bigger expansion. Media analysts largely ridiculed the idea, even after it began paying off in mid-2017 and later again in early 2018 after the tax-reform package passed. However, the signs were there all along, especially in wage stagnation. Having spent the last decade paying close attention to the data produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and historical models, I have long argued that the stagnation of wages both before and especially after the Great Recession pointed to an underuse of labor in the US economy, and that government policies were getting in the way.  Rather than recognize that the supply-demand tension demonstrated this rather amply, media analysts preferred to argue instead that traditional supply-and-demand dynamics no longer applied to jobs markets, an absurd claim. It was made for two reasons — to claim that Barack Obama had created “full employment,” and that Trump couldn’t possibly succeed. And for a long time, even policymakers clung to that view, at significant cost to workers:  In January 2017, for example, nearly three years ago, the Congressional Budget Office forecast a 4.7 percent unemployment rate as far as the eye could see, and it projected that the United States labor force would consist of 163.3 million in 2019. The jobless rate has averaged less than 3.7 percent through the first 11 months of the year, and the labor force now stands at 164.4 million people. The Federal Reserve likewise was too pessimistic about the potential of American workers; in projections three years ago, the consensus view of its leaders was that the unemployment rate would average 4.5 percent in the final months of 2019. If that forecast had materialized, 1.6 million more Americans would currently be unemployed than actually are. They also expected their target interest rate to be around 2.9 percent — reflecting rate increases they believed would be needed to head off inflation. Instead, that interest rate is around 1.6 percent, and you have to squint to see signs of inflation. If you go back even further, to the late Obama years, there was an even more pessimistic tone about the outlook for American workers embedded in the fine print of both public and private-sector forecasts.  Go back even further to the earlier Obama years. Rather than deregulate and incentivize investment, even outside the financial sector, the Obama administration chose to expand regulation instead. It tinkered around with foolish momentary interventions that simply shifted existing demand (remember Cash for Clunkers?) and stimulus packages that did nothing much more than allow bureaucracies to expand and give states cash to cover over their massive deficits in the short run. That needlessly turned the dial down on dynamic growth, while most of the experts simply shrugged off the labor overhang as the effect of boomer retirement. Had we tooled regulatory, tax, and monetary policies toward growth in the private sector rather than in the public sector, we might have gotten to this point several years earlier.  What about now? Have we reached peak employment? Some Trump supporters think so, and get annoyed when I suggest that we haven’t. However, wages haven’t grown so fast that it would indicate peak employment, as the Washington Post points out today:  By just about any metric this is the best job market since the late 1990s. The economy has been adding jobs for 110 straight months — a record streak. Jobs are plentiful. Unemployment is at a half-century low. And the unemployment rates for African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Americans with less than a high school education are all at the lowest levels since the Labor Department began keeping track. But one of the few head scratchers in this strong jobs picture is why wages aren’t growing as fast as they did in the late 1990s, when yearly wage growth routinely topped 4 percent. The latest monthly report card on jobs came out Friday from the Labor Department and shows that the average worker’s pay — known as average hourly earnings — is up 3.1 percent in the past year. It’s a pretty good number. But it’s nowhere near where it was before.  There are three answers to this. First, we haven’t completely dealt with the overhang from the Great Recession and have too many discouraged workers left in the system. Two, the 1990s was a bubble economy that burst with the dot-com meltdown. And three, Trump’s trade wars — no matter how necessary or well-intentioned — are dragging on the economy. Resolving the third would probably go a long way to resolving the first.  Still, it demonstrates that we have not reached peak employment yet, even if we are getting closer to it. We still have room in trade, regulatory, and tax policies to spur even greater dynamism, even if the Fed seems to have learned its lesson on monetary policy.


mercurynews--2019-01-18--What slump Bay Area job market rockets higher at years end

What slump? Bay Area job market rockets higher at year’s end

The Bay Area job market powered to big gains in December, fueled by hefty employment increases in Santa Clara County, the East Bay and the San Francisco-San Mateo metro areas — a remarkable surge that accounted for more than half the jobs all of California created last month, state labor officials reported Friday.  During December, Santa Clara County added 3,400 jobs, the East Bay gained 2,900 positions and the San Francisco-San Mateo region increased its employment totals by 5,400, according to the state’s Employment Development Department. All the numbers were adjusted for seasonal variations.  The Bay Area added 13,400 jobs in December, the EDD reported on Friday.  For all of 2018, the Bay Area added 94,000 jobs, which was well above the 77,800 the nine-county region added in 2017 and the most in two years.  Santa Clara County added 36,300 jobs in 2018, which means the South Bay accounted for well over one-third of all the jobs the Bay Area gained last year.  California added 24,500 jobs in December, which means the Bay Area produced more than half — 55 percent — of all the positions created statewide last month.  During 2018, the state added 284,300 jobs. Despite having just 20 percent of California’s population, the Bay Area nevertheless created one-third of all the jobs added in the Golden State last year.  The December gains occurred despite considerable weakness in retail hiring during the Christmas shopping season. The Bay Area shed 1,000 retail jobs, according to a Beacon Economics and UC Riverside analysis of the EDD figures that took seasonal employment variations into account.  Technology companies showed plenty of strength during December. Santa Clara County added 1,700 tech jobs in December, while the San Francisco-San Mateo region gained 2,400, although the East Bay lost 600 tech jobs, the Beacon and UC Riverside assessment showed.  Sturdy hiring from tech titans such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Adobe Systems and others are believed to have bolstered the sector’s gains.  Despite a lot of publicity being aimed at San Francisco’s tech boom, the Bay Area’s fastest-growing tech region during 2018 was Santa Clara County, both measured by total tech jobs added last year as well as the pace of growth and when compared to the other two million-job economies in the region.  During 2018, Santa Clara County added 20,500 tech jobs for a 5.6 percent gain over the 12 months, while the San Francisco-San Mateo region gained 9,900 tech jobs, up 3.5 percent, and the East Bay added 2,500 tech jobs, an increase of 2 percent in one year.  Several non-tech industries showed strength during December, the Beacon Economics report provided to this news organization showed.


eveningstandard--2019-06-18--Meat Free Monday Paul McCartney celebrates 10th anniversary of his campaign with Katy Perry Orland

Meat Free Monday: Paul McCartney celebrates 10th anniversary of his campaign with Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom, Reese Witherspoon and other stars

Celebrities including Orlando Bloom, Katy Perry and Reese Witherspoon have taken to social media to celebrate ten years of Meat Free Monday.  Meat Free Monday is an initiative started by Paul, Mary and Stella McCartney to encourage people to go veggie on Mondays to help save animals and the environment.  Sir Paul's late wife Linda, who passed away in 1998, was a strong advocate for animal rights and vegetarianism, establishing the Linda McCartney Foods company in 1991.  A number of stars have celebrated the anniversary of Meat Free Monday on Instagram, with many posting videos and pictures to social media.  Tom Hanks, Ringo Starr, Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Ellie Goulding and more are also reportedly set to support campaign’s tenth anniversary.  Sir Paul McCartney himself kicked off the tributes with a spoken word guitar solo video he posted to Instagram, in which he said, “It’s a simple idea that people have caught onto. They love it, we love it, the planet loves it, everybody loves it, the animals love it. It’s Meat Free Monday - happy 10 years!"  Stars have since joined the conversation with the hashtag #MFMCountMeIn to celebrate the brand, discussing the importance of reducing meat consumption in an effort to help the environment.  Perry and her fiancee Bloom were among stars who celebrated the campaign.  While promoting her former nemesis Taylor Swift’s music video You Need To Calm Down, she posted an image of the pair hugging with Perry dressed ironically as a hamburger. She captioned the post “This meal is BEEF-free” and hashtagged it #MeatFreeMonday.  On his Instagram stories Bloom said, “Happy birthday Meat Free Monday! As someone who loves animals - well, all beings really, I think generations to come are going to look at us and go, ‘Can you believe they used to eat meat? That’s crazy.’”  Reese Witherspoon also joined the party and proved herself Instagram savvy with a rainbow grid filter, posting a video in which said, “You can count me in! It’s a great way to help the planet.”  Coldplay’s Chris Martin also spoke on behalf of the band and said in an Instagram video, “Happy birthday to Meat Free Monday! It’s an amazing idea and uh, the fact that we are encouraged to think about where our meat comes from and how much we consume can only be a good thing for us, for animals and the planet.”  Supermodel Kate Moss lent her support, with Moss posting an understated video from her agency’s account in which she simply said, “Happy birthday, Meat Free Monday!”  Lawson’s on the other hand was longer and full of vegetable emojis, as she said in a video, “Happy tenth birthday meat free monday, keep your mondays full of veggies and help keep our planet safe.”  Lawson describes herself as an "animal lover" in her Instagram bio.  Alec Baldwin also posted a video to Instagram alongside actor Kevin Nealon, in which the pair urged everyone to “participate in meat free Monday”.  Actors Isla Fisher and Annabelle Wallis posted a joint video to Instagram in which Fisher said, "Reducing our meat intake will help preserve our planet and the animals we share it with.”  Nile Rodgers proved he remains one of the smoothest men alive with a captivating Meat Free Monday video, in which he said, “I just wanna say happy birthday Meat Free Monday. Reducing our meat intake is such a great thing to do to preserve our planet and the animals we share with it.”  He signed the message off with a kiss and repeated, “Happy birthday Meat Free Monday.”  Vegan singer Gabrielle Aplin posted a longer video to Instagram in which she thanked Meat Free Monday for “inspiring the way I live my life now”. She continued, “Even if you’re not veggie, or vegan, or plant-based, reducing our meat and dairy consumption even for just one day a week has a positive impact on our planet, the animals we share it with and our own personal health.”  Designer Stella McCartney, whose brand is famed for its animal-free to fashion, posted a surreal video from inside a tree trunk. The designer declared that “our planet needs us more than ever” and said, “Join me today in celebrating ten years of #MeatFreeMonday! This important awareness campaign brings us all together to refrain from eating meat and dairy for just one day a week. It's easy to do, and together we can make great change, which is so needed.”  To learn more about the Meat Free Monday initiative, you can head to their website here and make a donation here, which will be used to "fund education resources, marketing, research, cooking workshops and special events".  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eveningstandard--2019-07-21--Buzz Aldrin leads 50th anniversary celebration of humanity walking on the moon

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin joined tens of thousands of people around the world in marking the 50th anniversary of humanity's first moon landing.  Mr Aldrin accompanied US vice president Mike Pence to Florida's Kennedy Space Centre on Saturday night and showed him the pad where he began that momentous journey 50 years ago.  Mr Aldrin was later given a standing ovation during a speech by Mr Pence honouring the Apollo 11 mission which touched down on July 20 1969.  Mission commander Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on to the moon on July 21, 1969, died seven years ago.  Command module pilot Michael Collins did not attend the Florida celebration.  Mr Pence said Apollo 11 was the only event of the 20th century that "stands a chance of being widely remembered in the 30th century".  He reiterated the Trump administration's push to put Americans back on the moon by 2024.  The golden anniversary is being celebrated at events across the US with further commemorations taking place elsewhere around the world.  At the Kennedy Space Centre cars were backed up for miles Saturday outside the visitor complex.  In Armstrong's home town of Wapakoneta, Ohio, runners competed in Run to the Moon races.  The celebrations coincided with the arrival of a Russian space capsule with three astronauts aboard at the International Space Station.  The Soyuz capsule docked just six hours and 20 minutes after blasting off from Russia's launch complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.  The launch took place on the 50th anniversary of the day US astronauts landed on the moon.  The capsule is carrying Andrew Morgan of the United States on his first spaceflight, Russian Alexander Skvortsov on his third mission to the space station and Italian Luca Parmitano.  They will join Russian Alexey Ovchinin and Americans Nick Hague and Christina Koch have been aboard since March.  The crew patch for the expedition echoes the one from Apollo 11's 1969 lunar mission.


eveningstandard--2019-08-01--Fabricaposs 20th birthday Bicep Ricardo Villalobos and more to play clubaposs anniversary cele

Fabric's 20th birthday: Bicep, Ricardo Villalobos and more to play club's anniversary celebrations

Bicep, Ricardo Villalobos and Midland are among the artists set to play as part of Fabric’s 20th birthday celebrations.  The Farringdon institution, which threw its first party on October 21 1999, usually marks the occasion with an all-weekend party towards the end of the month.  This year, however, it will spread events across a number of weeks, with music from artists who've dropped landmark sets at the club during its history.  Villalobos will be joined in the booth by resident Craig Richards on Sunday October 20 for one of their classic B2B sets, which will run over into Monday morning, Fabric’s official birthday.  Bicep will be joined by Cromby on Sunday November 3, while Midland is part of a line-up which includes Richards, Terry Francis KiNK and others on Saturday October 5.  Other highlights include a 15-hour party led by Call Super and Objekt, as well as two live shows, featuring the likes of British Murder Boys and UNKLE’s AI project.  Tickets are on sale now and can be bought here.


eveningstandard--2019-08-03--Pride 2019 Thousands take to streets of Brighton and Belfast to celebrate 50th anniversary

Pride 2019: Thousands take to streets of Brighton and Belfast to celebrate 50th anniversary

Thousands of people have flocked to the streets of Brighton to take part in this year's Pride.  This year’s theme celebrates “Generations of Love” and commemorates the 50-year anniversary of the Stonewall Inn uprising in New York that sparked the movement.  Kylie Minogue is headlining the festival on Saturday evening at Preston Park.  The colourful carnival also took place in Belfast with the Irish premier Leo Varadkar attending for the first time.  The Taoiseach joined thousands of people attending the march in the city centre.  His presence will be seen as significant as same-sex marriage remains a contentious political issue in Northern Ireland.  Mr Varadkar's visit comes two years after he attended a Pride breakfast to promote the rights of the LGBT community.  Ireland's first openly gay premier was not able to attend the parade that year as he had other official engagements.  Northern Ireland remains the only part of the UK where gay marriage is illegal.  That could change however, after landmark legislation was passed by the UK Parliament which will allow same-sex marriage in the region if devolution is not restored by October 21.  The changes will not come into effect if Northern Ireland's two main parties, Sinn Fein and the DUP, can reach an agreement to form a new Executive before the deadline.


eveningstandard--2019-10-04--Rare photographs of Monty Pythonaposs Flying Circus are released as the show celebrates its 50th a

Rare photographs of Monty Python's Flying Circus are released as the show celebrates its 50th anniversary

Rare photographs of Monty Python’s Flying Circus have been released on the day of the show’s 50th anniversary.  The programme, which first aired on October 5 1969, was a surreal sketch series by the group consisting of John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and the late Graham Chapman.  It featured classic yet bizarre sketches, including “Dead Parrot Sketch”, where John Cleese’s character attempts to return a dead bird to a pet shop and “Argument Clinic”, where Michael Palin’s character argues with Cleese’s character about what defines an argument.  The behind the scenes images, dated between 1969 and 1974, show the comedy troupe on set filming sketches, including “The Ministry of Silly Walks”, “And Now for Something Completely Different” and “The Attila the Hun Show”.  The photographs, which were in the BBC archives, have been released by BBC History.  BBC History is a section of the organisation that aims to chronicle and celebrate the broadcaster’s past and how it has touched people’s lives.  “They highlight that long-standing BBC reputation of being the vital place that champions pioneering new talents.  “The Pythons tore up the rule book of comedy grammar, conventions and traditions, but thankfully the support for creative freedom won the day and has certainly paid off in the long run as audiences continue to celebrate and revere their enormous impact on comedy.”  Robert Seatter, head of BBC history, added: “When Monty Python’s Flying Circus began in 1969 it radically changed the face of TV comedy. By introducing these famous Python sketches to today’s young people we want to change it all over again – with the same spirit of surreal invention.”  BBC History has also teamed up with outreach project Ministry of Stories to help inspire the next generation of comics.  As part of the project, pupils from Swanlea School, in Whitechapel, east London, learned sketches “Hell’s Grannies” and “The Ministry of Silly Walks” to create new comedy inspired by Monty Python.  BBC History then produced their final sketches, performed by professional actors and under the guidance of writer and actress Gem Ahmet.  BBC History’s ‘Monty Python at 50’ collection is available online here


eveningstandard--2019-11-01--Tatler Magazine celebrates its 310th anniversary with retrospective 80s covers of Miss Piggy, Madonn

Tatler Magazine celebrates its 310th anniversary with retrospective 80s covers of Miss Piggy, Madonna and Kylie Minogue

Tatler Magazine is celebrating its 310th issue by paying homage to one of its best decades: the 1980s.  The luxury society title has released a number of vintage covers from the period kickstarted by legendary editor Tina Brown, which saw stars including Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Miss Piggy and a curiously costumed Vivienne Westwood cover its issues.  In the December issue the British publication celebrates a rich history, including being on the scene when “Trump tower opened in New York in 1983” as well as its 1982 purchase by publishing powerhouse Conde Nast.  One of the most striking 1980s covers was of designer Vivienne Westwood who dressed as Margaret Thatcher with a headline that read “this woman was once a punk” alongside the words “April fool” underneath its logo.  Another saw everybody’s favourite material diva Miss Piggy grace the cover, dripping in head to toe Chloe. Ironically, the title featured the somewhat ominous phrase “Crackling November” as well as the headline “OINK! Pork Avenue Manhattan’s sizzling style setters.”  Tina Turner also featured on a 1980s Tatler cover, tossing her iconic locks back as she posed at Eton College for the magazine.  Indisputable 80s icon Madonna also posed for the magazine in an unusual shoot, which saw her draped in towels and a stack of silver bangles with a signature crucifix hanging from her forehead.  Kylie Minogue (referred to by the title as “Miss Kylie Minogue”) also covered an issue which featured a staggering list of A-listers including Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, the Queen Mother, Lauren Bacall and Boy George to name just a few.  For its 310th cover, the title has run an archival image of Meghan Markle and recently conducted a nationwide poll, in which 23% of the 2000 people polled believed Meghan and Harry would be better off moving to the US.  More of its retrospective covers can be seen in Tatler’s 310th anniversary December issue, which is available both on newsstands and online now. More can be read about Tatler in the 80s here.