[Politics] Labour manifesto 2024

[Seagull58]

It's a quite superb manifesto, probably in my top 3 Labour manifesto's of the 21st century.

Not as good as the 1983 one though, surely?

 

[Jimmy Grimble]

£46.5k was the median teachers salary in 2023 (Sauce OSR, using pension scheme data for all 469k teachers).

But there was an anecdote (from @vegster I think) a while back that some devious heads/governors manipulate out perfectly good teachers at the top of pay scales.

Pay Scales (England)

The latest teachers' pay scales for England and academy trusts that follow the NASUWT’s pay policy.

www.nasuwt.org.uk

46.5k is the maximum experienced teachers can earn (outside London).

What has happened to teacher pay in England? | Institute for Fiscal Studies

Most teachers are likely to see a 5% real-terms fall in salaries this school year. This comes on top of past real-terms falls dating back to 2010.

ifs.org.uk

Real term cuts for a long time.

Not saying it will happen but certainly wouldn’t rule out strikes, especially with the possibility of teachers seeing a new government as a softer touch who might look to improve the relationship with the public sector.

 

[Weststander]

Pay Scales (England)

The latest teachers' pay scales for England and academy trusts that follow the NASUWT’s pay policy.

www.nasuwt.org.uk

46.5k is the maximum experienced teachers can earn (outside London).

What has happened to teacher pay in England? | Institute for Fiscal Studies

Most teachers are likely to see a 5% real-terms fall in salaries this school year. This comes on top of past real-terms falls dating back to 2010.

ifs.org.uk

Real term cuts for a long time.

Not saying it will happen but certainly wouldn’t rule out strikes, especially with the possibility of teachers seeing a new government as a softer touch who might look to improve the relationship with the public sector.

Working back on their 2022 numbers, would £32k be a typical teachers salary in 2010?

 

[B-right-on]

I think if you expect a political party to come in and make your life wonderful, then you’re expecting too much.

I was born at night, but it wasn't last night. I'll settle for not trying to ferk it up, that'll be a start.

 

[NorthstandRacoon]

Not building in the south east but building in the north is certainly NIMBYism - it's a textbook definition

Maybe I am too young to know the meaning

 

[HeaviestTed]

Not building in the south east but building in the north is certainly NIMBYism - it's a textbook definition

I don’t think asking people to not build in my back yard is NIMBYism to be fair.

 

[HeaviestTed]

Disingenuous? To say that Labour's plans are really bad, and also that all the parties are the same (so please don't bother to vote; and let me sneak down to the polling station when you aren't looking, and put a sly X by the name of the Tory candidate)? Gaslighting? Bullshit? Sneakiness?

Surely not

“All the parties are the same” I hate this - it seems people have heard it so much they believe it.

 

[rippleman]

Without wishing to appear contrary.....I saw a grant application to the British Heart Foundation about 5 years ago from a medic who wanted their salary paid for as part of a 3 year research programme they wanted funded. The total cost of the project would have been about £2 million over 3 years. The salary component was over £200K a year. And this medic wasn't even that 'senior'.

Given that the 'junior' doctors do most of the work, they should be paid much more, and as a consequence they might behave with a bit more gravitas. I'm not impressed with the 'young' ones (age 30-40) I interact with. Ambitious, disorganized, unimaginative, unreliable.....and most moonlighting at private clinics.

But all that said, the patriarchal system (promotion if your face fits) I saw 35 years ago seems thankfully to have disappeared.

You raise an interesting point regarding the "moonlighting at a private clinic". Just how much of an adverse impact does this have on the NHS?

My brother-in-law needed "non-urgent" surgery. "Non-urgent" in that it wasn't a life-threatening illness but was causing a huge amount of pain and discomfort. His consultant said the NHS wait was at least 6 months followed by "but if you come to my private clinic I can do it next Thursday".

The taxpayer provides the resources and a lot of the training for doctors through the NHS. But then it seems that as soon as they can they abandon the NHS to line their pockets in the private sector. This "two-tier" health service clearly isn't working.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

You raise an interesting point regarding the "moonlighting at a private clinic". Just how much of an adverse impact does this have on the NHS?

My brother-in-law needed "non-urgent" surgery. "Non-urgent" in that it wasn't a life-threatening illness but was causing a huge amount of pain and discomfort. His consultant said the NHS wait was at least 6 months followed by "but if you come to my private clinic I can do it next Thursday".

The taxpayer provides the resources and a lot of the training for doctors through the NHS. But then it seems that as soon as they can they abandon the NHS to line their pockets in the private sector. This "two-tier" health service clearly isn't working.

This hits the nail on the head. My old boss needed knee surgery. The consultant he saw at Guy's said 18 months. So he looked up a private surgery, and found himself in a plush suite in The Shard. "We can do it in 6 weeks", he was told. By the same surgeon he saw a week earlier at Guy's.

Yes, NHS doctors moonlight in private practice. And they use NHS facilities to do the work. There is no operating theatre in The Shard. The hospital gets a slice and of course the consultant makes a mint. And the patient jumps the queue, and the physician and the operating theatre are not available while the private work is undertaken.

This arrangement was set up because Labour had to compromise with shirty physicians when they created the NHS back in the 1940s.

The exact details may be slightly different from what I describe (I am not a physician) but the gist of it is fact.

 

[Wes Tupper]

Anything on leasehold reforms?

 

[Me Atome]

This hits the nail on the head. My old boss needed knee surgery. The consultant he saw at Guy's said 18 months. So he looked up a private surgery, and found himself in a plush suite in The Shard. "We can do it in 6 weeks", he was told. By the same surgeon he saw a week earlier at Guy's.

Yes, NHS doctors moonlight in private practice. And they use NHS facilities to do the work. There is no operating theatre in The Shard. The hospital gets a slice and of course the consultant makes a mint. And the patient jumps the queue, and the physician and the operating theatre are not available while the private work is undertaken.

This arrangement was set up because Labour had to compromise with shirty physicians when they created the NHS back in the 1940s.

The exact details may be slightly different from what I describe (I am not a physician) but the gist of it is fact.

Well, yes and no... Not sure how correct you are about private clinics using NHS facilities, my understanding is that it's more (but not always) the other way round. But regardless of that, my question would be about the efficiency of the use of those facilities. If the NHS surgeons do 4 operations in a day, and the private surgeons (possibly the same surgeons) do 8 in a day, then actually we are all better off because the efficiency of the private system moves the queue quicker.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Well, yes and no... Not sure how correct you are about private clinics using NHS facilities, my understanding is that it's more (but not always) the other way round. But regardless of that, my question would be about the efficiency of the use of those facilities. If the NHS surgeons do 4 operations in a day, and the private surgeons (possibly the same surgeons) do 8 in a day, then actually we are all better off because the efficiency of the private system moves the queue quicker.

I am correct about the first part.

Regarding the second part, if the NHS buys services from the private sector (and it does, but not hugely), the NHS (i.e., the taxpayer) has to pay for it.

Regarding the third part, the NHS surgeons largely ARE the NHS surgeons. They use their chachet as NHS consultants to underpin their credentials as private practitioners. And the time they spend doing private practice is time not spent doing NHS work.