Interesting Links for 07-11-2022

[andrewducker]

1. Keir Starmer is against using foreign people in the NHS

(tags:UK immigration labour NHS OhForFucksSake )

2. UK homes use 456 GB of data per month (we used 463, so only slightly above average!)

(tags:internet )

3. Edinburgh strip club ban: Sex workers union accuses council of 'empty promise' on strip club ban review

(tags:Edinburgh sexwork OhForFucksSake )

4. How Is Slavery Still Legal om America?

(tags:usa slavery prison viaBenWerdmuller )

5. Edinburgh Christmas Market named best festive market in Europe by National Geographic

(tags:edinburgh christmas markets )

6. Israel's new racist totalitarianism will have implications beyond the Middle East

(tags:israel )

7. British cucumbers, tomatoes and carrots will soon be harder to buy. Here's why

(tags:uk vegetables farming doom )

8. Some common geographic mental misplacements (best viewed on desktop)

(tags:geography maps misconceptions )

9. Map norths converge on Dorset village in historic first - will travel through the UK until July 2026

(tags:maps magnets navigation compass )

Comments

[original_aj]

8 is very US - I did have misconceptions about the relative N-S position of places in the States, it used to have a mental image of them being much further North than they are. But the Africa & South America ones, no.
Realising shortly after I moved from Morecambe to Edinburgh that I'd moved West, rather than East, despite changing from the West to the East coast was a surprise, I think because when you see a map of the British Isles it is often rotated slightly so the lines of longitude are not vertical but run bottom left to top right.

[dewline]

1. Meanwhile, Canada's planning to ramp up immigration over the next 2-4 years. We need the people, both in the short and long terms, at this point. Details of the plan here:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-immigration-500000-2025-1.6636661

3. Respect for honest workers should extend to the dancers. And it is not being given to them in this context.

4. That stinger in the 13th Amendment continues to wreak its harms, of course...

6. Rabin's assassination was meant to make way for this, I remain convinced.

[calimac]

8. Less of a piece of light trivia than it looks. So why does Europe have a climate that makes people think it's further south than it is? The Gulf Stream. And what happens to the Gulf Stream when Greenland's ice melts and gets in the way? Dunno.

[armiphlage]

With respect to #1, I am greatly supportive of this decision.

(since I live in Canada, where we are very eager to increase the number of trained medical personnel immigrating here)

[channelpenguin]

I'm confused.

If we (whichever country) need medical personnel NOW, home grown won't work, there's almost a decade delay on doctors,a bit less for basic nurses and paramedics but you need seniors too ... even if there's a huge huge support for training more it's not going to help now. So where DO we get them?

Of course, there's the other point if unease that those medics are probably needed in their home country too - but I absolutely don't blame anyone for emigrating to get a better life and better pay (after all, I did!)

[armiphlage]

Exactly Canada's attitude, when we snatch up all those medical personnel who the UK doesn't want through our Express Entry program. We want skilled people now, not a decade from now.

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry.html

With respect to the unfairness of taking all those skilled people ... yes, that is indeed true. It would be in the best interest of Canada and other countries to fund universities in lower-paying countries to create an even larger pool of trained people. Cheaper to train people in countries with affordable costs of living than to train people in more expensive countries, the home country would have more medical staff, and Canada would still be able to lure away as many as needed.

[andrewducker]

"It would be in the best interest of Canada and other countries to fund universities in lower-paying countries to create an even larger pool of trained people"

In some ways, you are! If you weren't hiring those people then the training need would be lower, less people would be interested in the courses, etc.

[anna_wing]

Tomatoes and cucumbers are tropical/subtropical crops, so there's really no reason for the UK to be growing them, surely.

[andrewducker]

We eat a lot of them, and we grow a lot of them. It's not been an issue until, well, the last 10 years!

[bens_dad]

1. The NHS has a long history of needing foreign-trained workers. Is it fair that countries like the Philippines subsidise our health service ?

Starmer is right that we should train more of our own staff but the article suggests that he is going much further with lines like "We don't want open borders. Freedom of movement has gone and it's not coming back."
I cannot make up my mind whether that is his view or he is being selectively quoted to make him seem more right wing. "We" could be the labour party or the British people; and does he desire or lament the departure of freedom of movement ?

3. Is Edinburgh News making a point by spelling "reckless" "wreckless", or is it a Scots word ?

[andrewducker]

1) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-starmer-labour-eu-single-market-b2114948.html

3) Typo, I think.

Keir Starmer is against using foreign people in the NHS

[anef]

The article doesn't say he's not going to be using foreign people, it says he wants to train up lots of UK people and would prefer to have fewer foreign workers in the NHS. His job at the moment is to get elected. He is saying what he needs to say at the moment to do that. He is not pointing out the implication that that means we will have to continue to employ foreign workers for the foreseeable future because that is not going to get him elected.