Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
As I have said before, it isn't racism, its jingoism. The racism used to be there of course, and growing up in an east Lancashire township we saw plenty of racial unrest caused by the pig-ignorant policies of previous councils and the pig-ignorance of some of the older residents. But that is the past.
What we have instead is fear of the other. The other isn't defined by race, it is simply not being me and mine. The north has a real problem with the south and southerners. Lancashire and Yorkshire share a deep-rooted dislike despite their obvious mass similarities. Sheffield was trialling the Hunger Games districting long before the book or the movie, as was Washington with predictable results. Thornaby was described rightly as full of "parochial bigots" by an old man born and raised there, with the town Mayor ranting drunk on Facebook about how outsiders do not understand the town "and never will".
Racism is simply the wrong label.
Anyone with a neutral Southern accent in the North will, at some time or another, have faced some kind of non-trivial prejudice, dislike or discrimination for being posh, just as a fairly neutral northern accent in the South will be treated in some quarters as a bit thick.
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
It isn't a free market though. It is the NHS, the last bastion of nationalisation and public sector vested interest.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
I think there is a lot of projection going on. Ascribing these kinds of views to other people allows upper middle class people to express things they'd be embarrassed about saying in polite company. Plus it gives wealthy people a kind of vicarious thrill and sense of connection to something more "authentic" to feel like they are channelling the views of the kind of people they never encounter in their actual lives (largely by choice). Watch Succession or spend a day on a trading floor if you want to understand what I'm talking about.
I still remember, with joy, an article in the Guardian, about a middle class journalist's experience in roughing it on an estate.
If you did a search and replace on the words used to describe the er.... natives, you would have a Sanders Of The River style colonial memoir. Complete with racism.
Hating on "Gammons" is the last respectable group hatred, as well. If you start banging on about Jews over cocaine & dodgy liquors at a posh dinner party, people look at you strange. But you can get all your inner hate out on "Brexiters"
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
In that his about face was entirely a matter of political convenience ?
It'll be up to Congress anyway no matter who is POTUS next year won't it? They'll have to decide if they want to keep pumping $50bn/year worth of weapons into Ukraine.
But it’s not costing them anywhere near $50bn, that’s what really annoying about the debate in the US.
As an example, the successful HIMARS systems are old, almost obsolete in American terms, and were due to be replaced anyway in the next couple of years. Putting a huge dollar value on them is misrepresentative, and drives a lot of the opposition in the US to helping the Ukranians.
Well, yes. That’s the point.
That said, all of American public discourse at the moment is thoroughly toxic.
Toxified by Trump.
I really wish he had lost in 2016, the world would be in a better place today.
Trump would have been a curious footnote in history rather than the most dangerous man in America, if not the world.
What's remarkable is just how much he was able to capture the party. Americans don't have leaders the opposition but its sure felt like they have since he lost, even people like Pence who have reason to be furious with him are very cautious in criticism, and typically get into line along with everyone else.
That's why he wins the nomination, because ultimately the big hitters remain too frightened to take him on directly in a consistent way, and if you support him as much as thru demonstrably do, and if you think he was cheated of victory last time, and most claim to believe that, then why not support him?
Yes. Trump wins the nomination because he is a force of nature. Politically he is Untouchable and Unstoppable.
We have to take a few steps back and ask how America got itself into this mess. Trump clearly lost the 2020 election heavily, yet a substantial proportion of the country believe he won (because he says so). Trump clearly has some legal troubles but his supporters see *any* action against him as a political witch hunt (because he says so). Trump is a huge liability in office and corrupts every part of government he touches, yet is seen to be draining the swamp of government.
So how can other candidates stop him? Because he is unpopular? Incompetent? A crook? A loser?
The question is can Biden keepittogether long enough to beat The Donald again. Perhaps he might consider a better VP candidate this time as you do wonder if he will make the end of his second term.
That he is a loser is probably the strongest card others have, since his base dont believe or dont care if he is incompetent or a crook, since he's still their guy.
That he's got most of them to say he won last time, or at least not push back on the claim, is a genius level achievement as it neuters that attack. Instead they focus on electoral measures to help him win rather than picking someone else.
With difficult times and the best Democrat candidate being 82 come the election, it could yet work.
Biden rightly painted the last presidential election as important for the basic fundamentals of their democracy. The position will have decayed even further by the time we get to November 2024 if Trump is once again the candidate.
Its easy to point at Trump and the Republican Party for the coming disgrace in capitulating to the Trump fantasy. But we also have to point at the Democrats where Joe Biden is their last and only line of defence. Is that all they have left? Really?
Biden beat Trump in 2020 unlike Hillary in 2016 and Biden polls better v Trump than Harris, Newsom or Buttigieg. So yes if Trump is GOP nominee again
I know Biden has been a winner. We all know that. But he is 142 years old. Are we saying that there is nobody else more relevant who could also be a winner?
On the Democrats side the polls suggest not.
The next Presidential election will again be decided in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona not New York City, Massachussetts and California https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
It isn't a free market though. It is the NHS, the last bastion of nationalisation and public sector vested interest.
Indeed, so we should be looking at reforms, but we still need to pay people whatever they're willing to work for.
If there's an abundance in job applications for the NHS, whether from people trained or training domestically or abroad, then we can tell those who are striking to get f***ed and hire someone else. If there isn't, then they have the leverage and can't be expected to go into work for less of a pay rise than those who are not going into work.
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
In that his about face was entirely a matter of political convenience ?
It'll be up to Congress anyway no matter who is POTUS next year won't it? They'll have to decide if they want to keep pumping $50bn/year worth of weapons into Ukraine.
But it’s not costing them anywhere near $50bn, that’s what really annoying about the debate in the US.
As an example, the successful HIMARS systems are old, almost obsolete in American terms, and were due to be replaced anyway in the next couple of years. Putting a huge dollar value on them is misrepresentative, and drives a lot of the opposition in the US to helping the Ukranians.
Well, yes. That’s the point.
That said, all of American public discourse at the moment is thoroughly toxic.
Toxified by Trump.
I really wish he had lost in 2016, the world would be in a better place today.
Trump would have been a curious footnote in history rather than the most dangerous man in America, if not the world.
What's remarkable is just how much he was able to capture the party. Americans don't have leaders the opposition but its sure felt like they have since he lost, even people like Pence who have reason to be furious with him are very cautious in criticism, and typically get into line along with everyone else.
That's why he wins the nomination, because ultimately the big hitters remain too frightened to take him on directly in a consistent way, and if you support him as much as thru demonstrably do, and if you think he was cheated of victory last time, and most claim to believe that, then why not support him?
Yes. Trump wins the nomination because he is a force of nature. Politically he is Untouchable and Unstoppable.
We have to take a few steps back and ask how America got itself into this mess. Trump clearly lost the 2020 election heavily, yet a substantial proportion of the country believe he won (because he says so). Trump clearly has some legal troubles but his supporters see *any* action against him as a political witch hunt (because he says so). Trump is a huge liability in office and corrupts every part of government he touches, yet is seen to be draining the swamp of government.
So how can other candidates stop him? Because he is unpopular? Incompetent? A crook? A loser?
The question is can Biden keepittogether long enough to beat The Donald again. Perhaps he might consider a better VP candidate this time as you do wonder if he will make the end of his second term.
That he is a loser is probably the strongest card others have, since his base dont believe or dont care if he is incompetent or a crook, since he's still their guy.
That he's got most of them to say he won last time, or at least not push back on the claim, is a genius level achievement as it neuters that attack. Instead they focus on electoral measures to help him win rather than picking someone else.
With difficult times and the best Democrat candidate being 82 come the election, it could yet work.
Biden rightly painted the last presidential election as important for the basic fundamentals of their democracy. The position will have decayed even further by the time we get to November 2024 if Trump is once again the candidate.
Its easy to point at Trump and the Republican Party for the coming disgrace in capitulating to the Trump fantasy. But we also have to point at the Democrats where Joe Biden is their last and only line of defence. Is that all they have left? Really?
Biden beat Trump in 2020 unlike Hillary in 2016 and Biden polls better v Trump than Harris, Newsom or Buttigieg. So yes if Trump is GOP nominee again
I know Biden has been a winner. We all know that. But he is 142 years old. Are we saying that there is nobody else more relevant who could also be a winner?
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
As I have said before, it isn't racism, its jingoism. The racism used to be there of course, and growing up in an east Lancashire township we saw plenty of racial unrest caused by the pig-ignorant policies of previous councils and the pig-ignorance of some of the older residents. But that is the past.
What we have instead is fear of the other. The other isn't defined by race, it is simply not being me and mine. The north has a real problem with the south and southerners. Lancashire and Yorkshire share a deep-rooted dislike despite their obvious mass similarities. Sheffield was trialling the Hunger Games districting long before the book or the movie, as was Washington with predictable results. Thornaby was described rightly as full of "parochial bigots" by an old man born and raised there, with the town Mayor ranting drunk on Facebook about how outsiders do not understand the town "and never will".
Racism is simply the wrong label.
Would you describe it as a loss of national cohesion?
Yes, and I've described it before as fallout from the loss of empire. We used to rule so much of the globe that the sun never set on the empire. We've lost all of that and the prestige that goes with it, and instead see so much of the country get grimy and unkempt and visibly poorer than so many other countries we can now easily visit.
So our traditional "we are better than you" confidence is now a "we used to be better than you" resentment. When people claim it is racism they miss the rather basic fact that so often the "race" being othered is white Europeans like us. It is not racism, but it is prejudice.
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
Junior doctors want a 25% payrise, the national average rise in 6%
Have you never taken part in negotiations?
25% is an entirely appropriate starting point to demand when the Government are offering others 11% and you only 2%.
If the Government want to short-change you by 9%, then start demanding much higher than what you will actually accept, then meet in the middle. Government says 2%, you say 25%, meet in the middle at 13% or just 2% higher than what the Government is prepared to pay those who aren't working for a living, and you have an agreement.
If the Government didn't want strikes they shouldn't have offered some people 11% and others 2%.
They didn't. The only people getting 10% or more from the government are those who earn much less than junior doctors ie state pensioners, those on benefits or minimum wage or junior criminal lawyers doing legal aid
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
It isn't a free market though. It is the NHS, the last bastion of nationalisation and public sector vested interest.
Indeed, so we should be looking at reforms, but we still need to pay people whatever they're willing to work for.
If there's an abundance in job applications for the NHS, whether from people trained or training domestically or abroad, then we can tell those who are striking to get f***ed and hire someone else. If there isn't, then they have the leverage and can't be expected to go into work for less of a pay rise than those who are not going into work.
If only the world were that simple, then you would be Master of the Universe, Bart. Let us therefore rejoice in its infinite complexity.
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
Junior doctors want a 25% payrise, the national average rise in 6%
Have you never taken part in negotiations?
25% is an entirely appropriate starting point to demand when the Government are offering others 11% and you only 2%.
If the Government want to short-change you by 9%, then start demanding much higher than what you will actually accept, then meet in the middle. Government says 2%, you say 25%, meet in the middle at 13% or just 2% higher than what the Government is prepared to pay those who aren't working for a living, and you have an agreement.
If the Government didn't want strikes they shouldn't have offered some people 11% and others 2%.
They didn't. The only people getting 10% or more from the government are those who earn much less than junior doctors ie state pensioners, those on benefits or minimum wage or junior criminal lawyers doing legal aid
Yep, those who are not working. State pensioners aren't all earning much less than junior doctors since the taxpayers money going to them is on top of, not instead of, any other pensions they have.
If people not working are getting 10% or more, then so should those who are working.
Those who are working should never be getting less than those who are working. If 10% is the baseline for non-workers, then its the minimum those who are working should be getting. Since when was the Conservative Party the Party for people on benefits rather than people who work for a living?
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
Whilst all that is true, it is also true that in many cases the working conditions for NHS staff are horrid and highly demoralising, and I suspect that a lot of the discontent which is ostensibly about pay is related to that.
Yep. Any job is a balance between pay and conditions.
I'm an academic. Many say we're underpaid and - like medicine - you can certainly make the case on starting salaries given required experience. But we have hugely flexible jobs where, effectively, we get to choose what we work on (as long as we can persuade someone to fund it) and - unlike clinicians - we get to largley decide when to do it outside of teaching duties. I've been offered more to be a stats/coding monkey in the private sector, but here I still am.
The junior docs I know (and I know a fair few* as students on Masters courses, collaborators on research, clinical research fellows etc) are much more upset about the conditions and the chronic understaffing and the feeling that they can't, due to that, do the job as well as they think it should be done than they are about pay. Better pay comes, if they can stick it out. But that's hard to do if the job itself is demoralising.
*far fewer, obviously, than our hospital-based clinicians and likely a skewed sample
It reminds me of a tale of 2 pubs locally.
One, where the manager expects people to do or not do shifts *on the day*.
The other, where the manager sets up shifts a month in advance. He does things like giving the staff free polo shirts (logo'd) to work in. At the end of the shift, he offers to put them in the wash bag the local laundry does. So the staff can go home, smelling less of beer, in their own clothes. And get a freshly laundered work shirt to start their shift next time.
Sturgeon however departs with a very healthy +8 rating
New leader boost expected though?
Possible if Forbes gets it. Sturgeon's high rating is due to way she presented during Covid. Her domestic record is being widely derided by the commentariat. I think her ratings will decline over time though not as precipitously as Blair's did.
It's Iraq that did for Tony's rep, isn't it. There's no obvious equivalent for Nicola Sturgeon.
What might do for NS's reputation (she does not have the power, thankfully, to invade a few large middle eastern countries on a whim) is: prison population, GRR, drug deaths, ferries, internal party stuff, failure to get support for the one key project of separation, education standards, court room show boating including the Supreme Court, running out of other people's money.
I heard an interview with the editor of The Herald on the radio. When asked what her achievements were in 8 years of office he was genuinely stumped.
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
His initial remarks were pretty clear and unambiguous in their implications (I dont recall the accusation being that he thought the invasion justified). That's not a clarification he's made it's a shift because he got pushback.
Clarify is one of the most abused words in politics. People use it to mean 'how dare you criticise me for what I said, I meant something else entirely and it's your fault for assuming otherwise'.
What were the clear and unambiguous implications of his initial remarks in terms of what he would have actually done differently to Biden? His initial remarks seem to me to be entirely ambiguous and unclear, and his latest 'clarification' not much clearer.
It was sufficiently clear to his Senate Republican colleagues that his remarks meant he would likely scale back support, a position advanced by others in the party, so that they felt the need to criticise him about it.
If it were at all ambiguous they would not have felt that need, they'd have attacked the media for mischaracterising his remarks, as he is now lamely attempting.
They didn't, because it was obvious who he was trying to appeal to.
What's amusing is any articles saying he was right about what he said, which he is now saying is not what they thought.
Sure, but my point is that his original remarks were unclear and ambiguous in terms of what he would actually do differently to Biden. On specifics, AIUI, he has only said that he is against sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, and that he is opposed to sending F16s and 'long-range missiles', which seems so far to be exactly the same as Biden's policy.
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
In that his about face was entirely a matter of political convenience ?
It'll be up to Congress anyway no matter who is POTUS next year won't it? They'll have to decide if they want to keep pumping $50bn/year worth of weapons into Ukraine.
But it’s not costing them anywhere near $50bn, that’s what really annoying about the debate in the US.
As an example, the successful HIMARS systems are old, almost obsolete in American terms, and were due to be replaced anyway in the next couple of years. Putting a huge dollar value on them is misrepresentative, and drives a lot of the opposition in the US to helping the Ukranians.
Well, yes. That’s the point.
That said, all of American public discourse at the moment is thoroughly toxic.
Toxified by Trump.
I really wish he had lost in 2016, the world would be in a better place today.
Trump would have been a curious footnote in history rather than the most dangerous man in America, if not the world.
What's remarkable is just how much he was able to capture the party. Americans don't have leaders the opposition but its sure felt like they have since he lost, even people like Pence who have reason to be furious with him are very cautious in criticism, and typically get into line along with everyone else.
That's why he wins the nomination, because ultimately the big hitters remain too frightened to take him on directly in a consistent way, and if you support him as much as thru demonstrably do, and if you think he was cheated of victory last time, and most claim to believe that, then why not support him?
Yes. Trump wins the nomination because he is a force of nature. Politically he is Untouchable and Unstoppable.
We have to take a few steps back and ask how America got itself into this mess. Trump clearly lost the 2020 election heavily, yet a substantial proportion of the country believe he won (because he says so). Trump clearly has some legal troubles but his supporters see *any* action against him as a political witch hunt (because he says so). Trump is a huge liability in office and corrupts every part of government he touches, yet is seen to be draining the swamp of government.
So how can other candidates stop him? Because he is unpopular? Incompetent? A crook? A loser?
The question is can Biden keepittogether long enough to beat The Donald again. Perhaps he might consider a better VP candidate this time as you do wonder if he will make the end of his second term.
That he is a loser is probably the strongest card others have, since his base dont believe or dont care if he is incompetent or a crook, since he's still their guy.
That he's got most of them to say he won last time, or at least not push back on the claim, is a genius level achievement as it neuters that attack. Instead they focus on electoral measures to help him win rather than picking someone else.
With difficult times and the best Democrat candidate being 82 come the election, it could yet work.
Biden rightly painted the last presidential election as important for the basic fundamentals of their democracy. The position will have decayed even further by the time we get to November 2024 if Trump is once again the candidate.
Its easy to point at Trump and the Republican Party for the coming disgrace in capitulating to the Trump fantasy. But we also have to point at the Democrats where Joe Biden is their last and only line of defence. Is that all they have left? Really?
Not really, no. But the reality is that Biden has been a pretty good president, and it's not easy to ditch a sitting President who wants to run again.
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
His initial remarks were pretty clear and unambiguous in their implications (I dont recall the accusation being that he thought the invasion justified). That's not a clarification he's made it's a shift because he got pushback.
Clarify is one of the most abused words in politics. People use it to mean 'how dare you criticise me for what I said, I meant something else entirely and it's your fault for assuming otherwise'.
What were the clear and unambiguous implications of his initial remarks in terms of what he would have actually done differently to Biden? His initial remarks seem to me to be entirely ambiguous and unclear, and his latest 'clarification' not much clearer.
It was sufficiently clear to his Senate Republican colleagues that his remarks meant he would likely scale back support, a position advanced by others in the party, so that they felt the need to criticise him about it.
If it were at all ambiguous they would not have felt that need, they'd have attacked the media for mischaracterising his remarks, as he is now lamely attempting.
They didn't, because it was obvious who he was trying to appeal to.
What's amusing is any articles saying he was right about what he said, which he is now saying is not what they thought.
Sure, but my point is that his original remarks were unclear and ambiguous in terms of what he would actually do differently to Biden. On specifics, AIUI, he has only said that he is against sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, and that he is opposed to sending F16s and 'long-range missiles', which seems so far to be exactly the same as Biden's policy.
Indeed, the 2024 candidate taking the hardest line against Putin is now Mike Pence not Biden
On junior doctors, my worry actually is that the damage is done... the staff shortages from poor wages exacerbate the situation and make UK an unappealing place to be a doctor. Even a pay rise now won't fix that.
Same is true for other health professions but doctors particularly have more global options.
Most people, most of the time, don’t want to work abroad. And where we recruit from abroad, we usually still pay higher.
4/10 junior doctors planning to leave as soon as they can (bmj survey). We already have shortages.
Don’t believe them. Easy to say.
But, as noted above, this is about supply and demand. Introduce some penal fees on those leaving the NHS before we get the costs of their tuition back and if we still can’t man the NHS, pay them more.
Correcting for below inflation rises for ten years is a non-starter on fairness grounds because you then have to do it for every public sector employee.
Don't want to become a doctor on the prospect of a miserable six figure salary and no tea? Fine. Fuck off.
Plenty in the queue behind you who can put up with such privations.
There are not that many in the queue because the BMA insists on limits to numbers of medical school places.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
As I have said before, it isn't racism, its jingoism. The racism used to be there of course, and growing up in an east Lancashire township we saw plenty of racial unrest caused by the pig-ignorant policies of previous councils and the pig-ignorance of some of the older residents. But that is the past.
What we have instead is fear of the other. The other isn't defined by race, it is simply not being me and mine. The north has a real problem with the south and southerners. Lancashire and Yorkshire share a deep-rooted dislike despite their obvious mass similarities. Sheffield was trialling the Hunger Games districting long before the book or the movie, as was Washington with predictable results. Thornaby was described rightly as full of "parochial bigots" by an old man born and raised there, with the town Mayor ranting drunk on Facebook about how outsiders do not understand the town "and never will".
Racism is simply the wrong label.
Would you describe it as a loss of national cohesion?
Yes, and I've described it before as fallout from the loss of empire. We used to rule so much of the globe that the sun never set on the empire. We've lost all of that and the prestige that goes with it, and instead see so much of the country get grimy and unkempt and visibly poorer than so many other countries we can now easily visit.
So our traditional "we are better than you" confidence is now a "we used to be better than you" resentment. When people claim it is racism they miss the rather basic fact that so often the "race" being othered is white Europeans like us. It is not racism, but it is prejudice.
Spent a couple of days in Frankfurt this week. Coming home even London - our wealthy capital - looked really poor and grubby. Except for the Elizabeth Line, of course, using that feels like visiting a foreign country.
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
It isn't a free market though. It is the NHS, the last bastion of nationalisation and public sector vested interest.
Indeed, so we should be looking at reforms, but we still need to pay people whatever they're willing to work for.
If there's an abundance in job applications for the NHS, whether from people trained or training domestically or abroad, then we can tell those who are striking to get f***ed and hire someone else. If there isn't, then they have the leverage and can't be expected to go into work for less of a pay rise than those who are not going into work.
If only the world were that simple, then you would be Master of the Universe, Bart. Let us therefore rejoice in its infinite complexity.
The world is that simple.
You want people to be compelled to work and never strike because you dislike the fact they have a vested interest.
Well sorry but the world doesn't work that way. They have a vested interest and are every bit as much as able to use that interest, for as long as we let them get away with it, just as much as the voting bloc of pensioners have been able to fleece the taxpayer for too long with the Triple Lock and shifting taxes onto the young via NI/graduate tax etc.
People aren't slaves. If there's competition for their jobs, then people will be more likely to accept a lower payrate as they don't want to lose their jobs, but if there's not then they have the leverage and will be willing and able to use it.
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
His initial remarks were pretty clear and unambiguous in their implications (I dont recall the accusation being that he thought the invasion justified). That's not a clarification he's made it's a shift because he got pushback.
Clarify is one of the most abused words in politics. People use it to mean 'how dare you criticise me for what I said, I meant something else entirely and it's your fault for assuming otherwise'.
What were the clear and unambiguous implications of his initial remarks in terms of what he would have actually done differently to Biden? His initial remarks seem to me to be entirely ambiguous and unclear, and his latest 'clarification' not much clearer.
It was sufficiently clear to his Senate Republican colleagues that his remarks meant he would likely scale back support, a position advanced by others in the party, so that they felt the need to criticise him about it.
If it were at all ambiguous they would not have felt that need, they'd have attacked the media for mischaracterising his remarks, as he is now lamely attempting.
They didn't, because it was obvious who he was trying to appeal to.
What's amusing is any articles saying he was right about what he said, which he is now saying is not what they thought.
Sure, but my point is that his original remarks were unclear and ambiguous in terms of what he would actually do differently to Biden. On specifics, AIUI, he has only said that he is against sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, and that he is opposed to sending F16s and 'long-range missiles', which seems so far to be exactly the same as Biden's policy.
His original remarks were that the US had no national interest in the 'territorial dispute'.
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
Junior doctors want a 25% payrise, the national average rise in 6%
Have you never taken part in negotiations?
25% is an entirely appropriate starting point to demand when the Government are offering others 11% and you only 2%.
If the Government want to short-change you by 9%, then start demanding much higher than what you will actually accept, then meet in the middle. Government says 2%, you say 25%, meet in the middle at 13% or just 2% higher than what the Government is prepared to pay those who aren't working for a living, and you have an agreement.
If the Government didn't want strikes they shouldn't have offered some people 11% and others 2%.
They didn't. The only people getting 10% or more from the government are those who earn much less than junior doctors ie state pensioners, those on benefits or minimum wage or junior criminal lawyers doing legal aid
Yep, those who are not working. State pensioners aren't all earning much less than junior doctors since the taxpayers money going to them is on top of, not instead of, any other pensions they have.
If people not working are getting 10% or more, then so should those who are working.
Those who are working should never be getting less than those who are working. If 10% is the baseline for non-workers, then its the minimum those who are working should be getting. Since when was the Conservative Party the Party for people on benefits rather than people who work for a living?
People working for a living all earn more than those on benefits, the minimum wage after all is going up by 10% exactly the same as benefits are going up by.
Just unlike Truss backing libertarians like you One Nation Tories like Hunt and Sunak don't want to force the poorest in our society into deeper poverty given rising cost of living
On junior doctors, my worry actually is that the damage is done... the staff shortages from poor wages exacerbate the situation and make UK an unappealing place to be a doctor. Even a pay rise now won't fix that.
Same is true for other health professions but doctors particularly have more global options.
Most people, most of the time, don’t want to work abroad. And where we recruit from abroad, we usually still pay higher.
4/10 junior doctors planning to leave as soon as they can (bmj survey). We already have shortages.
Don’t believe them. Easy to say.
But, as noted above, this is about supply and demand. Introduce some penal fees on those leaving the NHS before we get the costs of their tuition back and if we still can’t man the NHS, pay them more.
Correcting for below inflation rises for ten years is a non-starter on fairness grounds because you then have to do it for every public sector employee.
Don't want to become a doctor on the prospect of a miserable six figure salary and no tea? Fine. Fuck off.
Plenty in the queue behind you who can put up with such privations.
There are not that many in the queue because the BMA insists on limits to numbers of medical school places.
Doesn't mean they can do that, as Foxy has explained in four letter words (or three letter acronyms). Unless you have joined the Arthur Scargill school of worker control of the factories?
And adducing a 15 year old thing *from before covid* is not good evidence on anything to do with hospitals today.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
As I have said before, it isn't racism, its jingoism. The racism used to be there of course, and growing up in an east Lancashire township we saw plenty of racial unrest caused by the pig-ignorant policies of previous councils and the pig-ignorance of some of the older residents. But that is the past.
What we have instead is fear of the other. The other isn't defined by race, it is simply not being me and mine. The north has a real problem with the south and southerners. Lancashire and Yorkshire share a deep-rooted dislike despite their obvious mass similarities. Sheffield was trialling the Hunger Games districting long before the book or the movie, as was Washington with predictable results. Thornaby was described rightly as full of "parochial bigots" by an old man born and raised there, with the town Mayor ranting drunk on Facebook about how outsiders do not understand the town "and never will".
Racism is simply the wrong label.
What you're describing is more parochialism than jingoism I'd say.
But its also again a deep element of projectionism there too. Most Lancashire v Yorkshire stuff for instance is no more than banter, like Liverpool v Manchester, rather than real dislike. While local Government has often attracted fruitcakes, partially because of how little attention the ordinary voter pays to it which allows them to get by there rather than in serious politics, the overwhelming majority of ordinary voters are not fruitcakes or parochial/jingoistic/racist.
The overwhelming majority of ordinary voters here are normal people, who care about issues that affect them and their family first and foremost.
Its more than banter. Yes there aren't cross-border riots. At the moment. But I grew up with cross-township fights and that has progressed well into this century with deep-rooted bitterness from the residents in one part of Rochdale or Oldham or Burnley (to name a few examples) spilling over either into violence or electing the 8 BNP councillors that infested Burnley council.
As for issues that affect me and mine, I'm not sure that passes the sniff test. Did an awful lot of door knocking in places like Ingleby Barwick. A massively white townlet which attracted so many residents vocally aggrieved about too many migrants coming from Africa and muslim parts of the world. We asked several of the most vocal where these migrants were as they weren't in Ingleby Barwick. 'They're not here, they're in other places' they said.
Its this level of prejudice that morons like Simon Clarke play on. His constituency is deeply white and a long long way from Kent, yet he insists that stopping the boats is a big concern for his constituents. And it may well be for shitkickers in Loftus despite there being no outsiders at all in their hellhole pit.
If junior doctors' pay is so poor, how come places at med schools are so massively over subscribed?
There is some truth in what Malcolm suggested in somewhat blunt terms earlier, a lot of students go into medicine for the wrong reasons. If you are an above average sixth-former on the science side, medicine is an obvious choice because it is interesting, well-paid, and everyone loves doctors, so not a great deal of thought goes into the process. This means a lot of junior hospital doctors find reality is not what they imagined. The hours are long, the pay is low (at the start), and the work dull and repetitive, they are permanently knackered and suddenly life outside looks more attractive. Oh, and their mates from school are now three years into their careers, earning money and settling down.
Even without moving overseas, there are an awful lot of doctors on gap years, and others working part-time. My mate's doctor-child wants to be a management consultant.
If you get to be a partner in a gp surgery however you still get the 6 figure salary but with longer holidays and a better pension than your university friends who went into the City
Jam tomorrow. A salaried GP is on about £80,000 so a lot of friends who went into the City will be on that ten years earlier. More interestingly, something is going wrong among GPs too, it is not just junior hospital doctors. A lot of GPs now work part-time or have so-called portfolio careers (2-days GP, 2-days in different clinics at the local hospital.
And 2 days with private patients in Harley Street
Yes, there will be half a dozen or so private GPs in Harley Street, and no doubt a few elsewhere in the country. Almost all in "Harley Street" are consultants, not GPs.
Private GPs are a booming business. At work, they were looking at a private insurance option which included a GP who will rock up at your door.
Yes, it is a growing trend. A bit like dentistry. If people don't feel they can do an adequate job in the way forced on them by the GP Contract, that is one of their options.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
I think there is a lot of projection going on. Ascribing these kinds of views to other people allows upper middle class people to express things they'd be embarrassed about saying in polite company. Plus it gives wealthy people a kind of vicarious thrill and sense of connection to something more "authentic" to feel like they are channelling the views of the kind of people they never encounter in their actual lives (largely by choice). Watch Succession or spend a day on a trading floor if you want to understand what I'm talking about.
I still remember, with joy, an article in the Guardian, about a middle class journalist's experience in roughing it on an estate.
If you did a search and replace on the words used to describe the er.... natives, you would have a Sanders Of The River style colonial memoir. Complete with racism.
Hating on "Gammons" is the last respectable group hatred, as well. If you start banging on about Jews over cocaine & dodgy liquors at a posh dinner party, people look at you strange. But you can get all your inner hate out on "Brexiters"
At least the Guardian employs some relatively normal people in addition to the Bloomsbury Set types. The Telegraph/Spectator complex is just a succession of absurd sloany twats.
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
His initial remarks were pretty clear and unambiguous in their implications (I dont recall the accusation being that he thought the invasion justified). That's not a clarification he's made it's a shift because he got pushback.
Clarify is one of the most abused words in politics. People use it to mean 'how dare you criticise me for what I said, I meant something else entirely and it's your fault for assuming otherwise'.
What were the clear and unambiguous implications of his initial remarks in terms of what he would have actually done differently to Biden? His initial remarks seem to me to be entirely ambiguous and unclear, and his latest 'clarification' not much clearer.
It was sufficiently clear to his Senate Republican colleagues that his remarks meant he would likely scale back support, a position advanced by others in the party, so that they felt the need to criticise him about it.
If it were at all ambiguous they would not have felt that need, they'd have attacked the media for mischaracterising his remarks, as he is now lamely attempting.
They didn't, because it was obvious who he was trying to appeal to.
What's amusing is any articles saying he was right about what he said, which he is now saying is not what they thought.
Sure, but my point is that his original remarks were unclear and ambiguous in terms of what he would actually do differently to Biden. On specifics, AIUI, he has only said that he is against sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, and that he is opposed to sending F16s and 'long-range missiles', which seems so far to be exactly the same as Biden's policy.
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
Junior doctors want a 25% payrise, the national average rise in 6%
Have you never taken part in negotiations?
25% is an entirely appropriate starting point to demand when the Government are offering others 11% and you only 2%.
If the Government want to short-change you by 9%, then start demanding much higher than what you will actually accept, then meet in the middle. Government says 2%, you say 25%, meet in the middle at 13% or just 2% higher than what the Government is prepared to pay those who aren't working for a living, and you have an agreement.
If the Government didn't want strikes they shouldn't have offered some people 11% and others 2%.
They didn't. The only people getting 10% or more from the government are those who earn much less than junior doctors ie state pensioners, those on benefits or minimum wage or junior criminal lawyers doing legal aid
Yep, those who are not working. State pensioners aren't all earning much less than junior doctors since the taxpayers money going to them is on top of, not instead of, any other pensions they have.
If people not working are getting 10% or more, then so should those who are working.
Those who are working should never be getting less than those who are working. If 10% is the baseline for non-workers, then its the minimum those who are working should be getting. Since when was the Conservative Party the Party for people on benefits rather than people who work for a living?
People working for a living all earn more than those on benefits, the minimum wage after all is going up by 10% exactly the same as benefits are going up by.
Just unlike Truss backing libertarians like you One Nation Tories like Hunt and Sunak don't want to force the poorest in out society into deeper poverty given rising cost of living
Bullshit.
Someone with a high defined benefit pension and the state pension can be earning much more than someone working for a living - and paying much less percentage in tax too since their earnings won't be subject to either the graduate tax or National Insurance.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
As I have said before, it isn't racism, its jingoism. The racism used to be there of course, and growing up in an east Lancashire township we saw plenty of racial unrest caused by the pig-ignorant policies of previous councils and the pig-ignorance of some of the older residents. But that is the past.
What we have instead is fear of the other. The other isn't defined by race, it is simply not being me and mine. The north has a real problem with the south and southerners. Lancashire and Yorkshire share a deep-rooted dislike despite their obvious mass similarities. Sheffield was trialling the Hunger Games districting long before the book or the movie, as was Washington with predictable results. Thornaby was described rightly as full of "parochial bigots" by an old man born and raised there, with the town Mayor ranting drunk on Facebook about how outsiders do not understand the town "and never will".
Racism is simply the wrong label.
Would you describe it as a loss of national cohesion?
Yes, and I've described it before as fallout from the loss of empire. We used to rule so much of the globe that the sun never set on the empire. We've lost all of that and the prestige that goes with it, and instead see so much of the country get grimy and unkempt and visibly poorer than so many other countries we can now easily visit.
So our traditional "we are better than you" confidence is now a "we used to be better than you" resentment. When people claim it is racism they miss the rather basic fact that so often the "race" being othered is white Europeans like us. It is not racism, but it is prejudice.
Spent a couple of days in Frankfurt this week. Coming home even London - our wealthy capital - looked really poor and grubby. Except for the Elizabeth Line, of course, using that feels like visiting a foreign country.
Frankfurt has a smaller population even than West London, the wealthiest part of the capital.
It doesn't have poorer bits like East London and South London to the same extent
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
In that his about face was entirely a matter of political convenience ?
It'll be up to Congress anyway no matter who is POTUS next year won't it? They'll have to decide if they want to keep pumping $50bn/year worth of weapons into Ukraine.
But it’s not costing them anywhere near $50bn, that’s what really annoying about the debate in the US.
As an example, the successful HIMARS systems are old, almost obsolete in American terms, and were due to be replaced anyway in the next couple of years. Putting a huge dollar value on them is misrepresentative, and drives a lot of the opposition in the US to helping the Ukranians.
Well, yes. That’s the point.
That said, all of American public discourse at the moment is thoroughly toxic.
Toxified by Trump.
I really wish he had lost in 2016, the world would be in a better place today.
Trump would have been a curious footnote in history rather than the most dangerous man in America, if not the world.
What's remarkable is just how much he was able to capture the party. Americans don't have leaders the opposition but its sure felt like they have since he lost, even people like Pence who have reason to be furious with him are very cautious in criticism, and typically get into line along with everyone else.
That's why he wins the nomination, because ultimately the big hitters remain too frightened to take him on directly in a consistent way, and if you support him as much as thru demonstrably do, and if you think he was cheated of victory last time, and most claim to believe that, then why not support him?
Yes. Trump wins the nomination because he is a force of nature. Politically he is Untouchable and Unstoppable.
We have to take a few steps back and ask how America got itself into this mess. Trump clearly lost the 2020 election heavily, yet a substantial proportion of the country believe he won (because he says so). Trump clearly has some legal troubles but his supporters see *any* action against him as a political witch hunt (because he says so). Trump is a huge liability in office and corrupts every part of government he touches, yet is seen to be draining the swamp of government.
So how can other candidates stop him? Because he is unpopular? Incompetent? A crook? A loser?
The question is can Biden keepittogether long enough to beat The Donald again. Perhaps he might consider a better VP candidate this time as you do wonder if he will make the end of his second term.
That he is a loser is probably the strongest card others have, since his base dont believe or dont care if he is incompetent or a crook, since he's still their guy.
That he's got most of them to say he won last time, or at least not push back on the claim, is a genius level achievement as it neuters that attack. Instead they focus on electoral measures to help him win rather than picking someone else.
With difficult times and the best Democrat candidate being 82 come the election, it could yet work.
Biden rightly painted the last presidential election as important for the basic fundamentals of their democracy. The position will have decayed even further by the time we get to November 2024 if Trump is once again the candidate.
Its easy to point at Trump and the Republican Party for the coming disgrace in capitulating to the Trump fantasy. But we also have to point at the Democrats where Joe Biden is their last and only line of defence. Is that all they have left? Really?
Biden beat Trump in 2020 unlike Hillary in 2016 and Biden polls better v Trump than Harris, Newsom or Buttigieg. So yes if Trump is GOP nominee again
I know Biden has been a winner. We all know that. But he is 142 years old. Are we saying that there is nobody else more relevant who could also be a winner?
Ageism is an acceptable prejudice for you?
Oh come on. It's pretty clear he's pretty positive on Biden and using an exaggeration to illustrate a problem about lack of depth as there will be Americans a little worried about the robustness of an 82 year old, not ageism.
I like Biden quite a lot, and he's sprightly fir his age, but if he were 10 years younger people anxious for him to win again would be less nervous.
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
Junior doctors want a 25% payrise, the national average rise in 6%
Have you never taken part in negotiations?
25% is an entirely appropriate starting point to demand when the Government are offering others 11% and you only 2%.
If the Government want to short-change you by 9%, then start demanding much higher than what you will actually accept, then meet in the middle. Government says 2%, you say 25%, meet in the middle at 13% or just 2% higher than what the Government is prepared to pay those who aren't working for a living, and you have an agreement.
If the Government didn't want strikes they shouldn't have offered some people 11% and others 2%.
They didn't. The only people getting 10% or more from the government are those who earn much less than junior doctors ie state pensioners, those on benefits or minimum wage or junior criminal lawyers doing legal aid
Yep, those who are not working. State pensioners aren't all earning much less than junior doctors since the taxpayers money going to them is on top of, not instead of, any other pensions they have.
If people not working are getting 10% or more, then so should those who are working.
Those who are working should never be getting less than those who are working. If 10% is the baseline for non-workers, then its the minimum those who are working should be getting. Since when was the Conservative Party the Party for people on benefits rather than people who work for a living?
People working for a living all earn more than those on benefits, the minimum wage after all is going up by 10% exactly the same as benefits are going up by.
Just unlike Truss backing libertarians like you One Nation Tories like Hunt and Sunak don't want to force the poorest in out society into deeper poverty given rising cost of living
Bullshit.
Someone with a high defined benefit pension and the state pension can be earning much more than someone working for a living - and paying much less percentage in tax too since their earnings won't be subject to either the graduate tax or National Insurance.
So you're talking out of your arse.
Only the state pension went up by 10% NOT defined benefit pensions
On junior doctors, my worry actually is that the damage is done... the staff shortages from poor wages exacerbate the situation and make UK an unappealing place to be a doctor. Even a pay rise now won't fix that.
Same is true for other health professions but doctors particularly have more global options.
Most people, most of the time, don’t want to work abroad. And where we recruit from abroad, we usually still pay higher.
4/10 junior doctors planning to leave as soon as they can (bmj survey). We already have shortages.
Don’t believe them. Easy to say.
But, as noted above, this is about supply and demand. Introduce some penal fees on those leaving the NHS before we get the costs of their tuition back and if we still can’t man the NHS, pay them more.
Correcting for below inflation rises for ten years is a non-starter on fairness grounds because you then have to do it for every public sector employee.
Don't want to become a doctor on the prospect of a miserable six figure salary and no tea? Fine. Fuck off.
Plenty in the queue behind you who can put up with such privations.
There are not that many in the queue because the BMA insists on limits to numbers of medical school places.
Doesn't mean they can do that, as Foxy has explained in four letter words (or three letter acronyms). Unless you have joined the Arthur Scargill school of worker control of the factories?
And adducing a 15 year old thing *from before covid* is not good evidence on anything to do with hospitals today.
I haven't joined anything, but they seemed awfully confident for a group with apparently no say in the matter:
"Delegates at the annual BMA conference voted by a narrow majority to restrict the number of places at medical schools to avoid “overproduction of doctors with limited career opportunities.” They also agreed on a complete ban on opening new medical schools.
David Sochart, from Manchester and Salford, warned that in the current job climate allowing too many new doctors into the market would risk devaluing the profession and make newly qualified doctors prey to “unscrupulous profiteers.” A glut of doctors would undermine competition and would therefore lower standards and ensure mediocrity, he claimed.
He said, “Patients and health care should not be treated as mere commodities, and neither should medical students. We must not allow another lost tribe of doctors to be consigned to the wilderness.”"
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
As I have said before, it isn't racism, its jingoism. The racism used to be there of course, and growing up in an east Lancashire township we saw plenty of racial unrest caused by the pig-ignorant policies of previous councils and the pig-ignorance of some of the older residents. But that is the past.
What we have instead is fear of the other. The other isn't defined by race, it is simply not being me and mine. The north has a real problem with the south and southerners. Lancashire and Yorkshire share a deep-rooted dislike despite their obvious mass similarities. Sheffield was trialling the Hunger Games districting long before the book or the movie, as was Washington with predictable results. Thornaby was described rightly as full of "parochial bigots" by an old man born and raised there, with the town Mayor ranting drunk on Facebook about how outsiders do not understand the town "and never will".
Racism is simply the wrong label.
Anyone with a neutral Southern accent in the North will, at some time or another, have faced some kind of non-trivial prejudice, dislike or discrimination for being posh, just as a fairly neutral northern accent in the South will be treated in some quarters as a bit thick.
The fun bit about where I grew up is just how insular some of these places are. My dad is from Salford and because of that I heard and picked up some of the longer vowel sounds that the nicer parts of older-than-Manchester-thankyou have. Which had me branded "a cheshire snob" by various kids. Despite Salford being Lancashire like Rochdale.
And then I went to college in Oldham. Where you mashed together accepts from the Pennine mill towns and the suburban Mancunians. You could neatly divide most groups up by their accent type. Mancs on one side, hillbillies on the other. With less mixing socially than you might think.
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
Junior doctors want a 25% payrise, the national average rise in 6%
Have you never taken part in negotiations?
25% is an entirely appropriate starting point to demand when the Government are offering others 11% and you only 2%.
If the Government want to short-change you by 9%, then start demanding much higher than what you will actually accept, then meet in the middle. Government says 2%, you say 25%, meet in the middle at 13% or just 2% higher than what the Government is prepared to pay those who aren't working for a living, and you have an agreement.
If the Government didn't want strikes they shouldn't have offered some people 11% and others 2%.
They didn't. The only people getting 10% or more from the government are those who earn much less than junior doctors ie state pensioners, those on benefits or minimum wage or junior criminal lawyers doing legal aid
Yep, those who are not working. State pensioners aren't all earning much less than junior doctors since the taxpayers money going to them is on top of, not instead of, any other pensions they have.
If people not working are getting 10% or more, then so should those who are working.
Those who are working should never be getting less than those who are working. If 10% is the baseline for non-workers, then its the minimum those who are working should be getting. Since when was the Conservative Party the Party for people on benefits rather than people who work for a living?
People working for a living all earn more than those on benefits, the minimum wage after all is going up by 10% exactly the same as benefits are going up by.
Just unlike Truss backing libertarians like you One Nation Tories like Hunt and Sunak don't want to force the poorest in out society into deeper poverty given rising cost of living
Bullshit.
Someone with a high defined benefit pension and the state pension can be earning much more than someone working for a living - and paying much less percentage in tax too since their earnings won't be subject to either the graduate tax or National Insurance.
So you're talking out of your arse.
Only the state pension went up by 10% NOT defined benefit pensions
How much did the limits for private pension contributions for the wealthiest go up by? 50% was it? Plus scrapping of lifetime allowance.
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
His initial remarks were pretty clear and unambiguous in their implications (I dont recall the accusation being that he thought the invasion justified). That's not a clarification he's made it's a shift because he got pushback.
Clarify is one of the most abused words in politics. People use it to mean 'how dare you criticise me for what I said, I meant something else entirely and it's your fault for assuming otherwise'.
What were the clear and unambiguous implications of his initial remarks in terms of what he would have actually done differently to Biden? His initial remarks seem to me to be entirely ambiguous and unclear, and his latest 'clarification' not much clearer.
It was sufficiently clear to his Senate Republican colleagues that his remarks meant he would likely scale back support, a position advanced by others in the party, so that they felt the need to criticise him about it.
If it were at all ambiguous they would not have felt that need, they'd have attacked the media for mischaracterising his remarks, as he is now lamely attempting.
They didn't, because it was obvious who he was trying to appeal to.
What's amusing is any articles saying he was right about what he said, which he is now saying is not what they thought.
Sure, but my point is that his original remarks were unclear and ambiguous in terms of what he would actually do differently to Biden. On specifics, AIUI, he has only said that he is against sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, and that he is opposed to sending F16s and 'long-range missiles', which seems so far to be exactly the same as Biden's policy.
What a surprise that someone willing to be an apologist to those in Germany who are against standing up to Russia, is also an apologist to those in America who are too.
What he said was reprehensible. And Biden has given escalating amounts of weaponry to Ukraine as they've been trained on using it, he didn't give tanks at first but later on did. Nothing should be off the table, including F16s and long range missiles.
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
His initial remarks were pretty clear and unambiguous in their implications (I dont recall the accusation being that he thought the invasion justified). That's not a clarification he's made it's a shift because he got pushback.
Clarify is one of the most abused words in politics. People use it to mean 'how dare you criticise me for what I said, I meant something else entirely and it's your fault for assuming otherwise'.
What were the clear and unambiguous implications of his initial remarks in terms of what he would have actually done differently to Biden? His initial remarks seem to me to be entirely ambiguous and unclear, and his latest 'clarification' not much clearer.
It was sufficiently clear to his Senate Republican colleagues that his remarks meant he would likely scale back support, a position advanced by others in the party, so that they felt the need to criticise him about it.
If it were at all ambiguous they would not have felt that need, they'd have attacked the media for mischaracterising his remarks, as he is now lamely attempting.
They didn't, because it was obvious who he was trying to appeal to.
What's amusing is any articles saying he was right about what he said, which he is now saying is not what they thought.
Sure, but my point is that his original remarks were unclear and ambiguous in terms of what he would actually do differently to Biden. On specifics, AIUI, he has only said that he is against sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, and that he is opposed to sending F16s and 'long-range missiles', which seems so far to be exactly the same as Biden's policy.
His original remarks were that the US had no national interest in the 'territorial dispute'.
That's very different to Biden's position.
He seems to have no idea what principles the USA was fighting for in WW2.
But equally, the DeSantis position is not that far removed from that of America before Pearl Harbour made them take sides.
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
Junior doctors want a 25% payrise, the national average rise in 6%
Have you never taken part in negotiations?
25% is an entirely appropriate starting point to demand when the Government are offering others 11% and you only 2%.
If the Government want to short-change you by 9%, then start demanding much higher than what you will actually accept, then meet in the middle. Government says 2%, you say 25%, meet in the middle at 13% or just 2% higher than what the Government is prepared to pay those who aren't working for a living, and you have an agreement.
If the Government didn't want strikes they shouldn't have offered some people 11% and others 2%.
They didn't. The only people getting 10% or more from the government are those who earn much less than junior doctors ie state pensioners, those on benefits or minimum wage or junior criminal lawyers doing legal aid
Yep, those who are not working. State pensioners aren't all earning much less than junior doctors since the taxpayers money going to them is on top of, not instead of, any other pensions they have.
If people not working are getting 10% or more, then so should those who are working.
Those who are working should never be getting less than those who are working. If 10% is the baseline for non-workers, then its the minimum those who are working should be getting. Since when was the Conservative Party the Party for people on benefits rather than people who work for a living?
People working for a living all earn more than those on benefits, the minimum wage after all is going up by 10% exactly the same as benefits are going up by.
Just unlike Truss backing libertarians like you One Nation Tories like Hunt and Sunak don't want to force the poorest in out society into deeper poverty given rising cost of living
Bullshit.
Someone with a high defined benefit pension and the state pension can be earning much more than someone working for a living - and paying much less percentage in tax too since their earnings won't be subject to either the graduate tax or National Insurance.
So you're talking out of your arse.
Only the state pension went up by 10% NOT defined benefit pensions
Yes and the state pension goes to people with defined benefit pensions and is paid for by taxpayers money.
If they can get 10%, then so can those working for a living. If 10% isn't affordable for people working, it shouldn't be affordable for those not working either.
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
Junior doctors want a 25% payrise, the national average rise in 6%
Have you never taken part in negotiations?
25% is an entirely appropriate starting point to demand when the Government are offering others 11% and you only 2%.
If the Government want to short-change you by 9%, then start demanding much higher than what you will actually accept, then meet in the middle. Government says 2%, you say 25%, meet in the middle at 13% or just 2% higher than what the Government is prepared to pay those who aren't working for a living, and you have an agreement.
If the Government didn't want strikes they shouldn't have offered some people 11% and others 2%.
They didn't. The only people getting 10% or more from the government are those who earn much less than junior doctors ie state pensioners, those on benefits or minimum wage or junior criminal lawyers doing legal aid
Yep, those who are not working. State pensioners aren't all earning much less than junior doctors since the taxpayers money going to them is on top of, not instead of, any other pensions they have.
If people not working are getting 10% or more, then so should those who are working.
Those who are working should never be getting less than those who are working. If 10% is the baseline for non-workers, then its the minimum those who are working should be getting. Since when was the Conservative Party the Party for people on benefits rather than people who work for a living?
People working for a living all earn more than those on benefits, the minimum wage after all is going up by 10% exactly the same as benefits are going up by.
Just unlike Truss backing libertarians like you One Nation Tories like Hunt and Sunak don't want to force the poorest in our society into deeper poverty given rising cost of living
Bollocks. I remember your lot cutting the £20 a week UC uplift. Which absolutely smashed the very poorest back into grinding poverty. And then promoting 30p Lee Anderson to patronise and insult all the people it affected as being too thick to know how to look after themselves.
If you don't get a £100k a year contract to present "news" on GBeebies then you really deserve to be poor. Vote Conservative.
On junior doctors, my worry actually is that the damage is done... the staff shortages from poor wages exacerbate the situation and make UK an unappealing place to be a doctor. Even a pay rise now won't fix that.
Same is true for other health professions but doctors particularly have more global options.
Most people, most of the time, don’t want to work abroad. And where we recruit from abroad, we usually still pay higher.
4/10 junior doctors planning to leave as soon as they can (bmj survey). We already have shortages.
Don’t believe them. Easy to say.
But, as noted above, this is about supply and demand. Introduce some penal fees on those leaving the NHS before we get the costs of their tuition back and if we still can’t man the NHS, pay them more.
Correcting for below inflation rises for ten years is a non-starter on fairness grounds because you then have to do it for every public sector employee.
Don't want to become a doctor on the prospect of a miserable six figure salary and no tea? Fine. Fuck off.
Plenty in the queue behind you who can put up with such privations.
There are not that many in the queue because the BMA insists on limits to numbers of medical school places.
Doesn't mean they can do that, as Foxy has explained in four letter words (or three letter acronyms). Unless you have joined the Arthur Scargill school of worker control of the factories?
And adducing a 15 year old thing *from before covid* is not good evidence on anything to do with hospitals today.
I haven't joined anything, but they seemed awfully confident for a group with apparently no say in the matter:
"Delegates at the annual BMA conference voted by a narrow majority to restrict the number of places at medical schools to avoid “overproduction of doctors with limited career opportunities.” They also agreed on a complete ban on opening new medical schools.
David Sochart, from Manchester and Salford, warned that in the current job climate allowing too many new doctors into the market would risk devaluing the profession and make newly qualified doctors prey to “unscrupulous profiteers.” A glut of doctors would undermine competition and would therefore lower standards and ensure mediocrity, he claimed.
He said, “Patients and health care should not be treated as mere commodities, and neither should medical students. We must not allow another lost tribe of doctors to be consigned to the wilderness.”"
This makes me imagine the DT claiming that votes atr the annual conference of Arthur Scargill and the NUM controlled the NCB. Which was never true, except only in the sense of obstruction.
But the sentiment of the medical profession has changed very greatly in the l;ast decade, especially with covid.
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
His initial remarks were pretty clear and unambiguous in their implications (I dont recall the accusation being that he thought the invasion justified). That's not a clarification he's made it's a shift because he got pushback.
Clarify is one of the most abused words in politics. People use it to mean 'how dare you criticise me for what I said, I meant something else entirely and it's your fault for assuming otherwise'.
What were the clear and unambiguous implications of his initial remarks in terms of what he would have actually done differently to Biden? His initial remarks seem to me to be entirely ambiguous and unclear, and his latest 'clarification' not much clearer.
It was sufficiently clear to his Senate Republican colleagues that his remarks meant he would likely scale back support, a position advanced by others in the party, so that they felt the need to criticise him about it.
If it were at all ambiguous they would not have felt that need, they'd have attacked the media for mischaracterising his remarks, as he is now lamely attempting.
They didn't, because it was obvious who he was trying to appeal to.
What's amusing is any articles saying he was right about what he said, which he is now saying is not what they thought.
Sure, but my point is that his original remarks were unclear and ambiguous in terms of what he would actually do differently to Biden. On specifics, AIUI, he has only said that he is against sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, and that he is opposed to sending F16s and 'long-range missiles', which seems so far to be exactly the same as Biden's policy.
His original remarks were that the US had no national interest in the 'territorial dispute'.
That's very different to Biden's position.
The claim seems to be he didn't set out specifics of what he'd do differently. But his remarks were widely interpreted, not merely by opponents, as signalling he would act differently. He has now sought to clarify what he meant, which shows he knows it was interpreted he would act differently.
So I dont see the unfairness in interpreting what he said as that he would act differently, regardless of whether he was specific. If I said all doctors are lazy swindlers it would not be unreasonable for people to infer my likely position on junior doctor strikes.
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
Junior doctors want a 25% payrise, the national average rise in 6%
Have you never taken part in negotiations?
25% is an entirely appropriate starting point to demand when the Government are offering others 11% and you only 2%.
If the Government want to short-change you by 9%, then start demanding much higher than what you will actually accept, then meet in the middle. Government says 2%, you say 25%, meet in the middle at 13% or just 2% higher than what the Government is prepared to pay those who aren't working for a living, and you have an agreement.
If the Government didn't want strikes they shouldn't have offered some people 11% and others 2%.
They didn't. The only people getting 10% or more from the government are those who earn much less than junior doctors ie state pensioners, those on benefits or minimum wage or junior criminal lawyers doing legal aid
Yep, those who are not working. State pensioners aren't all earning much less than junior doctors since the taxpayers money going to them is on top of, not instead of, any other pensions they have.
If people not working are getting 10% or more, then so should those who are working.
Those who are working should never be getting less than those who are working. If 10% is the baseline for non-workers, then its the minimum those who are working should be getting. Since when was the Conservative Party the Party for people on benefits rather than people who work for a living?
People working for a living all earn more than those on benefits, the minimum wage after all is going up by 10% exactly the same as benefits are going up by.
Just unlike Truss backing libertarians like you One Nation Tories like Hunt and Sunak don't want to force the poorest in out society into deeper poverty given rising cost of living
Bullshit.
Someone with a high defined benefit pension and the state pension can be earning much more than someone working for a living - and paying much less percentage in tax too since their earnings won't be subject to either the graduate tax or National Insurance.
So you're talking out of your arse.
Only the state pension went up by 10% NOT defined benefit pensions
How much did the limits for private pension contributions for the wealthiest go up by? 50% was it? Plus scrapping of lifetime allowance.
And a massive bypass to evade IHT - hence pandering to the wealthy and southern houseowners whose legacies to their children HYUFD is so keen to protect at the cost of wrecking everything for everyone.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
As I have said before, it isn't racism, its jingoism. The racism used to be there of course, and growing up in an east Lancashire township we saw plenty of racial unrest caused by the pig-ignorant policies of previous councils and the pig-ignorance of some of the older residents. But that is the past.
What we have instead is fear of the other. The other isn't defined by race, it is simply not being me and mine. The north has a real problem with the south and southerners. Lancashire and Yorkshire share a deep-rooted dislike despite their obvious mass similarities. Sheffield was trialling the Hunger Games districting long before the book or the movie, as was Washington with predictable results. Thornaby was described rightly as full of "parochial bigots" by an old man born and raised there, with the town Mayor ranting drunk on Facebook about how outsiders do not understand the town "and never will".
Racism is simply the wrong label.
All agreed, but wasn’t clear on the districting reference. Sounds interesting- can you explain further?
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
Whilst all that is true, it is also true that in many cases the working conditions for NHS staff are horrid and highly demoralising, and I suspect that a lot of the discontent which is ostensibly about pay is related to that.
Yep. Any job is a balance between pay and conditions.
I'm an academic. Many say we're underpaid and - like medicine - you can certainly make the case on starting salaries given required experience. But we have hugely flexible jobs where, effectively, we get to choose what we work on (as long as we can persuade someone to fund it) and - unlike clinicians - we get to largley decide when to do it outside of teaching duties. I've been offered more to be a stats/coding monkey in the private sector, but here I still am.
The junior docs I know (and I know a fair few* as students on Masters courses, collaborators on research, clinical research fellows etc) are much more upset about the conditions and the chronic understaffing and the feeling that they can't, due to that, do the job as well as they think it should be done than they are about pay. Better pay comes, if they can stick it out. But that's hard to do if the job itself is demoralising.
*far fewer, obviously, than our hospital-based clinicians and likely a skewed sample
It reminds me of a tale of 2 pubs locally.
One, where the manager expects people to do or not do shifts *one the day*. He can't get staff.
Subjects CAN lick Charlie’s boots, if they disinfect their tongue first
Looks like a rare piece of good sense - the floor is a magnificent piece of art, and it's a shame it has to be covered most of the time.
I was disappointed by the protesters - taking it out on the poor floor by wearing shoes. Otherwise good to see people reminding us that Other Options Are Available.
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
Whilst all that is true, it is also true that in many cases the working conditions for NHS staff are horrid and highly demoralising, and I suspect that a lot of the discontent which is ostensibly about pay is related to that.
Yep. Any job is a balance between pay and conditions.
I'm an academic. Many say we're underpaid and - like medicine - you can certainly make the case on starting salaries given required experience. But we have hugely flexible jobs where, effectively, we get to choose what we work on (as long as we can persuade someone to fund it) and - unlike clinicians - we get to largley decide when to do it outside of teaching duties. I've been offered more to be a stats/coding monkey in the private sector, but here I still am.
The junior docs I know (and I know a fair few* as students on Masters courses, collaborators on research, clinical research fellows etc) are much more upset about the conditions and the chronic understaffing and the feeling that they can't, due to that, do the job as well as they think it should be done than they are about pay. Better pay comes, if they can stick it out. But that's hard to do if the job itself is demoralising.
*far fewer, obviously, than our hospital-based clinicians and likely a skewed sample
It reminds me of a tale of 2 pubs locally.
One, where the manager expects people to do or not do shifts *one the day*. He can't get staff.
Subjects CAN lick Charlie’s boots, if they disinfect their tongue first
Looks like a rare piece of good sense - the floor is a magnificent piece of art, and it's a shame it has to be covered most of the time.
I was disappointed by the protesters - taking it out on the poor floor by wearing shoes. Otherwise good to see people reminding us that Other Options Are Available.
My thoughts exactly. Republic or Monarchy, only a twat would damage that floor.
I was helping an older relative fill out a bus pass request on their council website and the 'gender' field allowed only one option 'Male' - the counter reaction to some modern trends really has gone too far!
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
As I have said before, it isn't racism, its jingoism. The racism used to be there of course, and growing up in an east Lancashire township we saw plenty of racial unrest caused by the pig-ignorant policies of previous councils and the pig-ignorance of some of the older residents. But that is the past.
What we have instead is fear of the other. The other isn't defined by race, it is simply not being me and mine. The north has a real problem with the south and southerners. Lancashire and Yorkshire share a deep-rooted dislike despite their obvious mass similarities. Sheffield was trialling the Hunger Games districting long before the book or the movie, as was Washington with predictable results. Thornaby was described rightly as full of "parochial bigots" by an old man born and raised there, with the town Mayor ranting drunk on Facebook about how outsiders do not understand the town "and never will".
Racism is simply the wrong label.
All agreed, but wasn’t clear on the districting reference. Sounds interesting- can you explain further?
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
His initial remarks were pretty clear and unambiguous in their implications (I dont recall the accusation being that he thought the invasion justified). That's not a clarification he's made it's a shift because he got pushback.
Clarify is one of the most abused words in politics. People use it to mean 'how dare you criticise me for what I said, I meant something else entirely and it's your fault for assuming otherwise'.
What were the clear and unambiguous implications of his initial remarks in terms of what he would have actually done differently to Biden? His initial remarks seem to me to be entirely ambiguous and unclear, and his latest 'clarification' not much clearer.
It was sufficiently clear to his Senate Republican colleagues that his remarks meant he would likely scale back support, a position advanced by others in the party, so that they felt the need to criticise him about it.
If it were at all ambiguous they would not have felt that need, they'd have attacked the media for mischaracterising his remarks, as he is now lamely attempting.
They didn't, because it was obvious who he was trying to appeal to.
What's amusing is any articles saying he was right about what he said, which he is now saying is not what they thought.
Sure, but my point is that his original remarks were unclear and ambiguous in terms of what he would actually do differently to Biden. On specifics, AIUI, he has only said that he is against sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, and that he is opposed to sending F16s and 'long-range missiles', which seems so far to be exactly the same as Biden's policy.
His original remarks were that the US had no national interest in the 'territorial dispute'.
That's very different to Biden's position.
The claim seems to be he didn't set out specifics of what he'd do differently. But his remarks were widely interpreted, not merely by opponents, as signalling he would act differently. He has now sought to clarify what he meant, which shows he knows it was interpreted he would act differently.
So I dont see the unfairness in interpreting what he said as that he would act differently, regardless of whether he was specific. If I said all doctors are lazy swindlers it would not be unreasonable for people to infer my likely position on junior doctor strikes.
It is also "slightly" different in a war where eventually there will be some form of settlement and the perceived level of US policy support will be influential in the outcome. Doing the same material policieis but with less favourable language and long term commitment seriously hurts Ukraine at any future negotiations.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
As I have said before, it isn't racism, its jingoism. The racism used to be there of course, and growing up in an east Lancashire township we saw plenty of racial unrest caused by the pig-ignorant policies of previous councils and the pig-ignorance of some of the older residents. But that is the past.
What we have instead is fear of the other. The other isn't defined by race, it is simply not being me and mine. The north has a real problem with the south and southerners. Lancashire and Yorkshire share a deep-rooted dislike despite their obvious mass similarities. Sheffield was trialling the Hunger Games districting long before the book or the movie, as was Washington with predictable results. Thornaby was described rightly as full of "parochial bigots" by an old man born and raised there, with the town Mayor ranting drunk on Facebook about how outsiders do not understand the town "and never will".
Racism is simply the wrong label.
What you're describing is more parochialism than jingoism I'd say.
But its also again a deep element of projectionism there too. Most Lancashire v Yorkshire stuff for instance is no more than banter, like Liverpool v Manchester, rather than real dislike. While local Government has often attracted fruitcakes, partially because of how little attention the ordinary voter pays to it which allows them to get by there rather than in serious politics, the overwhelming majority of ordinary voters are not fruitcakes or parochial/jingoistic/racist.
The overwhelming majority of ordinary voters here are normal people, who care about issues that affect them and their family first and foremost.
The parochial anti London/SE feeling is real though. You see it i
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
In that his about face was entirely a matter of political convenience ?
It'll be up to Congress anyway no matter who is POTUS next year won't it? They'll have to decide if they want to keep pumping $50bn/year worth of weapons into Ukraine.
But it’s not costing them anywhere near $50bn, that’s what really annoying about the debate in the US.
As an example, the successful HIMARS systems are old, almost obsolete in American terms, and were due to be replaced anyway in the next couple of years. Putting a huge dollar value on them is misrepresentative, and drives a lot of the opposition in the US to helping the Ukranians.
Well, yes. That’s the point.
That said, all of American public discourse at the moment is thoroughly toxic.
Toxified by Trump.
I really wish he had lost in 2016, the world would be in a better place today.
Trump would have been a curious footnote in history rather than the most dangerous man in America, if not the world.
What's remarkable is just how much he was able to capture the party. Americans don't have leaders the opposition but its sure felt like they have since he lost, even people like Pence who have reason to be furious with him are very cautious in criticism, and typically get into line along with everyone else.
That's why he wins the nomination, because ultimately the big hitters remain too frightened to take him on directly in a consistent way, and if you support him as much as thru demonstrably do, and if you think he was cheated of victory last time, and most claim to believe that, then why not support him?
Yes. Trump wins the nomination because he is a force of nature. Politically he is Untouchable and Unstoppable.
We have to take a few steps back and ask how America got itself into this mess. Trump clearly lost the 2020 election heavily, yet a substantial proportion of the country believe he won (because he says so). Trump clearly has some legal troubles but his supporters see *any* action against him as a political witch hunt (because he says so). Trump is a huge liability in office and corrupts every part of government he touches, yet is seen to be draining the swamp of government.
So how can other candidates stop him? Because he is unpopular? Incompetent? A crook? A loser?
The question is can Biden keepittogether long enough to beat The Donald again. Perhaps he might consider a better VP candidate this time as you do wonder if he will make the end of his second term.
That he is a loser is probably the strongest card others have, since his base dont believe or dont care if he is incompetent or a crook, since he's still their guy.
That he's got most of them to say he won last time, or at least not push back on the claim, is a genius level achievement as it neuters that attack. Instead they focus on electoral measures to help him win rather than picking someone else.
With difficult times and the best Democrat candidate being 82 come the election, it could yet work.
Biden rightly painted the last presidential election as important for the basic fundamentals of their
democracy. The position will have decayed even further by the time we get to November 2024 if Trump is once again the candidate.
Its easy to point at Trump and the Republican Party for the coming disgrace in capitulating to the Trump fantasy. But we also have to point at the Democrats where Joe Biden is their last and only line of defence. Is that all they have left? Really?
Not really, no. But the reality is that Biden has been a pretty good president, and it's not easy to ditch a sitting President who wants to run again.
Indeed. And why should he be ditched? Arguably the most underrated political leader in modern times.
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
Junior doctors want a 25% payrise, the national average rise in 6%
Have you never taken part in negotiations?
25% is an entirely appropriate starting point to demand when the Government are offering others 11% and you only 2%.
If the Government want to short-change you by 9%, then start demanding much higher than what you will actually accept, then meet in the middle. Government says 2%, you say 25%, meet in the middle at 13% or just 2% higher than what the Government is prepared to pay those who aren't working for a living, and you have an agreement.
If the Government didn't want strikes they shouldn't have offered some people 11% and others 2%.
They didn't. The only people getting 10% or more from the government are those who earn much less than junior doctors ie state pensioners, those on benefits or minimum wage or junior criminal lawyers doing legal aid
Yep, those who are not working. State pensioners aren't all earning much less than junior doctors since the taxpayers money going to them is on top of, not instead of, any other pensions they have.
If people not working are getting 10% or more, then so should those who are working.
Those who are working should never be getting less than those who are working. If 10% is the baseline for non-workers, then its the minimum those who are working should be getting. Since when was the Conservative Party the Party for people on benefits rather than people who work for a living?
People working for a living all earn more than those on benefits, the minimum wage after all is going up by 10% exactly the same as benefits are going up by.
Just unlike Truss backing libertarians like you One Nation Tories like Hunt and Sunak don't want to force the poorest in our society into deeper poverty given rising cost of living
Bollocks. I remember your lot cutting the £20 a week UC uplift.
You mean, when an explicitly temporary rise turned out to actually be *checks notes* a temporary rise?
I do hope you don't go around criticising politicians for lying if you're also going to criticise them for telling the truth.
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
As I have said before, it isn't racism, its jingoism. The racism used to be there of course, and growing up in an east Lancashire township we saw plenty of racial unrest caused by the pig-ignorant policies of previous councils and the pig-ignorance of some of the older residents. But that is the past.
What we have instead is fear of the other. The other isn't defined by race, it is simply not being me and mine. The north has a real problem with the south and southerners. Lancashire and Yorkshire share a deep-rooted dislike despite their obvious mass similarities. Sheffield was trialling the Hunger Games districting long before the book or the movie, as was Washington with predictable results. Thornaby was described rightly as full of "parochial bigots" by an old man born and raised there, with the town Mayor ranting drunk on Facebook about how outsiders do not understand the town "and never will".
Racism is simply the wrong label.
What you're describing is more parochialism than jingoism I'd say.
But its also again a deep element of projectionism there too. Most Lancashire v Yorkshire stuff for instance is no more than banter, like Liverpool v Manchester, rather than real dislike. While local Government has often attracted fruitcakes, partially because of how little attention the ordinary voter pays to it which allows them to get by there rather than in serious politics, the overwhelming majority of ordinary voters are not fruitcakes or parochial/jingoistic/racist.
The overwhelming majority of ordinary voters here are normal people, who care about issues that affect them and their family first and foremost.
The parochial anti London/SE feeling is real though. You see it i
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
As I have said before, it isn't racism, its jingoism. The racism used to be there of course, and growing up in an east Lancashire township we saw plenty of racial unrest caused by the pig-ignorant policies of previous councils and the pig-ignorance of some of the older residents. But that is the past.
What we have instead is fear of the other. The other isn't defined by race, it is simply not being me and mine. The north has a real problem with the south and southerners. Lancashire and Yorkshire share a deep-rooted dislike despite their obvious mass similarities. Sheffield was trialling the Hunger Games districting long before the book or the movie, as was Washington with predictable results. Thornaby was described rightly as full of "parochial bigots" by an old man born and raised there, with the town Mayor ranting drunk on Facebook about how outsiders do not understand the town "and never will". Racism is simply the wrong label.
All agreed, but wasn’t
clear on the districting reference. Sounds interesting- can you explain further?
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
His initial remarks were pretty clear and unambiguous in their implications (I dont recall the accusation being that he thought the invasion justified). That's not a clarification he's made it's a shift because he got pushback.
Clarify is one of the most abused words in politics. People use it to mean 'how dare you criticise me for what I said, I meant something else entirely and it's your fault for assuming otherwise'.
What were the clear and unambiguous implications of his initial remarks in terms of what he would have actually done differently to Biden? His initial remarks seem to me to be entirely ambiguous and unclear, and his latest 'clarification' not much clearer.
It was sufficiently clear to his Senate Republican colleagues that his remarks meant he would likely scale back support, a position advanced by others in the party, so that they felt the need to criticise him about it.
If it were at all ambiguous they would not have felt that need, they'd have attacked the media for mischaracterising his remarks, as he is now lamely attempting.
They didn't, because it was obvious who he was trying to appeal to.
What's amusing is any articles saying he was right about what he said, which he is now saying is not what they thought.
Sure, but my point is that his original remarks were unclear and ambiguous in terms of what he would actually do differently to Biden. On specifics, AIUI, he has only said that he is against sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, and that he is opposed to sending F16s and 'long-range missiles', which seems so far to be exactly the same as Biden's policy.
His original remarks were that the US had no national interest in the 'territorial dispute'.
That's very different to Biden's position.
My question is still: what would he actually *do* differently?
Also I don't think it's accurate that he said the US has "no national interest". Here is what I can find:
"While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,"
"becoming further entangled" isn't a "vital national interest". Whatever that means.
btw Politifact seems to more or less agree with my interpretation:
If junior doctors' pay is so poor, how come places at med schools are so massively over subscribed?
There is some truth in what Malcolm suggested in somewhat blunt terms earlier, a lot of students go into medicine for the wrong reasons. If you are an above average sixth-former on the science side, medicine is an obvious choice because it is interesting, well-paid, and everyone loves doctors, so not a great deal of thought goes into the process. This means a lot of junior hospital doctors find reality is not what they imagined. The hours are long, the pay is low (at the start), and the work dull and repetitive, they are permanently knackered and suddenly life outside looks more attractive. Oh, and their mates from school are now three years into their careers, earning money and settling down.
Even without moving overseas, there are an awful lot of doctors on gap years, and others working part-time. My mate's doctor-child wants to be a management consultant.
If you get to be a partner in a gp surgery however you still get the 6 figure salary but with longer holidays and a better pension than your university friends who went into the City
Jam tomorrow. A salaried GP is on about £80,000 so a lot of friends who went into the City will be on that ten years earlier. More interestingly, something is going wrong among GPs too, it is not just junior hospital doctors. A lot of GPs now work part-time or have so-called portfolio careers (2-days GP, 2-days in different clinics at the local hospital.
A lot of their friends who go into the city are out on their arses a lot earlier than teh Doctors, it is not a job for life unlike doctors who are bomb proof unless they do a Shipman.
For once we are on the same page Malcolm. Journalists never mention the fact that the medical profession is the only one left with genuine "job for life" status.
For sure and no matter what they do , hard to be too sympathetic when millions are having to struggle on minimum wages and no hope of ever getting any better.
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
His initial remarks were pretty clear and unambiguous in their implications (I dont recall the accusation being that he thought the invasion justified). That's not a clarification he's made it's a shift because he got pushback.
Clarify is one of the most abused words in politics. People use it to mean 'how dare you criticise me for what I said, I meant something else entirely and it's your fault for assuming otherwise'.
What were the clear and unambiguous implications of his initial remarks in terms of what he would have actually done differently to Biden? His initial remarks seem to me to be entirely ambiguous and unclear, and his latest 'clarification' not much clearer.
It was sufficiently clear to his Senate Republican colleagues that his remarks meant he would likely scale back support, a position advanced by others in the party, so that they felt the need to criticise him about it.
If it were at all ambiguous they would not have felt that need, they'd have attacked the media for mischaracterising his remarks, as he is now lamely attempting.
They didn't, because it was obvious who he was trying to appeal to.
What's amusing is any articles saying he was right about what he said, which he is now saying is not what they thought.
Sure, but my point is that his original remarks were unclear and ambiguous in terms of what he would actually do differently to Biden. On specifics, AIUI, he has only said that he is against sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, and that he is opposed to sending F16s and 'long-range missiles', which seems so far to be exactly the same as Biden's policy.
His original remarks were that the US had no national interest in the 'territorial dispute'.
That's very different to Biden's position.
He seems to have no idea what principles the USA was fighting for in WW2.
But equally, the DeSantis position is not that far removed from that of America before Pearl Harbour made them take sides.
There's always been a strong isolationist element in US politics, counterbalancing those who believe the US has a global role and responsibility.
In some respects, it's the post WWII foreign policy consensus that is the aberration - though isolationism is utterly impractical in today's world, in a way that it wasn't a century back.
A question for Foxy, involving absolute pie in the sky thinking and as with everything I opine on on PB I know absolutely nothing about, is there a theoretical case for the following?
The gov build an absolutely ginormous super hospital with thousands of beds on an old military base or airfield.
The super hospital is also a teaching hospital for huge numbers doctors and nurses and is built from the start with all singing and dancing accommodation to house them and instructors in.
They get their accommodation and training for free as long as they work there for an agreed period of time in order to ensure the system gets its money’s worth out of them.
The super hospital benefits from economies and efficiencies of scale so it can have all the kit needed for everything hopefully then resulting in much quicker “service”.
Patients can have the option of going to this hospital miles away from home and family to speed up their treatment (I personally would prefer this as I’m grim and wouldn’t want visitors whilst I’m in hospital and there must be a few more grinches like me around). It can also be used as overflow in emergencies.
Result is a reduction in pressure on hospitals everywhere else, a potential quick route for those who don’t mind travelling for it and an increased pipeline of doctors and nurses available.
I’m sure that it’s totally impossible or unworkable but maybe some sort of solution.
Wake me up when Labour and the Tories are both in the 30's. That will be game on....
Next month we should have an "Outlier" showing that
I see we have returned to overanalysing hypothetical polling where the Tories have a scored enhanced by an indeterminate margin, for reasons unstated, at an undefined point in the future.
A question for Foxy, involving absolute pie in the sky thinking and as with everything I opine on on PB I know absolutely nothing about, is there a theoretical case for the following?
The gov build an absolutely ginormous super hospital with thousands of beds on an old military base or airfield.
The super hospital is also a teaching hospital for huge numbers doctors and nurses and is built from the start with all singing and dancing accommodation to house them and instructors in.
They get their accommodation and training for free as long as they work there for an agreed period of time in order to ensure the system gets its money’s worth out of them.
The super hospital benefits from economies and efficiencies of scale so it can have all the kit needed for everything hopefully then resulting in much quicker “service”.
Patients can have the option of going to this hospital miles away from home and family to speed up their treatment (I personally would prefer this as I’m grim and wouldn’t want visitors whilst I’m in hospital and there must be a few more grinches like me around). It can also be used as overflow in emergencies.
Result is a reduction in pressure on hospitals everywhere else, a potential quick route for those who don’t mind travelling for it and an increased pipeline of doctors and nurses available.
I’m sure that it’s totally impossible or unworkable but maybe some sort of solution.
The Scottish government built such a hospital. It has been an unmitigated and expensive disaster.
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
His initial remarks were pretty clear and unambiguous in their implications (I dont recall the accusation being that he thought the invasion justified). That's not a clarification he's made it's a shift because he got pushback.
Clarify is one of the most abused words in politics. People use it to mean 'how dare you criticise me for what I said, I meant something else entirely and it's your fault for assuming otherwise'.
What were the clear and unambiguous implications of his initial remarks in terms of what he would have actually done differently to Biden? His initial remarks seem to me to be entirely ambiguous and unclear, and his latest 'clarification' not much clearer.
It was sufficiently clear to his Senate Republican colleagues that his remarks meant he would likely scale back support, a position advanced by others in the party, so that they felt the need to criticise him about it.
If it were at all ambiguous they would not have felt that need, they'd have attacked the media for mischaracterising his remarks, as he is now lamely attempting.
They didn't, because it was obvious who he was trying to appeal to.
What's amusing is any articles saying he was right about what he said, which he is now saying is not what they thought.
Sure, but my point is that his original remarks were unclear and ambiguous in terms of what he would actually do differently to Biden. On specifics, AIUI, he has only said that he is against sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, and that he is opposed to sending F16s and 'long-range missiles', which seems so far to be exactly the same as Biden's policy.
His original remarks were that the US had no national interest in the 'territorial dispute'.
That's very different to Biden's position.
The claim seems to be he didn't set out specifics of what he'd do differently. But his remarks were widely interpreted, not merely by opponents, as signalling he would act differently. He has now sought to clarify what he meant, which shows he knows it was interpreted he would act differently.
So I dont see the unfairness in interpreting what he said as that he would act differently, regardless of whether he was specific. If I said all doctors are lazy swindlers it would not be unreasonable for people to infer my likely position on junior doctor strikes.
I don't care at all if people are unfair to DeSantis, I think he's an arsehole. But as he specifically said he was opposed to sending US troops and F16s to Ukraine, it seems a bit of a jump to say he is opposed to what the US is currently actually sending, no?
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
His initial remarks were pretty clear and unambiguous in their implications (I dont recall the accusation being that he thought the invasion justified). That's not a clarification he's made it's a shift because he got pushback.
Clarify is one of the most abused words in politics. People use it to mean 'how dare you criticise me for what I said, I meant something else entirely and it's your fault for assuming otherwise'.
What were the clear and unambiguous implications of his initial remarks in terms of what he would have actually done differently to Biden? His initial remarks seem to me to be entirely ambiguous and unclear, and his latest 'clarification' not much clearer.
It was sufficiently clear to his Senate Republican colleagues that his remarks meant he would likely scale back support, a position advanced by others in the party, so that they felt the need to criticise him about it.
If it were at all ambiguous they would not have felt that need, they'd have attacked the media for mischaracterising his remarks, as he is now lamely attempting.
They didn't, because it was obvious who he was trying to appeal to.
What's amusing is any articles saying he was right about what he said, which he is now saying is not what they thought.
Sure, but my point is that his original remarks were unclear and ambiguous in terms of what he would actually do differently to Biden. On specifics, AIUI, he has only said that he is against sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, and that he is opposed to sending F16s and 'long-range missiles', which seems so far to be exactly the same as Biden's policy.
His original remarks were that the US had no national interest in the 'territorial dispute'.
That's very different to Biden's position.
He seems to have no idea what principles the USA was fighting for in WW2.
But equally, the DeSantis position is not that far removed from that of America before Pearl Harbour made them take sides.
There's always been a strong isolationist element in US politics, counterbalancing those who believe the US has a global role and responsibility.
In some respects, it's the post WWII foreign policy consensus that is the aberration - though isolationism is utterly impractical in today's world, in a way that it wasn't a century back.
DeSantis isn't isolationist, he just wants to focus on containing Xi's China more than Putin's Russia. Indeed so does Trump
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
Junior doctors want a 25% payrise, the national average rise in 6%
Have you never taken part in negotiations?
25% is an entirely appropriate starting point to demand when the Government are offering others 11% and you only 2%.
If the Government want to short-change you by 9%, then start demanding much higher than what you will actually accept, then meet in the middle. Government says 2%, you say 25%, meet in the middle at 13% or just 2% higher than what the Government is prepared to pay those who aren't working for a living, and you have an agreement.
If the Government didn't want strikes they shouldn't have offered some people 11% and others 2%.
They didn't. The only people getting 10% or more from the government are those who earn much less than junior doctors ie state pensioners, those on benefits or minimum wage or junior criminal lawyers doing legal aid
Yep, those who are not working. State pensioners aren't all earning much less than junior doctors since the taxpayers money going to them is on top of, not instead of, any other pensions they have.
If people not working are getting 10% or more, then so should those who are working.
Those who are working should never be getting less than those who are working. If 10% is the baseline for non-workers, then its the minimum those who are working should be getting. Since when was the Conservative Party the Party for people on benefits rather than people who work for a living?
People working for a living all earn more than those on benefits, the minimum wage after all is going up by 10% exactly the same as benefits are going up by.
Just unlike Truss backing libertarians like you One Nation Tories like Hunt and Sunak don't want to force the poorest in out society into deeper poverty given rising cost of living
Bullshit.
Someone with a high defined benefit pension and the state pension can be earning much more than someone working for a living - and paying much less percentage in tax too since their earnings won't be subject to either the graduate tax or National Insurance.
So you're talking out of your arse.
Only the state pension went up by 10% NOT defined benefit pensions
Yes and the state pension goes to people with defined benefit pensions and is paid for by taxpayers money.
If they can get 10%, then so can those working for a living. If 10% isn't affordable for people working, it shouldn't be affordable for those not working either.
Only a minority get defined benefit pensions now. That minority includes doctors of course who get huge pensions
A question for Foxy, involving absolute pie in the sky thinking and as with everything I opine on on PB I know absolutely nothing about, is there a theoretical case for the following?
The gov build an absolutely ginormous super hospital with thousands of beds on an old military base or airfield.
RAF Wittering would be good. Right on the A1 and it's smack in the middle of Leaverstan where people smerk tabs and eat chips thereby requiring frequent hospital visits,
Wake me up when Labour and the Tories are both in the 30's. That will be game on....
Next month we should have an "Outlier" showing that
I see we have returned to overanalysing hypothetical polling where the Tories have a scored enhanced by an indeterminate margin, for reasons unstated, at an undefined point in the future.
BJO please explain.
Only time will tell.
But next month sees every Pensioner get a 10% uplift, same for people on benefits, sees the Sun come out, and variable energy bills take a seasonal dip. just think a steady swingback is underway
Surely you must have spotted we are passed peak SKS?
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
His initial remarks were pretty clear and unambiguous in their implications (I dont recall the accusation being that he thought the invasion justified). That's not a clarification he's made it's a shift because he got pushback.
Clarify is one of the most abused words in politics. People use it to mean 'how dare you criticise me for what I said, I meant something else entirely and it's your fault for assuming otherwise'.
What were the clear and unambiguous implications of his initial remarks in terms of what he would have actually done differently to Biden? His initial remarks seem to me to be entirely ambiguous and unclear, and his latest 'clarification' not much clearer.
It was sufficiently clear to his Senate Republican colleagues that his remarks meant he would likely scale back support, a position advanced by others in the party, so that they felt the need to criticise him about it.
If it were at all ambiguous they would not have felt that need, they'd have attacked the media for mischaracterising his remarks, as he is now lamely attempting.
They didn't, because it was obvious who he was trying to appeal to.
What's amusing is any articles saying he was right about what he said, which he is now saying is not what they thought.
Sure, but my point is that his original remarks were unclear and ambiguous in terms of what he would actually do differently to Biden. On specifics, AIUI, he has only said that he is against sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, and that he is opposed to sending F16s and 'long-range missiles', which seems so far to be exactly the same as Biden's policy.
His original remarks were that the US had no national interest in the 'territorial dispute'.
That's very different to Biden's position.
He seems to have no idea what principles the USA was fighting for in WW2.
But equally, the DeSantis position is not that far removed from that of America before Pearl Harbour made them take sides.
There's always been a strong isolationist element in US politics, counterbalancing those who believe the US has a global role and responsibility.
In some respects, it's the post WWII foreign policy consensus that is the aberration - though isolationism is utterly impractical in today's world, in a way that it wasn't a century back.
DeSantis isn't isolationist, he just wants to focus on containing Xi's China more than Putin's Russia. Indeed so does Trump
I'm not sure DeSantis was, up until now, anything other than out of his depth when it comes to foreign policy. He's starting to evolve policy positions to suit his tilt at the nomination.
Responding back to @Anabobazina like this as Vanilla is doing something shocking to quotes this morning. Sheffield and districts / townships. Didn't have district numbers on the signs, but the development of the new town had a very similar look and feel. Spine roads, fill in a housing development, build another one. Looked at houses in various townships back in 2011 and realised that the answer to "which one" was none of them.
A question for Foxy, involving absolute pie in the sky thinking and as with everything I opine on on PB I know absolutely nothing about, is there a theoretical case for the following?
The gov build an absolutely ginormous super hospital with thousands of beds on an old military base or airfield.
The super hospital is also a teaching hospital for huge numbers doctors and nurses and is built from the start with all singing and dancing accommodation to house them and instructors in.
They get their accommodation and training for free as long as they work there for an agreed period of time in order to ensure the system gets its money’s worth out of them.
The super hospital benefits from economies and efficiencies of scale so it can have all the kit needed for everything hopefully then resulting in much quicker “service”.
Patients can have the option of going to this hospital miles away from home and family to speed up their treatment (I personally would prefer this as I’m grim and wouldn’t want visitors whilst I’m in hospital and there must be a few more grinches like me around). It can also be used as overflow in emergencies.
Result is a reduction in pressure on hospitals everywhere else, a potential quick route for those who don’t mind travelling for it and an increased pipeline of doctors and nurses available.
I’m sure that it’s totally impossible or unworkable but maybe some sort of solution.
The Scottish government built such a hospital. It has been an unmitigated and expensive disaster.
That’s a shame - any key reasons why it was a disaster or is it just that such a thing cannot work?
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
Junior doctors want a 25% payrise, the national average rise in 6%
Have you never taken part in negotiations?
25% is an entirely appropriate starting point to demand when the Government are offering others 11% and you only 2%.
If the Government want to short-change you by 9%, then start demanding much higher than what you will actually accept, then meet in the middle. Government says 2%, you say 25%, meet in the middle at 13% or just 2% higher than what the Government is prepared to pay those who aren't working for a living, and you have an agreement.
If the Government didn't want strikes they shouldn't have offered some people 11% and others 2%.
They didn't. The only people getting 10% or more from the government are those who earn much less than junior doctors ie state pensioners, those on benefits or minimum wage or junior criminal lawyers doing legal aid
Yep, those who are not working. State pensioners aren't all earning much less than junior doctors since the taxpayers money going to them is on top of, not instead of, any other pensions they have.
If people not working are getting 10% or more, then so should those who are working.
Those who are working should never be getting less than those who are working. If 10% is the baseline for non-workers, then its the minimum those who are working should be getting. Since when was the Conservative Party the Party for people on benefits rather than people who work for a living?
People working for a living all earn more than those on benefits, the minimum wage after all is going up by 10% exactly the same as benefits are going up by.
Just unlike Truss backing libertarians like you One Nation Tories like Hunt and Sunak don't want to force the poorest in out society into deeper poverty given rising cost of living
Bullshit.
Someone with a high defined benefit pension and the state pension can be earning much more than someone working for a living - and paying much less percentage in tax too since their earnings won't be subject to either the graduate tax or National Insurance.
So you're talking out of your arse.
Only the state pension went up by 10% NOT defined benefit pensions
How much did the limits for private pension contributions for the wealthiest go up by? 50% was it? Plus scrapping of lifetime allowance.
Mainly to encourage doctors not to retire at 55 but to keeping paying into their enormous pensions tax free!!!!
Still an utterly ridiculous poll. All those Greens tilting to Ref and Con is a bit of a giggle.
It’s Matt “Godwin” Goodwin’s gang, so obviously dodgy in some way. The man is a clown, although has a devotee in @Andy_JS on here, for reasons unknown.
Here is the reality on doctors' pay. The UK is not the highest payer in Europe for hospital doctors but it is well above the median. It is also considerably higher than the nearest comparable system, Sweden, which has a nationalised system unlike most other "mixed economy" health systems
Additionally UK doctors have the safest jobs than any other walk of life, even by public sector standards. It is almost impossible to sack a hospital doctor in the NHS, even when they are incompetent. They also have highly lucrative pension schemes which see them retire on pensions that give them a take home payment that is in excess of double what the average taxpayer earns, and hospital consultants often also have lucrative private practices that are effectively conflicts of interest, but the NHS turns a blind eye to it.
Most so-called "junior" doctors (those below consultant level) earn salaries that are very comparative to other non-partner level professionals such as lawyers and accountants that are outside the distorted salaries found in London.
As for GPs: they are raking it in! The reality is that if doctors were a little less greedy there would be the possibility to be more generous to other health professionals who are probably underpaid.
In summary, those that are swallowing the line of the doctors unions that they are underpaid, I have a bridge to sell you.
BIB: that GPs are raking in £80,000 a year does not mean junior hospital doctors are not underpaid (or overworked or working antisocial hours).
Or should be satisfied going into work for below-inflation pay rises while those who they are caring for are getting higher percentage pay rises than they are.
If people are striking despite being paid too much they should be sacked and replaced with others who want to do their job for less, but if there's no others to do the job then they have the leverage and should be paid a reasonable rate. How is that any worse than a cohort of voters using their voting leverage to ensure that all the money available goes to them, while all the taxes go on others?
People need to take responsibility for themselves first and foremost. If you want someone to do a job then you need to pay them a rate they're willing to work for - or in a free market you can find someone else instead. But nobody has a right to demand others work for them on incomes they're not happy to be paid.
It isn't a free market though. It is the NHS, the last bastion of nationalisation and public sector vested interest.
It isn't a free market, as there is a monopoly employer. There are no training programmes for postgraduate doctors except those in the NHS.
A question for Foxy, involving absolute pie in the sky thinking and as with everything I opine on on PB I know absolutely nothing about, is there a theoretical case for the following?
The gov build an absolutely ginormous super hospital with thousands of beds on an old military base or airfield.
RAF Wittering would be good. Right on the A1 and it's smack in the middle of Leaverstan where people smerk tabs and eat chips thereby requiring frequent hospital visits,
So...those places where people don't smerk tabs and eat chips can have their hospitals closed, because tofu and quinoa and smashed avacoda keep all ailments at bay?
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
As I have said before, it isn't racism, its jingoism. The racism used to be there of course, and growing up in an east Lancashire township we saw plenty of racial unrest caused by the pig-ignorant policies of previous councils and the pig-ignorance of some of the older residents. But that is the past.
What we have instead is fear of the other. The other isn't defined by race, it is simply not being me and mine. The north has a real problem with the south and southerners. Lancashire and Yorkshire share a deep-rooted dislike despite their obvious mass similarities. Sheffield was trialling the Hunger Games districting long before the book or the movie, as was Washington with predictable results. Thornaby was described rightly as full of "parochial bigots" by an old man born and raised there, with the town Mayor ranting drunk on Facebook about how outsiders do not understand the town "and never will".
Racism is simply the wrong label.
Would you describe it as a loss of national cohesion?
Yes, and I've described it before as fallout from the loss of empire. We used to rule so much of the globe that the sun never set on the empire. We've lost all of that and the prestige that goes with it, and instead see so much of the country get grimy and unkempt and visibly poorer than so many other countries we can now easily visit.
So our traditional "we are better than you" confidence is now a "we used to be better than you" resentment. When people claim it is racism they miss the rather basic fact that so often the "race" being othered is white Europeans like us. It is not racism, but it is prejudice.
Spent a couple of days in Frankfurt this week. Coming home even London - our wealthy capital - looked really poor and grubby. Except for the Elizabeth Line, of course, using that feels like visiting a foreign country.
Frankfurt has a smaller population even than West London, the wealthiest part of the capital.
It doesn't have poorer bits like East London and South London to the same extent
“I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified [in invading] – that’s nonsense.”
So hard to see how he differs from Biden on this.
His initial remarks were pretty clear and unambiguous in their implications (I dont recall the accusation being that he thought the invasion justified). That's not a clarification he's made it's a shift because he got pushback.
Clarify is one of the most abused words in politics. People use it to mean 'how dare you criticise me for what I said, I meant something else entirely and it's your fault for assuming otherwise'.
What were the clear and unambiguous implications of his initial remarks in terms of what he would have actually done differently to Biden? His initial remarks seem to me to be entirely ambiguous and unclear, and his latest 'clarification' not much clearer.
It was sufficiently clear to his Senate Republican colleagues that his remarks meant he would likely scale back support, a position advanced by others in the party, so that they felt the need to criticise him about it.
If it were at all ambiguous they would not have felt that need, they'd have attacked the media for mischaracterising his remarks, as he is now lamely attempting.
They didn't, because it was obvious who he was trying to appeal to.
What's amusing is any articles saying he was right about what he said, which he is now saying is not what they thought.
Sure, but my point is that his original remarks were unclear and ambiguous in terms of what he would actually do differently to Biden. On specifics, AIUI, he has only said that he is against sending US troops to fight in Ukraine, and that he is opposed to sending F16s and 'long-range missiles', which seems so far to be exactly the same as Biden's policy.
His original remarks were that the US had no national interest in the 'territorial dispute'.
That's very different to Biden's position.
He seems to have no idea what principles the USA was fighting for in WW2.
But equally, the DeSantis position is not that far removed from that of America before Pearl Harbour made them take sides.
There's always been a strong isolationist element in US politics, counterbalancing those who believe the US has a global role and responsibility.
In some respects, it's the post WWII foreign policy consensus that is the aberration - though isolationism is utterly impractical in today's world, in a way that it wasn't a century back.
DeSantis isn't isolationist, he just wants to focus on containing Xi's China more than Putin's Russia. Indeed so does Trump
Wake me up when Labour and the Tories are both in the 30's. That will be game on....
Next month we should have an "Outlier" showing that
I see we have returned to overanalysing hypothetical polling where the Tories have a scored enhanced by an indeterminate margin, for reasons unstated, at an undefined point in the future.
BJO please explain.
Only time will tell.
But next month sees every Pensioner get a 10% uplift, same for people on benefits, sees the Sun come out, and variable energy bills take a seasonal dip. just think a steady swingback is underway
Surely you must have spotted we are passed
peak SKS?
If you mean, do I expect Labour to get 50% at a general election, then the answer is “of course not”, but such scores were chiefly a function of She Who Must Not Be Named ‘leading’ the Tories. Labour’s poll ratings remains very healthy, as much as it clearly pains you to see.
A question for Foxy, involving absolute pie in the sky thinking and as with everything I opine on on PB I know absolutely nothing about, is there a theoretical case for the following?
The gov build an absolutely ginormous super hospital with thousands of beds on an old military base or airfield.
The super hospital is also a teaching hospital for huge numbers doctors and nurses and is built from the start with all singing and dancing accommodation to house them and instructors in.
They get their accommodation and training for free as long as they work there for an agreed period of time in order to ensure the system gets its money’s worth out of them.
The super hospital benefits from economies and efficiencies of scale so it can have all the kit needed for everything hopefully then resulting in much quicker “service”.
Patients can have the option of going to this hospital miles away from home and family to speed up their treatment (I personally would prefer this as I’m grim and wouldn’t want visitors whilst I’m in hospital and there must be a few more grinches like me around). It can also be used as overflow in emergencies.
Result is a reduction in pressure on hospitals everywhere else, a potential quick route for those who don’t mind travelling for it and an increased pipeline of doctors and nurses available.
I’m sure that it’s totally impossible or unworkable but maybe some sort of solution.
The Scottish government built such a hospital. It has been an unmitigated and expensive disaster.
That’s a shame - any key reasons why it was a disaster or is it just that such a thing cannot work?
Would also want some more proof on it than just the jaundiced view of one overpaid doctor in England
Yesterday I read some posts on here that suggested the harsher people fleeing in dingys (sic) were treated the better Sunaks figures. It was written by someone who is apparently well versed in the Red Wall and Tory thinking. It seemed to be written approvingly though that's not important. But what a disgusting indictment of this country and the voters they attract.
I missed that comment, but I think its utterly preposterous and wrong and whoever said that knows absolutely nothing about the Red Wall.
Certain commentators on this site, especially some who live in the South in deepest blue territory, seem to project their own prejudices onto the North/Red Wall.
As someone who lives up here may I reject them all. There are a small minority of racists in the North, like there are everywhere else, but that is not what the Red Wall is and its not the North. Anyone who is saying that is not well versed whatsoever in the Red Wall and has almost certainly never lived here, never campaigned here, and never knocked up voters here.
As I have said before, it isn't racism, its jingoism. The racism used to be there of course, and growing up in an east Lancashire township we saw plenty of racial unrest caused by the pig-ignorant policies of previous councils and the pig-ignorance of some of the older residents. But that is the past.
What we have instead is fear of the other. The other isn't defined by race, it is simply not being me and mine. The north has a real problem with the south and southerners. Lancashire and Yorkshire share a deep-rooted dislike despite their obvious mass similarities. Sheffield was trialling the Hunger Games districting long before the book or the movie, as was Washington with predictable results. Thornaby was described rightly as full of "parochial bigots" by an old man born and raised there, with the town Mayor ranting drunk on Facebook about how outsiders do not understand the town "and never will".
Racism is simply the wrong label.
Would you describe it as a loss of national cohesion?
Yes, and I've described it before as fallout from the loss of empire. We used to rule so much of the globe that the sun never set on the empire. We've lost all of that and the prestige that goes with it, and instead see so much of the country get grimy and unkempt and visibly poorer than so many other countries we can now easily visit.
So our traditional "we are better than you" confidence is now a "we used to be better than you" resentment. When people claim it is racism they miss the rather basic fact that so often the "race" being othered is white Europeans like us. It is not racism, but it is prejudice.
Spent a couple of days in Frankfurt this week. Coming home even London - our wealthy capital - looked really poor and grubby. Except for the Elizabeth Line, of course, using that feels like visiting a foreign country.
Frankfurt has a smaller population even than West London, the wealthiest part of the capital.
It doesn't have poorer bits like East London and South London to the same extent
Comments
If you did a search and replace on the words used to describe the er.... natives, you would have a Sanders Of The River style colonial memoir. Complete with racism.
Hating on "Gammons" is the last respectable group hatred, as well. If you start banging on about Jews over cocaine & dodgy liquors at a posh dinner party, people look at you strange. But you can get all your inner hate out on "Brexiters"
The next Presidential election will again be decided in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona not New York City, Massachussetts and California
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
If there's an abundance in job applications for the NHS, whether from people trained or training domestically or abroad, then we can tell those who are striking to get f***ed and hire someone else. If there isn't, then they have the leverage and can't be expected to go into work for less of a pay rise than those who are not going into work.
So our traditional "we are better than you" confidence is now a "we used to be better than you" resentment. When people claim it is racism they miss the rather basic fact that so often the "race" being othered is white Europeans like us. It is not racism, but it is prejudice.
@BritainElects
Westminster voting intention:
LAB: 43% (-2)
CON: 22% (+2)
LDEM: 10% (+1)
REF: 9% (+3)
GRN: 8% (-5)
via
@PeoplePolling
, 22 Mar"
If people not working are getting 10% or more, then so should those who are working.
Those who are working should never be getting less than those who are working. If 10% is the baseline for non-workers, then its the minimum those who are working should be getting. Since when was the Conservative Party the Party for people on benefits rather than people who work for a living?
One, where the manager expects people to do or not do shifts *on the day*.
The other, where the manager sets up shifts a month in advance. He does things like giving the staff free polo shirts (logo'd) to work in. At the end of the shift, he offers to put them in the wash bag the local laundry does. So the staff can go home, smelling less of beer, in their own clothes. And get a freshly laundered work shirt to start their shift next time.
Guess which one has staffing problems?
But the reality is that Biden has been a pretty good president, and it's not easy to ditch a sitting President who wants to run again.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/BMA-meeting:-Doctors-vote-to-limit-number-of-Cole/3d9d83701d9e65eda5ee9df70ea30e6c3758ada7
You want people to be compelled to work and never strike because you dislike the fact they have a vested interest.
Well sorry but the world doesn't work that way. They have a vested interest and are every bit as much as able to use that interest, for as long as we let them get away with it, just as much as the voting bloc of pensioners have been able to fleece the taxpayer for too long with the Triple Lock and shifting taxes onto the young via NI/graduate tax etc.
People aren't slaves. If there's competition for their jobs, then people will be more likely to accept a lower payrate as they don't want to lose their jobs, but if there's not then they have the leverage and will be willing and able to use it.
That's very different to Biden's position.
Just unlike Truss backing libertarians like you One Nation Tories like Hunt and Sunak don't want to force the poorest in our society into deeper poverty given rising cost of living
And adducing a 15 year old thing *from before covid* is not good evidence on anything to do with hospitals today.
As for issues that affect me and mine, I'm not sure that passes the sniff test. Did an awful lot of door knocking in places like Ingleby Barwick. A massively white townlet which attracted so many residents vocally aggrieved about too many migrants coming from Africa and muslim parts of the world. We asked several of the most vocal where these migrants were as they weren't in Ingleby Barwick. 'They're not here, they're in other places' they said.
Its this level of prejudice that morons like Simon Clarke play on. His constituency is deeply white and a long long way from Kent, yet he insists that stopping the boats is a big concern for his constituents. And it may well be for shitkickers in Loftus despite there being no outsiders at all in their hellhole pit.
Someone with a high defined benefit pension and the state pension can be earning much more than someone working for a living - and paying much less percentage in tax too since their earnings won't be subject to either the graduate tax or National Insurance.
So you're talking out of your arse.
It doesn't have poorer bits like East London and South London to the same extent
I like Biden quite a lot, and he's sprightly fir his age, but if he were 10 years younger people anxious for him to win again would be less nervous.
"Delegates at the annual BMA conference voted by a narrow majority to restrict the number of places at medical schools to avoid “overproduction of doctors with limited career opportunities.” They also agreed on a complete ban on opening new medical schools.
David Sochart, from Manchester and Salford, warned that in the current job climate allowing too many new doctors into the market would risk devaluing the profession and make newly qualified doctors prey to “unscrupulous profiteers.” A glut of doctors would undermine competition and would therefore lower standards and ensure mediocrity, he claimed.
He said, “Patients and health care should not be treated as mere commodities, and neither should medical students. We must not allow another lost tribe of doctors to be consigned to the wilderness.”"
And then I went to college in Oldham. Where you mashed together accepts from the Pennine mill towns and the suburban Mancunians. You could neatly divide most groups up by their accent type. Mancs on one side, hillbillies on the other. With less mixing socially than you might think.
What he said was reprehensible. And Biden has given escalating amounts of weaponry to Ukraine as they've been trained on using it, he didn't give tanks at first but later on did. Nothing should be off the table, including F16s and long range missiles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
But equally, the DeSantis position is not that far removed from that of America before Pearl Harbour made them take sides.
In other news:
Subjects CAN lick Charlie’s boots, if they disinfect their tongue first
If they can get 10%, then so can those working for a living. If 10% isn't affordable for people working, it shouldn't be affordable for those not working either.
If you don't get a £100k a year contract to present "news" on GBeebies then you really deserve to be poor. Vote Conservative.
But the sentiment of the medical profession has changed very greatly in the l;ast decade, especially with covid.
So I dont see the unfairness in interpreting what he said as that he would act differently, regardless of whether he was specific. If I said all doctors are lazy swindlers it would not be unreasonable for people to infer my likely position on junior doctor strikes.
No matter what.
If it breaks an EU obligation to save DB, then the obligation will be broken.
I do hope you don't go around criticising politicians for lying if you're also going to criticise them for telling the truth.
(Ignore Survation, DeltaPoll, Opinium, Techne) all Outliers)
54m
Westminster voting intention:
LAB: 43% (-2)
CON: 22% (+2)
LDEM: 10% (+1)
REF: 9% (+3)
GRN: 8% (-5)
via
@PeoplePolling
, 22 Mar
Also I don't think it's accurate that he said the US has "no national interest". Here is what I can find:
"While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,"
"becoming further entangled" isn't a "vital national interest". Whatever that means.
btw Politifact seems to more or less agree with my interpretation:
https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/mar/15/did-ron-desantis-change-stance-on-ukraine/
In some respects, it's the post WWII foreign policy consensus that is the aberration - though isolationism is utterly impractical in today's world, in a way that it wasn't a century back.
A question for Foxy, involving absolute pie in the sky thinking and as with everything I opine on on PB I know absolutely nothing about, is there a theoretical case for the following?
The gov build an absolutely ginormous super hospital with thousands of beds on an old military base or airfield.
The super hospital is also a teaching hospital for huge numbers doctors and nurses and is built from the start with all singing and dancing accommodation to house them and instructors in.
They get their accommodation and training for free as long as they work there for an agreed period of time in order to ensure the system gets its money’s worth out of them.
The super hospital benefits from economies and efficiencies of scale so it can have all the kit needed for everything hopefully then resulting in much quicker “service”.
Patients can have the option of going to this hospital miles away from home and family to speed up their treatment (I personally would prefer this as I’m grim and wouldn’t want visitors whilst I’m in hospital and there must be a few more grinches like me around). It can also be used as overflow in emergencies.
Result is a reduction in pressure on hospitals everywhere else, a potential quick route for those who don’t mind travelling for it and an increased pipeline of doctors and nurses available.
I’m sure that it’s totally impossible or unworkable but maybe some sort of solution.
BJO please explain.
King Charles's France visit postponed after pension protests
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65064510
https://twitter.com/beaking_news/status/1639215044335468545
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ron-desantis-taiwan-critical-interest-america-china-putin-russia
But next month sees every Pensioner get a 10% uplift, same for people on benefits, sees the Sun come out, and variable energy bills take a seasonal dip. just think a steady swingback is underway
Surely you must have spotted we are passed peak SKS?
He's starting to evolve policy positions to suit his tilt at the nomination.
Although I think Martin KABOOM Boons 10% lead is rather overdoing it currently but give it time as inflation withers will be the Norm
French Protests escalating?
Burnout: Cardiothoracic surgery residents work 102 hours a week
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=347715
utterly ridiculousoutlier "Greens on 13%" previous poll.They'll be back at 4% in the next one.