#How to Boost Staff Morale in 2022
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Necessary Guide to CNA License Verification: Ensure Your Caregiver's Credentials Today!
Essential Guide to CNA License Verification: Ensure Your Caregiver’s Credentials Today!
In today’s healthcare landscape, ensuring the safety and quality of care provided by Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) is imperative. One surefire way to guarantee this is through CNA license verification. This exhaustive guide will walk you through the steps to verify your caregiver’s credentials, the importance of doing so, and the key benefits it offers. Let’s dive in!
Understanding CNA License Verification
CNA license verification is the process of confirming that a Certified Nursing Assistant holds a valid and current license. This verification is crucial for anyone hiring a caregiver, as it confirms the individual’s qualifications and commitment to maintaining professional standards in healthcare.
Why is CNA License Verification Vital?
Patient Safety: Proper verification helps ensure that caregivers possess the necessary training and skills to provide quality care.
Legal Compliance: Hiring unqualified individuals can lead to legal ramifications for healthcare facilities or private employers.
Trust and Peace of Mind: Knowing your caregiver is credentialed fosters trust and peace of mind for families and patients alike.
How to Verify a CNA License
verifying a CNA’s license can be a straightforward process if you follow these steps:
1. Visit the State Board of Nursing Website
Each state has a Board of Nursing that maintains records of licensed CNAs. Here’s how to start:
Identify the CNA’s state of licensure.
Navigate to the state board’s website.
Locate the license verification page or section.
2. Enter the Required Information
Most boards will require:
full Name
Date of Birth
Licensure Number (if available)
3. Review the Verification Results
Look for the following details in the verification results:
License status (active, inactive, expired).
Verification of training completion.
Any disciplinary actions or complaints filed.
4. Contact the State Board for Questions
If in doubt or if details are missing,contact the state board directly for clarification.
Benefits of CNA License Verification
Verifying a CNA’s license comes with numerous advantages:
Enhanced Quality of Care: Qualified CNAs typically provide a higher standard of care, positively impacting patient outcomes.
Increased Confidence: Families can feel assured knowing their caregivers are well-trained and certified.
Protection Against Liability: Employers who verify credentials reduce their risk of hiring individuals who may not meet legal or professional standards.
Practical Tips for CNA License Verification
Here are some practical tips to streamline the verification process:
Keep a checklist handy when verifying multiple CNAs.
Document your findings for future reference.
Always follow up in writing if you have questions for the state board.
Case Study: Real-Life Scenarios
Case Study 1: An Unverified CNA
In 2022, a family hired a CNA without verifying their credentials. The caregiver exhibited unprofessional behavior,which eventually led to the family discovering that the CNA’s license was expired. This situation not only compromised patient care but also led to legal difficulties for the family.
Case Study 2: The Benefits of Verification
Conversely, a nursing home conducted thorough CNA license verifications before hiring. This practice ensured that all staff members provided adequate training and care, boosting both staff morale and patient satisfaction ratings significantly.
Common Misconceptions About CNA License Verification
Let’s clear up some common misconceptions:
Misconception 1: ”All CNAs are qualified.” – False; credentials must be verified to confirm qualifications.
Misconception 2: “License verification is time-consuming.” – Verifying licenses can often be done quickly online.
first-hand Experiences: What Employers Say
Here are insights from employers who have prioritized CNA license verification:
“We made it a policy to verify all CNAs, and it has drastically reduced incidents of patient mishandling. It’s now a part of our hiring checklist.” - Jane D., Nursing Home Director
“The small effort we put into verifying licenses has translated into happier patients who feel secure with their caregivers.” – Mark S., Home Health Manager
Conclusion
CNA license verification is a vital step in ensuring the quality of care provided to patients. By taking the time to verify a CNA’s credentials, you are not only safeguarding patient health but also building a culture of trust and professionalism in healthcare settings. We encourage families and employers alike to prioritize license verification to enjoy the numerous benefits it brings.
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https://trainingcna.org/necessary-guide-to-cna-license-verification-ensure-your-caregivers-credentials-today/
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Employee BBQ Toronto
Corporate BBQ Services Toronto In the bustling business environment of Toronto, companies constantly seek unique ways to foster a sense of community and boost morale. One increasingly popular method is through hosting an Employee BBQ. Research indicates that corporate events significantly contribute to employee satisfaction and retention (Smith, 2019). In the heart of this vibrant city, Mr.Corn.ca emerges as a premier choice for such gatherings. Understanding the Value of Employee BBQs Engaging employees outside the traditional office setting can lead to increased collaboration and morale (Johnson, 2021). A BBQ event is not just about the food; it's about creating a relaxed atmosphere where employees can connect. Mr.Corn.ca specializes in transforming these occasions into memorable experiences. With the rise in demand for quality event catering in Toronto, businesses need a reliable partner. MrCorn.ca has been recognized for its exceptional service and delicious, diverse menu options. Their expertise ensures that every dietary preference is respected, making every employee feel included. Exploring the Services of MrCorn.ca The offerings at Mr.Corn.ca are extensive, providing more than just traditional BBQ fare. From grilled gourmet sausages to vegetarian options, their menu is designed to cater to all tastes (Doe, 2020). Their commitment to quality is evident in every dish they serve, using only the freshest ingredients. Furthermore, their logistical prowess in handling large corporate events is unmatched. This makes them an ideal choice for company events across various sectors. Efficient setup and cleanup services by MrCorn.ca also ensure that the focus remains on enjoyment and team-building rather than logistics. Comparative Analysis of BBQ Catering Services in Toronto When evaluating BBQ catering services in Toronto, it is essential to consider several factors. These include menu diversity, customization options, and ability to accommodate large groups. MrCorn.ca excels in all these areas, providing a tailored experience that aligns with corporate values and goals (White, 2022). Comparatively, other local providers may offer similar services but often fall short in customization and flexibility. This is where Mr.Corn.ca sets itself apart by ensuring that each event is unique and meets the specific needs of the clients. Client Testimonials and Feedback Client satisfaction speaks volumes about a service provider's quality. Testimonials from various Toronto-based companies highlight the professionalism and culinary excellence of Mr.Corn.ca. These accounts underscore their reputation as the go-to service for corporate BBQ events. Consistent positive feedback has not only bolstered their reputation but also encouraged more businesses to choose MrCorn.ca for their event catering needs. This client trust is built on a foundation of transparent communication and exceptional service delivery. Future Trends in Corporate Event Catering Looking forward, the trends in corporate event catering are leaning towards more sustainable and health-conscious options. MrCorn.ca is already ahead, incorporating eco-friendly practices and offering healthier menu choices. This forward-thinking approach ensures they remain at the forefront of the catering industry in Toronto. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) - What types of BBQ menus does Mr.Corn.ca offer for corporate events? - MrCorn.ca offers a variety of BBQ menus, including vegetarian and vegan options, to cater to all dietary needs. - Can Mr.Corn.ca handle large-scale corporate BBQ events in Toronto? - Yes, Mr.Corn.ca specializes in managing large-scale events seamlessly, ensuring a high-quality experience for all attendees. - Does Mr.Corn.ca provide equipment and staff for corporate BBQs? - Yes, they offer full-service catering, including professional staff, equipment setup, and post-event cleanup. - How does Mr.Corn.ca ensure food safety and quality at events? - MrCorn.ca adheres to strict food safety regulations and uses only the freshest ingredients, ensuring top quality and safety. - Is there flexibility in the BBQ menu to include international cuisines? - Absolutely, Mr.Corn.ca prides itself on its diverse menu offerings, including popular international dishes adapted for the BBQ. This examination of Mr.Corn.ca’s role in enhancing corporate culture through their exemplary BBQ catering services in Toronto provides a compelling case. Their ability to adapt and innovate ensures they remain a preferred choice for businesses aiming to enrich their employee engagement strategies through memorable culinary experiences. map_style="roadmap" scrollable="1" draggable="1" show_route="0" show_state="0" show_phone="1" show_phone_2="1" show_fax="1"] Read the full article
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A Leader's Hardship.
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PAIRING: OC x OC (romantic) GENRE: Hurt/Comfort + Fluff. PROMPT: Quinton goes to check on Emilia after she has a fight with one of their teammates, but the problems go far beyond the reason of the argument. LENGTH: One-Shot. WORDS: 1k. WARNINGS: Mentions of death, violence and abuse (?)
COMMISSIONED: 08/04/2022 POSTED: 08/18/2022
Commissioned by Parrots! Original characters and worldbuilding belong to them. Check out their Youtube Channel and Twitter where they post art!
Quinton’s knuckles brushed on the door in the rhythm of a soft knock that alerted Emilia. She yelled come in, her voice muffled from the many layers that divided them. He entered the room, silently shutting the door behind him. The room smelled of tea, which Quinton found unmatching to its bright lilac theme. He sat down on the very edge of her mattress, careful not to cause her any disturbance.
“Hey there, how are you?” He asked softly. She groaned in response and he bit his lip, wincing at the implied tone.
“How bad was it?”
“Very bad.” Her voice was muffled in the plush pillows.
She finally sat up and greeted him, her arms wrapped around herself and her legs tucked under her. She was looking anywhere but him and he noticed. He opens his mouth to speak but she’s faster than him.
“It was right as I had finished my fight simulations.” She sighed. “I entered the weaponry, as I always do, to put the weapons I had used back in their rightful place. That’s when I spotted Gertrude,” her fists balled and she gritted her teeth at the thought of the cyan-haired woman. “completely misusing her spear. I gave her a simple right warning on weapon safety and she dared criticize me for my quote-unquote; lack of leading skills, which, let’s face it, was irrelevant. She was the one throwing her staff on the wall, not me! Defensive ass water-user...”
Emilia continued on with her little rambling, this time mumbling out curses that Quinton struggled to make out. Quinton giggled at her state, hair messy and littered on the mattress, her body curled in a little ball and laying on its side. Emilia gave him the death glare, him shutting it quickly.
“You know,” he inhaled, “you need to cooperate with your teammates – even if you are superior to them. If they feel listened to and understood, they will be more respectful of your decisions and will be more likely to carry out your orders.” He smiled, in hopes of his advice being delivered in a sweeter manner.
Emilia exhaled a bitter sigh. “You should’ve been the head operative a month ago then.” She said, catching the Healer off guard. He patted her thigh and she turned to look at him, his look of confusion being the sign she needed to go into detail. So, the Duskic explained to him that if he’d been in her spot he would’ve done better. He would be more thorough in the search, she said, and he would be able to boost morale, all the while his abilities would decrease the amounts of wounded. Quinton doesn’t like how sincere she sounds and asks why she would think all of that. She pauses and looks away.
“Is it because of...Xeni?” The green one asked. No answer still, but he did notice her shrink.
The only thing that came to the dark-haired woman’s mind was the Duski Tribe army, the one that she had been a soldier for since she was nine. She’d been told she was old enough to give her services, her whole mind, body and life, to be a part of the military and she should be grateful that she even got the chance.
The discipline was harsh, and there was so much to prove to the male soldiers that she was training with. She wanted them to see that she could be more than a housewife and child-bearer and stop harassing her for it, so she adopted their mannerisms, the way they talked and acted in order to drive them away. And surprisingly, it worked.
It took a burden of her shoulders, yes, but that didn’t mean it made the military life any easier. She was now nothing more than a tomboy with still much to prove, this time to her superiors. Training was painful and the so called “orientation” classes absolutely unethical in their teachings. They were preparing them to throw away their bodies as if they were meaningless and teaching them to kill others of their age, just for their family to climb the social ladder and have many more chances to survive.
Childhood? What childhood? Ah, yes, the ruined one and unbearable to think about, that one. The one that only she made bearable, the one she helped her get through and survive – for the most part. Because she was the one to kill her, with no hesitation as well. Her heart started burning, her eye throbbing and she felt like throwing up, yet she didn’t hold back and told the soft-spoken Demigod about her insecurities; her fear of facing something she had hoped was already lost and how biased that makes her. A few tears escape her and he makes a mental note of how this is the first time he’s seen her cry.
“You’re the bravest person I have ever met,” he says, “maybe that’s why I like you so much,” but that she shouldn’t have heard for he whispered under his breath.
Yet she did. She smiled, blushed, looked away, sniffled and then leaned forward to kiss his cheek. He was stunned for a bit, not used to her being affectionate – or anyone else for that matter. He hesitantly goes in for a kiss on the lips, unsure of her reaction, but she meets him in the middle. A sigh escapes his lips and he cups her jaw softly, deepening the kiss. Her plump lips were soft and salty, and her breath tasted of green tea.
When they pulled away to refill their lungs with oxygen, he noticed that more tears were escaping her eyes now than before, which terrified Quinton at first, the brunette thinking he’d done something wrong. He hadn’t, that was simply Emilia’s reaction to feeling a little bit more than tolerated; wanted, she felt wanted. The kiss was so warm to her stomach, it brought her to the edge and now she was a weeping mess.
He was speechless at first then, “It’s okay,” Quinton spoke, attempting to soothe her by rubbing her back in circles, “you’ll be fine. I will guide you, if that’ll help.” He hugged her close to his chest, his tongue filling her ears with sweet compliments and promises that brought a smile to her face and finally soothed her to a dreamless sleep.
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💙💛💙💛💙💛💙💛💙💛💙💛💙💛💙💛
Below the cut is a letter I wrote and sent to my state representatives in response to the war in Ukraine. I asked the government to vote in favor of providing relief funding for Ukraine and the Baltic nations. I’m really pleased with how this came out, and I wanted to share so that you guys can also use it if you’d like. I cannot stress this enough, but the more people who send messages like this to their governments, the better. I designed this so that others could use it as a template. Format follows US guidelines.
I’ve done almost all of the work for you - all you need to do is change the sender/recipient contact details and BAM! Submit :> Think of it as the most important and powerful reader insert you’ll ever write 💗 Please rb and signal boost!
💙💛💙💛💙💛💙💛💙💛💙💛💙💛💙💛
Your Name
Your Address
City, State, Zip Code
Date
The Honorable [representative’s full name]
Representative’s Address
City, State, Zip Code
Dear Senator/Representative/etc. [title] [representative’s last name],
I am writing to you as a constituent regarding the war in Ukraine. I urge you to vote in favor of providing much needed relief funding for the citizens of Ukraine and the Baltic nations.
Russia’s assault on Ukraine began at dawn on February 24, 2022 and has only escalated since then. Ukrainian military forces are currently fighting to repel attacks on three fronts while civilians have been forced to take refuge in bomb shelters and train stations. Russia’s blatant disregard for noncombatants’ lives is evidenced by the fact that its army illegally took civilian staff hostage upon overtaking Chernobyl. More alarmingly, Russian forces have launched deliberate attacks on residential areas using “Smerch” Multiple Launch Rocket Systems. Deployment of this particular weapon to target populated, civilian areas constitutes a war crime because it is a rocket system that fires indiscriminately.
My heart goes out to these civilians and I sympathize with their plight. This humanitarian crisis is particularly distressing for me because I have a good friend who lives in Latvia. She regularly posts updates detailing her current situation on social media and has made it very clear that she is terrified of Russia attacking her nation as it did Ukraine. She has worked hard to build a life for herself in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. As I write this message, I speak not only for my friend but also the millions of other people in Ukraine and the Baltic nations who are unable to advocate for themselves during wartime. I believe [your country of residence] is morally responsible for helping countries in need, and especially those fighting to free themselves from oppression.
I urge you to vote in favor of providing relief funding for the citizens of Ukraine and the neighboring Baltic nations. In doing so, you will demonstrate [your country’s] support of democracy across the world and bolster the international response needed to end Russian aggression toward a peaceful country. Thank you for your time and consideration. I ask that you please send me a response letting me know if you are able to secure the financial aid I have described. Please feel free to contact me via [your contact info such as email, phone, etc.] or the address that I listed above. [Asking for a response and providing additional contact info is totally optional.]
Sincerely yours,
Y/n
#ukraine#russia vs ukraine#russia#latvia#lithuania#estonia#baltic countries#help for Ukraine#no war in ukraine#make your voice heard#tw war#tw civilian death#tw death#tw war crimes
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IVF Cost in India: Best IVF treatment For Childless Couples
The way to attain pregnancy for some couples is as flat as a pancake. Numerous partners incorporate many ups and downs, rough patches, and the occasional jerky moments in their childbearing. When a couple faces fertility issues, they surely need someone who guides best and treats the case appropriately. You can have your support system and place for the best results. We are present to assist every person with problems.
The DYNAMIC FERTILITY & IVF CENTRE stands for Best IVF Centre in Delhi source you can invariably Trust. We are always there to guide you with the best fertility option at each phase of parenthood, from pre-parenthood to post-pregnancy. We have the best section of fertility experts, experienced Gynecologists, and enthusiastic and super-active fertility coordinators; this centre also gives free online consultation 24*7. What else are you waiting for? You will not only hear us by our name, but the reality is our experts and support staff. We know in this difficult phase, a couple wants assistance and a moral boost from love, care, and polite behaviour. Our medical team has well-behaved that addresses every problem and query of an individual with politeness. We will assist you as a family or friends in deciding on conditions and selecting the therapy.
We are now the leading fertility centre in India that encompasses all the advanced ART techniques and methodologies to solve infertility issues for both men and women. The team of Dynamic Fertility is always there to assist you with the possible solution and perform the matchless procedure (if required). The centre ranks as one of the top 10 Best IVF Centre in India, equipping the highest success rate with the incomparable mode of ART techniques. When you choose Dynamic Fertility, we ensure you get the best process; IVF is an excellent program performed by the experienced fertility team of this centre. We have emerged as one of the preferred centres for Best IVF Centre in Delhi NCR or other ART techniques with the highest success rate. Availability of the latest technique and ultra-modern technologies, this centre has helped several couples to have their baby, it boosts the chances of pregnancy by suggesting and performing an appropriate treatment carefully.
Read More:
IVF Cost in India 2022 - How much does it cost for IVF in India?Dynamic Fertility: Provides IVF & tests at the same cost as govt hospitals. Average IVF cost in India 2022 is between Rs 1,75,000 - 2,20,000,https://dynamicfertility.com/ivf-cost-in-india/
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7 Reason to Choose a Commercial Cleaning Company in Melbourne
Hiring a professional commercial cleaning company in Melbourne is more important than ever now that the outbreak is over and people are returning to their work establishments. Your workplace or place of business will always convince your staff, customers, and visitors that you value their health and safety.
You can manage excellent cleaning Melbourne services of your commercial establishment by adhering to a sensible cleaning plan. These elements would receive top priority from a great and experienced commercial cleaning company in Melbourne.
How to Pick an excellent company for Cleaning Melbourne Services
Given the options available, selecting a commercial cleaning company in Melbourne for cleaning Melbourne services is undoubtedly challenging.
Here are the top 7 reasons for going for a commercial cleaning company in Melbourne to complete all your cleaning requirements for office and business:
1. Top-notch gear and goods! Any company working in this field will have access to the most cutting-edge equipment to ensure effective commercial space cleaning Melbourne. Superior cleaning provided by these products is something we are unable to achieve on our own.
2. Limit the spread of illness and sick days; keeping a clean office or commercial space is also good for the business's general well-being. Because they spend a lot of time at work, employees can maintain their health and prevent absences due to hygiene and health problems.
3. By portraying a professional image, a tidy, clean, and sanitary desk and workspace will exude professionalism and increase the value of the business.
4. Employers might possibly save thousands of dollars on health insurance costs by getting the services of a good commercial cleaning company in Melbourne and thereby ensuring hygienic conditions at the workplace.
5. More secure and healthy surroundings.
6. Boost employee morale and motivation at the workplace
7. Make a more beautiful and ambient atmosphere for everyone to admire and connect with physically and mentally as well as spiritually.
Originally Published at- https://oxygen2clean.blogspot.com/2022/08/7-reason-to-choose-commercial-cleaning.html
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May's Brexit deal is a humiliation for Britain
By Ian Dunt
It doesn't matter how you look at it. You can squint with one eye, or stand upside down, or peer at it askew. You can be as sympathetic or stern as you like. It makes no difference. From every angle, on every basis, Theresa May's deal is horrific.
It is intolerable on a democratic, political, economic and logical basis. It takes one of the world's leading powers and puts it in a diplomatic and trading stranglehold. It undermines Britain's economic status, demolishes its political status, severs its territorial integrity and imposes a dangerous and unacceptable governance structure on Northern Ireland.
The problem is not that it is badly written. Some incredibly talented and ingenious people have put this thing together. It is technically accomplished and well drafted. The problem is due to the parameters they were given to work with.
May wanted to extricate the UK from EU rules, prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland, and maintain the territorial integrity of the whole of the UK. This wasn't possible and the experiment to pretend otherwise has resulted in a Frankenstein's monster, a broken, grotesque invention, stumbling around, half-alive, tormented by anger against its creator.
The punishing timetable of the deal is reminiscent of Article 50, with all the failure and pain that entails. It is a conveyor belt towards an abattoir.
The deal offers a transition to the end of 2020. This can be extended once, but this must be done by July 2020. This is, to all intents and purposes, the new cliff edge. Without an extension, we will fall into the backstop. And no matter what wasteful lies May tells now, Britain will never pick the backstop, because it is appalling.
So in July 2020 the UK will inevitably ask for an extension of transition. The EU will give it to us, but first they'll ask for money. And we will pay. We'll pay them anything they ask for, because the entire structure of the deal gives the EU negotiating advantage.
You can't blame the EU for it really. They are coming up with these short time scales and cliff edges because it gives them a negotiating advantage. There's only so cross you can get with someone for ruthlessly pursuing their interests when your own leaders are too incompetent to do the same. Be angry instead at the Brexiters who demand short transitions in an emotional fit and fail to understand that it is our own leverage they eradicate.
The extension can only last two years, until the end of 2022. But this is not enough time. The EU will be focusing on European elections until May 2019. No meaningful talks will take place until there is a new commissioner, sometime in the autumn. Then Britain needs to work out what it wants, something it has so far showed no signs of being able to do. Then it needs to negotiate it. Then it needs to implement it - a job which can be big or small, depending on the outcome of the negotiation. And then it needs to be ratified, which requires approval from every parliament, in every EU member state. The last part alone took two years for Canada.
This thing is not going to be done by 2022.
There are alternatives. The UK could decide on a much simpler approach. If it signed up to full EEA and customs union membership, it could be done in time.
Maybe if it decided to sign up to a standard free trade agreement - the Canada-with-no-frills model - it could also be done. But this latter option would need to be taken immediately, not after years of negotiation, because it involves a massive spending project on customs infrastructure, including the building of new roads, the hiring of tens of thousands of staff, and the creation of countless new domestic regulators. It would also sever Northern Ireland completely from the rest of the UK, because it would need to stay in the EU ecosystem while the rest of us pulled away.
So what do you do instead? How do you get this through in time? There is a chance we could split the deal into two pieces - one to be passed quickly by the EU and the other going out to member states for after-the-fact ratification. But it's not at all clear that we can get all the right bits in the right agreement for this to work. And then what happens? If they reject it, our entire trading system with our largest partner becomes illegal. We become hostages to every individual EU member state and a splattering of regional parliaments.
If 2022 ends with no deal in place, which by any realistic assessment it will, we fall into the backstop. And then the real horror story starts. Overnight we lose services access to the continent. Our customs arrangements shrivel up into a little ball. There are no transport agreements, so permits for UK hauliers will be limited to five per cent of existing traffic. There are no veterinary or phytosanitary agreements, so agricultural products will be stopped and checked at the border, causing huge disruption. There is no common regulatory regime on goods, so they will also be checked and tested.
We become little more than an addendum to the EU's trading relationships with other countries. Article 3 Part 1(a) of Annex 2 of the Northern Ireland Protocol in the withdrawal agreement states that "the United Kingdom shall align the tariffs and rules applicable in its customs territory with the [EU's] Common Customs Tariff as set out in Article 56(2) of Regulation (EU) 952/2013."
That means we've harmonised our tariffs with those of the EU and have to apply the same duty rate to whichever country they do a deal with. But there is no reciprocal duty for those countries to open up their markets to us, because the deal is for EU member states - not countries in bespoke backstop agreements which have been devised to stop them imploding.
Technically, we can try and negotiate a seperate trade deal with these countries, but what do we have to negotiate with? Not tariffs, because those are controlled by the EU. And not regulations either.
There are just two possible offers. We can open up our services and offer more visas so immigrants can come here more easily. The first is of limited usefulness, the second is politically unpalatable.
We're strapped on the surgery table, unable to move, being opened out to whoever wants to do a deal with the EU and getting nothing in return.
And after all that, May didn't even prevent the carving up of the UK's territorial integrity in the Irish Sea, as she claimed. There are actually two regulatory levels in the backstop proposal.
Britain is only signed up to 'level playing field' provisions. On competition and state aid, that is dynamic, which means that it updates whenever the EU updates its own rules. On the environment, social and workers rights it is non-regression, which means that it must stick to the existing level but doesn't need to track future changes. Northern Ireland, however, is fully signed up to the EU's regulatory regime for goods, a much higher standard of alignment.
That has significant consequences. It means agricultural goods sent from the UK must be checked at the border - in this case at the Port of Larne. At the moment, we're planning to unilaterally follow all EU regulations anyway, so this is just a fracture. But if we start going another away, for instance by following the hard Brexit siren calls for a Canada deal, that fracture splinters open.
The ERG talk of vassalage is overblown in the case of the UK, but it is not at all hysterical when you apply it to Northern Ireland. It is about to accept laws which it does not have any democratic means of refusing, amending or overturning. This is intolerable, on the most basic possible notion of democratic theory.
Article 15 of the Northern Ireland Protocol lays out the murky process of how this takes place. EU laws that are "amended or replaced" are automatically updated in Northern Ireland, with no say from the people they will affect. If it's a new law, the UK must be informed of it and there will be an "exchange of views". Then it is either passed, or, if it is not, "all further possibilities" are explored to maintain the Protocol. If that doesn't work, the EU takes "appropriate remedial measures".
It's obvious how this will work in practice. They'll find a way to start stuffing new laws into old ones, so that they can designate them as rules being "altered or replaced" and apply them automatically. If not, how many disregarded new laws would it take for the agreement to break down? Sure, Britain can kick back a few. But the reality of the dynamic is that it'll have to nod most of them through .
The Northern Irish situation is morally confusing. This move prevents a border, which would have done real damage. It also offers it a foot in both the UK and EU single market, which will likely lead to a boost to investment. But the democratic case is appalling.
It might even be illegal. There was a 1999 European Convention of Human Rights case called Matthews vs the United Kingdom, in which a Gibraltan resident asked a simple question: If I have to abide by EU laws, how come I don't get to elect an MEP? That's a damn fine question and one which can equally be asked here.
And then after all this horror show is over, in the distant future, we get to our final state. And what is that exactly? No-one knows. The political declaration published yesterday is a post-truth document.
It promises "the protection of [the UK's] internal market" while containing measures which do the opposite. It guarantees the UK an "independent trade policy" when in reality removing any possible leverage it would have to deliver one. It is firm on free movement - May's only real red line, in reality the motivating cause for this entire degenerate project - but even that is subject to change because the UK's negotiating posture might "evolve over time".
At one stage the document basically lays out the two alternate visions of the UK-EU relationship, one with close regulatory alignment and one with the hard Brexiters' fanciful and pathetic allusions to high tech solutions.
And then finally the truth is revealed, in a killer paragraph buried in the text:
"The extent of the United Kingdom's commitments on customs and regulatory cooperation, including with regard to alignment of rules, would be taken into account in the application of related checks and controls, considering this as a factor in reducing risk. This, combined with the use of all available facilitative arrangements as described above, can lead to a spectrum of different outcomes for administrative processes as well as checks and controls."
A spectrum of outcomes. The same old dilemma as ever just sits there because the UK is unprepared to have an honest conversation about it. Do you want trade or control? The extent to which you give up one allows you more of the other. But even now, as we lose our status in the world, it is just an unresolved as it ever was. We don't know where the hell we're going.
Instead of acknowledging this, May has just lied and lied lied. She lied when she said we could make a success of Brexit. She lied when she said we could secure full market access while maintaining full sovereignty. She lied when she said she could get a trade deal before the end of Article 50. She lied when she said there would be no need for transition. She lied when she said it would not need to be extended. She lied when she said Britain might choose between either extension or the backstop. She's lying now when she says this is a good deal for Britain, or that any kind of economic or political success might follow from it, or that it is in the national interest. Her administration has been defined by a relentless attempt to conceal the reality of Brexit from public and parliament, so she can survive another day, another week, another month. It is such a shabby, tawdry spectacle.
And now here we are, staring at a deal so unimaginably bad that no-one wants it. Not the EU, not the UK, not Brexiters, not Remainers, not Tories, and not Labour.
No-one wants it and we're told to do it anyway. That is an insane proposition and it should be rejected.
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(via Ukraine Situation Report: More Russian Ammo Dumps Blown Up)
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-more-russian-ammo-dumps-blown-up
Ukraine Situation Report: More Russian Ammo Dumps Blown Up
Ukraine’s effort to deplete Russia’s stock of artillery shells and other explosives where it is stored shows no signs of slowing.
BY
HOWARD ALTMAN
JUL 12, 2022 11:34 PM
THE WAR ZONE
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It appears that Ukraine is continuing to pummel Russian ammunition depots.
Video is emerging of new strikes, this time in Luhansk, as Ukraine remains intent on depleting Russia's stock of shells for its long-range fires which have been creating devastation on Ukrainian troops and civilians.
But the Russians apparently struck back, firing at Ukrainian position in Bahkmut in response.
We covered this ongoing Ukrainian hunt for Russian ammunition
here
.
Before heading into the latest news from Ukraine, The War Zone readers can get caught up with our previous rolling coverage here.
The latest:
The vivid images of explosions at a Russian ammunition depot in Nova Kakhovka Monday generated a lot of speculation that the attack was the result of fire from U.S.-supplied M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS).
While the Pentagon declined to tell The War Zone whether those systems were involved, it says that Ukraine is using them to great effect. Regardless of whether Ukraine used any of the eight HIMARS now in-country (another four are promised) in last night's attack, retired Australian Army Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan says they are not a "silver bullet" that will change the course of the war by themselves.
Ryan, who worked in the Pakistan Afghanistan Coordination Cell on the U.S. Joint Staff, is now a widely-quoted commentator on Russia's war in Ukraine.
“HIMARS is having an important impact and will continue to do so, but it alone will not win this war,” he said in a Twitter thread Tuesday afternoon. “While it has provided the Ukrainian Armed Forces with a new ‘Long Hand’ to attack the Russian invaders, there is no such thing as a silver bullet solution in war."
The War Zone's analysis highlighted this exact reality back in May, prior to the HIMARS deliveries to Ukraine.
“Importantly, its impact does not abrogate the responsibility of western nations to continue providing the full range of weapons, munitions, intelligence, training and other forms of support required by #Ukraine.”
Iran has offered Russia “hundreds” of drones, including armed ones, for use in its war in Ukraine, according to the U.S. government. Tehran also has
considerable experience
with such designs, and how to use them. Their use by Russia would be bad news for Ukraine. You can read our report about that
here
.
The Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate says it staged a daring raid to rescue captured Ukrainian troops in Kherson Oblast. With Ukraine's military losing hundreds of troops a day to death, injury and capture, this raid is a big morale boost.
As Russia’s all-out war on Ukraine grinds along in its fifth month, Belarus has kicked off military drills in the Homel region, just north of the border with Ukraine. It was there, you will remember, that Russian troops escaped to after their advance on Kyiv was repulsed.
As Belarus drills, Serhiy Kryvonos, a Ukrainian Army General, suggested that nation could be planning to invade from the north with assistance from Russia, according to the Ukraine NOW Telegram channel.
"They have the forces and means necessary to start an assault on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border without waiting for huge reinforcements. There are those who are able to attack us," Kryvonos said.
According to Kryvonos, Belarus is able to mobilize 340,000 soldiers in addition to 56,000 currently serving in the Belarusian Armed Forces.
Speaking of Belarus, its president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, suggested that it is NATO that is planning an attack on Russia, through Ukraine and Belarus.
Don't forget, Lukashenko is the guy Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to give nuclear-capable Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile systems to. You can read our coverage of that here.
The war is now primarily about sustainability and relative losses, which is how we should view Russia's successes in Luhansk.
The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense (MOD) posted its latest map of Russia's war in Ukraine, continuing to show the battles concentrated in the east and south with little new progress made by either side.
The U.K. MOD also introduced some of the Ukrainian troops it helped train to the public.
Alexander Drueke, an American military veteran captured by Russian forces in Ukraine and who is currently being held in solitary confinement by pro-Russian separatists in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, appears hopeful the U.S. government is pursuing his release, according to a phone call provided to The Washington Post by his family.
A Defense Department watchdog warned on Tuesday that some of the DOD’s and individual services’ practices for tracking and recording the movement of money and aid to Ukraine are hurting the office’s ability to track aid overall, Defense One noted.
In response to a question from The War Zone Tuesday morning, Senate Armed Service Committee ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla), said while he wished "President Biden was moving faster – way faster – to provide Ukraine with military aid, I am encouraged by the Pentagon’s initial oversight of the aid Congress has authorized."
"This report from the department’s independent watchdog is a sign that the Department of Defense is tracking financial flows properly, thanks to audit efforts started by the previous administration and maintained by this administration. Congress and the inspectors general must continue aggressive oversight of military aid to Ukraine to ensure we can keep providing the Ukrainian Armed Forces the weapons they need.”
Regardless, concerns are growing about a black market developing from the $10 billion in military aid from around the globe provided to Ukraine.
But military aid isn’t the only money Ukraine is receiving.
Ukraine is getting an additional $1.7 billion in assistance from the U.S. government and the World Bank to pay the salaries of its beleaguered health care workers and provide other essential services.
While the Russians have made some wild claims about long-range fire systems provided by foreign governments to Ukraine (like the false claim about destroyed HIMARS), sometimes they apparently do destroy things, as this video would appear to show.
And they've also taken out a number of Ukrainian drones as well.
Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to find creative ways to restore its stock of weaponry, including making the best out of downed or otherwise derelict airframes.
And Ukraine continues to show creativity when it comes to rigging up improvised weapons systems, as this video shows.
Meanwhile, more foreign military equipment continues to pour into Ukraine, like these Bergepanzer armored recovery vehicles that will be delivered from Germany.
The Russians have said a lot of things over the course of their war on Ukraine, a great deal of which are untrue. Like claims that they aren't using Tochka (S-21 Scarab) mobile short-range ballistic missiles, which Ukraine uses as well, offering a shallow level of deniability for indiscriminate strikes. It can carry various types of warheads up to a weight of around 1,000 pounds over a range of up to 75 miles in its most recent Tochka-U version.
Back in April, we told you the story of the Ukrainian nuclear researcher who was deeply concerned about how the Russians took over Chernobyl and shelled Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in the southern Zaporizhzhya region.
Well, it looks like the Russians are using the Zaporizhzhya plant to launch Grad rockets toward Mykolaiv.
And just as they did with Chernobyl, it appears Russia is turning the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant into an armed camp.
We will continue to update this post with new information until we state otherwise.
Contact the author: [email protected]
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How burger business The Beefy Boys became an instant hit on the Shropshire food scene
Shrewsbury head chef Liam Tinsley The business, which specialises in burgers and American-style barbecue food, now runs two restaurants – in Hereford and Shrewsbury – as well as a production unit, employing about 200 people in total. It was set up by amateur cooks Anthony Murphy, Daniel Mayo-Evans, Christian Williams and Lee Symonds who have always been keen to use local produce, and their food continues to receive glowing reviews from customers. After initially starting out as a pop-up restaurant, the quartet opened their first restaurant in Hereford in 2015 and in Shrewsbury last year. It has won a clutch of awards since launching, including winning best burger at the Grillstock competition in Bristol. It also saw its Butty Bach burger finish second into the World Championships in Las Vegas. The Beefy Boys food truck So what does it put its success down to? “I believe it comes down to the quality,” said Shrewsbury head chef Liam Tinsley. “They use 100 per cent Hereford beef and use the same butcher in Hereford. “They’ve also got their own seasonal blend which is their trade secret. “It’s all about consistency and nothing is over-complicated. “They have really gone and done their research, like how much the burger should cook for on one side before flipping it. I think that is what sets it apart – the attention to detail.” Shrewsbury restaurant The Beefy Boys opened in the old Zizzi’s premises in Shrewsbury High Street last August. Liam said: “Overall the Shrewsbury restaurant has gone really well. I know a lot of people thought the novelty might have worn off by now but it hasn’t. On a Saturday we do on average about 400 covers and if you don’t book the week before you probably won’t get in. “We’ve got a little gong on the pass in the open kitchen in Shrewsbury and whenever a customer says it’s the best burger they have ever had the front of house will come over and hit the gong. It’s a nice little morale boost for the staff and it’s amazing how much it goes off.” Liam said the business has a strong presence on social media – including Twitter and Facebook – which has also helped the business grow. “They are very organised and clever when it comes to their social media. It is all scheduled and they put certain things out on different days of the week,” he said. SHREWS COPYRIGHT SHROPSHIRE STAR JAMIE RICKETTS 21/06/2022 – Feature on The Beefy Boys in Shrewsbury. In Picture: Head Chef Liam Tinsley. As well as the restaurants, the business has also got a food truck which goes to events all over the country. The Beefy Boys will be represented at the Shrewsbury Food Festival, which is taking place on Saturday and Sunday in the Quarry. Liam said: “I’m part of the cookery school and one of the directors is on the main stage as well. “The festivals help with the promotion side of things. People still don’t know The Beefy Boys are in Shrewsbury and if they do they don’t know where the restaurant is. “It’s nice to showcase what you do and for me it is just the fun of doing it.” The Beefy Boys at Ludlow Food Festival in 2021 Like all hospitality businesses, The Beefy Boys felt the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic as it was forced to close its Hereford restaurant to customers. Liam said: “It did impact on trade so instead they just focussed on the delivery side of the business. “They weren’t doing as many covers as they were, but they were still doing well.” Looking ahead, Liam said there are ambitions for the business to open more restaurants. The Pastrami Boy Burger “They have got plans to open more but I can’t say where at the minute. They have plans to open at least three more as five is their magic number. “They don’t want to get too big. They could open lots more but they want the reputation they have got now to remain,” he added. https://ift.tt/wHvSBkl https://ift.tt/LDmQBqh
#Saas#softwaresystems#productdevelopment#software#practice#optimization#accuracy#efficiency#productivity#softwareprojects#cracksthecode
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Joaquin Caparros: Armenia must have faith in the work being done
New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/sports/joaquin-caparros-armenia-must-have-faith-in-the-work-being-done-71861-11-04-2021/
Joaquin Caparros: Armenia must have faith in the work being done
FIFA.com has spoken exclusively with Armenia coach Joaquin Caparros after three straight victories in Qatar 2022 qualifying.
When Joaquin Caparros was appointed Sevilla coach back in 2000, he could never have guessed where he would be coaching 21 years later.
From then until 2005, he became an idol at the Andalusian club, contributing to the development and consolidation of future stars like Sergio Ramos, Jesus Navas, Jose Antonio Reyes and Dani Alves. After taking charge of a variety of clubs in Spain, Switzerland and even Qatar, he returned to Sevilla in 2018, where he had two short spells as interim coach interspersed with a period as the club’s director of football. Then in early 2020, he got a call from Gines Melendez that would change everything.
The veteran coach, who had enjoyed great success while in charge of Spain’s youth teams, was the one who sought out Caparros to offer him the Armenia job, having himself being appointed technical director of football at the country’s football association the previous year. Now in need of a coach for the national team, he knew right away that Joaquin was his man.
“They want to develop, and they know that this depends on the credentials of the coaches they have. They’re doing great and we’re seeing results that give credence to the president and everyone involved. It’s the path we have to follow,” Caparros tells FIFA.com when asked about the change in Armenian football.
“I still had time on my contract with Sevilla, but Gines Melendez told me about the Armenia opportunity, so I met him and the president of the national federation. There was a good feeling and a sense of empathy, so we hit it off and came to an agreement quite quickly. They trust us and there’s very smooth communication,” Caparros says of the decision to embark on this adventure.
Since then, the mutual affection between Caparros and Armenia has only deepened, helped by a dream start for the coach. “Getting promoted to UEFA Nations League B was reward for the work being done, but it was also unexpected because we were competing against quality teams like Georgia and North Macedonia. It was a success and provided a major morale boost for the country and the squad. It reaffirmed that Armenia must have faith in the work being done,” said the former coach of Athletic Bilbao, Deportivo La Coruna and Mallorca, among others.
That promotion was the best possible prelude to the European qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™, in which Armenia have made a perfect start, winning their opening three games in the last week of March to lead Group J.
“We’ve begun the qualifiers with a lot of enthusiasm but remain conscious of how tough our group is. We’ve started well, but we’re keeping our feet on the ground. We’re in with teams like Romania, Iceland, North Macedonia, and especially Germany, which are very strong. That’s where we find ourselves, but we’re hopeful and excited, and no one can take that away from us,” Caparros says.
The 65-year-old knows it is a time for calm heads, especially when you look back at what has happened so far in the evenly matched Group J. “Being in a group that throws up crazy results is good for us, but we know it’ll still be very difficult. We’re talking about teams with a lot of [good] players and a great deal of history, like Germany, who are always favorites.”
However, when asked about specific objectives, Caparros is not prepared to look beyond September. “We have to take it one game at a time and see how far we can go. We’re not playing again [in the qualifiers] until September, so we’ll see how the players are doing. We’re relying on our strength as a team as well as mental fortitude.”
And while he has only been in charge of Armenia for ten games, the Spanish coach has hit it off really well in the eastern European country. “From the start, everyone’s been empathetic, from the president down to the coaching staff. It’s a joy to go to team gatherings and be with the lads, because they’re so committed.”
Caparros has only good things to say about his day-to-day work with the national team. “We have an amazing academy. There are ten football pitches here, all maintained superbly, and a residential building with luxury rooms. Everything you need… We’re very comfortable,” he says.
But surely for a Spanish coach in Armenia, the language barrier is a problem? “Within the squad we speak four languages: Russian, Armenian, English and Spanish,” Caparros tells FIFA.com, insisting it has not been an issue: “There’s very fluid communication, and furthermore football is a universal language. When the whistle blows, everyone understands each other. This non-verbal communication has been fundamental.”
Asked what it would mean for Armenia to reach a major tournament like the EURO or World Cup, the coach says, “Just winning promotion in the Nations League was very emotional, so I can only imagine what it would be like… However, I’ve not even thought about it. I’ve been in football for many years, so I know we have to take it one step at a time. So let the people of Armenia enjoy the victories, and let us focus on our working methods,” he concludes.
Caparros is clearly proud of this Armenia team and the work they have done, so it will be fascinating to see just how far they can go together.
Armenia have gone undefeated for eight games since their 2-1 reverse to North Macedonia in September 2020. That fixture came in the 2020/21 UEFA Nations League, in which Armenia won promotion to League B.
Read original article here.
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How the James Beard Foundation Failed the Most Prestigious Restaurant Awards in the Country
James Beard Foundation CEO Clare Reichenbach at the 2018 James Beard Media Awards | Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images
The foundation violated its own ethics rules to ensure that award winners fit into its new narrative of progress and social justice
Finalists had been announced. A virtual ceremony had been planned. Acceptance speeches had been filmed.
Then, in late August, the James Beard Foundation abruptly announced that it was effectively canceling its Restaurant and Chef Awards, widely considered the most prestigious accolades in the American restaurant industry, not just this year, but until 2022.
The annual black-tie gala for these awards — a multimillion-dollar production that some have referred to as the Oscars of the restaurant industry, with big-name sponsors like San Pellegrino, All-Clad, American Airlines, and Capital One — had already been delayed and moved online due to the coronavirus pandemic. The foundation blamed this dramatic pullback on the pandemic as well. “Considering anyone to have won or lost within the current tumultuous hospitality ecosystem does not in fact feel like the right thing to do,” CEO Clare Reichenbach stated in a press release.
A few days later, New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells reported that the James Beard Foundation had not been entirely forthcoming about the reasons for its decision. Around the time of the announcement, the foundation had quietly appended a note to the nominee list, claiming that several nominees had “withdrawn their nominations for personal reasons.” But, according to Wells, the foundation had in fact deemed some too “controversial” and asked them to withdraw “because new allegations about their personal or professional behavior had surfaced over the summer.”
Most striking, however, was the revelation that “no Black people had won in any of the 23 categories on the ballot,” despite multiple Black nominees and semifinalists — a result that, as Wells noted, “would not have been a first for the James Beard awards.”
Over the decades of their existence, the awards have struggled to be inclusive and representative of the diversity of America’s restaurants and chefs, and the foundation has only recently begun to address and rectify these issues.
In short, according to Wells, the James Beard Foundation found itself with a list of award winners that was incompatible with its recent attempt to reposition itself as a vanguard for social justice causes within the restaurant industry. This seemed particularly untenable in the wake of this summer’s Black Lives Matter movement — which has sparked an ongoing reckoning, not only across the restaurant industry and food media, but among the foundation’s own staff. Instead of being transparent about these issues, the foundation decided to sidestep them by canceling the awards.
As someone who has been involved in the James Beard awards process for more than a decade, I was shaken by these allegations, and undertook my own inquiry. A series of correspondences with members of foundation’s leadership, as well as conversations with others within the award process and restaurant industry, seem to confirm Wells’s reporting — namely, that the foundation tried to take a shortcut to virtue by manipulating the results of this year’s awards, and has been trying to cover it up.
I believe that, motivated by the desire to keep sponsorship and donor money flowing, employees of the foundation violated its own longstanding ethics and procedures to avoid a possible public backlash over the award winners. Rather than trying to devise an equitable path forward, these employees attempted to manipulate the results after the fact, hoping to create a superficial appearance of diversity and wholesomeness without doing the work of achieving this in a meaningful way.
As a result, the foundation disenfranchised committee members, voters, and restaurants — many of which desperately needed the boost that an award might have given their businesses during a pandemic — and corrupted the integrity of the awards. This threatens to render what is widely considered America’s most respected measure of culinary excellence — one that can be a platform for greater equity — meaningless. To let that happen would not merely be a professional failing on the part of an organization that is ostensibly a beacon and guardian of the hospitality industry, but a profoundly moral and ethical one.
Established in 1983 to honor the “dean of American cookery,” the James Beard Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to “celebrate, nurture, and honor chefs and other leaders” in America. Over the years, it has added initiatives that focus on sustainability, scholarship, and inclusion in the restaurant industry.
Despite its issues-driven programming, the foundation’s Restaurant and Chef Awards have become both its crown jewel and cash cow. Perhaps because of this, many believe the selection process is a conclave of cloistered agreements, favoritism, and pay-for-play among industry cardinals. It was not designed that way. Though the system may seem convoluted, it was in fact devised to ensure as much transparency and impartiality as possible, largely in response to a prior scandal.
In the mid-aughts, the foundation was left in disarray after gross mismanagement by then-president Leonard F. Pickell Jr. He was caught embezzling foundation funds, pled guilty to larceny, and served time in federal prison. The cleanup was expensive — at least $750,000 in attorneys and accountant fees — and the nonprofit found itself in a financial free fall as donations, its primary source of revenue, quickly dried up.
The foundation realized that in order to regain the trust of the public — and its donors — it needed to reform. Among numerous policy changes, a key component of its rehabilitation required divorcing the award process from the foundation’s operations. The committee overseeing the awards, which is composed of unpaid volunteers, was hermetically sealed off to guard against undue influence from the foundation and its employees.
One of the chief fears was that chefs and restaurateurs might feel pressured to perform favors for the foundation to increase their chances of winning an award. For instance, a centerpiece of the foundation’s programming is the dinner series it hosts at the James Beard House throughout the year, which features guest chefs from across the nation. Being invited to cook at one of these pricey, ticketed events is generally perceived to be an honor, but it requires the visiting chef to shoulder much of the associated costs (the food they’re cooking, as well as travel to the event, among other expenses), making participation tantamount to donating thousands of dollars to the foundation, and therefore a privilege accessible only to the best-capitalized chefs. (If it’s unclear which way the largesse flows, while the chefs gain exposure and a measure of pride, the information page for guest chefs helpfully points out that “events such as yours are an important source of revenue for the Foundation.”)
Given the obvious potential for quid pro quo, it was deemed vital to the integrity of the awards that foundation employees had no part in the award process. To underscore this imperative, the foundation agreed to a set of policies and procedures that removed the awards from its reach, and placed them under the management of an independent committee of financially disinterested volunteers.
This umbrella awards committee oversees six separate subcommittees, each one responsible for a different set of awards: Leadership, Books, Restaurant Design, Broadcast Media, Journalism, and the best known, the Restaurant and Chef Awards. It is the annual gala for this last set of awards, traditionally held in May, that is the glittering, red-carpet ceremony that most associate with the James Beard Foundation’s awards.
The committee that oversees the Restaurant and Chef Awards is composed of 20 members: eight at-large members and 12 regional representatives, each representing one of the committee’s 12 geographic regions. To ensure a degree of impartiality, these committee members do not work in the restaurant industry; many are journalists. Each regional representative on the committee impanels 25 judges in their region to provide perspective on and knowledge of America’s restaurant community at the local level. Like all committee members, judges serve voluntarily and are not paid. (The sole perks of monetary value are an annual membership in the foundation — normally $150 — and a ticket to the awards ceremony, which was valued at $500 in 2019.) Here is where you will find me, at the bottom of the awards pyramid, where I have served as a judge in the Midwest region for 14 years.
The award process is initiated by the committee late in the preceding year, when judges are solicited for nominations and input. Over the following months, the committee holds a series of closed-door sessions to determine the semifinalists for that year’s awards. The resulting list of 20 candidates in each award category is usually published in February. These semifinalists are balloted and sent to the voting body, which consists of the committee members, regional judges, and all past Restaurant and Chef Award winners. The initial round of voting whittles the nominees down to five finalists per category, who are usually announced by late March. A second, final vote is conducted to determine the winners.
The results of this voting process are tabulated by Lutz & Carr, a third-party accounting firm that represents over 400 nonprofit organizations. According to foundation policy, Lutz & Carr is required to keep the results of the first vote confidential until the second ballot; the results of the final vote must remain confidential until they are announced at the award ceremony. To prevent tampering, vote manipulation, or the results from leaking, no one within the foundation is supposed to be privy to this information before it is made public. For similar reasons, the committee members are bound by nondisclosure agreements.
This year, it appears that the foundation violated these policies by illicitly obtaining the results of the final round of voting before they were announced. Dissatisfied with the slate of prospective winners, according to a follow-up story by Wells, the foundation tried to change the outcome by proposing to alter the composition of the voting body and holding an unprecedented revote. By removing past winners — a voting bloc that is traditionally dominated by white, male chefs — from the revote, the foundation hoped that a revote might yield a set of awards more compatible with the narrative of inclusion it has been trying to tell about the awards.
This raised red flags within the committee, which pushed back on the foundation’s proposal, saying, according to Wells, that it “compromised the integrity of the awards.” A revote never happened. But the foundation did not let this aborted revote go to waste: In the following weeks, it relied on the proposal of a revote to claim that it had no knowledge of the winners.
In public statements, as well as in emails to the committee, nominees, and me, members of the foundation’s leadership have adamantly denied knowing who the winners are. However, through my correspondence with foundation employees (which can be viewed in full here), it became clear that these denials have been purposely misleading.
In an email to me, Alison Tozzi Liu, the foundation’s vice president of marketing, communications, and content, wrote, “In reality, the lack of diversity in the original vote in May, and the eventual decision not to hand out individual Awards in August were not related. As previously mentioned, there was to be a revote with eligible nominees and therefore no-one had knowledge of the ultimate winners.”
This statement reveals a number of things. First, it suggests that the foundation did know who the winners were, because Tozzi Liu is claiming that the lack of diversity among them did not affect the decision to cancel the awards. Second, her wording indicates that these denials, thus far, have been cleverly worded to appear as denials of knowing the original outcome, when in fact, they are denials of knowing who would have won had there been a revote.
This sleight of hand relies on a revote having been considered, which Tozzi Liu attempts to legitimize by claiming that “the full Restaurant and Chef Subcommittee had agreed to the revote.” However, it is clear from Wells’s reporting that this is false.
Obtaining the list of winners and trying to manipulate a revote are just part of the foundation’s interference with a process that was designed to prevent that from happening. In addition to asking some nominees to withdraw due to allegations of wrongdoing, the foundation allegedly offered to help at least one of the chefs withdraw in a way that might have evaded public notice or implied a different reason for the withdrawal. If true, this flies in the face of the foundation’s narrative that it is trying to clean up improper behavior in the restaurant industry. Rather, this suggests the foundation violated its own policies to obscure such behavior.
The chaos swirling around this year’s awards is the result of talking about systemic problems, but doing little to understand or resolve their underlying causes. In recent years, there has been a sharp increase in concern that the restaurant industry, as a whole, is an uneven field, which heavily favors some — again, traditionally white and male — while disadvantaging others. Meanwhile, far from the glamour of the foundation’s awards, everyday restaurant workers face pay inequality, hostile work conditions, a gender gap, and a lack of representation among those who hold the levers of power.
The current award process is a maze of compromises, to which many in the restaurant and dining community have tacitly agreed. But many now find it somewhere on the spectrum between unsatisfactory and unacceptable, and haven’t figured out exactly what to do about it — or are afraid to speak openly about their frustrations with the process for fear of reprisal from the foundation, especially with regard to their own award prospects. Even a past winner I know has expressed reluctance to question the foundation or how the awards work.
Certainly, one way to make the awards more inclusive is to redistrict the boundaries of achievement. For instance, the awards currently focus heavily on geographic diversity, but categories don’t distinguish between casual and fine dining restaurants, or different types of cuisines. Perhaps they should.
I don’t believe that correcting course requires canceling the past. But we need to stop clamoring for fairness before clarifying what that means and what it requires. The James Beard Foundation awards are a reflection of the restaurant industry they celebrate, and fixing them will require a far deeper and more honest examination of the underlying issues than the one that many in the restaurant community have been openly having. This will require, at a minimum, an acknowledgment that the industry is a complex ecosystem of symbiotic relationships that can’t be easily untangled.
Roughly half of the voting body is now composed of chefs, whose vast network of colleagues and friends present a minefield of conflicts. Or take my conflicts of interest, for instance: Like many in the voting body, I have working relationships with people who are eligible for awards — I’m a photographer who works with restaurants and hotels, and I’ve co-written a cookbook with chefs. I’ve also solicited personalities and restaurants to raise money for James Beard Foundation causes. I’ve always disclosed these professional relationships, as judges are required to do, and I’ve tried to remain faithful to the award process. But this should illustrate the difficulty of completely eliminating bias from the process, and I recognize that I have ultimately been complicit in perpetuating a systemic preference for those with access to resources.
Beyond the voting body, there are powerful external forces. Media and public relations firms play an enormous role in helping chefs and restaurants maneuver into advantageous positions, and in directing voters to the right tables. Chefs and restaurateurs have told me that they spend tens of thousands of dollars annually to make and keep themselves visible to the right groups of people. And in all of this, the dining public is the real apex of the food chain — a silent majority that votes with its dollars.
I have struggled to reconcile this tangle of conflicts, especially when there have been financial interests at stake. But I believe in what the awards can represent, and in the importance of recognizing excellence, so I have continued to participate in the process for years, wringing my hands and pushing as much as I could to make it better from my position. However, I can no longer be a part of it as things stand, especially because it is attached to an organization that I increasingly mistrust.
The foundation is using the issues of equity and representation to distract from what it has done: It wants the hospitality community to believe that it is suddenly and deeply troubled by the award process and its outcomes. In a scramble to respond to Wells’s reporting, the foundation issued a statement saying, in part, that it has “begun a comprehensive audit of every aspect of the Awards process.” But how meaningful can it possibly be if the foundation won’t be transparent about its shambolic mishandling of its awards this year?
The foundation’s repeated refusals to explain what actually happened that led to its decision to cancel the awards for two years continue to exacerbate the problem. While the awards committee has demanded answers and accountability, committee members are bound by nondisclosure agreements, the scope of which may need to be reconsidered. I fear that any answers the foundation provides them will likely disappear into a gagged group in a locked room.
Last week, Mitchell Davis, the foundation’s chief strategy officer — who never replied to a single email or question I posed to him about his involvement in this year’s awards debacle — unexpectedly announced that he is leaving the foundation. In his farewell post on his Instagram account, he wrote that he looks forward to “seeing how the Foundation evolves to meet the challenges & opportunities of the future.” But what about the challenges the foundation faces now — the ones that Davis is leaving behind for others to clean up? I believe that, until there is significant public pressure on the foundation and its financial sponsors, the foundation will have little incentive to be forthcoming.
The foundation must realize that the best path forward is transparency at a minimum, atonement if required, and reform at every level. Patching over the problems with platitudes and rigged votes isn’t just a woefully inadequate solution to systemic issues — at a moment when there is a demand for a more just and equitable hospitality ecosystem, it is unacceptable.
Bonjwing Lee is a photographer and writer based in Kansas City, Missouri. He has been a judge in the Midwest region for the James Beard Foundation awards since 2007.
Disclosure: Some Vox Media staff members are part of the voting body for the James Beard Awards.
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James Beard Foundation CEO Clare Reichenbach at the 2018 James Beard Media Awards | Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images
The foundation violated its own ethics rules to ensure that award winners fit into its new narrative of progress and social justice
Finalists had been announced. A virtual ceremony had been planned. Acceptance speeches had been filmed.
Then, in late August, the James Beard Foundation abruptly announced that it was effectively canceling its Restaurant and Chef Awards, widely considered the most prestigious accolades in the American restaurant industry, not just this year, but until 2022.
The annual black-tie gala for these awards — a multimillion-dollar production that some have referred to as the Oscars of the restaurant industry, with big-name sponsors like San Pellegrino, All-Clad, American Airlines, and Capital One — had already been delayed and moved online due to the coronavirus pandemic. The foundation blamed this dramatic pullback on the pandemic as well. “Considering anyone to have won or lost within the current tumultuous hospitality ecosystem does not in fact feel like the right thing to do,” CEO Clare Reichenbach stated in a press release.
A few days later, New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells reported that the James Beard Foundation had not been entirely forthcoming about the reasons for its decision. Around the time of the announcement, the foundation had quietly appended a note to the nominee list, claiming that several nominees had “withdrawn their nominations for personal reasons.” But, according to Wells, the foundation had in fact deemed some too “controversial” and asked them to withdraw “because new allegations about their personal or professional behavior had surfaced over the summer.”
Most striking, however, was the revelation that “no Black people had won in any of the 23 categories on the ballot,” despite multiple Black nominees and semifinalists — a result that, as Wells noted, “would not have been a first for the James Beard awards.”
Over the decades of their existence, the awards have struggled to be inclusive and representative of the diversity of America’s restaurants and chefs, and the foundation has only recently begun to address and rectify these issues.
In short, according to Wells, the James Beard Foundation found itself with a list of award winners that was incompatible with its recent attempt to reposition itself as a vanguard for social justice causes within the restaurant industry. This seemed particularly untenable in the wake of this summer’s Black Lives Matter movement — which has sparked an ongoing reckoning, not only across the restaurant industry and food media, but among the foundation’s own staff. Instead of being transparent about these issues, the foundation decided to sidestep them by canceling the awards.
As someone who has been involved in the James Beard awards process for more than a decade, I was shaken by these allegations, and undertook my own inquiry. A series of correspondences with members of foundation’s leadership, as well as conversations with others within the award process and restaurant industry, seem to confirm Wells’s reporting — namely, that the foundation tried to take a shortcut to virtue by manipulating the results of this year’s awards, and has been trying to cover it up.
I believe that, motivated by the desire to keep sponsorship and donor money flowing, employees of the foundation violated its own longstanding ethics and procedures to avoid a possible public backlash over the award winners. Rather than trying to devise an equitable path forward, these employees attempted to manipulate the results after the fact, hoping to create a superficial appearance of diversity and wholesomeness without doing the work of achieving this in a meaningful way.
As a result, the foundation disenfranchised committee members, voters, and restaurants — many of which desperately needed the boost that an award might have given their businesses during a pandemic — and corrupted the integrity of the awards. This threatens to render what is widely considered America’s most respected measure of culinary excellence — one that can be a platform for greater equity — meaningless. To let that happen would not merely be a professional failing on the part of an organization that is ostensibly a beacon and guardian of the hospitality industry, but a profoundly moral and ethical one.
Established in 1983 to honor the “dean of American cookery,” the James Beard Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to “celebrate, nurture, and honor chefs and other leaders” in America. Over the years, it has added initiatives that focus on sustainability, scholarship, and inclusion in the restaurant industry.
Despite its issues-driven programming, the foundation’s Restaurant and Chef Awards have become both its crown jewel and cash cow. Perhaps because of this, many believe the selection process is a conclave of cloistered agreements, favoritism, and pay-for-play among industry cardinals. It was not designed that way. Though the system may seem convoluted, it was in fact devised to ensure as much transparency and impartiality as possible, largely in response to a prior scandal.
In the mid-aughts, the foundation was left in disarray after gross mismanagement by then-president Leonard F. Pickell Jr. He was caught embezzling foundation funds, pled guilty to larceny, and served time in federal prison. The cleanup was expensive — at least $750,000 in attorneys and accountant fees — and the nonprofit found itself in a financial free fall as donations, its primary source of revenue, quickly dried up.
The foundation realized that in order to regain the trust of the public — and its donors — it needed to reform. Among numerous policy changes, a key component of its rehabilitation required divorcing the award process from the foundation’s operations. The committee overseeing the awards, which is composed of unpaid volunteers, was hermetically sealed off to guard against undue influence from the foundation and its employees.
One of the chief fears was that chefs and restaurateurs might feel pressured to perform favors for the foundation to increase their chances of winning an award. For instance, a centerpiece of the foundation’s programming is the dinner series it hosts at the James Beard House throughout the year, which features guest chefs from across the nation. Being invited to cook at one of these pricey, ticketed events is generally perceived to be an honor, but it requires the visiting chef to shoulder much of the associated costs (the food they’re cooking, as well as travel to the event, among other expenses), making participation tantamount to donating thousands of dollars to the foundation, and therefore a privilege accessible only to the best-capitalized chefs. (If it’s unclear which way the largesse flows, while the chefs gain exposure and a measure of pride, the information page for guest chefs helpfully points out that “events such as yours are an important source of revenue for the Foundation.”)
Given the obvious potential for quid pro quo, it was deemed vital to the integrity of the awards that foundation employees had no part in the award process. To underscore this imperative, the foundation agreed to a set of policies and procedures that removed the awards from its reach, and placed them under the management of an independent committee of financially disinterested volunteers.
This umbrella awards committee oversees six separate subcommittees, each one responsible for a different set of awards: Leadership, Books, Restaurant Design, Broadcast Media, Journalism, and the best known, the Restaurant and Chef Awards. It is the annual gala for this last set of awards, traditionally held in May, that is the glittering, red-carpet ceremony that most associate with the James Beard Foundation’s awards.
The committee that oversees the Restaurant and Chef Awards is composed of 20 members: eight at-large members and 12 regional representatives, each representing one of the committee’s 12 geographic regions. To ensure a degree of impartiality, these committee members do not work in the restaurant industry; many are journalists. Each regional representative on the committee impanels 25 judges in their region to provide perspective on and knowledge of America’s restaurant community at the local level. Like all committee members, judges serve voluntarily and are not paid. (The sole perks of monetary value are an annual membership in the foundation — normally $150 — and a ticket to the awards ceremony, which was valued at $500 in 2019.) Here is where you will find me, at the bottom of the awards pyramid, where I have served as a judge in the Midwest region for 14 years.
The award process is initiated by the committee late in the preceding year, when judges are solicited for nominations and input. Over the following months, the committee holds a series of closed-door sessions to determine the semifinalists for that year’s awards. The resulting list of 20 candidates in each award category is usually published in February. These semifinalists are balloted and sent to the voting body, which consists of the committee members, regional judges, and all past Restaurant and Chef Award winners. The initial round of voting whittles the nominees down to five finalists per category, who are usually announced by late March. A second, final vote is conducted to determine the winners.
The results of this voting process are tabulated by Lutz & Carr, a third-party accounting firm that represents over 400 nonprofit organizations. According to foundation policy, Lutz & Carr is required to keep the results of the first vote confidential until the second ballot; the results of the final vote must remain confidential until they are announced at the award ceremony. To prevent tampering, vote manipulation, or the results from leaking, no one within the foundation is supposed to be privy to this information before it is made public. For similar reasons, the committee members are bound by nondisclosure agreements.
This year, it appears that the foundation violated these policies by illicitly obtaining the results of the final round of voting before they were announced. Dissatisfied with the slate of prospective winners, according to a follow-up story by Wells, the foundation tried to change the outcome by proposing to alter the composition of the voting body and holding an unprecedented revote. By removing past winners — a voting bloc that is traditionally dominated by white, male chefs — from the revote, the foundation hoped that a revote might yield a set of awards more compatible with the narrative of inclusion it has been trying to tell about the awards.
This raised red flags within the committee, which pushed back on the foundation’s proposal, saying, according to Wells, that it “compromised the integrity of the awards.” A revote never happened. But the foundation did not let this aborted revote go to waste: In the following weeks, it relied on the proposal of a revote to claim that it had no knowledge of the winners.
In public statements, as well as in emails to the committee, nominees, and me, members of the foundation’s leadership have adamantly denied knowing who the winners are. However, through my correspondence with foundation employees (which can be viewed in full here), it became clear that these denials have been purposely misleading.
In an email to me, Alison Tozzi Liu, the foundation’s vice president of marketing, communications, and content, wrote, “In reality, the lack of diversity in the original vote in May, and the eventual decision not to hand out individual Awards in August were not related. As previously mentioned, there was to be a revote with eligible nominees and therefore no-one had knowledge of the ultimate winners.”
This statement reveals a number of things. First, it suggests that the foundation did know who the winners were, because Tozzi Liu is claiming that the lack of diversity among them did not affect the decision to cancel the awards. Second, her wording indicates that these denials, thus far, have been cleverly worded to appear as denials of knowing the original outcome, when in fact, they are denials of knowing who would have won had there been a revote.
This sleight of hand relies on a revote having been considered, which Tozzi Liu attempts to legitimize by claiming that “the full Restaurant and Chef Subcommittee had agreed to the revote.” However, it is clear from Wells’s reporting that this is false.
Obtaining the list of winners and trying to manipulate a revote are just part of the foundation’s interference with a process that was designed to prevent that from happening. In addition to asking some nominees to withdraw due to allegations of wrongdoing, the foundation allegedly offered to help at least one of the chefs withdraw in a way that might have evaded public notice or implied a different reason for the withdrawal. If true, this flies in the face of the foundation’s narrative that it is trying to clean up improper behavior in the restaurant industry. Rather, this suggests the foundation violated its own policies to obscure such behavior.
The chaos swirling around this year’s awards is the result of talking about systemic problems, but doing little to understand or resolve their underlying causes. In recent years, there has been a sharp increase in concern that the restaurant industry, as a whole, is an uneven field, which heavily favors some — again, traditionally white and male — while disadvantaging others. Meanwhile, far from the glamour of the foundation’s awards, everyday restaurant workers face pay inequality, hostile work conditions, a gender gap, and a lack of representation among those who hold the levers of power.
The current award process is a maze of compromises, to which many in the restaurant and dining community have tacitly agreed. But many now find it somewhere on the spectrum between unsatisfactory and unacceptable, and haven’t figured out exactly what to do about it — or are afraid to speak openly about their frustrations with the process for fear of reprisal from the foundation, especially with regard to their own award prospects. Even a past winner I know has expressed reluctance to question the foundation or how the awards work.
Certainly, one way to make the awards more inclusive is to redistrict the boundaries of achievement. For instance, the awards currently focus heavily on geographic diversity, but categories don’t distinguish between casual and fine dining restaurants, or different types of cuisines. Perhaps they should.
I don’t believe that correcting course requires canceling the past. But we need to stop clamoring for fairness before clarifying what that means and what it requires. The James Beard Foundation awards are a reflection of the restaurant industry they celebrate, and fixing them will require a far deeper and more honest examination of the underlying issues than the one that many in the restaurant community have been openly having. This will require, at a minimum, an acknowledgment that the industry is a complex ecosystem of symbiotic relationships that can’t be easily untangled.
Roughly half of the voting body is now composed of chefs, whose vast network of colleagues and friends present a minefield of conflicts. Or take my conflicts of interest, for instance: Like many in the voting body, I have working relationships with people who are eligible for awards — I’m a photographer who works with restaurants and hotels, and I’ve co-written a cookbook with chefs. I’ve also solicited personalities and restaurants to raise money for James Beard Foundation causes. I’ve always disclosed these professional relationships, as judges are required to do, and I’ve tried to remain faithful to the award process. But this should illustrate the difficulty of completely eliminating bias from the process, and I recognize that I have ultimately been complicit in perpetuating a systemic preference for those with access to resources.
Beyond the voting body, there are powerful external forces. Media and public relations firms play an enormous role in helping chefs and restaurants maneuver into advantageous positions, and in directing voters to the right tables. Chefs and restaurateurs have told me that they spend tens of thousands of dollars annually to make and keep themselves visible to the right groups of people. And in all of this, the dining public is the real apex of the food chain — a silent majority that votes with its dollars.
I have struggled to reconcile this tangle of conflicts, especially when there have been financial interests at stake. But I believe in what the awards can represent, and in the importance of recognizing excellence, so I have continued to participate in the process for years, wringing my hands and pushing as much as I could to make it better from my position. However, I can no longer be a part of it as things stand, especially because it is attached to an organization that I increasingly mistrust.
The foundation is using the issues of equity and representation to distract from what it has done: It wants the hospitality community to believe that it is suddenly and deeply troubled by the award process and its outcomes. In a scramble to respond to Wells’s reporting, the foundation issued a statement saying, in part, that it has “begun a comprehensive audit of every aspect of the Awards process.” But how meaningful can it possibly be if the foundation won’t be transparent about its shambolic mishandling of its awards this year?
The foundation’s repeated refusals to explain what actually happened that led to its decision to cancel the awards for two years continue to exacerbate the problem. While the awards committee has demanded answers and accountability, committee members are bound by nondisclosure agreements, the scope of which may need to be reconsidered. I fear that any answers the foundation provides them will likely disappear into a gagged group in a locked room.
Last week, Mitchell Davis, the foundation’s chief strategy officer — who never replied to a single email or question I posed to him about his involvement in this year’s awards debacle — unexpectedly announced that he is leaving the foundation. In his farewell post on his Instagram account, he wrote that he looks forward to “seeing how the Foundation evolves to meet the challenges & opportunities of the future.” But what about the challenges the foundation faces now — the ones that Davis is leaving behind for others to clean up? I believe that, until there is significant public pressure on the foundation and its financial sponsors, the foundation will have little incentive to be forthcoming.
The foundation must realize that the best path forward is transparency at a minimum, atonement if required, and reform at every level. Patching over the problems with platitudes and rigged votes isn’t just a woefully inadequate solution to systemic issues — at a moment when there is a demand for a more just and equitable hospitality ecosystem, it is unacceptable.
Bonjwing Lee is a photographer and writer based in Kansas City, Missouri. He has been a judge in the Midwest region for the James Beard Foundation awards since 2007.
Disclosure: Some Vox Media staff members are part of the voting body for the James Beard Awards.
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Hey, can you write and unbiased labour VS Conservative post? This is my first time voting, and seeing as we never learnt anything like this in high school or college, I haven't a clue what I'm going to do. Thank you!
So I’ll break down just the Tories and Labour manifestos into different topics for you to compare.
Brexit -(Conservatives)- Seek a new “deep and special partnership with the EU”- Leave the single market and customs union- No deal is better than a bad deal for the UK- Control immigration and secure the rights of EU nationals in the UK and Britons in the EU- Maintain a common travel area with a “frictionless” border with Ireland
Analysis: May is being “upfront and straight” about the difficulties ahead, with a language that will allow her to claim voters endorsed a hard Brexit. She takes little notice of the half of the population that didn’t want Brexit. Her planning for Brexit has been laughable no matter who you are because of her ‘few sentences long’ statement on it.
(Labour)- Scrap the Conservatives’ Brexit white paper and replace it with fresh negotiating priorities with a strong emphasis on retaining the single market and customs union- Reject “no deal” as a viable option. Guarantee existing rights for EU nationals living in Britain and UK citizens living in the EU
Analysis: Labour sits on the fence on Brexit, neither voicing a strong commitment to staying in the single market nor indicating a dedication to deliver Brexit
Economy (Conservatives) - Continue to restore public finances and have a balanced budget by middle of next decade- Meet OECD average for investments in R&D - 2.4% of GDP within 10 years. -- Launch a new £23bn national productivity investment fund- Introduce energy tariff cap to extend price protection for vulnerable customers, but maintain competitive element of the retail energy market- Increase national living wage to 60% of median earnings by 2020
Analysis: The original 2015 deadline of setting public finances straight is now 2025, and the manifesto creates wriggle-room by ditching Osborne’s pledge not to increase NI or income tax
(Labour)
- Eliminate the government’s deficit on day-to-day spending within five years
- Mandate a new national investment bank to fill existing gaps in lending by private banks and provide long-term finance to R&D-intensive investments
- Balance government spending with the amount it raises in taxes
- Bring private rail companies into public ownership. Cap fares
- Transition to a publicly owned energy system and reverse Royal Mail privatisation
Analysis:- Many eminent economists support the idea of an investment bank to boost major infrastructure spending and polls show 58-60% of the public back renationalising railways
Health(Conservatives)- Increase NHS spending by a minimum of £8bn in real terms over the next five years- Make it a priority in Brexit negotiations that the 140,000 staff from EU countries can carry on their contributions to NHS and social care- Build and upgrade primary care facilities, mental health clinics and hospitals- Recover the cost of medical treatment from non-UK residents
Analysis:- Tories have been slowly privatising the NHS for years and have put their friends in managerial positions (positions that pay thousands but are completely un-needed) They are not beyond privatising the NHS. They’ve been working towards it for years. Extra funding is significant, but £8bn is still a relatively modest sum compared to Labour’s pledge – and it’s doubtful if it will match demand
(Labour)- Scrap NHS pay cap and commit to over £30bn in extra funding over the next parliament- One million people to be taken off NHS waiting lists by guaranteeing access to treatment within 18 weeks- Free parking in NHS England for patients, staff and visitors- Increase funding to GP services and ringfence mental health budgets
Analysis:- The pledges are expensive but the NHS has consistently said it needs more money to meet demand and costs, though it’s unlikely that focusing on the top 5% of earners will raise all the funds required.
Education(Conservative) - Increase overall schools budget by £4bn by 2022 and redirect £1bn of national funding formula to help schools- Build at least 100 new free schools a year, end ban on selective schools and ask universities and independent schools to help run state schools- No new places in schools rated ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted- Free breakfast to every child in every year of primary school in place of free school lunches for first three years
Analysis:- The return of grammar schools is a key part of May’s new “meritocracy”, and end of free lunches scraps a key Lib Dem achievement. She wants to end free school lunches completely.
(Labour)- Create a unified national education service for England that is free at the point of use- Abolish university tuition fees, reintroduce maintenance grants, and restore the education maintenance allowance for 16-18 year olds from lower and middle income backgrounds- Free school meals for all school children
Analysis:- Labour hopes pledge to scrap tuition fees will attract students and 18- to 24-year-olds who still strongly support the party
Immigration(Conservative)- Reduce immigration to “sustainable” levels, meaning annual net migration in the tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands- Increase earnings threshold for those wishing to sponsor migrants for family visas- Overseas students will remain in the immigration statistics- Offer asylum and refuge to people in parts of the world affected by conflict and oppression, but work hard to reduce asylum claims in the UK
Analysis - Continuation of the net migration pledge for a further five years despite never being met in the past seven years is a divisive manifesto vow for May’s cabinet
(Labour)- Prioritise growth, jobs and prosperity over “bogus immigration targets” and honour the spirit of international law and moral obligations by taking in a fair share of refugees- Will not include students in immigration numbers but will crack down on fake colleges
Analysis:- While rejecting “bogus immigration targets” for the first time, a new immigration system “may include employer sponsorship, work permits, visa regulations or a tailored mix of all these”
Tax and Spending (Conservative)- Increase personal allowance to £12,500 and the higher rate to £50,000 by 2020, ensure local residents can veto high council tax increases via a referendum. No VAT increase- Stick to plan to cut corporation tax to 17% by 2020- Maintain pensions triple lock until 2020 and introduce a new double lock afterwards. - Means test winter fuel payments
Analysis:- May has scrapped Cameron’s triple lock, antagonising a key source of Tory support (older voters) and indicating a confidence in victory at the polls
(Labour) - No rises in income tax for those earning below £80,000 a year, no increases in personal national insurance contributions or rate of VAT, and guarantee the state pension triple lock- Ask large corporations to “pay a little more” in tax while still keeping UK corporation tax among the lowest of major developed economies
Analysis:- The IFS said lowering the threshold for the 45p rate could raise £7bn, but critics say the measure could spark mass avoidance and drive top earners offshore. However, big business dropping would give a chance to smaller, local British business to grow. This exodus of big business isn’t confirmed but has it’s own pros.
Housing (Conservative)- Meet 2015 commitment to deliver 1m homes by the end of 2020 and deliver 500,000 more by the end of 2022- Deliver reforms proposed in the housing white paper to free up more land- Build new fixed-term social houses which will be sold privately after 10-15 years with automatic right to buy for tenants
Analysis:- The pledge to build more homes is made despite slow progress towards the previous aim and little detail about how it will be achieved.
(Labour)- Build over 1m new homes, and 100,000 council and housing association homes a year- Help-to-buy funding until 2027 for first-time buyers. Controls on rent rises for private renters- Suspend the right to buy until councils can prove they have a plan to replace homes- Scrap the bedroom tax and reverse decision to abolish housing benefit for 18-21 year olds
Analysis:- The pledge to build 1m new homes a year is ambitious and tackles head-on Labour’s concerns that housebuilding has fallen under the Tories.
Environment(Conservative) - Meet 2050 carbon reduction objective and take action against poor air quality- Develop the shale industry, legislate to change planning law for fracking applications, and set up a shale environmental regulator, with more tax revenues going to communities that host extraction sites
Analysis:- There is only a brief mention of air pollution and the Conservatives are the only main party to support fracking, controversial among environmentalists.
(Labour)- Ensure UK meets its climate change targets and transitions to a low-carbon economy- Ban fracking, stay committed to renewable energy projects, support further nuclear projects, and introduce a new Clean Air Act to deal with illegal air quality
Analysis:- Environmentalists welcome Labour’s vision for a sustainable energy system that bans fracking and shows commitment to the Clean Air Act
Foreign and Defence(Conservative)- Continue to help maintain the UN and Nato- Meet Nato target of at least 2% of GDP on defence and increase budget by at least 0.5% above inflation in every year of the new parliament- Retain Trident, invest £178bn in new military equipment for the armed forces over the next decade, and complete the Astute class of hunter-killer submarines
Analysis:- May commits to playing a leading role in Nato and maintaining ability for future interventions, placing emphasis on “special relationship” with the US
(Labour)- Put conflict resolution and human rights at the heart of foreign policy- Back effective action to alleviate the refugee crisis- Commit to spending at least 2% of GDP on defence- Support the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent
Analysis:- The manifesto does not promise to scrap Britain’s nuclear deterrent but Corbyn’s refusal to guarantee he would press the nuclear button reduces its value in the eyes of some. However, many people oppose the renewal of Trident.
Hope that was of some help! A lot of this is either directly from manifestos or from other UK resources. So, some of this is my own words but a lot is as exactly you should find it in manifestos or other sources. i.e. no exaggerations.
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The Wellness Economy Is Taking Over The World (And Influencing CRE)
This post originally appeared on Southpace Blog and is republished with permission. Find out how to syndicate your content with theBrokerList.
Most people equate “wellness” with a lifestyle; a term associated with holistic health choices that impact our overall physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, and social well-being. However, recent commercial trends have transformed the concept of wellness into more than mere personal life practices. The last few years have brought with it a meteoric rise in the “wellness industry:” a comprehensive and robust vertical dedicated entirely to businesses that promote and support consumers’ virtually insatiable demand for health services and products.
Global Wellness Economy On The Rise, With No Signs Of Slowing
A thriving wellness economy has proven to be far more than just a U.S. trend. Recent statistics show that this industry has demonstrated feverish growth in a relatively short time span on a global scale. According to the 2018 Global Wellness Economy Monitor, in just two years, the worldwide wellness industry grew by 12.8%, expanding from a 3.7 trillion dollar market in 2015 to 4.2 trillion dollars in 2017. The report goes on to predict that the market surge is far from over, projecting that this international vertical will increase by over 35% between 2017 and 2022 for a market total of 5.6 trillion dollars.
The upswing in wellness-based initiatives and campaigns has stretched across brands of every size and scope, with various industry giants (think the like Coca Cola and P&G) going outside their usual consumer offerings to include healthful, natural, and/or organic in their product lines. Yes, fitness, food and beverage, and cleaning brands may all seem like logical participants in the wellness economy trend. However, the vertical has also influenced a mix of both traditional and unconventional industries, including:
• Athleisure & Apparel • Active Nutrition • Corporate Wellness • Sleep • Travel • Beauty & Personal Care
From gyms and fitness apps to boutique apparel and organic snacks, U.S. consumers are integrating health-centric products into their daily lives in a multitude of ways.
Commercial Real Estate Investors Embrace Wellness Economy
Commercial real estate is another industry directly impacted by the increasing popularity of the U.S. wellness vertical. Over the last several years, the commercial real estate sector has been directly influenced by health patterns, practices, and trends, on multiple levels. Corporate investors and landlords, fully aware of the rapid increase in need for commercial space suited to health-centric businesses have jumped onboard to outfit their buildings to accommodate the operational requirements of various industry tenants in the fitness, retail, manufacturing, warehouse, and nutrition verticals.
The holistic health industry has also seeped over into office properties as well as more consumers demand wellness benefits at their place of business – and more employees are committed to providing them. A 2016 report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce indicated that not only are 87% of employers focused on health in the office but also 73% of these employers offer a wellness program to staff members.
Statistics like these provide several distinctive opportunities for commercial property investors and landlords. Building out office space to accommodate unique features like in-company massages, yoga classes, and meditation rooms can help drive tenant occupancy levels and overall rental rates with companies looking to make healthy routines part of their employees’ at-work experience. Additionally, simply investing in commercial real estate in close proximity to designated wellness companies and brands can also drive profitability for landlords. Finding well-appointed buildings near natural and organic restaurants, fitness facilities, and even nearby outdoor community green spaces can all influence a potential renter’s ultimate decision when signing a lease contract.
Finally, commercial real estate investors have also recognized the direct connection between the wellness economy and smart building innovation. Leveraging state-of-the-art, Internet of Things (IoT) technology, can help landlords and business owners tap into big data intelligence on a myriad of components such as air quality, natural lighting levels, and pollution levels. By using smart building innovation to monitor and adjust these factors as needed, landlords can potentially help lower stress levels, boost morale, and provide an overall healthier environment to renters.
Connect With A Southpace Properties Broker Today
Are you considering a commercial real estate investment in the health and wellness vertical? Southpace Properties can help. Contact our team of veteran commercial broker today to hear more about the impact this booming industry is having on corporate facilities on a global scale.
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