Best Of

Mel & Nige on Twix:-

This is fantasy economics. Tens of billions in unfunded pledges. Anyone can promise giveaways, but responsible government means not making commitments you can’t keep.

Reform would do exactly what Labour have done - pretend that there are no tough choices, then break every promise
https://x.com/MelJStride/status/1921216191063896389

I don’t usually respond to minor parties.

But we will take no lessons from the very same people who tripled the national debt in 14 years.

The Tory betrayal is such that I very much doubt you will keep your seat at the next general election.
https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1921262811176477146

The ad hominem nature and whataboutery of Farage's response if of course understandable. But it doesn't advance the argument unless it also manages to give a realistic account of how their policies balance the books. They can't because they don't, and they don't because they can't. Reform's agenda involves people's lives and UK's future. The Economist this week draws attention to the same problem.

The stupid home Secretary, wet lettuce cooper, has instantly caused a massive crisis in the UK care industry. You can’t just switch off immigration like a tap that shouldn’t be on - how many zillion care homes now close? where do their customers go other than the NHS bed blocking? What now happens to NHS and hospital and treatment waits thanks to this stupid policy decision?

THERES CONSEQUENCES TO JUST SUDDENLY SWITCHING OFF IMMIGRATION WITHOUT WARNING TO INDUSTRIES.

Not least the horrendous damage of your actual actions not meeting your policy announcements.

Health and Social Care is done up here in the Lothians no matter what. You can't get care workers out to certain postcodes - on the edge of Edinburgh because of distance, or in the centre of Edinburgh because they can't get parked. When they are in place, they might be booked to spend an hour with a service user - assessed on need - but they have to leave within 20 minutes because they're double or triple=booked over the course of that hour. Beds in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital were closed but there was no corresponding uptick of community support. It's toast.

I was discussing this with some nurses last week - their observation was that that 10 or 15 years ago, people employed in the care sector were there for years and years and built up a skill base, but that's no longer the case. To be honest, non-EU immigration has had a negative impact on that element of it all. But I'm very negative for the future of Health and Social Care here until someone finds a way to fund it.

The stupid home Secretary, wet lettuce cooper, has instantly caused a massive crisis in the UK care industry. You can’t just switch off immigration like a tap that shouldn’t be on - how many zillion care homes now close? where do their customers go other than the NHS bed blocking? What now happens to NHS and hospital and treatment waits thanks to this stupid policy decision?

THERES CONSEQUENCES TO JUST SUDDENLY SWITCHING OFF IMMIGRATION WITHOUT WARNING TO INDUSTRIES.

Not least the horrendous damage of your actual actions not meeting your policy announcements.

Care homes pre-dated these visas and they'll survive past them too. Last data I've seen showed shows that 88% of employees in care homes are British anyway.

Supply and demand may mean that wages need to rise beyond minimum wage to fill vacancies. Oh dear, how sad, nevermind.

You havn’t provided any answers to social care crisis in your pirate response.

The Boris, Truss and Sunak governments were not nearly stupid enough to do something as stupid as what Labour announced today - switching off immigration whilst there is a need for it. The last government are known as stupid and unelectable for putting out vibes they would switch the gushing immigration off, whilst actually doing the opposite. Labour have so quickly shredded themselves by making the same mistakes, trapping themselves between fantasy and reality.

To be tough on immigration you first need to get in place mitigation for all immigration you don’t really need. No other way of doing it. Labour have kicked sorting social care crisis into the long grass, just like, for all their bluster, the Conservatives did.

This bolsters what an awful week it’s been for this Labour government. This little period of getting themselves caught with rhetoric they can’t deliver on, caught in no man’s land between EU and Trump on trade, is defining why they lose the next election.

Among the economically active nine million adults of working age is or are a significant cohort claiming to be "carers" - perhaps 1.5 million or more.

It's clear a number of these carers want to work but it's not easy for them to find work in environments where workstyle practices are rigidly based on office attendance and a 9-5 working week. Indeed, it's often local councils (which provide a lot of part time work) who end up employing carers who do a few hours each week of work from home providing, for example, administrative support for a team of care workers.

Unfortunately, we now have these buffoons from Reform who are so virulently anti-WFH they will drive these carers out of work simply because they can't get to an office or a workplace.

We need to put an end to this nonsense of "presentism" as the only way to work and we also need to see far more private companies employing carers - perhaps we should adopt a quota approach as we do for people with disabilities.

I've been struck by the disconnect between the 'so many workshy people' stories and then what I see both as someone recruiting and just regular people on social media (especially the young trying to find job).

We are now seeing 50-100 applicants for posts that would have had 5-10 before. And there are a lot of people almost throwing the towel in trying to find jobs. This one showed up recently and sounded authentic from the original post to a lot of 'yup - same for me' replies :

https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/1kd1a8e/job_hunting_in_glasgow_and_the_uk_feels_like_the/