beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 36,025
[Politics] Tory meltdown finally arrived [was: incoming]...
- Thread starter TomandJerry
- Start date
Got something to say or just want fewer pesky ads? Join us... 😊
mikeyjh
Well-known member
That's quite the pompous and preposterous statement. Governments across the whole world run on party politics that may not be the 'right' thing but it's a fact. In our own parliament, what's the alternative? 650 independents all with their own priorities and agendas?!?
For what it's worth, I'm a Labour party member and voter because they are the party that most closely reflect my values, they always have and most likely always will. I'm more in the Corbyn camp than the Starmer but he is the leader so we support him and fight on.
cjd
Well-known member
I wasn't wanting a political discussion. I just merely wanted to ascertain that DRS-Burnley ( as usual) was talking from his arse.
My eldest daughter is a senior nurse in A & E, so I,m fully ware of the difficulties that nurses face.
A discussion about the difficulties that nurses, the population, and the Government face at the time, is never helped when utter nonsense is spouted.
It helps no-one.
nicko31
Well-known member
- Oct 12, 2022
- 2,701
You don’t create growth by impoverishing large swathes of the population or starving public institutions of resources. People need money in their pockets to be able to spend, and institutions need the resources to function or they affect other parts of the economy.
There is no successful example, anywhere, of an economy thriving on impoverishing its workers, or allowing them to languish on waiting lists for treatment that would allow them to return to work.
Private sector pay rises are up around 8% - I completely understand why public sector workers who’ve had below inflation pay rises for years are saying no to offers between 2% and 4%. The NHS needs funding, and jobs like nursing and being a GP need to be made attractive enough to lure and retain skilled staff. That might mean a return to bursaries for nursing, and a removal of the need to run GP surgeries like small businesses, for GPs. The old GP model where you had a family doctor who knew you and your history worked.
What we have at present, frankly doesn’t.
cjd
Well-known member
...and in your opinion, who is responsible for that waste and where is the money ending up?
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 36,025
big jump from observation by how much health budget has changed to growth. the data shows public spending has increased, just not increased much above inflation. the question is where does the money get allocated, and no one wants to ask or dig into that.
Nobby
Well-known member
- Sep 29, 2007
- 2,893
Maybe a little tongue in cheek?
I want my children and grandchildren to live in a country that looks after it’s old, sick and impoverished
And to be able to get old or sick without worrying whether they will have the care they will need.
They know not to get old or sick or poor in this country — the people who run it don’t care a jot about them at all and haven’t for nearly a third of my kids lives
So maybe you had the right idea getting out
- Oct 12, 2022
- 2,701
It is a jump, but to my mind the connection is indisputable. I also happen to think people would like NHS spending breakdowns to be dug into, but are perhaps concerned about their own competence to read reports /statements correctly, fear that deliberate malfeasance will have been obscured from public view anyway, and lack the power to ask follow-up questions to the institutions involved.
This is where we need fewer anger-stoking “feature” journalists giving opinions, and more rock-solid data journalists deep-diving into the records. At present ‘our’ press appears largely a propaganda operation for billionaire non-doms.
Agree that we need to look at where and how we’re spending funds (we’re mid-table for per capita spending on health among OECD nations, yet have services in permacrisis) but this highlights the modern Conservative Party’s longstanding inability to run anything competently. They alway want power, but have no sense or pragmatism, and are wedded to viewing everything through an ideological lense.
Let’s end the long-term neglect of frontline staff, and make roles such as nurse and GP coveted again, both by better working practices, and increased remuneration.
You need to get the idea that I’m a labour supporter out of your head. I’m a supporter of getting a party into power that has a chance of not doing as much damage as the current government. The most realistic chance of that is Labour or a Labour coalition.
At this point it’s damage limitation.
nicko31
Well-known member
Speaking of Johnson, I see we're all picking up his legal bill for him to defend himself.
Can't he fund it out of the bit of moonlighting he did in the US recently?
Partygate: ministers accused of writing ‘blank cheque’ for Boris Johnson legal bills
Exclusive: Cabinet Office to extend contract with law firm to defend claims ex-PM misled parliament, sources say
www.theguardian.com
Catching up on a few days, so here's a chain of quotes all sort of loosely following a topic I'm interested in...
^ Current crisis has been made a lot worse by the preceding decade plus of Tory policy failures. Successive Tory governments have left us with an NHS that had no headroom capacity to handle an emergency (of any type). That included ignoring advice from their own health emergency simulations that clearly identified risk areas that became reality when Covid arrived. Similar story when it comes to Ukraine - this crisis was always coming eventually after Tory-led UK and global allies completely failed to do anything meaningful to deter Putin after the Crimea annexation. Ultimately, though, what the Ukraine crisis has done is expose structural problems in our energy markets that have existed for a long time and could have been addressed sooner (ideally as part of moving the UK economy onto a future-facing footing instead of trying to continue to rely on the existing traditional UK economic format).
As for Labour's solution? I'm sure we'll hear more on this in the coming year and a bit as we move towards the next election. They're keeping their powder dry for now, in the most part, but they have put forward, or strongly backed (to the point the Tories were forced to respond) policies such as:
- Windfall tax was pushed by Labour (although, IIRC, it was the Lib Dems and Greens who first put it forward). Tories borrowed the idea, but implemented it late, half-arsed, and so leaky they've had to have a second go at it (and I think it's still half-arsed and leaky).
- Proposed launching a green / sustainable national energy provider. While stopping short of full re-nationalisation, I very much like the idea they've proposed here as long as it is done alongside restructuring the energy markets so they're future-facing and no longer explicitly designed to prop-up fossil fuel based energy producers.
^ Well said, really. The proof of the damage that Brexit has done to the UK economy is starting to become obvious now. Things like investment into the UK economy completely stagnating after the Brexit vote after a long and sustained period of continuous growth. Things like constantly tinkering with the NHS structures such that while headline budgets look fine, beneath the surface it's a service that's in crisis and completely starved of funding where the funding is needed: there's a reason the NHS is so badly understaffed and those issues pre-date Covid by years. I watched and listened in absolute shock and horror when the Nightingale hospitals were proposed (and built, at great cost) - because I knew (my wife works in the NHS, originally as a community nurse, and then in research) as soon as I saw it that it was a complete non-starter because the NHS simply didn't have the staff to be able to make them operational. The NHS ended up in that situation because of a series of poor Tory policy decisions made over successive governments, starting with Cameron (it was one of those policy decisions that prompted my wife to move out of community nursing and into research instead, the long term repercussions of that policy being what we see today with hospitals unable to discharge patients back into the community).
^ Great British Energy: https://labour.org.uk/press/keir-st...-create-jobs-and-deliver-energy-independence/
Lot of detail still needing to be sorted out on this, but for the above proposal to work they'll also need to restructure the energy markets. Currently prices are set by whichever generation method is the most expensive [gas]. The market needs to be decoupled from that, allowing the now-much-cheaper green power generation to set prices independently of fossil fuel generation. I would also argue the existing contracts that set a maximum profit for green suppliers (with any excess caused by the market rate being set by more expensive gas being sent direct to government) also needs to be looked at: it's a system that has the potential to stifle investment into further improving the technologies and bringing down costs further, because there is no incentive to bring down costs if your profits are capped and you're hitting those caps already.
^ Yep. #1, I think, is something we'll hear a lot more about in the next 12-18 months. There's a lot more detail needed, but IMO it's the sort of thing we need to see more of. Future-facing policy that should help start to align the UK economy with what it will need to be in the future instead of sticking with the same tired old industries.
#2 - I'd like to see Labour be a bit bolder on this. The signs are there that public opinion is starting to shift when it comes to Brexit. I think it's beginning to dawn on the smarter Brexit supporters that the big benefits they were promised won't be realised, and that what was denounced as "Project Fear" is starting to be shown in metrics that can't be ignored (eg reduced investment in UK economy since the 2016 vote, post-covid economic growth in the UK lagging behind other EU nations, UK being hit harder than EU by Ukraine crisis, etc)
^ No, but he did give BJ's other favourite deflection tactic a roll out. Apparently we'd still be in lockdown under a Labour government
. Surely the Tories realise how nonsensical that argument is today?
^ It isn't about budget, it's about political interference in how the NHS is run and how the politicians have dictated the budget can be spent. The Tories have overseen a decade of declining staff numbers and escalating vacancies. It's very much at the point where the NHS cannot run proper merit-based hiring to fill roles. And for many of the staff, there is no incentive for them to perform at their best day-in, day-out, because they know that a) their managers can't afford to lose them because hiring in a replacement is so difficult, and b) even if they do find themselves in a position where they need to leave their current role they'll be snapped up pretty darn quick for another role elsewhere. And c) any staff who show any signs of competence whatsoever find themselves promoted too high too fast (either within their current structure to replace someone who has retired, or by continuously applying for new roles at a higher banding that are easily found because of the staffing crisis).
^ Tories have been screwing them for over a decade. From policy decisions that have substantially reduced the intake of new nurses each year, to austerity induced "pay restraint", to unnecessary structural tinkering that caused a lot of highly experienced community nurses to take early retirement or move out of community into other areas (as my wife did) and leaving the community side of the NHS unable to take the pressure off the hospitals.
^ Well said. Unfortunately the only thing I'm seeing from the Tories is that the only thing they seem to be able to focus on is trying to create growth out of the existing economy, while simultaneously starving it of any funding. At least Labour are showing some green shoots of thinking about what a future-facing economy for the UK should look like. We need to encourage investment in technologies that will support a sustainable, ecologically friendlier, UK economy in the long term. And while we're at it find a way for existing industries to either transition gradually to the new economy, or provide them with a soft landing via controlled obsolescence.
^ Current crisis has been made a lot worse by the preceding decade plus of Tory policy failures. Successive Tory governments have left us with an NHS that had no headroom capacity to handle an emergency (of any type). That included ignoring advice from their own health emergency simulations that clearly identified risk areas that became reality when Covid arrived. Similar story when it comes to Ukraine - this crisis was always coming eventually after Tory-led UK and global allies completely failed to do anything meaningful to deter Putin after the Crimea annexation. Ultimately, though, what the Ukraine crisis has done is expose structural problems in our energy markets that have existed for a long time and could have been addressed sooner (ideally as part of moving the UK economy onto a future-facing footing instead of trying to continue to rely on the existing traditional UK economic format).
As for Labour's solution? I'm sure we'll hear more on this in the coming year and a bit as we move towards the next election. They're keeping their powder dry for now, in the most part, but they have put forward, or strongly backed (to the point the Tories were forced to respond) policies such as:
- Windfall tax was pushed by Labour (although, IIRC, it was the Lib Dems and Greens who first put it forward). Tories borrowed the idea, but implemented it late, half-arsed, and so leaky they've had to have a second go at it (and I think it's still half-arsed and leaky).
- Proposed launching a green / sustainable national energy provider. While stopping short of full re-nationalisation, I very much like the idea they've proposed here as long as it is done alongside restructuring the energy markets so they're future-facing and no longer explicitly designed to prop-up fossil fuel based energy producers.
^ Well said, really. The proof of the damage that Brexit has done to the UK economy is starting to become obvious now. Things like investment into the UK economy completely stagnating after the Brexit vote after a long and sustained period of continuous growth. Things like constantly tinkering with the NHS structures such that while headline budgets look fine, beneath the surface it's a service that's in crisis and completely starved of funding where the funding is needed: there's a reason the NHS is so badly understaffed and those issues pre-date Covid by years. I watched and listened in absolute shock and horror when the Nightingale hospitals were proposed (and built, at great cost) - because I knew (my wife works in the NHS, originally as a community nurse, and then in research) as soon as I saw it that it was a complete non-starter because the NHS simply didn't have the staff to be able to make them operational. The NHS ended up in that situation because of a series of poor Tory policy decisions made over successive governments, starting with Cameron (it was one of those policy decisions that prompted my wife to move out of community nursing and into research instead, the long term repercussions of that policy being what we see today with hospitals unable to discharge patients back into the community).
^ Great British Energy: https://labour.org.uk/press/keir-st...-create-jobs-and-deliver-energy-independence/
Lot of detail still needing to be sorted out on this, but for the above proposal to work they'll also need to restructure the energy markets. Currently prices are set by whichever generation method is the most expensive [gas]. The market needs to be decoupled from that, allowing the now-much-cheaper green power generation to set prices independently of fossil fuel generation. I would also argue the existing contracts that set a maximum profit for green suppliers (with any excess caused by the market rate being set by more expensive gas being sent direct to government) also needs to be looked at: it's a system that has the potential to stifle investment into further improving the technologies and bringing down costs further, because there is no incentive to bring down costs if your profits are capped and you're hitting those caps already.
^ Yep. #1, I think, is something we'll hear a lot more about in the next 12-18 months. There's a lot more detail needed, but IMO it's the sort of thing we need to see more of. Future-facing policy that should help start to align the UK economy with what it will need to be in the future instead of sticking with the same tired old industries.
#2 - I'd like to see Labour be a bit bolder on this. The signs are there that public opinion is starting to shift when it comes to Brexit. I think it's beginning to dawn on the smarter Brexit supporters that the big benefits they were promised won't be realised, and that what was denounced as "Project Fear" is starting to be shown in metrics that can't be ignored (eg reduced investment in UK economy since the 2016 vote, post-covid economic growth in the UK lagging behind other EU nations, UK being hit harder than EU by Ukraine crisis, etc)
At least he didn't say 'under Jeremy Corbyn...' like he usually does
^ No, but he did give BJ's other favourite deflection tactic a roll out. Apparently we'd still be in lockdown under a Labour government
. Surely the Tories realise how nonsensical that argument is today?^ It isn't about budget, it's about political interference in how the NHS is run and how the politicians have dictated the budget can be spent. The Tories have overseen a decade of declining staff numbers and escalating vacancies. It's very much at the point where the NHS cannot run proper merit-based hiring to fill roles. And for many of the staff, there is no incentive for them to perform at their best day-in, day-out, because they know that a) their managers can't afford to lose them because hiring in a replacement is so difficult, and b) even if they do find themselves in a position where they need to leave their current role they'll be snapped up pretty darn quick for another role elsewhere. And c) any staff who show any signs of competence whatsoever find themselves promoted too high too fast (either within their current structure to replace someone who has retired, or by continuously applying for new roles at a higher banding that are easily found because of the staffing crisis).
^ Tories have been screwing them for over a decade. From policy decisions that have substantially reduced the intake of new nurses each year, to austerity induced "pay restraint", to unnecessary structural tinkering that caused a lot of highly experienced community nurses to take early retirement or move out of community into other areas (as my wife did) and leaving the community side of the NHS unable to take the pressure off the hospitals.
^ Well said. Unfortunately the only thing I'm seeing from the Tories is that the only thing they seem to be able to focus on is trying to create growth out of the existing economy, while simultaneously starving it of any funding. At least Labour are showing some green shoots of thinking about what a future-facing economy for the UK should look like. We need to encourage investment in technologies that will support a sustainable, ecologically friendlier, UK economy in the long term. And while we're at it find a way for existing industries to either transition gradually to the new economy, or provide them with a soft landing via controlled obsolescence.
Mellor 3 Ward 4
Well-known member
How does someone square the circle of being 'more in the Corbyn camp than the Starmer' but is a a multiple homeowner/landlord ?
Machiavelli
Well-known member
Great post. I will add that one of the posts you were responding to pointed out that NHS spending over the past decade has grown by 32% 'in real terms'. It really hasn't. The figures quoted of from £115bn to £152bn refer to the actual amount, which has basically been swallowed up by inflation (bar the odd bit of fire-fighting thrown in). So the 'real' budget has remained more or less where it is over the past decade. And this is in spite of the fact that the demand on the NHS increases by 4% on average each and every year. In other words, the NHS has been tasked with doing more with (what transpires to be) less. And this is the primary reason the NHS is in crisis (there are obviously others).Catching up on a few days, so here's a chain of quotes all sort of loosely following a topic I'm interested in...
^ Current crisis has been made a lot worse by the preceding decade plus of Tory policy failures. Successive Tory governments have left us with an NHS that had no headroom capacity to handle an emergency (of any type). That included ignoring advice from their own health emergency simulations that clearly identified risk areas that became reality when Covid arrived. Similar story when it comes to Ukraine - this crisis was always coming eventually after Tory-led UK and global allies completely failed to do anything meaningful to deter Putin after the Crimea annexation. Ultimately, though, what the Ukraine crisis has done is expose structural problems in our energy markets that have existed for a long time and could have been addressed sooner (ideally as part of moving the UK economy onto a future-facing footing instead of trying to continue to rely on the existing traditional UK economic format).
As for Labour's solution? I'm sure we'll hear more on this in the coming year and a bit as we move towards the next election. They're keeping their powder dry for now, in the most part, but they have put forward, or strongly backed (to the point the Tories were forced to respond) policies such as:
- Windfall tax was pushed by Labour (although, IIRC, it was the Lib Dems and Greens who first put it forward). Tories borrowed the idea, but implemented it late, half-arsed, and so leaky they've had to have a second go at it (and I think it's still half-arsed and leaky).
- Proposed launching a green / sustainable national energy provider. While stopping short of full re-nationalisation, I very much like the idea they've proposed here as long as it is done alongside restructuring the energy markets so they're future-facing and no longer explicitly designed to prop-up fossil fuel based energy producers.
^ Well said, really. The proof of the damage that Brexit has done to the UK economy is starting to become obvious now. Things like investment into the UK economy completely stagnating after the Brexit vote after a long and sustained period of continuous growth. Things like constantly tinkering with the NHS structures such that while headline budgets look fine, beneath the surface it's a service that's in crisis and completely starved of funding where the funding is needed: there's a reason the NHS is so badly understaffed and those issues pre-date Covid by years. I watched and listened in absolute shock and horror when the Nightingale hospitals were proposed (and built, at great cost) - because I knew (my wife works in the NHS, originally as a community nurse, and then in research) as soon as I saw it that it was a complete non-starter because the NHS simply didn't have the staff to be able to make them operational. The NHS ended up in that situation because of a series of poor Tory policy decisions made over successive governments, starting with Cameron (it was one of those policy decisions that prompted my wife to move out of community nursing and into research instead, the long term repercussions of that policy being what we see today with hospitals unable to discharge patients back into the community).
^ Great British Energy: https://labour.org.uk/press/keir-st...-create-jobs-and-deliver-energy-independence/
Lot of detail still needing to be sorted out on this, but for the above proposal to work they'll also need to restructure the energy markets. Currently prices are set by whichever generation method is the most expensive [gas]. The market needs to be decoupled from that, allowing the now-much-cheaper green power generation to set prices independently of fossil fuel generation. I would also argue the existing contracts that set a maximum profit for green suppliers (with any excess caused by the market rate being set by more expensive gas being sent direct to government) also needs to be looked at: it's a system that has the potential to stifle investment into further improving the technologies and bringing down costs further, because there is no incentive to bring down costs if your profits are capped and you're hitting those caps already.
^ Yep. #1, I think, is something we'll hear a lot more about in the next 12-18 months. There's a lot more detail needed, but IMO it's the sort of thing we need to see more of. Future-facing policy that should help start to align the UK economy with what it will need to be in the future instead of sticking with the same tired old industries.
#2 - I'd like to see Labour be a bit bolder on this. The signs are there that public opinion is starting to shift when it comes to Brexit. I think it's beginning to dawn on the smarter Brexit supporters that the big benefits they were promised won't be realised, and that what was denounced as "Project Fear" is starting to be shown in metrics that can't be ignored (eg reduced investment in UK economy since the 2016 vote, post-covid economic growth in the UK lagging behind other EU nations, UK being hit harder than EU by Ukraine crisis, etc)
^ No, but he did give BJ's other favourite deflection tactic a roll out. Apparently we'd still be in lockdown under a Labour government
^ It isn't about budget, it's about political interference in how the NHS is run and how the politicians have dictated the budget can be spent. The Tories have overseen a decade of declining staff numbers and escalating vacancies. It's very much at the point where the NHS cannot run proper merit-based hiring to fill roles. And for many of the staff, there is no incentive for them to perform at their best day-in, day-out, because they know that a) their managers can't afford to lose them because hiring in a replacement is so difficult, and b) even if they do find themselves in a position where they need to leave their current role they'll be snapped up pretty darn quick for another role elsewhere. And c) any staff who show any signs of competence whatsoever find themselves promoted too high too fast (either within their current structure to replace someone who has retired, or by continuously applying for new roles at a higher banding that are easily found because of the staffing crisis).
^ Tories have been screwing them for over a decade. From policy decisions that have substantially reduced the intake of new nurses each year, to austerity induced "pay restraint", to unnecessary structural tinkering that caused a lot of highly experienced community nurses to take early retirement or move out of community into other areas (as my wife did) and leaving the community side of the NHS unable to take the pressure off the hospitals.
^ Well said. Unfortunately the only thing I'm seeing from the Tories is that the only thing they seem to be able to focus on is trying to create growth out of the existing economy, while simultaneously starving it of any funding. At least Labour are showing some green shoots of thinking about what a future-facing economy for the UK should look like. We need to encourage investment in technologies that will support a sustainable, ecologically friendlier, UK economy in the long term. And while we're at it find a way for existing industries to either transition gradually to the new economy, or provide them with a soft landing via controlled obsolescence.
The most respected healthcare thinktank, the King's Fund, said as much earlier this week:
Decade of neglect means NHS unable to tackle care backlog, report says
Exclusive: Government-commissioned paper pinpoints budget squeeze as key reason for service’s loss of capacity
www.theguardian.com
dsr-burnley
Well-known member
- Aug 15, 2014
- 2,633
"In real terms" means adjusted for inflation. The 2013-14 budget would have been £90-odd billion, which adjusted to today's prices becomes £115 billion.
Here's the actual spending by NHS England 2013-14, and it was £94.6 billion. See page 135.
Last edited:
dsr-burnley
Well-known member
- Aug 15, 2014
- 2,633
It really has. Bodian has helpfully posted the actual graph above that makes that clear.
dsr-burnley
Well-known member
- Aug 15, 2014
- 2,633
That's my point. They have thrown vast amounts of money at the NHS and it has gone to the wrong places.
aolstudios
Well-known member
That description fits some of the loudest Corbynites on soc media, as it goes