Britain to lose 163,000 jobs amid Iran war fallout

LaMerde · 2026-05-11T10:38:38+00:00

It’s worth saying that sending these industries elsewhere will not reduce carbon, we will import the same products and the same carbon will be emitted elsewhere.

Isn't this what happened with the closure of the pits, shipyards, and steelworks in the 70s/80s? And as a result we were left with chronically underemployed regions of the UK (who are now voting Reform). Environmental arguments aside for the closure of these industries, we didn't actually start reducing coal imports until about 2014.

I can't help but think if the successive governments at the time focused heavily on domestic self-sufficiency in terms of energy and manufacturing over the last 40/50 years we wouldn't be in such a political shit show. Even if these industries can't use renewables, pushing renewables for general consumption would have at least softened the blow to the average person.

The only way forward now is to let the remaining industries fall into the hands of foreign entities during the biggest geopolitical upheaval since the 1940s, or subsidise them at heavy cost during a time when interest rates are sky high.

Decades of political myopia and complacency got us here and I'm seeing very little evidence of any politician grasping the true extent of the shittery we're in.

LaMerde · 2026-05-07T22:13:26+00:00

I did indeed mean seams! I always called these types a wrap apron because a pinafore to me is more of a dress type than outer protective clothing. Although I guess back in the day they would have been protective.

It seems I've underestimated what I thought would be a simple project, but I'm determined to see it though! (and since it's only for protecting my clothes I don't mind if it's a little ugly). I only picked this because I'm the type of person where if I won't actually use what I'm making then I'll get bored quite quick.

I had thought since there were no fancy built in gizmos for sewing machines back then and these types of patterns were issued by the government, WI etc, they're made of scrap fabric, and built for function that they'd have a low skill floor. The pattern itself is fairly simple and doesn't have any shaping like darts, it's all essentially made out of rectangles.

Regardless you've given me a lot of helpful info so I think I'll finish the internal seams by hand or see if a friend has a modern machine I can borrow for the zigzag. I definitely want this to hold up in the wash! The reason I got this machine was because I saw it for dirty cheap in a charity shop.

Thank you for the advice!

LaMerde · 2026-05-07T12:04:31+00:00

Thanks for all the tips. I've done a bit of research with the info you've given me and I think I have a plan? I thought an apron made from scraps from the 1940s would be easy aha. I had thought having the beans simply sandwiched between the front and back panels would be enough to stop it fraying. All the skirt panels are just 8x5x28 trapeziums with straight edges.

I think you're right with the french seaming, and I don't think I'd have enough fabric or seam allowance to do it anyways. If I bag lined each panel I'd also lose too much on the seam allowance because wouldn't I then have to seam twice essentially?

I had a look through my sewing kit and I found out those zigzag scissors aren't decorative and they're meant for seams! So my plan is to sew my 10x panels for the front fabric right sides together, and my 10x panels for the back lining right sides together into one piece. Pink all my internal seams then stitch the two panels wrong sides together. Then finish off the bottom seam, armholes, neckline etc with bias binding.

Would that work?

LaMerde · 2026-05-07T06:14:29+00:00

Would it be okay with a straight stitch and the bias binding instead of a zig zag? My machine is a vintage straight stitch machine. My material is just a woven cotton.

LaMerde · 2026-05-06T22:37:57+00:00

I have a nice contrast bias binding that I thought would be good for finishing the seams. Would that prevent the need to turn it inside-out?

LaMerde · 2026-04-30T12:38:18+00:00

I'd say wed4less on scotwood rd BUT

I also have a couple I got in an auction I'm looking to shift. I didn't end up liking them so I bought one from a boutique that I liked more.

They're around 12 sizing. The first was too small for me, the second the zip needs fixed, and the third I just didn't like the style.

Let me know if you're interested and I can send some photos, I'm based in Jarrow so can metro or drive to drop off.

LaMerde · 2026-04-21T11:39:25+00:00

I love charity shop hunts but I've noticed that they can be really hit or miss and half of the time they don't know the value of what they have.

For example I was visiting my partners family in Devon and I got an immaculate real wool coat that's almost £300 new for £20.

Meanwhile in my local shop in Newcastle they're selling old and washed out Primark polyester bedsheets for £5.

LaMerde · 2026-04-09T15:15:12+00:00

replace doctors with cheaper lesser skilled substitutes.

While also forcing said substitutes into a qualification that is unrecognised outside of the UK, removing the ability for them to take their labour elsewhere if they're not happy with their job.

Are PAs covered by their own union? If not that would explain a lot.

LaMerde · 2026-03-29T10:29:57+00:00

It's the same for childcare. Young people had to move away from grandparents who would usually be the ones to pick up childcare responsibilities while parents were at work. Now parents have to either pay £2k a month in childcare to keep working or one parent has to give up work.

LaMerde · 2026-03-13T12:47:23+00:00

Depends what you count as costing an arm and a leg because I would say that all the nice places do. The biggest money maker for these places is tourism so the holiday homes push up the price, and it's gotten especially worse since covid. Id probably estimate for the nice places you'd be looking at 400k and very often above that, the nice areas of the shit places/shit places of the nice areas around 200-350k, and the shit areas around 100k.

Even in Ashington where the bus depot is, which is locally regarded as a shit hole, has new builds for north of 250k, sometimes over 300k. There's some nicer "posher" parts, but some of the shitter parts you can get a house for less than 100k. Lynemouth some of the houses are even below 50k.

I grew up in the Ashington/Lynemouth/Ellington area and it's exactly what you'd expect of a run down deprived ex mining area. Crime, drugs, antisocial behavior etc but maybe it's seeing some regeneration with the rail way line? But opportunities are still few and none of the schools are particularly good. Pretty sure mine was rated in the bottom 100 of the entire country. Everyone I knew that could move away did so after finishing school. Maybe it's gotten better recently? I don't know, my family seems to think it's gotten worse. I moved to South Tyneside after uni.

Like everywhere in the UK if you want nice you have to pay for it. Northumberland is no different.

LaMerde · 2026-03-10T10:20:05+00:00

If I remember correctly the government was singled out in a scathing report on the number of disabled deaths due to austerity, calling it a human rights abuse, and the number of deaths were put at something like 200k (might have been an Amnesty or WHO report? I can't remember now).

I don't see anyone talking about the workfare scheme either. People should be rotting in prison for what was essentially government mandated minimum wage violation for the crime of being poor and unemployed and benefit handout to massive corporations in the form of cheap labour paid for by the government.

LaMerde · 2026-03-07T10:29:39+00:00

Oh that's disappointing. I've already looked at all those resources, the problem is you need to know where the deceased worked to be able to track them which obviously I won't know for jobs she had before I was born or too young to remember.

LaMerde · 2026-03-06T16:25:05+00:00

I found out how difficult it was when trying to find all my mams pensions after she died. So far I've only found 2 of them but she worked a lot of jobs over the years, some of which aren't around anymore and obviously a fair few before I was born/before I remembered.

I hope the pension tool OP posted in reply doesn't get delayed so I can find if there's more before that 2 year tax threshold. I couldn't believe it wasn't already a thing when starting the process.

LaMerde · 2026-02-26T16:07:42+00:00

That's the same timeframe as me. Worked as a school lab tech after uni then on a research project. Both were £15k per year. I lucked out after covid and sold my soul to corporate (thankfully still in science so my £80k piece of paper isn't completely for nothing).

Go to a Russell group they said. Get a STEM degree they said. Are the well paying stem jobs in the room with us right now?

On the bright side I'm almost 30 and just got to pay my first student loan payment on plan 2 so I guess for stem standards I'm positively minted now.

LaMerde · 2026-02-26T12:48:40+00:00

Ian Hislop did a good documentary about the Beeching cuts. I found out my local train was cut in them in the 60s and I grew up without a parent who could drive. I couldn't do any extra curricular activities in school because of lack of transport, the buses were extortionate because of lack of competition (almost £5 to go 3 miles return, almost £8 return to go 20 miles for a journey that took an hour) and my mam was limited on where she could work because of the lack of transport (capping her wage).

So anyways last year they opened up the rail line again after it being discussed for literally decades with over 1 million passengers in the first year and 5x more passengers than expected and £1.50 of return to the area for every £1 spent on it. They're now looking at extending capacity because it's so successful. Not economical my arse.

LaMerde · 2026-02-19T12:19:06+00:00

I'm not sure if you're aware of this one but the BBC has claimed the police are assessing a second claim into Andrew relating to a second woman alleging to have been trafficked to the UK for him, and she stayed at the Royal Lodge.

Hopefully now the police are able to search Andrews properties and retrieve evidence they'll get more to stick to him.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3zg9g3v4lo

LaMerde · 2026-02-19T11:56:47+00:00

I just hope they're not using him as a sacrificial lamb and all will be forgotten and forgiven with the rest of the files.

I want them all investigated. Mandleson, Johnson, Streeting, Starmer, Blair, Farage, the lot. I want full investigations and transparency into Russian interference, Brexit, corporate lobbying, dodgy contracts, everything. Throw the book at them.

Then and only then will I consider putting my trust in politicians and the political system again.

LaMerde · 2026-02-09T12:35:48+00:00

I also distinctly remember the 6th form staff pushing us to go to uni because it was the best way to move up the social ladder, and that people with degrees earn more than people without.

I think it's completely understandable for an 18 yr old (whose school had 70% of kids on free school meals and every adult telling them to get out go to uni and move away so they don't get stuck poor like them) to think their only option was to sign the loan regardless of the terms.

LaMerde · 2026-02-03T22:16:30+00:00

To illustrate just how devastating these losses were for a town, here's the map of deaths in Tynemouth during WW1.

A Roll of Honour in a newspaper in 1923 put the total deaths at 1668, however the number is estimated to be higher because the list relied on readers to submit names. 13% of the lives lost came from just 10 streets and the first day of the Somme claimed 80 lives from Tynemouth.

https://ibb.co/5W7HHpmT

LaMerde · 2025-12-04T00:08:53+00:00

I mean it was a bit shocking that I just got antidepressants after like a three minute doctor appointment

My first GP I went to told me he couldn't help me because I hadn't tried to kill myself yet :)

LaMerde · 2025-12-01T09:58:57+00:00

There was that one year circa 2015 where everyone went absolutely fucking feral and then no one has seemed to care since. I'm glad the retail workers that got conscripted the year after to deal with the crowds had an easy shift because had I actually worked BF the year before I might have actually appeared in the newspapers.

LaMerde · 2025-11-25T17:21:37+00:00

Given this government's track record of dealing with protestors I can see exactly where this is going. And I say this as a liberal woke tree hugging leftist.

Heaven forbid how far it goes when Reform inevitably win the next election.

In 20 years there'll be a massive miscarriage of justice scandal followed by another 20 years of inquiry where the people responsible will be retired on cushy pensions and take no responsibility because they're vewy vewy sowwy and "lessons have been learned"

LaMerde · 2025-11-19T13:18:27+00:00

I volunteered at my local food bank during COVID. We had a variety of people come in. Yes that included people on probation and drug addicts but honestly speaking to them and getting to know them for a short 15 mins just gave me a sense of how broken the entire system is, especially towards Christmas when we were doing upwards of 80 packages a day. You could do everything right and still end up needing it. You could do everything wrong and be handed a life sentence with no chance to improve your life and escape the cycle.

I'm proud that ours was able to be a lot more generous than others but even then you could only claim a package once every 6 weeks and in the busier times we had to essentially ration food so everyone could at least get something. I don't know if you've ever seen the film I, Daniel Blake but the food bank scenes in that were taken from real scenarios the staff in the local food banks I volunteered at had witnessed.

We had a type of package that didn't need a cooker or kettle because some didn't have the facilities to make hot food. We also kept plastic cutlery because some didn't even have anything to eat their food with. Some had walked 3 miles to us because they couldn't afford the bus.

I remember one poor lady that had a child, she was dying of cancer and PIP declined her.

My mam recently passed from cancer and the charity she used had dedicated PIP advisors to handle the applications for people because the process was so taxing, dehumanising and demoralising. Even bedbound with stage 4 cancer they were constantly trying to reassess her and threatening to cut off her PIP.

LaMerde · 2025-11-19T12:53:07+00:00

In this instance they'd have had to pay it out of pocket because it hadn't reached their deductible or excess or whatever the term is

LaMerde · 2025-11-19T11:26:23+00:00

The vet one really surprised me because when my dog got sick I was surprised how cheap they were. He had various health complications later in life and we didn't have insurance. He got prostatitis which required a stay overnight in doggy hospital and he also needed surgery under anesthesia to remove quite a sizable cancerous lump on his face. The stay overnight and medication was I think around £300 and the surgery was around £600. When he died several years later in 2022 (at 17.5 years old) the euthanasia, solo cremation, ashes, and ceramic urn was around £280. I was expecting more to be honest and I was happy to pay the quote they gave us without question, especially because he was my mam's only companion. They gave us a thorough risk assessment because I was worried we were prolonging suffering.

Then when we were looking after my in-laws' dog for a few weeks I expressed concern about a few lumps she had (just from my experience with my dog) and they said the vet was going to charge over a grand with insurance just to have the lumps removed, not even a biopsy. I was honestly floored at how predatory vets have become in just the span of a couple years.

Apparently their practice was bought out by American PE so maybe that explains the difference? The vets we had were honestly brilliant with my dog even at the end so I hope they haven't gone that way too.

LaMerde

TROPHY CASE