Big J

Yep. It's delightfully quiet. 12 people per square kilometer in our Kommun

As someone who's now lived outside of the UK for a few years, my perspective looking back in is that the reasons that the home-grown labour market is so weak are complex and tough to address. Here are a few comparisons between the UK and Sweden: In the UK, there is far too much focus on academic study, and particularly my generation (I'm 40) was essentially told that if you didn't have a university degree, that you were worthless. Here in Sweden, vocational training is highly valued, and you can start that at 16, and be fully qualified and in the jobs market at 19. As a young person, you have a pot of money that you can take anywhere in Sweden to study anything you want, but as I said, vocational training is valued as Sweden has a strong manufacturing base. People tend to stick at jobs for longer here. In the UK, people tend to 'CV build', thinking of jobs as a rung in a ladder, rather than something that they can be content with. This attitude is healthier, I think. In the UK, we have a lot of people in a lot of trades who aren't actually particularly good at what they do (refer back to the lack of training). So to use myself as an example - in the UK, I built a sawmill without formal training, but with lots of self-directed study, I became very good at producing high grade, kiln dried hardwoods. That's my area of expertise. Latterly, I returned back to forestry, driving machines, and I'd describe myself as a decent forwarder operator, but not on the level of the Swedes. Not by a long shot - their training is routinely 2 years long and they are operator mechanics, which is necessary as many of the sites are fairly remote. As such, when I've done bits and bobs of machine work here, it's hard not to feel like an imposter as the locals are just so bloody good at it. This skill base is resultant from the training and the loyalty to jobs. In the UK, blue collar jobs have traditionally been looked down upon whereas that's not the case here. Manufacturing is valued and respected and seen as vital. Consequently, in the UK, we've had to import workers to fill these positions as no one from the UK is willing to do them. There are many more points, but I would say that the youth in the UK are just afraid of hard work, and I think a lot of that is down to general poor health. My daughters' school has over 300 pupils. I cannot recall having seen a single obese kid. It's rare to see seriously overweight people here and often they are German (there are heaps of Germans here). Processed food is more expensive, ready meals are largely non-existant and people are more physically active. I'm not trying to shit on the UK here, rather, seeking to illustrate that there are systemic issues with the UK labour market that mean that there are not the home-grown kids to fill the vacancies for jobs that we want to keep in the UK. Either the jobs get exported or the workers get imported.

Because I am British, and I would like to see the country prosper. Most of my family and friends still reside there. The difficulty, and indeed the conflict between democracy and bureaucracy is that elected officials often (usually) have no experience in the field in which they are appointed to work. Take government ministers as an example. They are given a brief, which they may hold for a period of weeks, months or years, but often they are being asked to be responsible for an entire department with no prior expertise. Consequently, they are reliant on their civil servants (or 'unelected bureaucrats' as the right wing like to refer to them as) to provide the guidance necessary for them to be effective in their role. This structure is indeed how the EU has functioned. Not substantively different to that of Whitehall, albeit on a larger scale. It is not possibly to have all public roles directly elected and directly answerable to the public. It would be chaos and nothing productive would ever occur. Yes, the EU has economic problems. So does the UK. Collectively, we are stronger together and hopefully a degree of reintegration will illustrate this.

You may raise an objection about my use of the term ill-informed, but I don't use it in the pejorative sense. It's just a statement of fact, and in some instances, being ill-informed about the minutiae of international trade relations, law and regulatory alignment is probably good for you. I am no expert in any of these matters, nor do I want to be. I elect politicians who represent me, who listen to the advice and guidance of experts and academics, so that the best outcome is reached. Circumventing this process to ask an open ended question like "should we leave the EU" without any serious suggestion of what the conclusion of that process was insane. And it has harmed the UK and curtailed the opportunities for young people that were overwhelmingly in favour of remaining, but had no say in the matter owing to their age. Tree Monkey 1682. You're new here. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Any notion that Germany sought to ill-treat the UK due to the outcome of WW2 is total bollocks. It's an example of lingering, post-imperial exceptionalism where some Brits seem to think that the world still revolves around the UK. It doesn't. Germany and France have sought (along with the UK for most of the intervening time) to maintain European stability in order to maintain European peace. The EU is a mechanism of stability and the UK leaving jeopardised this. The negotiations were reasonable from the EU side, given that the Tory government was coming from the "having my cake and eating it" school of international diplomacy.

The issue is that in order to be part of a complex union of countries, you have to accept that sovereignty cannot be absolute. You can't expect to trade freely within a market if your rules don't adhere to those of the market with which you're trading. The problem with referendums like the one held in 2016 is that the majority of voters are ill-informed or just stupid (the problem with democracy more widely, it could be argued). The British public was asked to vote on something so complex that they intricacies were largely beyond the majority of the electorate. The experts said that it would be an act of self harm. It has proven to be the case. I'm fairly well informed compared to the average voter, but I still do not feel remotely qualified to have had the choice that I had in 2016. Fundamentally, I believe in cooperation not competition, respect not domination, equality not power (that's a line from an outstanding song by a long forgotten British punk band called Five Knuckle) and being in a Union with our European neighbours is no bad idea in this increasingly fractious world.

Pretty integrated, yes. My Swedish is OK (90% of the time i use Swedish at work). I speak German with the Germans and English at home and with most of my Swedish friends here. It's nice to live somewhere that is incredibly multicultural. Our school is 30% non-swedish born, and loads of the kids are multilingual. My kids are now bilingual. Much can be improved with the EU, but nothing will work to the UKs advantage if it's on the outside looking in.

In fairness, Brexit was a shit idea implemented terribly by morons. The world has changed hugely since 2016, and closeness to our European neighbours is more important than ever. Reintegration cannot come soon enough.

You haven't answered the question. Should be pretty simple. What good has Trump done?

The "Trump Effect" seems to be in full swing now across the western world - first Canada, now Australia. The candidate seen to most align with Trump is thoroughly rejected. I suppose that is a silver lining

Trump, elected in large part due to his perceived strength on the economy, has single-handedly caused a 0.3% contraction in the US economy, worth approximately $740,000,000,000 versus the expected 2.4% growth.

In the UK at the moment, so checked on (and took the tree guards off) my 2021 planted nitens. They really have rocketed up. The larger one is 9m, 12cm DBH and flourishing. The smaller one a couple of metres behind. My understanding is that from about year 4-5 they really start to shoot up, so I fully expect it to hit 20m before it's 10 years old. Nitens is quite apically dominant, so the central stem will just keep pushing up. They'll be bloody substantial by the time someone at the council notices them and wonders how they got there! 😄

I honestly don't think that it crosses his mind that he's shit at his job and loathed by half the population.

No, not at all really. The odd bit is, but on the whole no. It's just really heavy. You think it's still wet, but it's just dense.

The sawmill I am contracting into at the moment cuts/processes exclusively Scots Pine. About 57,000 cubic metres last year, apparently. They pressure treat almost everything they cut and rate it for 20 years durability in contact with the ground. The pressure treatment only permeates the sapwood, so the heartwood must be naturally really durable. It's maybe worth considering though that Swedish grown pine is considerably slower grown than UK sourced timber. It's even notable that pine grown locally to us (in the SE) is faster grown than the premium grade stuff that they buy in and process from the middle of Sweden (Dalarna). Either way, it is really surprisingly heavy and dense compared to any other softwood I've dealt with, and once planed, is quite beautiful too.

Haha! I'll take the same route again in the morning and see if he's there again.

I've actually seen fewer boar, but for some reason never counted them. I guess once you start counting, it just sticks in your head. They really are deeply impressive beasts - just enormous, and move in a perculiar way compared to other large mammals.

I'm not a massive fan. I tend to find it a bit dry. Also, there aren't that many moose really. The wild boar are a pest and dig everything up, and there are thousands of them. I prefer to see the moose alive in the forest than eat them. I've seen 35 moose in 33 months of living here.

Haha! I've butchered deer, rabbits and pheasant before, but I don't much enjoy the process. I have a hunter in the village from whom I buy beautiful cuts of boar in bulk for 50kr (£3.80) a kilo. It's not worth doing it yourself when it's that price!

A beautiful and chilly cycle to work this morning. A big, chunky wild boar was by the road, 7km in. Yesterday it was a moose, just a few metres from the road. It's like playing wildlife bingo. Sadly, they are next to impossible to photograph as by the time you get your phone out, they've slunk off back into the forest. You'll have to settle for a sunrise photo instead.

The only left of centre mainstream party in the UK at the moment are the Lib Dems. Labour are a touch right of centre, Reform are hard right and the Conservatives just try to morph to wherever they feel they might be able to pick up votes. Gareth, you cannot be seriously suggesting that you are centrist in your political outlook? I've got no idea where you live, or the community with which you interact. Perhaps in that context you are centrist, but in the political spectrum, you are one of the most unashamedly right wing people that I've interacted with here on Arbtalk; a forum that is right leaning anyway.

Being outspoken and outraged about the direction that Trump and his merry band of yes-men are dragging America in is entirely justified. I don't have time to list everything, but it is not hyperbolic to recognise that America is sliding (quite rapidly) into fascism. Trump et al are consolidating control over the legislature, the judiciary, the educational system, immigration, the security services and more. I would not be surprised if there were major obstacles to the 2026 mid terms actually happening and honestly, I'd be surprised if Trump gave up power in 2029.