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Most unpopular PM in history fans please explain

No PM would be popular right now, especially so if they were trying to do the right thing and get the country back on track.

He has tried planning reform but effots appear to have stalled. He has tried welfare reform but ended up with a bill to spend more. What else is there? What is it that you think he is doing to get us 'back on track'?

FPT.

Planning hasn't stalled - its getting done by end of the year. Renters rights bill has passed - huge deal for people who rent (ie no one on this forum). Bringing railways back into public ownership. NHS waiting lists falling (not much but a little). Got onshore wind going again.

But the biggest thing i think is we have a sensible chancellor who is grappling with the difficult fiscal decisions rather than doing unfunded tax cuts and pretending all will be okay.

They completely messed up welfare reform though.

Lets see. As a (rare pb?) renter who supports rebalancing the relationship away from landlords to tenants, the renters rights bill seems like a mess. Taking a third of your parliamentary term to get planning changes through is stalling if you are committing to record housebuilding, and that is if does happen by the end of the year. And will the chancellor actually make some bold decisions and raise an extra £50bn+ or just tinker at the margins?

They have been far too timid and cautious which worked fine when seeking power but is a terrible strategy that pleases no-one when in government.

Thousands of NHS staff redundancies in England will now go ahead after a deal was reached with the Treasury to allow the health service to overspend this year to cover the cost of pay-offs.

The government said earlier this year 18,000 admin and managerial jobs would go with NHS England, the body that runs the NHS, being brought into the Department of Health and Social Care alongside cuts to local health boards.

NHS bosses and health ministers had been in talks with the Treasury over how to pay for the £1bn one-off bill with the health service wanting extra money.

The Treasury blocked that, but the BBC understands a compromise has been reached with the NHS permitted to overspend this year.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3w9y9dpv5qo

That's over £50k each.

How many workers in the rest of the economy would get that much for being made redundant.

How many of these NHS England redundant workers will then be get another job in the NHS ?

The jobs they are doing currently - do you really think they will all vanish?

There is a reason that a trope in Yes Minister is that reorganisations and mergers of departments are great, because it allows the head count to grow massively....

FWIW (and I am also sceptical), Streeting was claiming this morning that the £1bn upfront cost would save around £1bn annually in future years.

I am highly sceptical of the savings.

Both NHS England and ICB's* are losing 50% of their staff, and have known this all year. No one knows who or what roles, so it has been impossible to get anything done all year that requires input from these bodies. All the staff seem to be concentrating on their CVs and/or exit strategy, much as you would expect.

For example a project in my unit to shift a lot of work to community service has not made any progress in 6 months, despite it being more convenient for patients, reducing footfall on our major hospital sites, better quality control and also cheaper for the NHS. We need staff in NHSE and ICBs to make it happen.

* ICB is Integrated Care Board, the successor to Primary Commissioning Trusts, with added involvement of councils and a role in Social Care provision. Denuding them of staff is very likely to cause a lot of bed-blocking because of loss of that co-ordination. Cynically, I expect these bodies to be reinvented next year as a triumphant innovation to fix bed-blocking and Social Care.

Today is Veteran’s Day in the US, and so I would like to pay a small tribute to the veterans of World War II, with this reminder of how far they came:

That task had started with the 16 million men who registered for the draft in the fall of 1940, and who would expand Regular Army and National Guard divisions. By law, however,the draftees and newly federalized National Guard units were restricted to twelve months of service–and only in the western hemisphere or U. S. territories. Physical standards remained fairly rigorous; soon enough, the day would come when new recruits claimed the Army no longer examined eyes, just counted them. A conscript had to stand at least five feet tall and weigh 105 pounds; possess at least twelve of his natural thirty-two teeth; and be free of flat feet, venereal disease, and hernias.

There’s much more on attitudes (lousy) and equipment (“pathetic”).

pp. 8-9 in volume 1 of Rick Atkinson’s Liberation Trilogy

Most unpopular PM in history fans please explain

No PM would be popular right now, especially so if they were trying to do the right thing and get the country back on track.

He has tried planning reform but effots appear to have stalled. He has tried welfare reform but ended up with a bill to spend more. What else is there? What is it that you think he is doing to get us 'back on track'?

FPT.

Planning hasn't stalled - its getting done by end of the year. Renters rights bill has passed - huge deal for people who rent (ie no one on this forum). Bringing railways back into public ownership. NHS waiting lists falling (not much but a little). Got onshore wind going again.

But the biggest thing i think is we have a sensible chancellor who is grappling with the difficult fiscal decisions rather than doing unfunded tax cuts and pretending all will be okay.

They completely messed up welfare reform though.

The planning reforms have been amended away to nothing. There is no serious reform left.

Yes a bill might be done by the end of the year (which is too little, too late) but look at the bill and it is nothing credible.

A few powers handed to Mayors and . . . ??? Bugger all really.

The simple truth is Fear of Doing.

The government can use primary legislation to fiat into existence new towns, reservoirs etc. But they won't.

They could announce the end of leasehold by lunchtime. But they won't.

The government is in office. But not in power.

Good morning

What a mess Labour are in with Starmer and Reeves making Truss look good and delivering a slow motion economic disaster and turning in on themselves

Many would sit back with a smug expression but not me

This is a deadly serious crisis for the country and we have 3 more years of it

What makes you think only 3 more years of it?

It is highly likely that the next government of any colour will struggle as much. The demographic challenges, the run down nature of all public services, the desolation of town centres, the stagnant productivity, the rule of the pluto-gerontocracy over the over-burdened young, the lack of any economic strength outside financial services in London, the military and environmental challenges etc.

None of these end when Starmer and Reeves go, to be replaced by Farage and Tice. Sure, we will fly a few more flags as the ship sinks ever lower in the water, but there won't be a magic cure. We are 10 years on from Farage's last magic cure of Brexit and look how that has improved the nation.

Now Labour have arrived at favouring tge WASPI women, they really have got to the "we'll just spaff public money on any old chancers" stage. Depressing it took less than 18 months. They just cannot say no.

To be fair, I *hope* that the WASPI review will be 'yes, we have now looked at the new information - as we are required to do - but no, there is no change to the decision'.

But I may just be being overly optimistic.

Politically it's probably better for this government to let the judicial review run with the likely finding that the pension age increase implementation was illegal, even though it will cost more than to compensate WASPI now.

Which is what your "yes, we have now looked at the new information - as we are required to do - but no, there is no change to the decision" actually means, and why they might do it.

Sorry, how would they find the Implementation was illegal when WASPI have lost every previous court case and the ombudsman spoke about maladministration only over a decade after the law was changed ?

It also said it was only a recommendation, it could not compel the govt, and there was no obligation on the govt to tell people about changes to the benefit system

My pension age has changed twice. I’ve had no letter. Am I entitled to a handout