The most damaging part is not the strikes themselves, it's the fact they shine a light on how broken the health service and particularly emergency care are currently.
For the first time I can remember I've been thinking hard about what would happen if one of our family got into a situation where they needed an ambulance, for example if a child got Strep A sepsis. Knowing that if things go badly wrong there's a system waiting for you is one of those safety nets that it feels scary to have pulled away.
Emergency care is also different from elective care and more salient for wealthier voters. If you have insurance you can go private for a knee operation or hip replacement, but if you fall on a slippery front step and break your pelvis or suffer a brain haemorrhage then the NHS is your only option.
People are going to die, there are no winners from this.
I mat have to sedate my father as he is furious at the profession putting lives at risk.
The issue is the farcical request for 19%, they'd have many, many more supporters at 7%. At 19% their fight looks ideologically driven against the Tories. There's no government who would agree to those terms, not Tory nor Labour.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
That's the penny that still hasn't dropped yet. The strikes are just accelerating the inevitable unless pay rises to meet market expectations or labour supply is increased by other means.
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
People are going to die, there are no winners from this.
I mat have to sedate my father as he is furious at the profession putting lives at risk.
If you listen to the media, you'd think the profession is united in supporting the strikes. But my mum had surgery last week and the nurses at St Peters in Chertsey weren't going on strike. One of them told my mum that she "didn't believe in taking strike action".
I also think at 7% the strike would not be going ahead, the government would already have done the deal. Which, again, makes this look ideology driven by lefty unions.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
That's the penny that still hasn't dropped yet. The strikes are just accelerating the inevitable unless pay rises to meet market expectations or labour supply is increased by other means.
There is no magic nurse tree.
If you get rid of the university degree requirement there probably is, there's no practical benefit of nurses going to university.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
If nurses got a 19% payrise even private sector middle managers would think about retraining to become a nurse given the average private sector payrise now is 6% and the average full time nurse earns £37k and senior matrons earn £48k+
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
That's the penny that still hasn't dropped yet. The strikes are just accelerating the inevitable unless pay rises to meet market expectations or labour supply is increased by other means.
There is no magic nurse tree.
As I pointed out last week.
The nursing unions could and should point at that the actual cost to the nhs would be roughly neutral because the current lack of nurses means temporary workers are required to meet minimum standards at vast rates per shift (often £800+). From what I’m hearing locus hospital doctors can easily be on £2000 a shift at the moment.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
That's the penny that still hasn't dropped yet. The strikes are just accelerating the inevitable unless pay rises to meet market expectations or labour supply is increased by other means.
There is no magic nurse tree.
If you get rid of the university degree requirement there probably is, there's no practical benefit of nurses going to university.
Nurses still have to be trained, regardless of whether you call that training a degree or not.
- “Quite who will get the blame for what is happening hard to say at this stage but this is a real test for Sunak.”
A lot of politics is about picking the right allies and the right enemies. Sunak has chosen to ally himself with the devils and make enemies of the angels. That Starmer and Sunak are both inexperienced in this politics lark is becoming increasingly obvious.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
If nurses got a 19% payrise even private sector middle managers would think about retraining to become a nurse given the average private sector payrise now is 6%
Which would surely be a good thing, given the shortage of nurses.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
That's the penny that still hasn't dropped yet. The strikes are just accelerating the inevitable unless pay rises to meet market expectations or labour supply is increased by other means.
There is no magic nurse tree.
If you get rid of the university degree requirement there probably is, there's no practical benefit of nurses going to university.
Nurses still have to be trained, regardless of whether you call that training a degree or not.
I'm not suggesting no training, I'm suggesting shifting back to vocational and job based training for nursing with degrees reserved for nurse practitioners.
I also think at 7% the strike would not be going ahead, the government would already have done the deal. Which, again, makes this look ideology driven by lefty unions.
Don't most people understand that the 19 percent is an initial pitch to give room to move?
It's blooming obvious that the "right" answer is somewhere between 6 and 8 percent. But any union going in asking for 8 percent wouldn't be rewarded for reasonableness, it would be squeezed down to five.
I also think at 7% the strike would not be going ahead, the government would already have done the deal. Which, again, makes this look ideology driven by lefty unions.
Don't most people understand that the 19 percent is an initial pitch to give room to move?
It's blooming obvious that the "right" answer is somewhere between 6 and 8 percent. But any union going in asking for 8 percent wouldn't be rewarded for reasonableness, it would be squeezed down to five.
I also think at 7% the strike would not be going ahead, the government would already have done the deal. Which, again, makes this look ideology driven by lefty unions.
Don't most people understand that the 19 percent is an initial pitch to give room to move?
It's blooming obvious that the "right" answer is somewhere between 6 and 8 percent. But any union going in asking for 8 percent wouldn't be rewarded for reasonableness, it would be squeezed down to five.
Except 19% makes them look ridiculous. Even 10% would be seen as "sure, after COVID they probably deserve it". 19% looks ideologically driven by unions who want to bring down the Tory government.
I also think at 7% the strike would not be going ahead, the government would already have done the deal. Which, again, makes this look ideology driven by lefty unions.
In that case why is the government refusing to speak to the unions to get the 7% deal passed?
As a brexiteer surely you understand that the numbers at the beginning of a negotiation are only the starting point?
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
The Tory inability to understand elementary economics was in evidence via Isabel Euphemia Oakeshott‘s contribution: "I fundamentally don't believe in strikes.... you're entirely entitled to withdraw your labour, but don't expect a job at the end of it."
She doesn’t understand that skilled labour is in short supply, at least in the medium term. The words of someone who sells old rope and doesn’t understand that some workers actually provide valuable services.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
That's the penny that still hasn't dropped yet. The strikes are just accelerating the inevitable unless pay rises to meet market expectations or labour supply is increased by other means.
There is no magic nurse tree.
If you get rid of the university degree requirement there probably is, there's no practical benefit of nurses going to university.
Nurses still have to be trained, regardless of whether you call that training a degree or not.
I'm not suggesting no training, I'm suggesting shifting back to vocational and job based training for nursing with degrees reserved for nurse practitioners.
I wasn't implying that you were. I was just pointing out that whether you call it a degree or not, nurses still need training, and that training will be pretty much the same as the current nursing degree. The only significant difference would be that they wouldn't get a bit of paper with "Degree" written on it. Ideally they wouldn't have to pay for it either, but obviously that would cost the government money.
I also think at 7% the strike would not be going ahead, the government would already have done the deal. Which, again, makes this look ideology driven by lefty unions.
Don't most people understand that the 19 percent is an initial pitch to give room to move?
It's blooming obvious that the "right" answer is somewhere between 6 and 8 percent. But any union going in asking for 8 percent wouldn't be rewarded for reasonableness, it would be squeezed down to five.
Except 19% makes them look ridiculous. Even 10% would be seen as "sure, after COVID they probably deserve it". 19% looks ideologically driven by unions who want to bring down the Tory government.
Even an opening offer needs to be somewhat plausible, and 19% is not.
That said, I don't doubt the government will get the blame. Nurses arouse sympathy, in a way that train drivers do not.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
That's the penny that still hasn't dropped yet. The strikes are just accelerating the inevitable unless pay rises to meet market expectations or labour supply is increased by other means.
There is no magic nurse tree.
If you get rid of the university degree requirement there probably is, there's no practical benefit of nurses going to university.
Nurses still have to be trained, regardless of whether you call that training a degree or not.
I'm not suggesting no training, I'm suggesting shifting back to vocational and job based training for nursing with degrees reserved for nurse practitioners.
I wasn't implying that you were. I was just pointing out that whether you call it a degree or not, nurses still need training, and that training will be pretty much the same as the current nursing degree. The only significant difference would be that they wouldn't get a bit of paper with "Degree" written on it. Ideally they wouldn't have to pay for it either, but obviously that would cost the government money.
My point is that the degree requirement is a huge barrier for entry into a profession that doesn't necessarily require it. Same as policing, it doesn't necessarily require a degree and yet we have the barrier, in both fields there's a shortage of labour. We created a rod for our own back.
I also think at 7% the strike would not be going ahead, the government would already have done the deal. Which, again, makes this look ideology driven by lefty unions.
Don't most people understand that the 19 percent is an initial pitch to give room to move?
It's blooming obvious that the "right" answer is somewhere between 6 and 8 percent. But any union going in asking for 8 percent wouldn't be rewarded for reasonableness, it would be squeezed down to five.
Except 19% makes them look ridiculous. Even 10% would be seen as "sure, after COVID they probably deserve it". 19% looks ideologically driven by unions who want to bring down the Tory government.
Maybe it should make the nursing unions look ridiculous. (Though the supply-demand thing suggests otherwise.)
But as things stand, the polls show that the striking nurses have more support than the government.
And whilst having the government brought down by unions would be a bad thing as a general principle, I can imagine a fair few people responding to the premature collapse of this government with "oh well, never mind".
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
They get a non repayable 5k a year student grant, so £25k in debt assuming they manage as well as the average.
People are going to die, there are no winners from this.
I mat have to sedate my father as he is furious at the profession putting lives at risk.
The issue is the farcical request for 19%, they'd have many, many more supporters at 7%. At 19% their fight looks ideologically driven against the Tories. There's no government who would agree to those terms, not Tory nor Labour.
I saw a clip with Ian Hislop the other day, where he was saying the government has forgotten how strikes work since the 70s and 80s. Back then, unions went on strike, demanded whatever per cent, unions and government negotiated and they came to agreement.
Now, the unions have gone on strike, demanding whatever per cent, and the government are just saying ‘we can’t afford that, but we’re not negotiating, independent pay review, burble burble, wibble wibble’.
So, to me, there are two possible intentions at work. Either, the government does indeed have institutional amnesia - which I doubt - or they are happy to see the strikes because they see a double benefit: culture war bollocks, divide and conquer and continuing to run the NHS down so they can say it’s broken, we’re going to privatise it.
So they’re happy for people to die, for the country to continue to have shockingly bad healthcare for god knows how long, to pursue their ideological goals.
They’re a government of sociopaths. They figure they’ve got two years left in power, they’re intent on doing as much damage as they can. They’re happy to damage the country with their ideological Brexit, they’re happy to damage the country with their ideological desire to get rid of the NHS. And there’s the happy side effect of salting the ground so badly for Labour that, if they win next time, they’ll just be clearing up the Tory bin fire they’ll be bequeathed with.
This shower of shite are pound shop Trumps, gaslighting the public while they and their mates grift the country to the bone.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
The Tory inability to understand elementary economics was in evidence via Isabel Euphemia Oakeshott‘s contribution: "I fundamentally don't believe in strikes.... you're entirely entitled to withdraw your labour, but don't expect a job at the end of it."
She doesn’t understand that skilled labour is in short supply, at least in the medium term. The words of someone who sells old rope and doesn’t understand that some workers actually provide valuable services.
It's getting bloody odd when I'm a better constitutionalist, royalist and free marketeer than the resident village Tory.
I also think at 7% the strike would not be going ahead, the government would already have done the deal. Which, again, makes this look ideology driven by lefty unions.
Don't most people understand that the 19 percent is an initial pitch to give room to move?
It's blooming obvious that the "right" answer is somewhere between 6 and 8 percent. But any union going in asking for 8 percent wouldn't be rewarded for reasonableness, it would be squeezed down to five.
Seems pretty politically dumb not to be pulling out every stop to get a reasonable deal done which could be spun as a victory - ‘Look, those Marxist-Leninist unions wanted 19%, we’ve got them down to an entirely sensible 7%!’
The motley crew that is the current Conservative party still seem captured by the idea that conflict is the the only way to get things done. A long period in opposition may be the only cure, and even then..
I also think at 7% the strike would not be going ahead, the government would already have done the deal. Which, again, makes this look ideology driven by lefty unions.
Don't most people understand that the 19 percent is an initial pitch to give room to move?
It's blooming obvious that the "right" answer is somewhere between 6 and 8 percent. But any union going in asking for 8 percent wouldn't be rewarded for reasonableness, it would be squeezed down to five.
Except 19% makes them look ridiculous. Even 10% would be seen as "sure, after COVID they probably deserve it". 19% looks ideologically driven by unions who want to bring down the Tory government.
There would be no strikes if hundreds of thousands of ordinary, non-militant, men and women had not felt there was no other option. Politically-inspired cod-Thatcherism designed to appeal to the Tory base will not solve the problems. At some point, the government is going to have to put the country first.
I also think at 7% the strike would not be going ahead, the government would already have done the deal. Which, again, makes this look ideology driven by lefty unions.
Don't most people understand that the 19 percent is an initial pitch to give room to move?
It's blooming obvious that the "right" answer is somewhere between 6 and 8 percent. But any union going in asking for 8 percent wouldn't be rewarded for reasonableness, it would be squeezed down to five.
Except 19% makes them look ridiculous. Even 10% would be seen as "sure, after COVID they probably deserve it". 19% looks ideologically driven by unions who want to bring down the Tory government.
There would be no strikes if hundreds of thousands of ordinary, non-militant, men and women had not felt there was no other option. Politically-inspired cod-Thatcherism designed to appeal to the Tory base will not solve the problems. At some point, the government is going to have to put the country first.
I'm a public sector worker. Do you think I deserve a 7% pay rise?
People are going to die, there are no winners from this.
I mat have to sedate my father as he is furious at the profession putting lives at risk.
The issue is the farcical request for 19%, they'd have many, many more supporters at 7%. At 19% their fight looks ideologically driven against the Tories. There's no government who would agree to those terms, not Tory nor Labour.
I saw a clip with Ian Hislop the other day, where he was saying the government has forgotten how strikes work since the 70s and 80s. Back then, unions went on strike, demanded whatever per cent, unions and government negotiated and they came to agreement.
Now, the unions have gone on strike, demanding whatever per cent, and the government are just saying ‘we can’t afford that, but we’re not negotiating, independent pay review, burble burble, wibble wibble’.
So, to me, there are two possible intentions at work. Either, the government does indeed have institutional amnesia - which I doubt - or they are happy to see the strikes because they see a double benefit: culture war bollocks, divide and conquer and continuing to run the NHS down so they can say it’s broken, we’re going to privatise it.
So they’re happy for people to die, for the country to continue to have shockingly bad healthcare for god knows how long, to pursue their ideological goals.
They’re a government of sociopaths. They figure they’ve got two years left in power, they’re intent on doing as much damage as they can. They’re happy to damage the country with their ideological Brexit, they’re happy to damage the country with their ideological desire to get rid of the NHS. And there’s the happy side effect of salting the ground so badly for Labour that, if they win next time, they’ll just be clearing up the Tory bin fire they’ll be bequeathed with.
This shower of shite are pound shop Trumps, gaslighting the public while they and their mates grift the country to the bone.
BIB: Incredibly unlikely. As you surely know, the party with the biggest history of privatising the NHS is not currently in government.
So what, she also chose to give up being a working royal and do media interviews trashing the King and Prince and Princess of Wales
Clarkson is anyway employed by the Sun not the Royal Household, he is Murdoch's responsibility not theirs
Nothing to do with us, guv.
The British Establishment are currently proving that everything Diana Spencer and Meghan Markle said about Camilla Shand and her cronies was spot on.
No just proving leftists like you have always hated the Queen Consort and always will
I thought it was the leftie republicans who couldn't give a toss, and the rabid royalists who hated her guts over Diana Spencer?
No, polling shows Camilla is most popular with Tory supporters and Leavers but disliked by Labour voters, Meghan and Harry are most popular with Remainers and Labour supporters but hated by Tories and Leavers. It is a political divide and as Tories are most royalist it is Republicans who most dislike Camilla.
William and Kate are still popular with both Remainers and Leavers, Tories and Labour voters
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
The Tory inability to understand elementary economics was in evidence via Isabel Euphemia Oakeshott‘s contribution: "I fundamentally don't believe in strikes.... you're entirely entitled to withdraw your labour, but don't expect a job at the end of it."
She doesn’t understand that skilled labour is in short supply, at least in the medium term. The words of someone who sells old rope and doesn’t understand that some workers actually provide valuable services.
It's getting bloody odd when I'm a better constitutionalist, royalist and free marketeer than the resident village Tory.
He is essentially a tribalist. The constitution and the market are of only peripheral interest to him. Tribe = first Everything else = secondary
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
I'm not sure of this. Much of the nursing degree is undertaken in clinical settings - they are learning on the job. Nursing is also a much more highly skilled role than the day of Carry On Nurse etc. I generally tend to think of having better educated staff being a good thing.
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
People are going to die, there are no winners from this.
I mat have to sedate my father as he is furious at the profession putting lives at risk.
The issue is the farcical request for 19%, they'd have many, many more supporters at 7%. At 19% their fight looks ideologically driven against the Tories. There's no government who would agree to those terms, not Tory nor Labour.
I saw a clip with Ian Hislop the other day, where he was saying the government has forgotten how strikes work since the 70s and 80s. Back then, unions went on strike, demanded whatever per cent, unions and government negotiated and they came to agreement.
Now, the unions have gone on strike, demanding whatever per cent, and the government are just saying ‘we can’t afford that, but we’re not negotiating, independent pay review, burble burble, wibble wibble’.
So, to me, there are two possible intentions at work. Either, the government does indeed have institutional amnesia - which I doubt - or they are happy to see the strikes because they see a double benefit: culture war bollocks, divide and conquer and continuing to run the NHS down so they can say it’s broken, we’re going to privatise it.
So they’re happy for people to die, for the country to continue to have shockingly bad healthcare for god knows how long, to pursue their ideological goals.
They’re a government of sociopaths. They figure they’ve got two years left in power, they’re intent on doing as much damage as they can. They’re happy to damage the country with their ideological Brexit, they’re happy to damage the country with their ideological desire to get rid of the NHS. And there’s the happy side effect of salting the ground so badly for Labour that, if they win next time, they’ll just be clearing up the Tory bin fire they’ll be bequeathed with.
This shower of shite are pound shop Trumps, gaslighting the public while they and their mates grift the country to the bone.
Excellent insight into the current position compared with the 1970s.
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
I'm not sure of this. Much of the nursing degree is undertaken in clinical settings - they are learning on the job. Nursing is also a much more highly skilled role than the day of Carry On Nurse etc. I generally tend to think of having better educated staff being a good thing.
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Arguably we should go the other way. Want to be a doctor? First you have to train and serve as a nurse for three years.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
That's the penny that still hasn't dropped yet. The strikes are just accelerating the inevitable unless pay rises to meet market expectations or labour supply is increased by other means.
There is no magic nurse tree.
If you get rid of the university degree requirement there probably is, there's no practical benefit of nurses going to university.
I'm sorry but you are wrong on this. Do you understand how the nursing degree works? Its not 3 years in a lecture theatre.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
That's the penny that still hasn't dropped yet. The strikes are just accelerating the inevitable unless pay rises to meet market expectations or labour supply is increased by other means.
There is no magic nurse tree.
If you get rid of the university degree requirement there probably is, there's no practical benefit of nurses going to university.
Nurses still have to be trained, regardless of whether you call that training a degree or not.
I'm not suggesting no training, I'm suggesting shifting back to vocational and job based training for nursing with degrees reserved for nurse practitioners.
The nursing degree is to a very great extent trained in the clinic.
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
I'm not sure of this. Much of the nursing degree is undertaken in clinical settings - they are learning on the job. Nursing is also a much more highly skilled role than the day of Carry On Nurse etc. I generally tend to think of having better educated staff being a good thing.
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Also, a quick glance ate How to become a nurse indicates that there are indeed routes to nursing other than a nursing degree.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
You know that 19% is a bargaining mechanism starting point. Everyone does.
The Government would be better off accomodating the NHS workers and if union destruction is their manifesto, crush the rail workers.
I note all the PB Conservatives are falling into their 1980s Thatcherite line over this issue. Remember though, Thatcher picked and chose her battles.
Modern Tories often misunderstand what Margaret Thatcher was really like. She loved to come across as gung-ho, but in reality she was a careful and cunning strategist. She picked her fights extremely carefully. She would never have gone head to head with nurses FFS.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
That's the penny that still hasn't dropped yet. The strikes are just accelerating the inevitable unless pay rises to meet market expectations or labour supply is increased by other means.
There is no magic nurse tree.
If you get rid of the university degree requirement there probably is, there's no practical benefit of nurses going to university.
Nurses still have to be trained, regardless of whether you call that training a degree or not.
I'm not suggesting no training, I'm suggesting shifting back to vocational and job based training for nursing with degrees reserved for nurse practitioners.
I wasn't implying that you were. I was just pointing out that whether you call it a degree or not, nurses still need training, and that training will be pretty much the same as the current nursing degree. The only significant difference would be that they wouldn't get a bit of paper with "Degree" written on it. Ideally they wouldn't have to pay for it either, but obviously that would cost the government money.
My point is that the degree requirement is a huge barrier for entry into a profession that doesn't necessarily require it. Same as policing, it doesn't necessarily require a degree and yet we have the barrier, in both fields there's a shortage of labour. We created a rod for our own back.
Is shortage of police due to the degree requirement? I thought it was budgetary over the last decade (now being reversed).
So what, she also chose to give up being a working royal and do media interviews trashing the King and Prince and Princess of Wales
Clarkson is anyway employed by the Sun not the Royal Household, he is Murdoch's responsibility not theirs
Nothing to do with us, guv.
The British Establishment are currently proving that everything Diana Spencer and Meghan Markle said about Camilla Shand and her cronies was spot on.
No just proving leftists like you have always hated the Queen Consort and always will
I thought it was the leftie republicans who couldn't give a toss, and the rabid royalists who hated her guts over Diana Spencer?
No, polling shows Camilla is most popular with Tory supporters and Leavers but disliked by Labour voters, Meghan and Harry are most popular with Remainers and Labour supporters but hated by Tories and Leavers. It is a political divide and as Tories are most royalist it is Republicans who most dislike Camilla.
William and Kate are still popular with both Remainers and Leavers, Tories and Labour voters
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
I'm not sure of this. Much of the nursing degree is undertaken in clinical settings - they are learning on the job. Nursing is also a much more highly skilled role than the day of Carry On Nurse etc. I generally tend to think of having better educated staff being a good thing.
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Arguably we should go the other way. Want to be a doctor? First you have to train and serve as a nurse for three years.
Medic training is also highly clinical. There is an emphasis on IPE (inter professional education) including with pharmacists. The system of training isn't broken, the salaries are.
I also think at 7% the strike would not be going ahead, the government would already have done the deal. Which, again, makes this look ideology driven by lefty unions.
Don't most people understand that the 19 percent is an initial pitch to give room to move?
It's blooming obvious that the "right" answer is somewhere between 6 and 8 percent. But any union going in asking for 8 percent wouldn't be rewarded for reasonableness, it would be squeezed down to five.
Except 19% makes them look ridiculous. Even 10% would be seen as "sure, after COVID they probably deserve it". 19% looks ideologically driven by unions who want to bring down the Tory government.
There would be no strikes if hundreds of thousands of ordinary, non-militant, men and women had not felt there was no other option. Politically-inspired cod-Thatcherism designed to appeal to the Tory base will not solve the problems. At some point, the government is going to have to put the country first.
There's a repeated pattern of the current government misinterpreting Thatcher and coming a cropper. I think that's the risk when you have a hero from a previous age, stripped of historical context and held up as an exemplar.
Thatcher in 1980s: stood up to the miners' strike after stockpiling coal reserves, with catastrophic consequences for mining communities but managing to weaken the grip of militant union power on the economy; Sunak in 2020s: let's do the same with Nurses and Paramedics in the middle of an unprecedented NHS crisis
Thatcher in 1980s: cut income and corporate taxes from previously high levels after raising VAT significantly and balancing the budget. Truss in 2020s: let's slash taxes across the board in an unfunded fashion
Thatcher in 1980s: reform financial services and consumer regulations from previously very restrictive post-war rules. Johnson, Truss and Sunak in 2020s: let's pretend to do the same from a completely different baseline in the middle of an existential climate crisis
Thatcher in 1980s: express concern about too much European integration in a speech in Bruges, after bringing the UK into the European single market and deepening integration over many years. Entire Tory party in 2010s and 2020s: let's make the most critical bits of that Bruges speech the basis for our entire philosophy on Europe
And finally, Thatcher in 1980s: strong willed, charismatic female prime minister. Tories in 2020s: let's appoint a female prime minister who looks and sounds a bit like Thatcher. Never mind the policies, that'll do the trick.
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
I'm not sure of this. Much of the nursing degree is undertaken in clinical settings - they are learning on the job. Nursing is also a much more highly skilled role than the day of Carry On Nurse etc. I generally tend to think of having better educated staff being a good thing.
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Also, a quick glance ate How to become a nurse indicates that there are indeed routes to nursing other than a nursing degree.
Nursing very much falls into the category of something which, if it requires education to do, the education for it ought to be paid by the state. No-one goes into nursing with the expectation of becoming a high-earner, nor takes a nursing degree with the motivation that three years education might be pleasant.
I wonder how many times a poster is allowed to post the same off-topic thing as an attempt to divert the conversation before the mods get involved.
Oh ye of short memories.
Who will ever forget the unsurpassed @JackW Ed Miliband riff. A guitar sole that echoed down the PB years. Perhaps 500 performances? Maybe double that.
I aim for the stars, but realise that I’ll never be as big a space cadet as the mighty Jacobite.
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
I'm not sure of this. Much of the nursing degree is undertaken in clinical settings - they are learning on the job. Nursing is also a much more highly skilled role than the day of Carry On Nurse etc. I generally tend to think of having better educated staff being a good thing.
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Also, a quick glance ate How to become a nurse indicates that there are indeed routes to nursing other than a nursing degree.
Yes degree apprenticeships are good. Not yet in place for pharmacy, but I think it will happen. You tend to take longer over the degree and are in work from day one.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
That's the penny that still hasn't dropped yet. The strikes are just accelerating the inevitable unless pay rises to meet market expectations or labour supply is increased by other means.
There is no magic nurse tree.
If you get rid of the university degree requirement there probably is, there's no practical benefit of nurses going to university.
Nurses still have to be trained, regardless of whether you call that training a degree or not.
I'm not suggesting no training, I'm suggesting shifting back to vocational and job based training for nursing with degrees reserved for nurse practitioners.
I wasn't implying that you were. I was just pointing out that whether you call it a degree or not, nurses still need training, and that training will be pretty much the same as the current nursing degree. The only significant difference would be that they wouldn't get a bit of paper with "Degree" written on it. Ideally they wouldn't have to pay for it either, but obviously that would cost the government money.
My point is that the degree requirement is a huge barrier for entry into a profession that doesn't necessarily require it. Same as policing, it doesn't necessarily require a degree and yet we have the barrier, in both fields there's a shortage of labour. We created a rod for our own back.
Is shortage of police due to the degree requirement? I thought it was budgetary over the last decade (now being reversed).
It’s budgetary but the police also offer degree apprenticeships so there is a free (paid even) way for non graduates to become police officers.
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
I'm not sure of this. Much of the nursing degree is undertaken in clinical settings - they are learning on the job. Nursing is also a much more highly skilled role than the day of Carry On Nurse etc. I generally tend to think of having better educated staff being a good thing.
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Arguably we should go the other way. Want to be a doctor? First you have to train and serve as a nurse for three years.
Medic training is also highly clinical. There is an emphasis on IPE (inter professional education) including with pharmacists. The system of training isn't broken, the salaries are.
Certainly no shortage of people who want to be doctors...
I wonder how many times a poster is allowed to post the same off-topic thing as an attempt to divert the conversation before the mods get involved.
It depends who they are but usually a very large number. How many thousands of times have we been subjected to CV's monomaniacal obession with the minute intersection of trans rights and Scottish politics.
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
I'm not sure of this. Much of the nursing degree is undertaken in clinical settings - they are learning on the job. Nursing is also a much more highly skilled role than the day of Carry On Nurse etc. I generally tend to think of having better educated staff being a good thing.
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Also, a quick glance ate How to become a nurse indicates that there are indeed routes to nursing other than a nursing degree.
Nursing very much falls into the category of something which, if it requires education to do, the education for it ought to be paid by the state. No-one goes into nursing with the expectation of becoming a high-earner, nor takes a nursing degree with the motivation that three years education might be pleasant.
Scotland still provides a bursary - not sure about Wales or NI. So how HMG in England does it is not immutable.
The government seems to want the strikes to happen as it believes they are a political opportunity. That will backfire.
I think so. Sunak is so bad at politics. He could have done a reasonable deal for the nurses and ambulance staff (more public sympathy) and gone hard with the RMT and posties (less public sympathy). He and the government would have looked better in the public's eyes. But he isn't good at politics.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
You know that 19% is a bargaining mechanism starting point. Everyone does.
The Government would be better off accomodating the NHS workers and if union destruction is their manifesto, crush the rail workers.
I note all the PB Conservatives are falling into their 1980s Thatcherite line over this issue. Remember though, Thatcher picked and chose her battles.
Modern Tories often misunderstand what Margaret Thatcher was really like. She loved to come across as gung-ho, but in reality she was a careful and cunning strategist. She picked her fights extremely carefully. She would never have gone head to head with nurses FFS.
I've said this before, but I think it bears repeating.
Maggie left office over thirty years ago, her finest hours were more like forty years ago.
We now have a generation of politicians whose only direct experience of Thatcher was seeing her on John Craven's Newsround, if that. And the real, interesting politician has been replaced by a cartoon.
It happens. But it causes people to have a funny idea about What Would Maggie Do?
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
I'm not sure of this. Much of the nursing degree is undertaken in clinical settings - they are learning on the job. Nursing is also a much more highly skilled role than the day of Carry On Nurse etc. I generally tend to think of having better educated staff being a good thing.
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Arguably we should go the other way. Want to be a doctor? First you have to train and serve as a nurse for three years.
Medic training is also highly clinical. There is an emphasis on IPE (inter professional education) including with pharmacists. The system of training isn't broken, the salaries are.
Certainly no shortage of people who want to be doctors...
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
I'm not sure of this. Much of the nursing degree is undertaken in clinical settings - they are learning on the job. Nursing is also a much more highly skilled role than the day of Carry On Nurse etc. I generally tend to think of having better educated staff being a good thing.
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Arguably we should go the other way. Want to be a doctor? First you have to train and serve as a nurse for three years.
Medic training is also highly clinical. There is an emphasis on IPE (inter professional education) including with pharmacists. The system of training isn't broken, the salaries are.
Certainly no shortage of people who want to be doctors...
6 figures average salary for GPs who are partners in medical practices and good pensions of course
Barely 6 figures. You're being misleading. You need also to allow for the fact that they are effectively cimpany directors. The *salary* for salaried GPs is much less, 2/3 I think.
I wonder how many times a poster is allowed to post the same off-topic thing as an attempt to divert the conversation before the mods get involved.
It depends who they are but usually a very large number.
Over the soon to be two decades that this obscure blog has existed, I can remember hundreds of attempts to counter off-topic posting. I have probably missed thousands more. Off-topic posting is the very heart of the blog. It has to be. A lot of the headers are total guff.
There is an analogy there with the Conservative Party. They’ve forgotten what their USP is too.
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
I'm not sure of this. Much of the nursing degree is undertaken in clinical settings - they are learning on the job. Nursing is also a much more highly skilled role than the day of Carry On Nurse etc. I generally tend to think of having better educated staff being a good thing.
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Arguably we should go the other way. Want to be a doctor? First you have to train and serve as a nurse for three years.
Medic training is also highly clinical. There is an emphasis on IPE (inter professional education) including with pharmacists. The system of training isn't broken, the salaries are.
Certainly no shortage of people who want to be doctors...
I also think at 7% the strike would not be going ahead, the government would already have done the deal. Which, again, makes this look ideology driven by lefty unions.
Don't most people understand that the 19 percent is an initial pitch to give room to move?
It's blooming obvious that the "right" answer is somewhere between 6 and 8 percent. But any union going in asking for 8 percent wouldn't be rewarded for reasonableness, it would be squeezed down to five.
Except 19% makes them look ridiculous. Even 10% would be seen as "sure, after COVID they probably deserve it". 19% looks ideologically driven by unions who want to bring down the Tory government.
There would be no strikes if hundreds of thousands of ordinary, non-militant, men and women had not felt there was no other option. Politically-inspired cod-Thatcherism designed to appeal to the Tory base will not solve the problems. At some point, the government is going to have to put the country first.
I'm a public sector worker. Do you think I deserve a 7% pay rise?
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
I'm not sure of this. Much of the nursing degree is undertaken in clinical settings - they are learning on the job. Nursing is also a much more highly skilled role than the day of Carry On Nurse etc. I generally tend to think of having better educated staff being a good thing.
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Arguably we should go the other way. Want to be a doctor? First you have to train and serve as a nurse for three years.
Medic training is also highly clinical. There is an emphasis on IPE (inter professional education) including with pharmacists. The system of training isn't broken, the salaries are.
Certainly no shortage of people who want to be doctors...
Of course, what the actual Thatcher would have done is divide and rule: get a deal with health staff and teachers, dig in against the rail unions.
Matthew Parris was suggesting that in the Times this weekend. Sequencing is tricky- he had rail unions crushed first, but that's going to take a while, and what does the NHS do in the meantime?
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
I'm not sure of this. Much of the nursing degree is undertaken in clinical settings - they are learning on the job. Nursing is also a much more highly skilled role than the day of Carry On Nurse etc. I generally tend to think of having better educated staff being a good thing.
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Arguably we should go the other way. Want to be a doctor? First you have to train and serve as a nurse for three years.
Medic training is also highly clinical. There is an emphasis on IPE (inter professional education) including with pharmacists. The system of training isn't broken, the salaries are.
Certainly no shortage of people who want to be doctors...
6 figures average salary for GPs who are partners in medical practices and good pensions of course
Barely 6 figures. You're being misleading. You need also to allow for the fact that they are effectively cimpany directors. The *salary* for salaried GPs is much less, 2/3 I think.
Average salary of a GP partner is £121k, close to top 1% of earners in the UK
I wonder how many times a poster is allowed to post the same off-topic thing as an attempt to divert the conversation before the mods get involved.
It depends who they are but usually a very large number. How many thousands of times have we been subjected to CV's monomaniacal obession with the minute intersection of trans rights and Scottish politics.
Yeah, I'm not sure why you see someone posting tweets and links to articles - that are different every time - on a subject that interests them as the same thing as the tedious spamming we are currently being subjected to.
And if it is, Scotty would have been banned years ago.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
If nurses got a 19% payrise even private sector middle managers would think about retraining to become a nurse given the average private sector payrise now is 6% and the average full time nurse earns £37k and senior matrons earn £48k+
Though one might make the reasonable case that we have too many private sector middle managers and not enough nurses. So I am not really seeing the downside of this aspect of the debate.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
If nurses got a 19% payrise even private sector middle managers would think about retraining to become a nurse given the average private sector payrise now is 6% and the average full time nurse earns £37k and senior matrons earn £48k+
Though one might make the reasonable case that we have too many private sector middle managers and not enough nurses. So I am not really seeing the downside of this aspect of the debate.
It would be lower earning private sector workers who are not managers also seeing their taxes go up to pay for it though when they average just a 6% payrise
The other thing we need to do is reverse the degree requirement for nursing. Labour introduced it as a way of meeting their 50% target for students going ti university after 6th form. There's no practical need for it and all it has done is restrict labour supply and leave nurses with £40k in debt when they start work.
I'm not sure of this. Much of the nursing degree is undertaken in clinical settings - they are learning on the job. Nursing is also a much more highly skilled role than the day of Carry On Nurse etc. I generally tend to think of having better educated staff being a good thing.
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Arguably we should go the other way. Want to be a doctor? First you have to train and serve as a nurse for three years.
Medic training is also highly clinical. There is an emphasis on IPE (inter professional education) including with pharmacists. The system of training isn't broken, the salaries are.
Certainly no shortage of people who want to be doctors...
6 figures average salary for GPs who are partners in medical practices and good pensions of course
Barely 6 figures. You're being misleading. You need also to allow for the fact that they are effectively cimpany directors. The *salary* for salaried GPs is much less, 2/3 I think.
Average salary of a GP partner is £121k, close to top 1% of earners in the UK
It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that senior doctors should be some of the best paid people in the country. It's a profession that requires high intelligence and a considerable amount of hard work and for which there is great demand. Why would it not be highly paid?
I wonder how many times a poster is allowed to post the same off-topic thing as an attempt to divert the conversation before the mods get involved.
It depends who they are but usually a very large number. How many thousands of times have we been subjected to CV's monomaniacal obession with the minute intersection of trans rights and Scottish politics.
Yeah, I'm not sure why you see someone posting tweets and links to articles - that are different every time - on a subject that interests them as the same thing as the tedious spamming we are currently being subjected to.
And if it is, Scotty would have been banned years ago.
Should whining endlessly about 'Scotty' incur a similar ban?
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
If nurses got a 19% payrise even private sector middle managers would think about retraining to become a nurse given the average private sector payrise now is 6% and the average full time nurse earns £37k and senior matrons earn £48k+
Though one might make the reasonable case that we have too many private sector middle managers and not enough nurses. So I am not really seeing the downside of this aspect of the debate.
This is like the Times running a story about how the Scottish government has made in much more expensive to buy a second home in Scotland as if that is a bad thing.
I wonder how many times a poster is allowed to post the same off-topic thing as an attempt to divert the conversation before the mods get involved.
It depends who they are but usually a very large number. How many thousands of times have we been subjected to CV's monomaniacal obession with the minute intersection of trans rights and Scottish politics.
Yeah, I'm not sure why you see someone posting tweets and links to articles - that are different every time - on a subject that interests them as the same thing as the tedious spamming we are currently being subjected to.
And if it is, Scotty would have been banned years ago.
Should whining endlessly about 'Scotty' incur a similar ban?
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
You know that 19% is a bargaining mechanism starting point. Everyone does.
The Government would be better off accomodating the NHS workers and if union destruction is their manifesto, crush the rail workers.
I note all the PB Conservatives are falling into their 1980s Thatcherite line over this issue. Remember though, Thatcher picked and chose her battles.
Modern Tories often misunderstand what Margaret Thatcher was really like. She loved to come across as gung-ho, but in reality she was a careful and cunning strategist. She picked her fights extremely carefully. She would never have gone head to head with nurses FFS.
Interesting as well that she was opposed to two of the most contentious post-Thatcher privatisations - that of the Royal Mail and the Railways.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
If nurses got a 19% payrise even private sector middle managers would think about retraining to become a nurse given the average private sector payrise now is 6% and the average full time nurse earns £37k and senior matrons earn £48k+
Though one might make the reasonable case that we have too many private sector middle managers and not enough nurses. So I am not really seeing the downside of this aspect of the debate.
This is like the Times running a story about how the Scottish government has made in much more expensive to buy a second home in Scotland as if that is a bad thing.
The day the SNP honeymoon finally ended, part 471.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
In which case lots will clear off and become telephone sanitisers in accordance with Conservative philosophy of the free market.
If nurses got a 19% payrise even private sector middle managers would think about retraining to become a nurse given the average private sector payrise now is 6% and the average full time nurse earns £37k and senior matrons earn £48k+
Though one might make the reasonable case that we have too many private sector middle managers and not enough nurses. So I am not really seeing the downside of this aspect of the debate.
It would be lower earning private sector workers who are not managers also seeing their taxes go up to pay for it though when they average just a 6% payrise
That is a completely different point to the one you just made. Stop shifting the goal posts when you get challenged on your comments.
So what, she also chose to give up being a working royal and do media interviews trashing the King and Prince and Princess of Wales
Clarkson is anyway employed by the Sun not the Royal Household, he is Murdoch's responsibility not theirs
Nothing to do with us, guv.
The British Establishment are currently proving that everything Diana Spencer and Meghan Markle said about Camilla Shand and her cronies was spot on.
No just proving leftists like you have always hated the Queen Consort and always will
I am not a leftist. I am a centre-right liberal. I only appear “leftist” to you because you are an admirer of General Franco.
I don’t hate Camilla, I pity her.
You are not even centre right in Swedish terms now given you did not vote for the current right of centre Swedish government let alone in UK terms
More mendacity.
I voted for the centre-right Centre Party for the Riksdag and for the regional council, and for the centre-right Liberals for the local council. Both parties are allies of the Liberal Democrats.
A 6% nurses payrise in line with the national average may be coming but not the 19% they want
You know that 19% is a bargaining mechanism starting point. Everyone does.
The Government would be better off accomodating the NHS workers and if union destruction is their manifesto, crush the rail workers.
I note all the PB Conservatives are falling into their 1980s Thatcherite line over this issue. Remember though, Thatcher picked and chose her battles.
Modern Tories often misunderstand what Margaret Thatcher was really like. She loved to come across as gung-ho, but in reality she was a careful and cunning strategist. She picked her fights extremely carefully. She would never have gone head to head with nurses FFS.
I've said this before, but I think it bears repeating.
Maggie left office over thirty years ago, her finest hours were more like forty years ago.
We now have a generation of politicians whose only direct experience of Thatcher was seeing her on John Craven's Newsround, if that. And the real, interesting politician has been replaced by a cartoon.
It happens. But it causes people to have a funny idea about What Would Maggie Do?
Yes, the John Craven's newsround generation. A set of early news memories that included the miner's strike, the Falklands, Band Aid and Live Aid, the space shuttle, Charles and Diana, Reagan's star-wars programme, the Iran-Iraq war and hostages in Beirut.
I wonder how many times a poster is allowed to post the same off-topic thing as an attempt to divert the conversation before the mods get involved.
It depends who they are but usually a very large number. How many thousands of times have we been subjected to CV's monomaniacal obession with the minute intersection of trans rights and Scottish politics.
Yeah, I'm not sure why you see someone posting tweets and links to articles - that are different every time - on a subject that interests them as the same thing as the tedious spamming we are currently being subjected to.
And if it is, Scotty would have been banned years ago.
Should whining endlessly about 'Scotty' incur a similar ban?
When was the last time I mentioned him?
Dunno, not an assiduous follower of your posts. By contrast it would appear that Scott's posts seem to be living in your head for a peppercorn rent.
I also think at 7% the strike would not be going ahead, the government would already have done the deal. Which, again, makes this look ideology driven by lefty unions.
Don't most people understand that the 19 percent is an initial pitch to give room to move?
It's blooming obvious that the "right" answer is somewhere between 6 and 8 percent. But any union going in asking for 8 percent wouldn't be rewarded for reasonableness, it would be squeezed down to five.
It's also laying the ground for pay negotiations in future years. After accepting below inflation this year they will want to create the expectation of above inflation payrises when inflation is lower to catch up on what is lost now.
People are going to die, there are no winners from this.
I mat have to sedate my father as he is furious at the profession putting lives at risk.
The issue is the farcical request for 19%, they'd have many, many more supporters at 7%. At 19% their fight looks ideologically driven against the Tories. There's no government who would agree to those terms, not Tory nor Labour.
I saw a clip with Ian Hislop the other day, where he was saying the government has forgotten how strikes work since the 70s and 80s. Back then, unions went on strike, demanded whatever per cent, unions and government negotiated and they came to agreement.
Now, the unions have gone on strike, demanding whatever per cent, and the government are just saying ‘we can’t afford that, but we’re not negotiating, independent pay review, burble burble, wibble wibble’.
So, to me, there are two possible intentions at work. Either, the government does indeed have institutional amnesia - which I doubt - or they are happy to see the strikes because they see a double benefit: culture war bollocks, divide and conquer and continuing to run the NHS down so they can say it’s broken, we’re going to privatise it.
So they’re happy for people to die, for the country to continue to have shockingly bad healthcare for god knows how long, to pursue their ideological goals.
They’re a government of sociopaths. They figure they’ve got two years left in power, they’re intent on doing as much damage as they can. They’re happy to damage the country with their ideological Brexit, they’re happy to damage the country with their ideological desire to get rid of the NHS. And there’s the happy side effect of salting the ground so badly for Labour that, if they win next time, they’ll just be clearing up the Tory bin fire they’ll be bequeathed with.
This shower of shite are pound shop Trumps, gaslighting the public while they and their mates grift the country to the bone.
BIB: Incredibly unlikely. As you surely know, the party with the biggest history of privatising the NHS is not currently in government.
What about, what about, what about, burble burble, wibble, wibble.
The NHS’s performance has declined dramatically since 2010. That isn’t an accident. There are multiple reasons, not least massive bed blocking because social care is so woeful. Of course the government can’t seriously address that cos it would mean taking money from their core voters. Can’t shrink the inheritance can we?
This government wants US-style inequalities. They want terrible public services, they want health insurance not free at the point of use healthcare, they don’t give a flying fuck about ordinary people. They only care about getting richer and making sure their taxes don’t go to improving the lives of their perceived inferiors - the poor, the feckless, the scroungers - in the slightest way. Yet they wrap themselves in the the flag and gibber on about bollocks - sovereignty! Immigrants! - to deceive the gullible amd incurious and to give ‘legitimate concerns’ talking points for the misanthropic and venal. Trumpian.
I wonder how many times a poster is allowed to post the same off-topic thing as an attempt to divert the conversation before the mods get involved.
It depends who they are but usually a very large number. How many thousands of times have we been subjected to CV's monomaniacal obession with the minute intersection of trans rights and Scottish politics.
Yeah, I'm not sure why you see someone posting tweets and links to articles - that are different every time - on a subject that interests them as the same thing as the tedious spamming we are currently being subjected to.
And if it is, Scotty would have been banned years ago.
Should whining endlessly about 'Scotty' incur a similar ban?
When was the last time I mentioned him?
Dunno, not an assiduous follower of your posts. By contrast it would appear that Scott's posts seem to be living in your head for a peppercorn rent.
No more so than Carlotta's many fewer are in Dura's.
People are going to die, there are no winners from this.
I mat have to sedate my father as he is furious at the profession putting lives at risk.
The issue is the farcical request for 19%, they'd have many, many more supporters at 7%. At 19% their fight looks ideologically driven against the Tories. There's no government who would agree to those terms, not Tory nor Labour.
I saw a clip with Ian Hislop the other day, where he was saying the government has forgotten how strikes work since the 70s and 80s. Back then, unions went on strike, demanded whatever per cent, unions and government negotiated and they came to agreement.
Now, the unions have gone on strike, demanding whatever per cent, and the government are just saying ‘we can’t afford that, but we’re not negotiating, independent pay review, burble burble, wibble wibble’.
So, to me, there are two possible intentions at work. Either, the government does indeed have institutional amnesia - which I doubt - or they are happy to see the strikes because they see a double benefit: culture war bollocks, divide and conquer and continuing to run the NHS down so they can say it’s broken, we’re going to privatise it.
So they’re happy for people to die, for the country to continue to have shockingly bad healthcare for god knows how long, to pursue their ideological goals.
They’re a government of sociopaths. They figure they’ve got two years left in power, they’re intent on doing as much damage as they can. They’re happy to damage the country with their ideological Brexit, they’re happy to damage the country with their ideological desire to get rid of the NHS. And there’s the happy side effect of salting the ground so badly for Labour that, if they win next time, they’ll just be clearing up the Tory bin fire they’ll be bequeathed with.
This shower of shite are pound shop Trumps, gaslighting the public while they and their mates grift the country to the bone.
BIB: Incredibly unlikely. As you surely know, the party with the biggest history of privatising the NHS is not currently in government.
What about, what about, what about, burble burble, wibble, wibble.
The NHS’s performance has declined dramatically since 2010. That isn’t an accident. There are multiple reasons, not least massive bed blocking because social care is so woeful. Of course the government can’t seriously address that cos it would mean taking money from their core voters. Can’t shrink the inheritance can we?
This government wants US-style inequalities. They want terrible public services, they want health insurance not free at the point of use healthcare, they don’t give a flying fuck about ordinary people. They only care about getting richer and making sure their taxes don’t go to improving the lives of their perceived inferiors - the poor, the feckless, the scroungers - in the slightest way. Yet they wrap themselves in the the flag and gibber on about bollocks - sovereignty! Immigrants! - to deceive the gullible amd incurious and to give ‘legitimate concerns’ talking points for the misanthropic and venal. Trumpian.
And yet for all the left-wing scaremongering about the Tories privatising the NHS, they never do. Funny that.
Comments
Strike settled.
People are going to die, there are no winners from this.
I mat have to sedate my father as he is furious at the profession putting lives at risk.
For the first time I can remember I've been thinking hard about what would happen if one of our family got into a situation where they needed an ambulance, for example if a child got Strep A sepsis. Knowing that if things go badly wrong there's a system waiting for you is one of those safety nets that it feels scary to have pulled away.
Emergency care is also different from elective care and more salient for wealthier voters. If you have insurance you can go private for a knee operation or hip replacement, but if you fall on a slippery front step and break your pelvis or suffer a brain haemorrhage then the NHS is your only option.
There is no magic nurse tree.
Although I suppose being roasted would be worse.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/63587909.amp
The nursing unions could and should point at that the actual cost to the nhs would be roughly neutral because the current lack of nurses means temporary workers are required to meet minimum standards at vast rates per shift (often £800+). From what I’m hearing locus hospital doctors can easily be on £2000 a shift at the moment.
A lot of politics is about picking the right allies and the right enemies. Sunak has chosen to ally himself with the devils and make enemies of the angels. That Starmer and Sunak are both inexperienced in this politics lark is becoming increasingly obvious.
It's blooming obvious that the "right" answer is somewhere between 6 and 8 percent. But any union going in asking for 8 percent wouldn't be rewarded for reasonableness, it would be squeezed down to five.
Asking for 19 is just a piss-take.
As a brexiteer surely you understand that the numbers at the beginning of a negotiation are only the starting point?
https://twitter.com/haggis_uk/status/1603368565608005634?s=46&t=mvgHYhIsrd1_IriIWSQPpQ
She doesn’t understand that skilled labour is in short supply, at least in the medium term. The words of someone who sells old rope and doesn’t understand that some workers actually provide valuable services.
That said, I don't doubt the government will get the blame. Nurses arouse sympathy, in a way that train drivers do not.
But as things stand, the polls show that the striking nurses have more support than the government.
And whilst having the government brought down by unions would be a bad thing as a general principle, I can imagine a fair few people responding to the premature collapse of this government with "oh well, never mind".
https://twitter.com/carolvorders/status/1604898904721526794?s=46&t=mvgHYhIsrd1_IriIWSQPpQ
Now, the unions have gone on strike, demanding whatever per cent, and the government are just saying ‘we can’t afford that, but we’re not negotiating, independent pay review, burble burble, wibble wibble’.
So, to me, there are two possible intentions at work. Either, the government does indeed have institutional amnesia - which I doubt - or they are happy to see the strikes because they see a double benefit: culture war bollocks, divide and conquer and continuing to run the NHS down so they can say it’s broken, we’re going to privatise it.
So they’re happy for people to die, for the country to continue to have shockingly bad healthcare for god knows how long, to pursue their ideological goals.
They’re a government of sociopaths. They figure they’ve got two years left in power, they’re intent on doing as much damage as they can. They’re happy to damage the country with their ideological Brexit, they’re happy to damage the country with their ideological desire to get rid of the NHS. And there’s the happy side effect of salting the ground so badly for Labour that, if they win next time, they’ll just be clearing up the Tory bin fire they’ll be bequeathed with.
This shower of shite are pound shop Trumps, gaslighting the public while they and their mates grift the country to the bone.
The motley crew that is the current Conservative party still seem captured by the idea that conflict is the the only way to get things done. A long period in opposition may be the only cure, and even then..
I don’t hate Camilla, I pity her.
Her Scottish husband is due a spell of chokey in Spain if that helps?
William and Kate are still popular with both Remainers and Leavers, Tories and Labour voters
The Government would be better off accomodating the NHS workers and if union destruction is their manifesto, crush the rail workers.
I note all the PB Conservatives are falling into their 1980s Thatcherite line over this issue. Remember though, Thatcher picked and chose her battles.
Tribe = first
Everything else = secondary
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Thatcher in 1980s: stood up to the miners' strike after stockpiling coal reserves, with catastrophic consequences for mining communities but managing to weaken the grip of militant union power on the economy; Sunak in 2020s: let's do the same with Nurses and Paramedics in the middle of an unprecedented NHS crisis
Thatcher in 1980s: cut income and corporate taxes from previously high levels after raising VAT significantly and balancing the budget. Truss in 2020s: let's slash taxes across the board in an unfunded fashion
Thatcher in 1980s: reform financial services and consumer regulations from previously very restrictive post-war rules. Johnson, Truss and Sunak in 2020s: let's pretend to do the same from a completely different baseline in the middle of an existential climate crisis
Thatcher in 1980s: express concern about too much European integration in a speech in Bruges, after bringing the UK into the European single market and deepening integration over many years. Entire Tory party in 2010s and 2020s: let's make the most critical bits of that Bruges speech the basis for our entire philosophy on Europe
And finally, Thatcher in 1980s: strong willed, charismatic female prime minister. Tories in 2020s: let's appoint a female prime minister who looks and sounds a bit like Thatcher. Never mind the policies, that'll do the trick.
Who will ever forget the unsurpassed @JackW Ed Miliband riff. A guitar sole that echoed down the PB years. Perhaps 500 performances? Maybe double that.
I aim for the stars, but realise that I’ll never be as big a space cadet as the mighty Jacobite.
https://www.themedicportal.com/blog/update-ucas-application-stats-for-2022-entry-medicine/
Maggie left office over thirty years ago, her finest hours were more like forty years ago.
We now have a generation of politicians whose only direct experience of Thatcher was seeing her on John Craven's Newsround, if that. And the real, interesting politician has been replaced by a cartoon.
It happens. But it causes people to have a funny idea about What Would Maggie Do?
There is an analogy there with the Conservative Party. They’ve forgotten what their USP is too.
Now she has apparently defrauded the Exchequer she is unceremoniously demoted to “the Scotswoman”.
Shades of Andy Murray et al.
https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/practice-personal-finance/gp-earnings-increase-but-expenses-rise-faster-than-income/
And if it is, Scotty would have been banned years ago.
I voted for the centre-right Centre Party for the Riksdag and for the regional council, and for the centre-right Liberals for the local council. Both parties are allies of the Liberal Democrats.
The NHS’s performance has declined dramatically since 2010. That isn’t an accident. There are multiple reasons, not least massive bed blocking because social care is so woeful. Of course the government can’t seriously address that cos it would mean taking money from their core voters. Can’t shrink the inheritance can we?
This government wants US-style inequalities. They want terrible public services, they want health insurance not free at the point of use healthcare, they don’t give a flying fuck about ordinary people. They only care about getting richer and making sure their taxes don’t go to improving the lives of their perceived inferiors - the poor, the feckless, the scroungers - in the slightest way. Yet they wrap themselves in the the flag and gibber on about bollocks - sovereignty! Immigrants! - to deceive the gullible amd incurious and to give ‘legitimate concerns’ talking points for the misanthropic and venal. Trumpian.