UK Conservative Party Leadership Election

[ChopleyIOM]

Don't worry folks, any year now!

It's almost as if, and we have to consider the possibility here, they're just a bit shit at running the country.

 

[Siohmy]

Daily Express putting guessing on the front page as facts? They’ll be telling us we’re in for a record breaking cold winter next (or have they already done that this season?). Always miss that issue of the paper. As dependable as the Christmas edition of the Radio Times.

 

[mack341]

I'm not quite sure when The Sun think they're going with this, 'Everything is absolutely crap, the country's fucked, Rishi will put it right'.

It'd maybe get some traction if the Tories hadn't been in power for twelve (now going into thirteen!) uninterrupted years at this point.

BORIS BOOSTERISM, that's what the UK needs, like the amazing Brexit he BOOSTED the country into and immediately lopped 5% off our GDP, forever. (Or until the mistake is corrected.)

This is the problem the Tories have now, there's no one else left to blame, it's the UK in ruins, and them having quite clearly been in the driver's seat all along, as we go into year thirteen of their disastrous rule. Alas for them they couldn't do what Thatcher did and sell off all the family silver to raise a pile of cash, because it turns out you can only sell all that shit once.

Anyway, happy new year, at least in another two years this shower of calamitously incompetent, corrupt and cruel clowns will be out the door.

View attachment 177952

I don't normally read the sun and had low hopes for this piece, but it's a decent write-up, I think even getting 1 thing done would start to bring back a bit of confidence.

 

[goatwack]

I don't know about everyone else, but Rishi Sunak foreshadowing good times ahead imbues me with a sense of calm, and most of all, hope.

Who can honestly sit there and say our futures aren't rosier with him at the helm? If he handles the economy as well as he handles a contactless payment card then roll on 2023!

 

[interlog]

The 'social contract' regarding housing is quite simply down to the fact demand has far outstripped supply due to one thing and one thing only - the massive poulation increase that successive governments of all colours have allowed to happen using various excuses to try and justify them abrogating responsibility. Some fools will say 'well build more' but we simply don't have room and there is a quite understandable reluctance to concrete over green land plus new housing for purchase will simply mirror the unaffordable levels of now. Accommodation is the biggest expense of any family over a lifetime and when this rockets, everything else shrinks accordingly.

"Build more" is not just the houses, it is the infrastructure that goes with it. Schools, hospitals to name a few. Growing population costs the country.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

But build it we must, the UK has an ageing population and we're not having enough babies (the IOM also has exactly the same problem BTW, albeit on its own smaller scale). You can't have a society comprised entirely of middle aged people and pensioners, that shit just doesn't work, unless financially comfortable folks in their 40s, 50s and 60s (and older) are volunteering en masse to work in the hospitality sector, care sector, retail sector and so on? Maybe dunover would like to go and help pick all that fruit that's rotted in UK fields this year because there was no one to pick it?

The IOM is planning to grow its population from 84,000 to 100,000 by 2037, as a percentage increase, that's huge, and the government recognises all the challenges that will bring to the island, its structures and its infrastructure, but it also recognises that if it does nothing, we're kind of just going to get old and die out, you can't run a society entirely on retirees who expect the best of healthcare, nice restaurants to eat at, well staffed and stocked shops and supermarkets, and all the other things that make the wheels of life turn, if there are no young folks to do any of it. (And yes, that means immigration, with the best will in the world, me and Mrs Chopley's days of procreation are behind us, and we're really not alone.)

It's a tough conversation for sure, but refusing to have it won't help.

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[dunover]

But build it we must, the UK has an ageing population and we're not having enough babies (the IOM also has exactly the same problem BTW, albeit on its own smaller scale). You can't have a society comprised entirely of middle aged people and pensioners, that shit just doesn't work, unless financially comfortable folks in their 40s, 50s and 60s (and older) are volunteering en masse to work in the hospitality sector, care sector, retail sector and so on? Maybe dunover would like to go and help pick all that fruit that's rotted in UK fields this year because there was no one to pick it?

The IOM is planning to grow its population from 84,000 to 100,000 by 2037, as a percentage increase, that's huge, and the government recognises all the challenges that will bring to the island, its structures and its infrastructure, but it also recognises that if it does nothing, we're kind of just going to get old and die out, you can't run a society entirely on retirees who expect the best of healthcare, nice restaurants to eat at, well staffed and stocked shops and supermarkets, and all the other things that make the wheels of life turn, if there are no young folks to do any of it. (And yes, that means immigration, with the best will in the world, me and Mrs Chopley's days of procreation are behind us, and we're really not alone.)

It's a tough conversation for sure, but refusing to have it won't help.

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The same old false logic, flawed arguments. So your 16000 extra mouths to feed, what happens in a few decades when they are all 60-70? 'Oh, lets immigrate another 10,000 people to help provide for their needs too' and so the lunatic cycle of spiralling population and costs begins. Immigration does NOT grow wealth, merely the turnover of the economy. In fact, GDP per head in the UK has stagnated or fallen with the increase in population - this is the same myth Sturgeon is trying to peddle to the Scots.

What if these migrants work for just one generation then their offspring decide not to integrate or work? What about the social issues it will cause? The feeling of overcrowding, loss of identity, pressures on the infrastructure? The figures you quote are about 19% increase in less than 20 years, not far off what England has had and look how that's worked out. Look how it's worked out in other European countries. A rise in the size of the economy with decreasing income per capita and irreversible social issues and strife.

And how the hell did the industrialized countries ever survive before mass immigration?

Yeah, I'll trade my country's future and social cohesion for waiting 1 minute less at the counter in MacDonald's or Greggs. Perhaps the IoM can take 16k of the UK's 1.5m unemployed

 

[ChopleyIOM]

It's not about the queue at McDonald's being a bit longer than we'd like, it's about our critical and other services/industries being desperately short of staff.

For example in the health and care sectors there are currently over 200,000 vacancies in the UK, nearly 150,000 vacancies in the hospitality sector, 125,000 in the professional and scientific sectors, and so on.

You can't just look at the numbers and say 'Oh well we've got 1.5m unemployed so if you add it up we've got enough unemployed people to do all these jobs, so put them to work'.

Not withstanding the fact that a lot of unemployed people are in that situation for all kinds of reasons, (ill health, be it physical and/or mental, disability, they're carers, or whatever), they may also be in the wrong parts of the country compared to where the jobs are, or be completely unsuited and/or unqualified for the jobs. (What do you want to do to fill the nursing vacancies? Pick random names off the benefits claimant lists?)

The UK has a massive problem with workforce sickness at the moment, massively exacerbated by appalling numbers of unfilled posts within the health service so people can't get the treatment they need to get them back to working fitness, where do you think those jobs are going to be filled from? We used to do a lot of it from within the UK but, and you're not gonna believe this because I know it sounds crazy, the Tories have massively cut funding for doctor and nurse training, as well as their effective salaries over the last twelve years, so we're kind of fucked.

Seriously, what's your big plan then? The UK's population is ageing, it isn't breeding even nearly enough just to replace itself (2.1 children per couple is required), it already has a massive problem with unfilled jobs and it's only going to get worse as time goes on. That isn't sustainable, you reach a point where society literally ceases to function, the NHS is perilously close to that point already, where are you going to magic up all the workers from?

 

[mack341]

Didn't Hungary come up with some strategies to increase their birth rate, or at least keep it from dropping?

Looking around these days in my area, compared to previous times, I hardly see any elderly people. Teenagers shuffling around in silly skin tight trouserwear thousands!

 

[goatwack]

What looks silly about it?

Cooey!

 

[goatwack]

From projected Labour electoral landslides merely months ago, after the Cons' in-house Leadership fiasco(s), not to mention the Truss economic extirpation that 'misplaced' a few £billion, a new poll conducted by Focaldata is suggesting that a large swathe of purported Labour votes may now end up being shunted into the 'don't know' category.

Shows that three months is a long time in politics, and that Prime Ministerial calamitous era almost what seems like a lifetime ago. Yet with the economy somewhat steadying under Slick Rick it seems voters-in-waiting aren't too hasty in pledging their partisanship, or at the very least, Labour not taking any meaningful majority into next Government.

Polls are a fickle beast, and so I wouldn't go counting my chickens, as Brexit and Trump have proven. Yet with the General Election potentially still two years away, I expect more twists and turns, not to mention at least another three Prime Ministers!

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[ChopleyIOM]

From projected Labour electoral landslides merely months ago, after the Cons' in-house Leadership fiasco(s), not to mention the Truss economic extirpation that 'misplaced' a few £billion, a new poll conducted by Focaldata is suggesting that a large swathe of purported Labour votes may now end up being shunted into the 'don't know' category.

Shows that three months is a long time in politics, and that Prime Ministerial calamitous era almost what seems like a lifetime ago. Yet with the economy somewhat steadying under Slick Rick it seems voters-in-waiting aren't too hasty in pledging their partisanship, or at the very least, Labour not taking any meaningful majority into next Government.

Polls are a fickle beast, and so I wouldn't go counting my chickens, as Brexit and Trump have proven. Yet with the General Election potentially still two years away, I expect more twists and turns, not to mention at least another three Prime Ministers!

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This is the fine line Starmer has to tread, many Labour voters are frustrated by his timidity on Brexit (they want to see more on rejoining at least the Single Market and Customs Union), but the second he does that the Tories have their BREXIT BETRAYAL line and Farage will come crawling out from under his rock waving bottles of that fucking shit gin of his - and no one wants that.

The article you link there literally says the problem Starmer has with many Labour voters is they want him to be more forceful on rolling back some of the most damaging aspects of Brexit.

The idea is, I think, that Labour voters will vote Labour anyway, albeit unenthusiastically, and by not saying anything even remotely anti-Brexit, he'll get the (now not so) Red Wall back too, which he needs to win a general election. Unfortunately this is the shitness of our FPTP electoral system writ large.

My personal feeling is the Tories have fucked it now, I don't see what they can do to recover, the NHS and the economy are now the two biggest polling issues across the country, the Tories have always been weak on the NHS and now it's in absolute crisis mode, and the economy has been fucked on the Tories' watch (in no small part thanks to Brexit, which was also a Tory project) - so I think (hope!) they're done for at the next general election.

But you are quite right Mr Goaty, it isn't over until the Dimbleby sings!

 

[ChopleyIOM]

On that note, if you think the NHS's problem is that it's spending a few bob on 'woke' diversity officers, have a read of this.

 

[mack341]

On that note, if you think the NHS's problem is that it's spending a few bob on 'woke' diversity officers, have a read of this.

Every pound counts, if the core service the nhs provides [or supposed to provide] is underfunded then how can they afford to create management jobs such as 'director of lived experience' for 115k, head of diversity 72k etc.. plus all the gender realignment, persuading sorry counselling teenagers to consider whether they might be the opposite sex. It shows their focus and energy [the people managing the nhs service] is not on what it needs to be.

A lot of this is on the tories watch, the govt should say to each trust we're giving you x amount of money, which so much must be spent on nurses, x on ambulances etc..., you cannot just give woke activists and liberals a pot of money and say run that local health service for us please.

I like the principle of the NHS, but the continuous poor management and use of its budget will just further increase the bit by bit privatisation, and the trend towards that as the solution.

 

[dunover]

****

Not withstanding the fact that a lot of unemployed people are in that situation for all kinds of reasons, (ill health, be it physical and/or mental, disability, they're carers, or whatever), they may also be in the wrong parts of the country compared to where the jobs are, or be completely unsuited and/or unqualified for the jobs. (What do you want to do to fill the nursing vacancies? Pick random names off the benefits claimant lists?)

You've repeated that nonsense a few times before - ill health, mental health, disability etc. were squirreled away as a separate count under Nu Liebore's great statistical reshuffle and since then have grown to a horrifying 2.5m plus. The 1.5m unemployed are those declaring themselves available for work and thus fair game for my argument. Most jobs you cite as needing filling via migration are low or unskilled or can be done with basic qualifications and on-the-job training. All you need is about 1/4 of the 1.5m to be directed to work and made to take local job opportunities - that's not unfeasible or unreasonable, it still means over a million, or over 2/3 can blag their way out of working still.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

You've repeated that nonsense a few times before - ill health, mental health, disability etc. were squirreled away as a separate count under Nu Liebore's great statistical reshuffle and since then have grown to a horrifying 2.5m plus. The 1.5m unemployed are those declaring themselves available for work and thus fair game for my argument. Most jobs you cite as needing filling via migration are low or unskilled or can be done with basic qualifications and on-the-job training. All you need is about 1/4 of the 1.5m to be directed to work and made to take local job opportunities - that's not unfeasible or unreasonable, it still means over a million, or over 2/3 can blag their way out of working still.

Sounds like you've got it all worked out then old chap, we're now into year thirteen of Tory rule, so why haven't they done it? Write to your local MP and tell them you've sorted out the labour shortage, too many scroungers not doing jobs!

I get when Labour were in power you could say it's because they just love to have people living on benefits with their mobile phones and tellies and not starving to death and stuff, but c'mon man, thirteen years of Tory rule in and they're still just lounging around!

Rishi will sort it I'm sure.

 

[dunover]

Sounds like you've got it all worked out then old chap, we're now into year thirteen of Tory rule, so why haven't they done it? Write to your local MP and tell them you've sorted out the labour shortage, too many scroungers not doing jobs!

I get when Labour were in power you could say it's because they just love to have people living on benefits with their mobile phones and tellies and not starving to death and stuff, but c'mon man, thirteen years of Tory rule in and they're still just lounging around!

Rishi will sort it I'm sure.

Yes, 650 of them at last count.

Same reason Libore never did it - too easy to rely on unlimited immigration, less hard work and effort required.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Don't worry folks, any year now!

It's almost as if, and we have to consider the possibility here, they're just a bit shit at running the country.

View attachment 177957

Didn't last long.

 

[goatwack]

Sunak outlining his 'Vision for Britain' as I type!

So far, he's listed just about everything he wishes to achieve for the country, in the most generalized and vague way possible.

Five pledges have definitely been thrown out there, which include:

- Create jobs and that

- 'Fix' the NHS, bring down waiting times ?

- Bring down illegal 'migration'

- Something or other

- Can't remember, probably about gathering the armies of the unicorns to repel the forces of evil

Now he's going on about Education, and how instrumental it was in his upbringing, the type of education unattainable to most of the peasantry

But yeah, he's still going, recycling a lot of things we've all heard before about a million times, just better. And he's addressing the nation as though he's a children's story narrator! Hoh Lord have mercy!

 

[pinnit2014]

Pretty much invokes a roll of the eyes that even Harry would have approved of. I know they're not going to go into the Nitty Gritty as to 'how' but you'd be pretty bonkers to think that they have anything underpinning it But hey, it must be true.

When he says reducing WT's, probably means just dicking around with some of the numbers to then report: see, they've gone down! The data collection is quite hard to unpick but i think they've been increasing over the last 10 years so, you know.

I'd have more respect if he'd thrown in a: and we will give Snorky a 10000x on Bonanza, right at the end.

Quite interested to see if/what a Labour resurgence does up here: the SNP, pathetically, run with: You ended up with a Tory Govt that you didn't vote for etc so if Labour get in (and yes, IF - seen enough the last year to know Nik from BTG could become PM), it doesn't quite work.

Socialist Heavy v Socialist Lite: Smackdown*

*shudders

 

[Daavid63]

On that note, if you think the NHS's problem is that it's spending a few bob on 'woke' diversity officers, have a read of this.

So 46 million quid is a few bob eh!!....Commie propaganda at its finest. Anybody can google NHS DIVERSITY training and see the amounts ffs.

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I hear the Russians are looking for a few politically motivated people of the red persuasion to join Wagner, beats the IOM I would say.?

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Sunak outlining his 'Vision for Britain' as I type!

So far, he's listed just about everything he wishes to achieve for the country, in the most generalized and vague way possible.

Five pledges have definitely been thrown out there, which include:

- Create jobs and that

- 'Fix' the NHS, bring down waiting times ?

- Bring down illegal 'migration'

- Something or other

- Can't remember, probably about gathering the armies of the unicorns to repel the forces of evil

Now he's going on about Education, and how instrumental it was in his upbringing, the type of education unattainable to most of the peasantry

But yeah, he's still going, recycling a lot of things we've all heard before about a million times, just better. And he's addressing the nation as though he's a children's story narrator! Hoh Lord have mercy!

Here's the list.

Halving inflation is basically a slam dunk, as inflation is the measure of price increases from one year to the next, so unless we have another war in Ukraine (i.e. the same war carrying on doesn't count), or another Brexit (as the inflationary aspect of that is largely priced in now), then inflation will go down (and probably quite substantially) as a simple feature of basic economic mathematics - they know this of course, but make no mistake they'll take the credit for having 'fixed' it.

What won't happen of course is the 12-18 months we had of inflation running at ~10% being reversed, so all the price rises will stay, which means if your income wasn't going up by the rate of inflation for those 12-18 months, you're permanently worse off going forward.

As for the rest of it, absolute mumbo-jumbo and the kind of stuff you'd expect to have happened already after twelve thirteen continuous years of Tory rule. And Number 5, stopping the small boats eh? Good job by Brexit there then.

NHS waiting lists and the national debt have never been higher, so even if they partially succeed on either of those from where we are now, they're only (at the very best) repairing some of the massive amounts of damage they've done. It's like someone setting fire to your house and then expecting you to thank them for throwing a bucket of water on your kitchen extension.

You'll note the national debt was rising towards the end of Labour's time in power, but we had just suffered the global financial crash and that cost a lot of money to weather. All those years of austerity afterwards the Tories told us were needed to 'balance the books'? As you can see, they made it much worse.

 

[mack341]

You'll note the national debt was rising towards the end of Labour's time in power, but we had just suffered the global financial crash and that cost a lot of money to weather. All those years of austerity afterwards the Tories told us were needed to 'balance the books'? As you can see, they made it much worse.

So Labour are obviously natural born financial wizzkids compared to the tories, can you pinpoint a few of the significant things they did differently in the blair brown golden era to the last 12 years of tory rule? [brexit aside, and lockdown expenditure generally as labour supported the govt there]

Rishi's speech was a bit so-so, not sure he's even able to convince himself truly.

 

[Siohmy]

That speech was laughable. Almost as if he felt he had to say something for fear of going on a Truss like absence.
The pledge to half something which is almost certainly going to half anyway is top, taking us for suckers, territory.

 

[pinnit2014]

The pledges in the NHS go back to the default position of: increased funding. They've typically gone through periods, peaks and troughs of under/over investment (in certain areas) over the years and yet, here we are again, having the same conversation as before.

Of course funding is critical - there are funding calculations based on, for example, 2014 activity levels - which, even with an uplift and various iterations of government policies in the meantime, mean it's not sufficient enough to cover todays requirements. Not helped by the fact Govt's come out with: we've given an extra 10 billion which, taken the above into account, is actually a reduction - pick the bones out of that - we couldn't

Inefficiencies in the NHS - i wouldn't place all my apples in a barrel with that in terms of why some Boards perform better - it's a factor which you expect with a very large, bureaucratic organisation. We seen services claim they couldn't operate with a 7% shaving off their budget....roll forward 5 years and they were still going at the same level as before which naturally leads to a conclusion of: so what was that 7% doing. But, equally, only so much cream you can take off the top and to be fair to them they have engaged in getting better systems (resulting in the need for less staff) to help and have been forced (even though, legally, they don't need to present a balanced budget - which is mad)

Pretty binary thinking to believe it all sits with: shove more money into the pit but no political party wants to address the fundamental issue of addressing the feasibility of an organisation, built 70 odd years ago, in todays environment (longer living/population increases etc) and what possible future iterations of it could/should look like.

Back in N. Ireland, a small country to say the least, we had something like 5 Health Boards and 18 NHS Trusts. Oh the anger, from Unions as well, when they said that was too many. It then went to 1 and 5. Problem is there, whilst it resulted in savings there is the argument it was resulted in a deterioration of care

No ones had a magic wand to solve it and i doubt they will have when they pull my own plug from the wall

 

[ChopleyIOM]

So Labour are obviously natural born financial wizzkids compared to the tories, can you pinpoint a few of the significant things they did differently in the blair brown golden era to the last 12 years of tory rule? [brexit aside, and lockdown expenditure generally as labour supported the govt there]

Rishi's speech was a bit so-so, not sure he's even able to convince himself truly.

New Labour weren't amazing, for all the good stuff they did actually do, the way they did it could have been better and more sustainable. (i.e. The changes they made for the good were very easily reversed.)

There's a really good piece about it here which TBH explains it far better than I would, this is a somewhat critical analysis.

I have to say I'm not even remotely persuaded by much of what Starmer had to say today.

I know I'm a voice of one pissing in the breeze on this, but Corbyn was a genuine shot at a new way of running the UK's economy on a fairer and more redistributive footing that would have benefited most people to some reasonable extent or other.

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[pinnit2014]

Corbyn was never the future, he wasn't even the past.

My Dad was a big Trade Union man (though he subsequently bent to a bit of Thatcherism in his later days - in his words, probably through the lens of seeing people not being rewarded for their work and his dubious Irish views) and when i uttered his name you could see the contempt.

As a relatively comfortable household (Bonanza permitting) when we see the budgets offered up (Lab and Con) we look at it and go: what's there for me? Very little to be honest. Eg, we lose our jobs. What support is there? Literally nothing, apart from 70 quid JSA - and apart from some opaque 'advice' for dealing with it. We need to get away from thinking politics and economics is just about the bottom and top and realise there is a middle group who are increasingly disenfranchised by all main parties.

 

[mack341]

I think there is something toxic about the nhs management and system, the staff always seem demoralised, often reacting to questions and queries as though they just don't have the time for this and you've interrupted them like another demanding, nuisance patient. [that's a generalisation]

You have to wonder why the matron's culture was done away with and replaced by more middle management. [afaik] A bit like trying to run an army without sergeants.

The high point of matron was probably the mid-20th century, when she patrolled wards and ruled nurses, domestics, and patients with iron discipline - although rarely had any real power over the strategic running of the hospital.

In 1966, however, matron was abolished, as nursing fashion shifted to a less rigid and hierarchical approach.

 

[mack341]

Reading the BBC's writeup on Starmer's speech, contrary to Choppers I think he's making the right sounds, embracing brexit to some degree rather than giving any suggestion that he wants to tear it up. Sensible spending as well, whether he'd stick to these ideals is another matter, but today certainly won't harm his chance of becoming the next PM.

At the end of the day the better opposition you have, good ideas etc.. should lead to better govt by the ruling party, similar to companies with decent competition they have to raise their game.

 

[goatwack]

ChatGPT -

Scary, but accurate

(it's Kroffe's fault)

 

[dunover]

I know I'm a voice of one pissing in the breeze on this, but Corbyn was a genuine shot at a new way of running the UK's economy on a fairer and more redistributive footing that would have benefited most people to some reasonable extent or other.

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LOL...

So why did he deliver Labour's worst GE result in nearly 100 years?

Was is the fact he and his shower were absolutely hopeless at getting his message of economic utopia across or was it the fact he is a complete c*nt who resembled a 1970's scruffy lefty schoolteacher attending a CND rally?

Or was it him todaying up to vermin like Gerry Adams and Chavez? (a marxist dictator who managed in less than two decades to turn an oil-rich state into a subsistence one with starving children and a population fleeing over the borders en masse)

Kind of like you proposing Jimmy Savile should have been put in charge of the local Girl Guides because despite his known inherent dodginess, he did after all pledge to build them a new hut...

 

[pinnit2014]

I think there is something toxic about the nhs management and system, the staff always seem demoralised, often reacting to questions and queries as though they just don't have the time for this and you've interrupted them like another demanding, nuisance patient. [that's a generalisation]

You have to wonder why the matron's culture was done away with and replaced by more middle management. [afaik] A bit like trying to run an army without sergeants.

The high point of matron was probably the mid-20th century, when she patrolled wards and ruled nurses, domestics, and patients with iron discipline - although rarely had any real power over the strategic running of the hospital.

In 1966, however, matron was abolished, as nursing fashion shifted to a less rigid and hierarchical approach.

From working around the wards 2006-11 the reduction and removal of the old school Matrons, in terms of the running of the Wards and their cleanliness of such, was quite obvious. They ruled with somewhat of an iron rod but they were effective.

It was a very strict culture but it was effective - the getting in of private companies for things like cleaning was a major step backwards and those types of people have now retired

People go on, like Chopley, about young people filling these social care roles but it's very hit and miss. It has a low entrance level in terms of qualification and tbh it shows with some of their attitudes. A move from vocation to 'just a job' (which they may do half arsed) doesn't half show.

 

[pinnit2014]

ChatGPD -

Scary, but accurate

(it's Kroffe's fault)

View attachment 178227
View attachment 178228

It's unfair to say Choppers is from the IOM

He's clearly from Narnia

 

[dunover]

ChatGPD -

Scary, but accurate

(it's Kroffe's fault)

View attachment 178227
View attachment 178228

More from the same source @Kroffe and @goatwack found lol...

 

[Kroffe]

You guys need to stop tagging me.

Also.

 

[goatwack]

 

[Kroffe]

Someone should tell Rishi.

 

[goatwack]

 

[ChopleyIOM]

That speech was laughable. Almost as if he felt he had to say something for fear of going on a Truss like absence.
The pledge to half something which is almost certainly going to half anyway is top, taking us for suckers, territory.

Indeed, we have GARY calling out the nonsense 'pledge' on inflation. As he puts it, it's like pledging to increase temperatures by an average of ten degrees over the next six months. IT'S ABSOLUTELY GOING TO HAPPEN ANYWAY AND THERE IS NOTHING TO TAKE CREDIT FOR.

 

[goatwack]

Things going swimmingly in Sunak Land, as he held an emergency NHS Recovery Forum for the press to fawn over.

Chairing this meeting, we had him and a gaggle of health experts and cabinet ministers discuss the ailing NHS and how to tackle its many current problems going forward.

He also refused to state as to whether he actually uses private health care himself, which I think everyone kind of knows the answer to!

So, the PR machine rolls on, and all the 'right' things were said in front of the nation, instead of ceasing this desire to play hardball with the Unions and prolonging the country's suffering. From which, it has been rumoured, Mick Lynch is supposedly planning a GENERAL STRIKE action, the first in over a century!

So in view of that, Health Secretary Steve Barclay plans to move NHS beds into care homes, as part of an 'Emergency Winter Pressure Package', to the tune of £££millions ?

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[pinnit2014]

Same with the government's obsessions with delayed discharges (sounds good but the targets meant people were sent out of a hospital setting too soon in many cases) - it just creates additional pressure, on arguably the more strained community social care setting (to take these people earlier, on higher needs) and what doesn't happen? - there's no adequate transfer of budgets from the acute to the community: akin to passing a turd around on a game of pass the parcel.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

So, the PR machine rolls on, and all the 'right' things were said in front of the nation, instead of ceasing this desire to play hardball with the Unions and prolonging the country's suffering. From which, it has been rumoured, Mick Lynch is supposedly planning a GENERAL STRIKE action, the first in over a century!

Thank goodness Labour didn't get in or we'd have a load of strikes and industrial action. Or something. Winter of discontent anyone?

I'm entirely on the side of the workers/strikers in this, when you've got full time nurses using food banks inside the hospitals they work at, you know shit is fucked up.

Remember that Rishi Sunak is personally worth about seven hundred and fifty million quid, his father-in-law is a billionaire, if you're wondering whose side he's on.

The Tories hate the NHS on a fundamental level, when it's well funded and well managed, it's one of the best healthcare systems in the world, but it's an anathema to their mantra of 'the market always knows best', so now they are actively seeking to destroy it, whilst their compliant right-wing stooges in the media are like, 'LOOK OVER THERE, WILLIAM SLAPPED HARRY AND HARRY WAS USED AS A STALLION BY AN OLDER WOMAN WHO FUCKED HIM IN A FIELD'.

They only need to destroy the NHS once, and if they succeed, it will be lost forever.

 

[goatwack]

I agree with all of the above, but I think Liz Hurley's ruled herself out as having been that woman, so there is that

 

[pinnit2014]

It's a bit of a broad brush approach, though sensationalistic, using nurses using food banks as an example: i could claim the same of needing one and then when you ask me i say: Bonanza. Over-commitment on PCP deals? Lot more nuanced than 'i know nurses who use FB's'

 

[paul7388]

Oh seriously poor nurses using food banks. What about the millions of workers on minimum wage jobs actually bursting their arses every day just to try and survive many doing much more physically and mental challenges than the nurses.

Lets get it right. The NHS staff are no where near as poor as portrayed in the media. And if they are needing foodbanks then just think how bad of minimum wage workers are. You know those workers that have to go to work no matter how ill they are or all they would get would be SSP and no way to survive.

Fact is NHS staff get better benefits than most. 6 months full sick pay followed by 6 months half pay. 6 weeks holiday a year plus public holidays. A wage better than many and also time plus 40% for any unsociable hours which is classed as anything between 8pm and 6am plus a Saturday and nearly double time for every Sunday, Add that to enhanced pay plus a day in lieu if working a public holiday.

Yeah poor sods really are poorly paid, Sorry but to me many in NHS actually get paid to much for what they do. And it is a fact. Take my boy who is autistic. He has a job in NHS just working 5 hours a day on a Saturday and Sunday on lowest pay band. His hourly rate is about £15 an hour for his Saturday and nearly £20 an hour for the Sunday doing an unskilled job and thats the lowest pay they pay.

So without overtime and after deductions he clears nearly £700 a month for working 10 hours a week and also gets all the benefits like more holidays than most and if he phones in sick any weekend still gets full pay. Yeah poor NHS staff needing foodbanks. No wonder NHS is in a mess when even a receptionist, cleaner , porter etc. get £15 plus an hour on a Saturday and £20 an hour on a Sunday. think many workers doing harder jobs could only dream of wages like that.

 

[pinnit2014]

Said before in another thread, when i put an amount on it, i put as 10k all the perks you mentioned. I wish we'd get away with using certain public sector works as some sort of virtue beating sword to try and point score.

You forgot to mention they have non compulsory redundancies as one of their perks - try selling that to a private sector nursing company.

But yeah, sure, lets portray some sectors as being the hard done by ones even though, with pay scales fully public (including their increments), they're well aware of what they're getting into before they accept the job

My first full time job out of Uni was an entry level something like 12500 a year - student nurses average circa 26k? No foodbanks there even though according to some, i'd be doubling down on them on that salary

 

[goatwack]

And let's not talk about those transport- disruptors, the holy circle known as train drivers, and other associated TFL & co brethren, with many earning short of £100K p/a!

I think the NHS and nurses are held to some demiurge status, as opposed to many other workers, and have come to be revered as a result of us always being reminded of their worth. When relatively speaking, they're fairly adequately catered for (when they can find the time between posting Tik Tok dance routines, that is!)

Both sectors have hit the public in the balls and have coordinated their strikes at the most opportune time, which could almost be called 'convenient' and 'blackmail', given the highest demand at this time of year. Nor do I consider their proposed pay increases commensurate with everyone else's. Twenty percent?

Post Office workers aren't exempt from all this hullabaloo, but at least have a stronger case for action, as they bag around £25K a year, in all weathers, for what is basically a glorified, dog-swerving paper round, yet essential service nonetheless.....

 

[pinnit2014]

I was going to mention the train driver, mainly cos i know a TD who, despite being a qualified engineer, took it up because it paid more (with the overtime)

So, yeah, er, up the workers!

 

[mack341]

Thank goodness Labour didn't get in or we'd have a load of strikes and industrial action. Or something. Winter of discontent anyone?

I'm entirely on the side of the workers/strikers in this, when you've got full time nurses using food banks inside the hospitals they work at, you know shit is fucked up.

Remember that Rishi Sunak is personally worth about seven hundred and fifty million quid, his father-in-law is a billionaire, if you're wondering whose side he's on.

The Tories hate the NHS on a fundamental level, when it's well funded and well managed, it's one of the best healthcare systems in the world, but it's an anathema to their mantra of 'the market always knows best', so now they are actively seeking to destroy it, whilst their compliant right-wing stooges in the media are like, 'LOOK OVER THERE, WILLIAM SLAPPED HARRY AND HARRY WAS USED AS A STALLION BY AN OLDER WOMAN WHO FUCKED HIM IN A FIELD'.

They only need to destroy the NHS once, and if they succeed, it will be lost forever.

I agree re the distraction side of things, but the last part, surely the labour party if minded to could rebuild a destroyed nhs, it's not so magical and of the moment as to not be replicable.

It might even be better if it had to go through a 'baptism of fire' [to borrow a cm term] in order to work out and excise the problems.

Personally I think put the women's institute in total control for a year and it would be much better functioning organisation [this is an advance development of my matron theory!].

 

[pinnit2014]

Mack's embraced the Femme.