The thing that really surprises me, is not bringing the first budget forward. Actually do some stuff.
I think the problem there is they had no plans, theyre making them now,
And badly.
They needed to have the budget ready roughly 1 week after the election to announce it on September 11th - the OBR I think want a 2 month or so lead time.
Which I think is why they've ended up with limbo until October because their self enforced use of the OBR to check things means they couldn't do it quickly enough..
I made the point yesterday - we had an election just before the summer recess, so not much has happened since.
I suspect the WFA was announced quickly because they wanted to implement it this winter and felt people needed *some* notice.
At DWP we have had nothing filter down about government plans for us, which is not usually the case 2½ months after an election
In any event, an incoming government, taking over from one of a decade and a half, probably need a few months to make sense of what seems to be some seriously screwy departmental numbers.
The thing that really surprises me, is not bringing the first budget forward. Actually do some stuff.
I think the problem there is they had no plans, theyre making them now,
And badly.
They needed to have the budget ready roughly 1 week after the election to announce it on September 11th - the OBR I think want a 2 month or so lead time.
Which I think is why they've ended up with limbo until October because their self enforced use of the OBR to check things means they couldn't do it quickly enough..
Another avoidable mistake. Using the OBR is a bad move,
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
Might the gap widen? Trump isn't exactly doing himself any favours right now in terms of sanity.
The trend seems to be slowing but not stopping.
I was saying months ago I could not work out why she was so unpopular as she seemed reasonable enough to me.
I guess it is a case the more people see her the more they like her, or don't dislike her.
Also, remember who she!s up against. Her brief is to look less batshit than Trump, which is of course a very low bar.
The Trumpdozer certainly seems to be having a moment or two.
But the polling is her personal favourability ratings and those have improved as people have seen more of her.
However, as Mercator keeps correctly pointing out Trump leads on the Economy and Migration with voters. Whether this is enough to have an impact remains to be seen.
I usually punt money on the US Election. Did well last time out. I am not touching this one with a bargepole.
I think on this one I have to. The Potus elections have so much liquidity and information and the votes are so split that the chance of winning big is larger than normal. Problem is, the chance of losing big is also larger.
In the UK GE I put money down on two bets, both on Greens, because the Labour odds were so dire. Here you have two picks and 50 states. There's got to be a gap somewhere... 🙏
If you're still risk averse about betting on a Harris win, some of the states might be worth a look ? Michigan, for example, looks pretty well nailed on now. A 50% return over a month and a half isn't to be sniffed at.
Mercator might also take a look at that for his Harris cashout profits ?
Trump tells a Jewish group the Jews will be to blame if he loses: "I will put it to you very simply and gently: I really haven't been treated right, but you haven't been treated right because you're putting yourself in great danger." https://x.com/atrupar/status/1836917356955602961
Trump has complained in the past that he got no electoral reward for moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. For Trump, everything is transactional.
On topic, Trump had poor favourability ratings in 2020 as well and the trend on that graph looks to be marginally closing. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ I fervently hope Harris wins but I think it's going to be very close.
How much of that private-sector growth can be accounted for by minimum wage increases?
Doesn't that apply to the public sector as well? Going off the graph in that link, the public sector is well up at the 25th centile, roughly flat at the median, well down for higher centiles.
Maddeningly, they don't seem to have the equivalent graph for the private sector.
How many of the public sector are on mimunim wage?
My wife has two public sector roles. One is part time 5 days a week, one is zero hours contract. Both are minimum wage.
Really? A casual worker at Darlington theatre / swimming pool / Hopetown is on £12.50 an hour.
Yes, there are plenty of min wage roles in rNHS.
She is happy there. She gets the extra holidays, in her regular role she helps people with learning difficulties and gets alot of satisfaction from it, and she gets the pension that the casual worker at the swimming pool won't get.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
But simply looking at the increase in wages doesn't give an accurate figure. Those in the public sector have final salary pension schemes which are tied to those increased earnings, whether on final salary or even an average salary basis. Those in the private sector don't. They will have a defined contribution pension which is far less generous. Those in the public sector have greatly enhanced rights in respect of sick pay, maternity rights, leave, etc Whilst it is true that some of the gold plating has been stripped off these they are still worth a lot of money, particularly for younger women and older workers more prone to lengthy illnesses.
These rights don't come for free. They cost the tax payer money. So the total cost of employing that person is higher than the private sector equivalent.
Do you have any numbers for "public sector on final salary pensions"? I think it might not be as many as some assume.
The civil service pension scheme, for example, switched to career average not final salary in 2007 for new joiners, and in 2012 for existing members. A relative had a fight to not be re-categorised as a Civil Servant soon after that for this reason.
And it switched from RPI to CPI in 2010.
And normal pension age is the same as state pension age.
OTOH the pension appears to be CPI linked so nto capped as aggressively as some.
The thing that really surprises me, is not bringing the first budget forward. Actually do some stuff.
I think the problem there is they had no plans, theyre making them now,
And badly.
They needed to have the budget ready roughly 1 week after the election to announce it on September 11th - the OBR I think want a 2 month or so lead time.
Which I think is why they've ended up with limbo until October because their self enforced use of the OBR to check things means they couldn't do it quickly enough..
Another avoidable mistake. Using the OBR is a bad move,
Using the OBR is unavoidable after Truss screwed things up.
Now granted they needed to have things ready to go and the budget should have been last week but I think Rishi's delays in kicking off the transition conversations combined with his sudden election announcement made an earlier budget impossible.
Although I doubt it would have made any difference the stories that are now appearing would have appeared in July instead..
The OBR is just another Osborne weasel move. That Labour have been stupid enough to buy it speaks volumes.
We elect MPs to run the country's finances we do not elect advisors to sanction what we can and cannot do.
The OBR off its own admission admits it has a faulty forecasting model which is too slow, why on earth would you trust the country's future to them ?
On topic, Trump had poor favourability ratings in 2020 as well and the trend on that graph looks to be marginally closing. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ I fervently hope Harris wins but I think it's going to be very close.
More pertinently look how unpopular he was in 2016! Clinton had net -12.6 in comparison
The thing that really surprises me, is not bringing the first budget forward. Actually do some stuff.
I think the problem there is they had no plans, theyre making them now,
And badly.
They needed to have the budget ready roughly 1 week after the election to announce it on September 11th - the OBR I think want a 2 month or so lead time.
Which I think is why they've ended up with limbo until October because their self enforced use of the OBR to check things means they couldn't do it quickly enough..
Another avoidable mistake. Using the OBR is a bad move,
I suspect the Sundays will have a spread of troughing stories.
Sky got the bit between their teeth yesterday and had an exposure of "gifts". Starmer was top dog but the surprise to me was Lucy Powell who got through£40k and claimed the number 2 spot.
This reminds me a bit of MPs expenses and I suspect it will run. And before the Tories and LDs get too full of glee the expenses story dragged everyone in to the spotlight.
The expenses row was a net positive for the Lib Dems. They had a couple of MPs implicated (recall they had 60-odd MPs back then) but proportionally far fewer than the 2 main parties so they came out smelling if not of roses then certainly not of dogshit like the others. The good thing is this time we had so few MPs in the last parliament and no donors would have bothered paying much attention to Lib Dems that we're hopefully coming out of this nice and clean.
Sunak whatever his faults was too rich to bother with this, Truss too fleeting, and Johnson was a trougher like the sun rises in the east but that's ancient history. Labour may be differentially exposed on this.
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
Starmer has shown himself able to learn lessons in the past but learning this one involves making personal sacrifices. I get being an addicted fan of a football team, I am one, but he is the PM. Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches. And he can clearly afford to buy his own glasses.
Any other Sky Glass users out there? Completely dead this morning - will not turn on. Turns out its not my fault - outage at Sky but no idea when/if it will be fixed...
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
If you take the NHS, it would benefit hugely from one central IT system that worked*. As it is, you have different providers for primary care (at least three different large providers), hospitals, sometimes intensive care units etc. A lot of things are sent by email and then re-entered in a different system (e.g. hospital consultant -> GP communication).
This is obvious in research, where it's not even real time and so some collation takes place, e.g. we can get, in England:
Hospital data based on data submitted for payments
Primary care, for two of the large providers, separately, not linkable
Primary care, through openSAFELY, for one of the same providers and the remaining one, again not linked
Limited linkage of hospital data with one of those primary care providers
Beyond very basics, intensive care unit data from three different organisations, depending on whether neonatal, paediatric or adult)
Data on prescriptions issued by GPs, but not by hospitals
Data on prescriptions dispensed by community pharmacies, but not by hospitals
The largest part of most research projects is accessing these data and then linking them. It's pretty much as fragmented, or more so, in actual care, I think. In Scotland it's a bit better as there is at least an identifier (CHI) that exists across most of these data and is more reliable than e.g. NHS numbers. In Wales, research data are much more integrated in SAIL. Even there though, we did a study in Wales and were never able to get England hospital data linked in (it's not unusual for residents of Wales to end up in England hospitals, particularly for more specialist things, where e.g. Liverpool might be closer than Cardiff).
But, anyway. Lots of people sending emails (even letters!), copying data from one place to another, taking time and making mistakes that impact on care.
*this the sticking point of course - and probably the end of career for whichever minister pushes it They could even still have the patchwork of providers if all the systems could talk to each other automatically.
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
It not fatal if they change their behaviours.
Which at a basic level means SKS not being seen in a box at Arsenal, nor at the FA Cup Final or the Osais concerts next summer.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
But simply looking at the increase in wages doesn't give an accurate figure. Those in the public sector have final salary pension schemes which are tied to those increased earnings, whether on final salary or even an average salary basis. Those in the private sector don't. They will have a defined contribution pension which is far less generous. Those in the public sector have greatly enhanced rights in respect of sick pay, maternity rights, leave, etc Whilst it is true that some of the gold plating has been stripped off these they are still worth a lot of money, particularly for younger women and older workers more prone to lengthy illnesses.
These rights don't come for free. They cost the tax payer money. So the total cost of employing that person is higher than the private sector equivalent.
Don't forget they also have yearly increments within their bands, so they get the yearly increase and an increase in their band until they reach the top, and far greater holiday entitlement as well.
Pay really is not the only part of the package. Their pay may be less than the private sector but their package is far greater than what the private sector gets.
Not all public sector workers get automatic pay uplifts, DWP is on spot salaries, for example. Yes we get greater holiday entitlement, but if your wages go up by 5% then surely the cost of your annual leave goes up by 5% as does the cost of providing my pension (which is now career average revalued). We don't get anything that actually costs money. If you look at the non-salary parts of a pay package, the only things of real value are the holiday and the pension. What do you get? I can't believe you just get your salary and nothing more.
People in the private sector have so much fantasy about the public sector, it is unbelievable.
A mate in the pub yesterday complained he has lost $9,000 due to selling his share options too soon. Maybe he is not a good comparator as he is in a much better-paid job than me, but in the public sector you can *never* aspire to that sort of bounce.
Not all people in the private sector get share options.
Most don't.
As you asked, and I don't mind saying.
I get a DC pension, company contribution between 6 and 9% depending on my contribution between 3 adn 6%
I get 25 days holidays plus bank, I can buy extra holidays up to 2.
My last company now gives all new starters NEST pension which is worse than what they gave me when I started.
I think it is easy to assume people in the private sector view public sector salaries and packages from a position of ignorance. I know about the NHS from my wife working there.
Obviously that is no more the whole public sector as your guy with share options is the private sector.
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
It not fatal if they change their behaviours.
Which at a basic level means SKS not being seen in a box at Arsenal, nor at the FA Cup Final or the Osais concerts next summer.
Given he's an Arsenal fan the chances of him being at the cup final next year are remote.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
Does that include pensions which are sod all in the private sector and a significant cost in the public ?
Any pension contributions normally follow pay rises. If there has been a re-structure of the pensions, it probably won’t have been in a favourable direction. Lots of public sector pensions have gotten worse in recent years.
It’s lazy nonsense to argue that public sector pay can forever keep falling further and further behind private sector because the pensions are better.
I take it you work in the public sector.
Here in the private we dont see it that way.
Maybe if your reasoning skills were better, you’d have been able to get a job in the public sector!
Funnily enough my skills worked out ok, In some of my jobs I even got paid more than Sue Gray but nowhere near the numbers of freebies as Starmer.
Then why are you greedily moaning about public sector workers who get paid less than you and are going to end up on smaller pensions?
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
I think the jury is out on whether it is fatal. There is a toxic combination: snouts in trough, the WFA unforced error, a foreign secretary who looks as if he is in the wrong job, lack of discipline in the leaks department, trashing the image of people like Jess Phillips as they go on the media to defend and ignore the indefensible, rats in sack over who is closest to the PM and gets paid most.
But the worst by far is the failure to communicate the plan (is there one?) in a coherent way combining realism and sunlit uplands.
At least Starmer supports Arsenal, but he can't even get the optics of that right. Maybe a (rather crucial) win on Sunday will sort it all.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
Does that include pensions which are sod all in the private sector and a significant cost in the public ?
Any pension contributions normally follow pay rises. If there has been a re-structure of the pensions, it probably won’t have been in a favourable direction. Lots of public sector pensions have gotten worse in recent years.
It’s lazy nonsense to argue that public sector pay can forever keep falling further and further behind private sector because the pensions are better.
I take it you work in the public sector.
Here in the private we dont see it that way.
Maybe if your reasoning skills were better, you’d have been able to get a job in the public sector!
Funnily enough my skills worked out ok, In some of my jobs I even got paid more than Sue Gray but nowhere near the numbers of freebies as Starmer.
I also bet you worked a lot harder for your salary than those gimps and no shedload of freebies allowed
I suspect the Sundays will have a spread of troughing stories.
Sky got the bit between their teeth yesterday and had an exposure of "gifts". Starmer was top dog but the surprise to me was Lucy Powell who got through£40k and claimed the number 2 spot.
This reminds me a bit of MPs expenses and I suspect it will run. And before the Tories and LDs get too full of glee the expenses story dragged everyone in to the spotlight.
The expenses row was a net positive for the Lib Dems. They had a couple of MPs implicated (recall they had 60-odd MPs back then) but proportionally far fewer than the 2 main parties so they came out smelling if not of roses then certainly not of dogshit like the others. The good thing is this time we had so few MPs in the last parliament and no donors would have bothered paying much attention to Lib Dems that we're hopefully coming out of this nice and clean.
Sunak whatever his faults was too rich to bother with this, Truss too fleeting, and Johnson was a trougher like the sun rises in the east but that's ancient history. Labour may be differentially exposed on this.
They are differentially exposed. Because they made anti-troughing a pillar of their campaign.
On the Lib-Dems. The vulnerability there will be the better than expected number of MPs. Which means MPs where the candidate wasn't expected to win. And the complete lack of sensible vetting in any party, as far as I can see.
Trump tells a Jewish group the Jews will be to blame if he loses: "I will put it to you very simply and gently: I really haven't been treated right, but you haven't been treated right because you're putting yourself in great danger." https://x.com/atrupar/status/1836917356955602961
Trump has complained in the past that he got no electoral reward for moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. For Trump, everything is transactional.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
If you take the NHS, it would benefit hugely from one central IT system that worked*. As it is, you have different providers for primary care (at least three different large providers), hospitals, sometimes intensive care units etc. A lot of things are sent by email and then re-entered in a different system (e.g. hospital consultant -> GP communication).
This is obvious in research, where it's not even real time and so some collation takes place, e.g. we can get, in England:
Hospital data based on data submitted for payments
Primary care, for two of the large providers, separately, not linkable
Primary care, through openSAFELY, for one of the same providers and the remaining one, again not linked
Limited linkage of hospital data with one of those primary care providers
Beyond very basics, intensive care unit data from three different organisations, depending on whether neonatal, paediatric or adult)
Data on prescriptions issued by GPs, but not by hospitals
Data on prescriptions dispensed by community pharmacies, but not by hospitals
The largest part of most research projects is accessing these data and then linking them. It's pretty much as fragmented, or more so, in actual care, I think. In Scotland it's a bit better as there is at least an identifier (CHI) that exists across most of these data and is more reliable than e.g. NHS data. In Wales, research data are much more integrated in SAIL. Even there though, we did a study in Wales and were never able to get England hospital data linked in (it's not unusual for residents of Wales to end up in England hospitals, particularly for more specialist things, where e.g. Liverpool might be closer than Cardiff).
But, anyway. Lots of people sending emails (even letters!), copying data from one place to another, taking time and making mistakes that impact on care.
*this the sticking point of course - and probably the end of career for whichever minister pushes it They could even still have the patchwork of providers if all the systems could talk to each other automatically.
The last thing the NHS needs is a new squillion pound project to centralise IT. What it does need is a data-interchange standard that can be used to export and import data.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
But simply looking at the increase in wages doesn't give an accurate figure. Those in the public sector have final salary pension schemes which are tied to those increased earnings, whether on final salary or even an average salary basis. Those in the private sector don't. They will have a defined contribution pension which is far less generous. Those in the public sector have greatly enhanced rights in respect of sick pay, maternity rights, leave, etc Whilst it is true that some of the gold plating has been stripped off these they are still worth a lot of money, particularly for younger women and older workers more prone to lengthy illnesses.
These rights don't come for free. They cost the tax payer money. So the total cost of employing that person is higher than the private sector equivalent.
Don't forget they also have yearly increments within their bands, so they get the yearly increase and an increase in their band until they reach the top, and far greater holiday entitlement as well.
Pay really is not the only part of the package. Their pay may be less than the private sector but their package is far greater than what the private sector gets.
Some get yearly increments, some don't. The public sector is broad and heterogeneous.
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
Starmer has shown himself able to learn lessons in the past but learning this one involves making personal sacrifices. I get being an addicted fan of a football team, I am one, but he is the PM. Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches. And he can clearly afford to buy his own glasses.
"Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches" - I thought we were told this was impossible?
A question - what happened for previous PMs and Northern Ireland Secs?
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
It not fatal if they change their behaviours.
Which at a basic level means SKS not being seen in a box at Arsenal, nor at the FA Cup Final or the Osais concerts next summer.
Given he's an Arsenal fan the chances of him being at the cup final next year are remote.
The thing that really surprises me, is not bringing the first budget forward. Actually do some stuff.
I think the problem there is they had no plans, theyre making them now,
And badly.
They needed to have the budget ready roughly 1 week after the election to announce it on September 11th - the OBR I think want a 2 month or so lead time.
Which I think is why they've ended up with limbo until October because their self enforced use of the OBR to check things means they couldn't do it quickly enough..
Another avoidable mistake. Using the OBR is a bad move,
Using the OBR is unavoidable after Truss screwed things up.
Now granted they needed to have things ready to go and the budget should have been last week but I think Rishi's delays in kicking off the transition conversations combined with his sudden election announcement made an earlier budget impossible.
Although I doubt it would have made any difference the stories that are now appearing would have appeared in July instead..
The OBR is just another Osborne weasel move. That Labour have been stupid enough to buy it speaks volumes.
We elect MPs to run the country's finances we do not elect advisors to sanction what we can and cannot do.
The OBR off its own admission admits it has a faulty forecasting model which is too slow, why on earth would you trust the country's future to them ?
I don’t see what the OBR does, other than being an enforcer of Treasury Orthodoxy on the Chancellor.
It was always clear that Osborne introduced it only to trip up the next Labour government politically.
The thing that really surprises me, is not bringing the first budget forward. Actually do some stuff.
I think the problem there is they had no plans, theyre making them now,
And badly.
They needed to have the budget ready roughly 1 week after the election to announce it on September 11th - the OBR I think want a 2 month or so lead time.
Which I think is why they've ended up with limbo until October because their self enforced use of the OBR to check things means they couldn't do it quickly enough..
Another avoidable mistake. Using the OBR is a bad move,
Using the OBR is unavoidable after Truss screwed things up.
Now granted they needed to have things ready to go and the budget should have been last week but I think Rishi's delays in kicking off the transition conversations combined with his sudden election announcement made an earlier budget impossible.
Although I doubt it would have made any difference the stories that are now appearing would have appeared in July instead..
The OBR is just another Osborne weasel move. That Labour have been stupid enough to buy it speaks volumes.
We elect MPs to run the country's finances we do not elect advisors to sanction what we can and cannot do.
The OBR off its own admission admits it has a faulty forecasting model which is too slow, why on earth would you trust the country's future to them ?
The OBR is there to provide a consistent analysis of policy. You can of course argue that they're no more accurate than anyone else, and the basis of their assumptions, but it's a far more reliable metric of the effects of policy changes than anything politicians are likely to provide.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
It not fatal if they change their behaviours.
Which at a basic level means SKS not being seen in a box at Arsenal, nor at the FA Cup Final or the Osais concerts next summer.
Maybe, maybe not. Blair and Boris were both fond of a freebie but this is not what caused their downfall. I'd be more worried about rampant cronyism, which arguably did play a large part in ending Blair's and Boris's premierships.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
Does that include pensions which are sod all in the private sector and a significant cost in the public ?
Any pension contributions normally follow pay rises. If there has been a re-structure of the pensions, it probably won’t have been in a favourable direction. Lots of public sector pensions have gotten worse in recent years.
It’s lazy nonsense to argue that public sector pay can forever keep falling further and further behind private sector because the pensions are better.
I take it you work in the public sector.
Here in the private we dont see it that way.
Maybe if your reasoning skills were better, you’d have been able to get a job in the public sector!
Funnily enough my skills worked out ok, In some of my jobs I even got paid more than Sue Gray but nowhere near the numbers of freebies as Starmer.
Then why are you greedily moaning about public sector workers who get paid less than you and are going to end up on smaller pensions?
Simple the country cant afford to pay its bills. You talk as if there is some kind of obligation to make sure public sector workers get whatever a pay body recommends. Why should there be ? Private sector workers over the last two decades also deserve bigger pay rises but didnt get them because their companies couldnt afford it. On pensions the private sector workers have been robbed.
The UK is a poor country pretending its still a rich one and until we get back in to creating wealth we will all suffer.
The thing that really surprises me, is not bringing the first budget forward. Actually do some stuff.
I think the problem there is they had no plans, theyre making them now,
And badly.
They needed to have the budget ready roughly 1 week after the election to announce it on September 11th - the OBR I think want a 2 month or so lead time.
Which I think is why they've ended up with limbo until October because their self enforced use of the OBR to check things means they couldn't do it quickly enough..
Another avoidable mistake. Using the OBR is a bad move,
Using the OBR is unavoidable after Truss screwed things up.
Now granted they needed to have things ready to go and the budget should have been last week but I think Rishi's delays in kicking off the transition conversations combined with his sudden election announcement made an earlier budget impossible.
Although I doubt it would have made any difference the stories that are now appearing would have appeared in July instead..
The OBR is just another Osborne weasel move. That Labour have been stupid enough to buy it speaks volumes.
We elect MPs to run the country's finances we do not elect advisors to sanction what we can and cannot do.
The OBR off its own admission admits it has a faulty forecasting model which is too slow, why on earth would you trust the country's future to them ?
The OBR is there to provide a consistent analysis of policy. You can of course argue that they're no more accurate than anyone else, and the basis of their assumptions, but it's a far more reliable metric of the effects of policy changes than anything politicians are likely to provide.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
The thing that really surprises me, is not bringing the first budget forward. Actually do some stuff.
I think the problem there is they had no plans, theyre making them now,
And badly.
They needed to have the budget ready roughly 1 week after the election to announce it on September 11th - the OBR I think want a 2 month or so lead time.
Which I think is why they've ended up with limbo until October because their self enforced use of the OBR to check things means they couldn't do it quickly enough..
Another avoidable mistake. Using the OBR is a bad move,
Using the OBR is unavoidable after Truss screwed things up.
Now granted they needed to have things ready to go and the budget should have been last week but I think Rishi's delays in kicking off the transition conversations combined with his sudden election announcement made an earlier budget impossible.
Although I doubt it would have made any difference the stories that are now appearing would have appeared in July instead..
The OBR is just another Osborne weasel move. That Labour have been stupid enough to buy it speaks volumes.
We elect MPs to run the country's finances we do not elect advisors to sanction what we can and cannot do.
The OBR off its own admission admits it has a faulty forecasting model which is too slow, why on earth would you trust the country's future to them ?
I don’t see what the OBR does, other than being an enforcer of Treasury Orthodoxy on the Chancellor.
It was always clear that Osborne introduced it only to trip up the next Labour government politically.
Precisely which is why Labour sacrificing themselves on the altar of Osborne is so surprising.
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
It not fatal if they change their behaviours.
Which at a basic level means SKS not being seen in a box at Arsenal, nor at the FA Cup Final or the Osais concerts next summer.
Maybe, maybe not. Blair and Boris were both fond of a freebie but this is not what caused their downfall. I'd be more worried about rampant cronyism, which arguably did play a large part in ending Blair's and Boris's premierships.
Blair and Boris were both PMs in a time of plenty.
Starmer is PM in a time of restraint - except for himself and his friends, who continue to enjoy plenty paid for by the rest of us.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
Does that include pensions which are sod all in the private sector and a significant cost in the public ?
Any pension contributions normally follow pay rises. If there has been a re-structure of the pensions, it probably won’t have been in a favourable direction. Lots of public sector pensions have gotten worse in recent years.
It’s lazy nonsense to argue that public sector pay can forever keep falling further and further behind private sector because the pensions are better.
I take it you work in the public sector.
Here in the private we dont see it that way.
Maybe if your reasoning skills were better, you’d have been able to get a job in the public sector!
That's not very nice but here is a genuine question
How much does the employer put into the teachers pension fund
(The employer being HMG and the taxpayer)
Sorry, I have no idea. I am not in the teachers' pension fund.
I am employed by a university, which counts as the public sector for some purposes and as a third category for other purposes. HMG puts no money directly into my pension fund. The money that pays for me and contributions to my pension fund, i.e. the university's income, comes partly from HMG (through various different routes), but more these days from student fees paid for by individuals, their families, their employers or the national governments of the countries from which they come. Middle class families in China sending their kids to study in the UK probably accounts for more of the money that pays for me than HMG.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
But simply looking at the increase in wages doesn't give an accurate figure. Those in the public sector have final salary pension schemes which are tied to those increased earnings, whether on final salary or even an average salary basis. Those in the private sector don't. They will have a defined contribution pension which is far less generous. Those in the public sector have greatly enhanced rights in respect of sick pay, maternity rights, leave, etc Whilst it is true that some of the gold plating has been stripped off these they are still worth a lot of money, particularly for younger women and older workers more prone to lengthy illnesses.
These rights don't come for free. They cost the tax payer money. So the total cost of employing that person is higher than the private sector equivalent.
Don't forget they also have yearly increments within their bands, so they get the yearly increase and an increase in their band until they reach the top, and far greater holiday entitlement as well.
Pay really is not the only part of the package. Their pay may be less than the private sector but their package is far greater than what the private sector gets.
Not all public sector workers get automatic pay uplifts, DWP is on spot salaries, for example. Yes we get greater holiday entitlement, but if your wages go up by 5% then surely the cost of your annual leave goes up by 5% as does the cost of providing my pension (which is now career average revalued). We don't get anything that actually costs money. If you look at the non-salary parts of a pay package, the only things of real value are the holiday and the pension. What do you get? I can't believe you just get your salary and nothing more.
People in the private sector have so much fantasy about the public sector, it is unbelievable.
A mate in the pub yesterday complained he has lost $9,000 due to selling his share options too soon. Maybe he is not a good comparator as he is in a much better-paid job than me, but in the public sector you can *never* aspire to that sort of bounce.
Not all people in the private sector get share options.
Most don't.
As you asked, and I don't mind saying.
I get a DC pension, company contribution between 6 and 9% depending on my contribution between 3 adn 6%
I get 25 days holidays plus bank, I can buy extra holidays up to 2.
My last company now gives all new starters NEST pension which is worse than what they gave me when I started.
I think it is easy to assume people in the private sector view public sector salaries and packages from a position of ignorance. I know about the NHS from my wife working there.
Obviously that is no more the whole public sector as your guy with share options is the private sector.
Yes and if company is not making good profits you get NO payrise and if you do they cut workforce to pay for it and you have to take up the slack.
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
Starmer has shown himself able to learn lessons in the past but learning this one involves making personal sacrifices. I get being an addicted fan of a football team, I am one, but he is the PM. Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches. And he can clearly afford to buy his own glasses.
"Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches" - I thought we were told this was impossible?
A question - what happened for previous PMs and Northern Ireland Secs?
Does he pay for a season ticket? That would seem a reasonable compromise, he is then paying what anyone else would. He could also say that he will reimburse the cost of food and drink.
Similarly, I have some sympathy over the cost of Lady Starmer's wardrobe, although it would be better if it was provided in a way that didn't give rise to a pecuniary benefit
One further difficult factor for the Government, which I have not looked at in detail, is I'm seeing reports of underfunding for future defence equipment, to the tune of £15bn or so.
This feels like the claims David Cameron made when he became PM, but I'm not enough into the detail to know if this is a normal artefact of the way defence planning works or doesn't work (separately to the services usually wanting diamond-encrusted tanks and similar).
FWIW, I think Starmer and Co are not being anything like aggressive enough in nailing responsibilities for finances onto the previous Government. I hate to say it, but they need a Bad 'Al to string the Tories up by their balls.
The thing that really surprises me, is not bringing the first budget forward. Actually do some stuff.
I think the problem there is they had no plans, theyre making them now,
And badly.
They needed to have the budget ready roughly 1 week after the election to announce it on September 11th - the OBR I think want a 2 month or so lead time.
Which I think is why they've ended up with limbo until October because their self enforced use of the OBR to check things means they couldn't do it quickly enough..
Another avoidable mistake. Using the OBR is a bad move,
Using the OBR is unavoidable after Truss screwed things up.
Now granted they needed to have things ready to go and the budget should have been last week but I think Rishi's delays in kicking off the transition conversations combined with his sudden election announcement made an earlier budget impossible.
Although I doubt it would have made any difference the stories that are now appearing would have appeared in July instead..
The OBR is just another Osborne weasel move. That Labour have been stupid enough to buy it speaks volumes.
We elect MPs to run the country's finances we do not elect advisors to sanction what we can and cannot do.
The OBR off its own admission admits it has a faulty forecasting model which is too slow, why on earth would you trust the country's future to them ?
I don’t see what the OBR does, other than being an enforcer of Treasury Orthodoxy on the Chancellor.
It was always clear that Osborne introduced it only to trip up the next Labour government politically.
One further difficult factor for the Government, which I have not looked at in detail, is I'm seeing reports of underfunding for future defence equipment, to the tune of £15bn or so.
This feels like the claims David Cameron made when he became PM, but I'm not enough into the detail to know if this is a normal artefact of the way defence planning works or doesn't work (separately to the services usually wanting diamond-encrusted tanks and similar).
FWIW, I think Starmer and Co are not being anything like aggressive enough in nailing responsibilities for finances onto the previous Government. I hate to say it, but they need a Bad 'Al to string the Tories up by their balls.
I go the other way: I have severe doubts about Labour and Reeve's claim about financial black holes. At least ones, they're not busy making themselves.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
But simply looking at the increase in wages doesn't give an accurate figure. Those in the public sector have final salary pension schemes which are tied to those increased earnings, whether on final salary or even an average salary basis. Those in the private sector don't. They will have a defined contribution pension which is far less generous. Those in the public sector have greatly enhanced rights in respect of sick pay, maternity rights, leave, etc Whilst it is true that some of the gold plating has been stripped off these they are still worth a lot of money, particularly for younger women and older workers more prone to lengthy illnesses.
These rights don't come for free. They cost the tax payer money. So the total cost of employing that person is higher than the private sector equivalent.
Do you have any numbers for "public sector on final salary pensions"? I think it might not be as many as some assume.
The civil service pension scheme, for example, switched to career average not final salary in 2007 for new joiners, and in 2012 for existing members. A relative had a fight to not be re-categorised as a Civil Servant soon after that for this reason.
And it switched from RPI to CPI in 2010.
And normal pension age is the same as state pension age.
OTOH the pension appears to be CPI linked so nto capped as aggressively as some.
When I began in academia, there was a final salary pension scheme. Now, it's a complicated mix of defined benefits and defined contributions above a certain threshold. It's better than many schemes, but it's not pure final salary and not what it was.
One further difficult factor for the Government, which I have not looked at in detail, is I'm seeing reports of underfunding for future defence equipment, to the tune of £15bn or so.
This feels like the claims David Cameron made when he became PM, but I'm not enough into the detail to know if this is a normal artefact of the way defence planning works or doesn't work (separately to the services usually wanting diamond-encrusted tanks and similar).
FWIW, I think Starmer and Co are not being anything like aggressive enough in nailing responsibilities for finances onto the previous Government. I hate to say it, but they need a Bad 'Al to string the Tories up by their balls.
More that defence procurement uses the "pyramid of outsourcing to all the right places" methodology that increases costs by an order of magnitude.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
If you take the NHS, it would benefit hugely from one central IT system that worked*. As it is, you have different providers for primary care (at least three different large providers), hospitals, sometimes intensive care units etc. A lot of things are sent by email and then re-entered in a different system (e.g. hospital consultant -> GP communication).
This is obvious in research, where it's not even real time and so some collation takes place, e.g. we can get, in England:
Hospital data based on data submitted for payments
Primary care, for two of the large providers, separately, not linkable
Primary care, through openSAFELY, for one of the same providers and the remaining one, again not linked
Limited linkage of hospital data with one of those primary care providers
Beyond very basics, intensive care unit data from three different organisations, depending on whether neonatal, paediatric or adult)
Data on prescriptions issued by GPs, but not by hospitals
Data on prescriptions dispensed by community pharmacies, but not by hospitals
The largest part of most research projects is accessing these data and then linking them. It's pretty much as fragmented, or more so, in actual care, I think. In Scotland it's a bit better as there is at least an identifier (CHI) that exists across most of these data and is more reliable than e.g. NHS data. In Wales, research data are much more integrated in SAIL. Even there though, we did a study in Wales and were never able to get England hospital data linked in (it's not unusual for residents of Wales to end up in England hospitals, particularly for more specialist things, where e.g. Liverpool might be closer than Cardiff).
But, anyway. Lots of people sending emails (even letters!), copying data from one place to another, taking time and making mistakes that impact on care.
*this the sticking point of course - and probably the end of career for whichever minister pushes it They could even still have the patchwork of providers if all the systems could talk to each other automatically.
The last thing the NHS needs is a new squillion pound project to centralise IT. What it does need is a data-interchange standard that can be used to export and import data.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
But simply looking at the increase in wages doesn't give an accurate figure. Those in the public sector have final salary pension schemes which are tied to those increased earnings, whether on final salary or even an average salary basis. Those in the private sector don't. They will have a defined contribution pension which is far less generous. Those in the public sector have greatly enhanced rights in respect of sick pay, maternity rights, leave, etc Whilst it is true that some of the gold plating has been stripped off these they are still worth a lot of money, particularly for younger women and older workers more prone to lengthy illnesses.
These rights don't come for free. They cost the tax payer money. So the total cost of employing that person is higher than the private sector equivalent.
Don't forget they also have yearly increments within their bands, so they get the yearly increase and an increase in their band until they reach the top, and far greater holiday entitlement as well.
Pay really is not the only part of the package. Their pay may be less than the private sector but their package is far greater than what the private sector gets.
Not all public sector workers get automatic pay uplifts, DWP is on spot salaries, for example. Yes we get greater holiday entitlement, but if your wages go up by 5% then surely the cost of your annual leave goes up by 5% as does the cost of providing my pension (which is now career average revalued). We don't get anything that actually costs money. If you look at the non-salary parts of a pay package, the only things of real value are the holiday and the pension. What do you get? I can't believe you just get your salary and nothing more.
People in the private sector have so much fantasy about the public sector, it is unbelievable.
A mate in the pub yesterday complained he has lost $9,000 due to selling his share options too soon. Maybe he is not a good comparator as he is in a much better-paid job than me, but in the public sector you can *never* aspire to that sort of bounce.
Not all people in the private sector get share options.
Most don't.
As you asked, and I don't mind saying.
I get a DC pension, company contribution between 6 and 9% depending on my contribution between 3 adn 6%
I get 25 days holidays plus bank, I can buy extra holidays up to 2.
My last company now gives all new starters NEST pension which is worse than what they gave me when I started.
I think it is easy to assume people in the private sector view public sector salaries and packages from a position of ignorance. I know about the NHS from my wife working there.
Obviously that is no more the whole public sector as your guy with share options is the private sector.
Yes and if company is not making good profits you get NO payrise and if you do they cut workforce to pay for it and you have to take up the slack.
Both private and public sector pension provision have deteriorated for all but those protected by being close to retirement and the lucky few at the very top. DB gone in private sector, career average rather than final in remaining public sector DB. Rather than tearing strips off each other, the focus should be on why both are getting stiffed compared to the previous generation.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
But simply looking at the increase in wages doesn't give an accurate figure. Those in the public sector have final salary pension schemes which are tied to those increased earnings, whether on final salary or even an average salary basis. Those in the private sector don't. They will have a defined contribution pension which is far less generous. Those in the public sector have greatly enhanced rights in respect of sick pay, maternity rights, leave, etc Whilst it is true that some of the gold plating has been stripped off these they are still worth a lot of money, particularly for younger women and older workers more prone to lengthy illnesses.
These rights don't come for free. They cost the tax payer money. So the total cost of employing that person is higher than the private sector equivalent.
Don't forget they also have yearly increments within their bands, so they get the yearly increase and an increase in their band until they reach the top, and far greater holiday entitlement as well.
Pay really is not the only part of the package. Their pay may be less than the private sector but their package is far greater than what the private sector gets.
Not all public sector workers get automatic pay uplifts, DWP is on spot salaries, for example. Yes we get greater holiday entitlement, but if your wages go up by 5% then surely the cost of your annual leave goes up by 5% as does the cost of providing my pension (which is now career average revalued). We don't get anything that actually costs money. If you look at the non-salary parts of a pay package, the only things of real value are the holiday and the pension. What do you get? I can't believe you just get your salary and nothing more.
People in the private sector have so much fantasy about the public sector, it is unbelievable.
A mate in the pub yesterday complained he has lost $9,000 due to selling his share options too soon. Maybe he is not a good comparator as he is in a much better-paid job than me, but in the public sector you can *never* aspire to that sort of bounce.
Not all people in the private sector get share options.
Most don't.
As you asked, and I don't mind saying.
I get a DC pension, company contribution between 6 and 9% depending on my contribution between 3 adn 6%
I get 25 days holidays plus bank, I can buy extra holidays up to 2.
My last company now gives all new starters NEST pension which is worse than what they gave me when I started.
I think it is easy to assume people in the private sector view public sector salaries and packages from a position of ignorance. I know about the NHS from my wife working there.
Obviously that is no more the whole public sector as your guy with share options is the private sector.
We'll, if that is all you are getting and you don't get health insurance or a company car etc then I certainly get better holiday (31½ plus bank) and my employer pension contributions are much more valuable.
I also work flexitime which is a bit of a scam as it builds up without noticing and then I can take a day off. But I accept it 😉 I don't particularly get flexible working as I work for a part of the Civil Service that is open to the public 9-5, and I am no longer allowed to WFH.
However if my salary went up by 5% and so did yours, then the proportionate cost uncreade would still be the same.
OT : The question is - How much of the available 10% Harris can pick up.
45% is nailed on for the Dems 45% is nailed on for the Republicans.
At least in the polling
The Democrats problem is that more of that 45% is wasted in an excess of votes in California (And New York to a lesser degree) being both the largest state and extremely safe Democrat whereas the GOP's largest states of TX and FL don't have particularly excessive numerical margins for the Republicans. That is essentially the source of the GOP EC bias.
Trump is doing better in New York and California v Harris than he did v Biden and Hillary. Trump is polling worse in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania than he got in 2016 though and worse in North Carolina than he got in 2016 or 2020
If that is true then Harris could go backwards relative to Biden nationally but have a more comfortable EC win
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
Does that include pensions which are sod all in the private sector and a significant cost in the public ?
Any pension contributions normally follow pay rises. If there has been a re-structure of the pensions, it probably won’t have been in a favourable direction. Lots of public sector pensions have gotten worse in recent years.
It’s lazy nonsense to argue that public sector pay can forever keep falling further and further behind private sector because the pensions are better.
I take it you work in the public sector.
Here in the private we dont see it that way.
Maybe if your reasoning skills were better, you’d have been able to get a job in the public sector!
Funnily enough my skills worked out ok, In some of my jobs I even got paid more than Sue Gray but nowhere near the numbers of freebies as Starmer.
Then why are you greedily moaning about public sector workers who get paid less than you and are going to end up on smaller pensions?
Simple the country cant afford to pay its bills. You talk as if there is some kind of obligation to make sure public sector workers get whatever a pay body recommends. Why should there be ? Private sector workers over the last two decades also deserve bigger pay rises but didnt get them because their companies couldnt afford it. On pensions the private sector workers have been robbed.
The UK is a poor country pretending its still a rich one and until we get back in to creating wealth we will all suffer.
Which is something I genuinely believe Starmer and Reeves gets which is why the current situation we are in, and some of the stories coming from people like KJH about investors and their attitude to the UK now are so disappointing.
I had alot of faith in them to get the UK growing again, so far so disappointing.
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
Starmer has shown himself able to learn lessons in the past but learning this one involves making personal sacrifices. I get being an addicted fan of a football team, I am one, but he is the PM. Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches. And he can clearly afford to buy his own glasses.
"Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches" - I thought we were told this was impossible?
A question - what happened for previous PMs and Northern Ireland Secs?
I don't think they were football fans like Starmer is. He supports Arsenal viscerally. It's a part of him. It's ridiculous but that's what supporting a football club is and it's a common affliction. But Starmer is not just anyone. He is the PM. He needs to ration the games he goes to and when he does go he needs to sit in the directors' box, as other politicians do. Yes, it's a pain. Yes, it means he can no longer go with his son to every game. But unfortunately for him this comes with the territory. It's what you sign up to when you become a national leader in a democracy.
I suspect the Sundays will have a spread of troughing stories.
Sky got the bit between their teeth yesterday and had an exposure of "gifts". Starmer was top dog but the surprise to me was Lucy Powell who got through£40k and claimed the number 2 spot.
This reminds me a bit of MPs expenses and I suspect it will run. And before the Tories and LDs get too full of glee the expenses story dragged everyone in to the spotlight.
The expenses row was a net positive for the Lib Dems. They had a couple of MPs implicated (recall they had 60-odd MPs back then) but proportionally far fewer than the 2 main parties so they came out smelling if not of roses then certainly not of dogshit like the others. The good thing is this time we had so few MPs in the last parliament and no donors would have bothered paying much attention to Lib Dems that we're hopefully coming out of this nice and clean.
Sunak whatever his faults was too rich to bother with this, Truss too fleeting, and Johnson was a trougher like the sun rises in the east but that's ancient history. Labour may be differentially exposed on this.
They are differentially exposed. Because they made anti-troughing a pillar of their campaign.
On the Lib-Dems. The vulnerability there will be the better than expected number of MPs. Which means MPs where the candidate wasn't expected to win. And the complete lack of sensible vetting in any party, as far as I can see.
I find the lack of vetting hilarious. The parties all failed to spend £500 on someone independent to spend a day going through the social media history of the candidate. There’s almost certainly another Jared O’Mara in Parliament right now.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
If you take the NHS, it would benefit hugely from one central IT system that worked*. As it is, you have different providers for primary care (at least three different large providers), hospitals, sometimes intensive care units etc. A lot of things are sent by email and then re-entered in a different system (e.g. hospital consultant -> GP communication).
This is obvious in research, where it's not even real time and so some collation takes place, e.g. we can get, in England:
Hospital data based on data submitted for payments
Primary care, for two of the large providers, separately, not linkable
Primary care, through openSAFELY, for one of the same providers and the remaining one, again not linked
Limited linkage of hospital data with one of those primary care providers
Beyond very basics, intensive care unit data from three different organisations, depending on whether neonatal, paediatric or adult)
Data on prescriptions issued by GPs, but not by hospitals
Data on prescriptions dispensed by community pharmacies, but not by hospitals
The largest part of most research projects is accessing these data and then linking them. It's pretty much as fragmented, or more so, in actual care, I think. In Scotland it's a bit better as there is at least an identifier (CHI) that exists across most of these data and is more reliable than e.g. NHS data. In Wales, research data are much more integrated in SAIL. Even there though, we did a study in Wales and were never able to get England hospital data linked in (it's not unusual for residents of Wales to end up in England hospitals, particularly for more specialist things, where e.g. Liverpool might be closer than Cardiff).
But, anyway. Lots of people sending emails (even letters!), copying data from one place to another, taking time and making mistakes that impact on care.
*this the sticking point of course - and probably the end of career for whichever minister pushes it They could even still have the patchwork of providers if all the systems could talk to each other automatically.
The last thing the NHS needs is a new squillion pound project to centralise IT. What it does need is a data-interchange standard that can be used to export and import data.
It doesn't even need that. Arguably, such a standard might lead you straight back to the giant, failed systems.
What it needs is continuous redevelopment of the existing systems, to *evolve* them towards talking to each other.
I suspect the Sundays will have a spread of troughing stories.
Sky got the bit between their teeth yesterday and had an exposure of "gifts". Starmer was top dog but the surprise to me was Lucy Powell who got through£40k and claimed the number 2 spot.
This reminds me a bit of MPs expenses and I suspect it will run. And before the Tories and LDs get too full of glee the expenses story dragged everyone in to the spotlight.
The expenses row was a net positive for the Lib Dems. They had a couple of MPs implicated (recall they had 60-odd MPs back then) but proportionally far fewer than the 2 main parties so they came out smelling if not of roses then certainly not of dogshit like the others. The good thing is this time we had so few MPs in the last parliament and no donors would have bothered paying much attention to Lib Dems that we're hopefully coming out of this nice and clean.
Sunak whatever his faults was too rich to bother with this, Truss too fleeting, and Johnson was a trougher like the sun rises in the east but that's ancient history. Labour may be differentially exposed on this.
They are differentially exposed. Because they made anti-troughing a pillar of their campaign.
On the Lib-Dems. The vulnerability there will be the better than expected number of MPs. Which means MPs where the candidate wasn't expected to win. And the complete lack of sensible vetting in any party, as far as I can see.
I find the lack of vetting hilarious. The parties all failed to spend £500 on someone independent to spend a day going through the social media history of the candidate. There’s almost certainly another Jared O’Mara in Parliament right now.
I predicted this well before the last GE. There will be a fair few rotten 'uns amongst Labour and the Lib Dems, simply because the less likely they were to win a seat, the effort they'd put into the candidate.
I didn't expect SKS to show himself to be rotten quite so early, though.
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
Starmer has shown himself able to learn lessons in the past but learning this one involves making personal sacrifices. I get being an addicted fan of a football team, I am one, but he is the PM. Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches. And he can clearly afford to buy his own glasses.
"Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches" - I thought we were told this was impossible?
A question - what happened for previous PMs and Northern Ireland Secs?
I don't think they were football fans like Starmer is. He supports Arsenal viscerally. It's a part of him. It's ridiculous but that's what supporting a football club is and it's a common affliction. But Starmer is not just anyone. He is the PM. He needs to ration the games he goes to and when he does go he needs to sit in the directors' box, as other politicians do. Yes, it's a pain. Yes, it means he can no longer go with his son to every game. But unfortunately for him this comes with the territory. It's what you sign up to when you become a national leader in a democracy.
What do the fans do, who can't afford 4 figures a year for a season ticket?
One further difficult factor for the Government, which I have not looked at in detail, is I'm seeing reports of underfunding for future defence equipment, to the tune of £15bn or so.
This feels like the claims David Cameron made when he became PM, but I'm not enough into the detail to know if this is a normal artefact of the way defence planning works or doesn't work (separately to the services usually wanting diamond-encrusted tanks and similar).
FWIW, I think Starmer and Co are not being anything like aggressive enough in nailing responsibilities for finances onto the previous Government. I hate to say it, but they need a Bad 'Al to string the Tories up by their balls.
I go the other way: I have severe doubts about Labour and Reeve's claim about financial black holes. At least ones, they're not busy making themselves.
If you do not think there are financial black holes then you were not paying attention to Jeremy Hunt's budgets.
And that is Labour's problem. Most voters do not pay attention. It is not good enough for Reeves to complain about the economically nebulous construct of ‘black holes’ rather than point to specific unfunded tax cuts or spending, and now Labour has gone quiet as next month's budget looms.
You know what, for the first time I think Sir Keir isn't going to last. On the Right, absolutely everyone holds him in utter contempt (this wasn't the case with Blair, Brown or even Ed Miliband). Meanwhile, large parts of the Left are becoming increasingly open in their view that he's a clueless, grasping, politically clumsy mediocrity who got lucky. I suspect Labour already have a replacement lined up.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
If you take the NHS, it would benefit hugely from one central IT system that worked*. As it is, you have different providers for primary care (at least three different large providers), hospitals, sometimes intensive care units etc. A lot of things are sent by email and then re-entered in a different system (e.g. hospital consultant -> GP communication).
This is obvious in research, where it's not even real time and so some collation takes place, e.g. we can get, in England:
Hospital data based on data submitted for payments
Primary care, for two of the large providers, separately, not linkable
Primary care, through openSAFELY, for one of the same providers and the remaining one, again not linked
Limited linkage of hospital data with one of those primary care providers
Beyond very basics, intensive care unit data from three different organisations, depending on whether neonatal, paediatric or adult)
Data on prescriptions issued by GPs, but not by hospitals
Data on prescriptions dispensed by community pharmacies, but not by hospitals
The largest part of most research projects is accessing these data and then linking them. It's pretty much as fragmented, or more so, in actual care, I think. In Scotland it's a bit better as there is at least an identifier (CHI) that exists across most of these data and is more reliable than e.g. NHS numbers. In Wales, research data are much more integrated in SAIL. Even there though, we did a study in Wales and were never able to get England hospital data linked in (it's not unusual for residents of Wales to end up in England hospitals, particularly for more specialist things, where e.g. Liverpool might be closer than Cardiff).
But, anyway. Lots of people sending emails (even letters!), copying data from one place to another, taking time and making mistakes that impact on care.
*this the sticking point of course - and probably the end of career for whichever minister pushes it They could even still have the patchwork of providers if all the systems could talk to each other automatically.
Labour tried the big top-down IT approach with NPfIT and CfH. They didn't work. That's left the system, I suggest, with a fear of trying again, so we have this bottom-up approach. Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses. But, yes, we have PhD students spending months on data access for data that I often suspect has significant biases in it.
One further difficult factor for the Government, which I have not looked at in detail, is I'm seeing reports of underfunding for future defence equipment, to the tune of £15bn or so.
This feels like the claims David Cameron made when he became PM, but I'm not enough into the detail to know if this is a normal artefact of the way defence planning works or doesn't work (separately to the services usually wanting diamond-encrusted tanks and similar).
FWIW, I think Starmer and Co are not being anything like aggressive enough in nailing responsibilities for finances onto the previous Government. I hate to say it, but they need a Bad 'Al to string the Tories up by their balls.
I go the other way: I have severe doubts about Labour and Reeve's claim about financial black holes. At least ones, they're not busy making themselves.
If you do not think there are financial black holes then you were not paying attention to Jeremy Hunt's budgets.
And that is Labour's problem. Most voters do not pay attention. It is not good enough for Reeves to complain about the economically nebulous construct of ‘black holes’ rather than point to specific unfunded tax cuts or spending, and now Labour has gone quiet as next month's budget looms.
It's the *depth* of the holes that I don't believe. In particular, I am very suspect about how quickly the holes were uncovered after the GE. Either the knowledge was known before the GE (naughty!) or they've been produced with a very large finger waving in the air. Or, perhaps, they're B/S.
I'm very glad I retired from an NHS job in 2003, with a Final Salary pension. Im also glad that my job was revalued upwards some nine months before I retired!
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
Starmer has shown himself able to learn lessons in the past but learning this one involves making personal sacrifices. I get being an addicted fan of a football team, I am one, but he is the PM. Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches. And he can clearly afford to buy his own glasses.
"Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches" - I thought we were told this was impossible?
A question - what happened for previous PMs and Northern Ireland Secs?
I don't think they were football fans like Starmer is. He supports Arsenal viscerally. It's a part of him. It's ridiculous but that's what supporting a football club is and it's a common affliction. But Starmer is not just anyone. He is the PM. He needs to ration the games he goes to and when he does go he needs to sit in the directors' box, as other politicians do. Yes, it's a pain. Yes, it means he can no longer go with his son to every game. But unfortunately for him this comes with the territory. It's what you sign up to when you become a national leader in a democracy.
Maybe he thinks a) that ardent football support will gain him more brownie points with the electorate hence he is making a thing about it; or b) he believes that such rules shouldn't apply to him and PM though he may be, he is damn well going to do as he pleases.
Otherwise your point is almost trivial in its self-evidential truth.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
Does that include pensions which are sod all in the private sector and a significant cost in the public ?
Any pension contributions normally follow pay rises. If there has been a re-structure of the pensions, it probably won’t have been in a favourable direction. Lots of public sector pensions have gotten worse in recent years.
It’s lazy nonsense to argue that public sector pay can forever keep falling further and further behind private sector because the pensions are better.
I take it you work in the public sector.
Here in the private we dont see it that way.
Maybe if your reasoning skills were better, you’d have been able to get a job in the public sector!
That's not very nice but here is a genuine question
How much does the employer put into the teachers pension fund
(The employer being HMG and the taxpayer)
Sorry, I have no idea. I am not in the teachers' pension fund.
I am employed by a university, which counts as the public sector for some purposes and as a third category for other purposes. HMG puts no money directly into my pension fund. The money that pays for me and contributions to my pension fund, i.e. the university's income, comes partly from HMG (through various different routes), but more these days from student fees paid for by individuals, their families, their employers or the national governments of the countries from which they come. Middle class families in China sending their kids to study in the UK probably accounts for more of the money that pays for me than HMG.
I, however, am. It's about a quarter.
But here's the thing. If we expect fortyish years of work to fund twenty years of retirement, that number smells about right. The scandalous thing is when other employers don't do this, dumping the problem on future Britain.
And yes, that's a good justification for lower pay now offsetting good pensions in the future. But pay isn't about "ought". Even when companies make mega profits, their duty is to pay as much of that as possible to their shareholders and as little as they can get away with to their staff. Nothing shameful in that, but there's no point pretending otherwise. High pay isn't about merit, it's about having an employer who doesn't have to be careful with the pennies.
And in the case of lots of public sector jobs, the recruitment and retention evidence is that people won't stay for the current package, so it needs to be more. Possibly you're all fools for not signing up to become teachers today. But there is an employment market, and The Lady said how buckable it is.
(As for me, I need to go and spend some of my private sector day doing private sector stuff.)
"National debt at 100% of GDP for first time since 1960s The chancellor is already seeking big savings to fill, what she says, is a £22bn legacy black hole in the public finances."
You know what, for the first time I think Sir Keir isn't going to last. On the Right, absolutely everyone holds him in utter contempt (this wasn't the case with Blair, Brown or even Ed Miliband). Meanwhile, large parts of the Left are becoming increasingly open in their view that he's a clueless, grasping, politically clumsy mediocrity who got lucky. I suspect Labour already have a replacement lined up.
My suspicion has always been that Starmer intends to step down after one term. You won't believe this because his snazzy new glasses lend a youthful appearance but Starmer is already in his 60s.
You know what, for the first time I think Sir Keir isn't going to last. On the Right, absolutely everyone holds him in utter contempt (this wasn't the case with Blair, Brown or even Ed Miliband). Meanwhile, large parts of the Left are becoming increasingly open in their view that he's a clueless, grasping, politically clumsy mediocrity who got lucky. I suspect Labour already have a replacement lined up.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
If you take the NHS, it would benefit hugely from one central IT system that worked*. As it is, you have different providers for primary care (at least three different large providers), hospitals, sometimes intensive care units etc. A lot of things are sent by email and then re-entered in a different system (e.g. hospital consultant -> GP communication).
This is obvious in research, where it's not even real time and so some collation takes place, e.g. we can get, in England:
Hospital data based on data submitted for payments
Primary care, for two of the large providers, separately, not linkable
Primary care, through openSAFELY, for one of the same providers and the remaining one, again not linked
Limited linkage of hospital data with one of those primary care providers
Beyond very basics, intensive care unit data from three different organisations, depending on whether neonatal, paediatric or adult)
Data on prescriptions issued by GPs, but not by hospitals
Data on prescriptions dispensed by community pharmacies, but not by hospitals
The largest part of most research projects is accessing these data and then linking them. It's pretty much as fragmented, or more so, in actual care, I think. In Scotland it's a bit better as there is at least an identifier (CHI) that exists across most of these data and is more reliable than e.g. NHS numbers. In Wales, research data are much more integrated in SAIL. Even there though, we did a study in Wales and were never able to get England hospital data linked in (it's not unusual for residents of Wales to end up in England hospitals, particularly for more specialist things, where e.g. Liverpool might be closer than Cardiff).
But, anyway. Lots of people sending emails (even letters!), copying data from one place to another, taking time and making mistakes that impact on care.
*this the sticking point of course - and probably the end of career for whichever minister pushes it They could even still have the patchwork of providers if all the systems could talk to each other automatically.
Labour tried the big top-down IT approach with NPfIT and CfH. They didn't work. That's left the system, I suggest, with a fear of trying again, so we have this bottom-up approach. Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses. But, yes, we have PhD students spending months on data access for data that I often suspect has significant biases in it.
What the NHS needs is a data ‘framework’, that allows multiple suppliers to compete for contracts, rather than a massive national project which will inevitably overrun and lead to dependence on one supplier.
"National debt at 100% of GDP for first time since 1960s The chancellor is already seeking big savings to fill, what she says, is a £22bn legacy black hole in the public finances."
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
That is a well-balanced comment. There is also a lot of built-in inefficiency. The DWP is funded by the Treasury based on how long we spend talking to unemployed people, many of whom are perfectly capable of finding their next job unaided. I think we should be paid based on getting more people into work, or maybe getting the benefit bill down, but that would put the Permanent Secretary's bonus at risk, so it won't happen. Management is comfortable with employing people and making them talk to unemployed people, but working out how to get people into work is beyond them.
You know what, for the first time I think Sir Keir isn't going to last. On the Right, absolutely everyone holds him in utter contempt (this wasn't the case with Blair, Brown or even Ed Miliband). Meanwhile, large parts of the Left are becoming increasingly open in their view that he's a clueless, grasping, politically clumsy mediocrity who got lucky. I suspect Labour already have a replacement lined up.
You know what, for the first time I think Sir Keir isn't going to last. On the Right, absolutely everyone holds him in utter contempt (this wasn't the case with Blair, Brown or even Ed Miliband). Meanwhile, large parts of the Left are becoming increasingly open in their view that he's a clueless, grasping, politically clumsy mediocrity who got lucky. I suspect Labour already have a replacement lined up.
It's possible he resigns but he is very, very unlikely to be removed. It would require 20% of the PLP to back a challenge and then he'd need to lose a vote among party members. In the NEC election just concluded, the Starmer-supporting group won most seats.
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
Starmer has shown himself able to learn lessons in the past but learning this one involves making personal sacrifices. I get being an addicted fan of a football team, I am one, but he is the PM. Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches. And he can clearly afford to buy his own glasses.
"Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches" - I thought we were told this was impossible?
A question - what happened for previous PMs and Northern Ireland Secs?
I don't think they were football fans like Starmer is. He supports Arsenal viscerally. It's a part of him. It's ridiculous but that's what supporting a football club is and it's a common affliction. But Starmer is not just anyone. He is the PM. He needs to ration the games he goes to and when he does go he needs to sit in the directors' box, as other politicians do. Yes, it's a pain. Yes, it means he can no longer go with his son to every game. But unfortunately for him this comes with the territory. It's what you sign up to when you become a national leader in a democracy.
Maybe he thinks a) that ardent football support will gain him more brownie points with the electorate hence he is making a thing about it; or b) he believes that such rules shouldn't apply to him and PM though he may be, he is damn well going to do as he pleases.
Otherwise your point is almost trivial in its self-evidential truth.
My theory is that as a lawyer, Starmer thinks the rules, and laws, absolutely do apply to him.
And the rules say he can take freebies but must declare them, so as a lawyer, he does take them and does (eventually) declare them, so that's fine. Obviously it's bad politics but Starmer is lawyer first and politician second, literally in his case.
You know what, for the first time I think Sir Keir isn't going to last. On the Right, absolutely everyone holds him in utter contempt (this wasn't the case with Blair, Brown or even Ed Miliband). Meanwhile, large parts of the Left are becoming increasingly open in their view that he's a clueless, grasping, politically clumsy mediocrity who got lucky. I suspect Labour already have a replacement lined up.
It's possible he resigns but he is very, very unlikely to be removed. It would require 20% of the PLP to back a challenge and then he'd need to lose a vote among party members. In the NEC election just concluded, the Starmer-supporting group won most seats.
Oh Southam Observer don't be basing your posts on reality - it spoils all the fun!
Starmer will only go if HE decides to go or there is a Parliamentary vote of no confidence. The former is not impossible but he won't be deposed because this isn't the Con Pty Revolving Door System
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
Does that include pensions which are sod all in the private sector and a significant cost in the public ?
Any pension contributions normally follow pay rises. If there has been a re-structure of the pensions, it probably won’t have been in a favourable direction. Lots of public sector pensions have gotten worse in recent years.
It’s lazy nonsense to argue that public sector pay can forever keep falling further and further behind private sector because the pensions are better.
I take it you work in the public sector.
Here in the private we dont see it that way.
Maybe if your reasoning skills were better, you’d have been able to get a job in the public sector!
That's not very nice but here is a genuine question
How much does the employer put into the teachers pension fund
(The employer being HMG and the taxpayer)
Sorry, I have no idea. I am not in the teachers' pension fund.
I am employed by a university, which counts as the public sector for some purposes and as a third category for other purposes. HMG puts no money directly into my pension fund. The money that pays for me and contributions to my pension fund, i.e. the university's income, comes partly from HMG (through various different routes), but more these days from student fees paid for by individuals, their families, their employers or the national governments of the countries from which they come. Middle class families in China sending their kids to study in the UK probably accounts for more of the money that pays for me than HMG.
I, however, am. It's about a quarter.
But here's the thing. If we expect fortyish years of work to fund twenty years of retirement, that number smells about right. The scandalous thing is when other employers don't do this, dumping the problem on future Britain.
And yes, that's a good justification for lower pay now offsetting good pensions in the future. But pay isn't about "ought". Even when companies make mega profits, their duty is to pay as much of that as possible to their shareholders and as little as they can get away with to their staff. Nothing shameful in that, but there's no point pretending otherwise. High pay isn't about merit, it's about having an employer who doesn't have to be careful with the pennies.
And in the case of lots of public sector jobs, the recruitment and retention evidence is that people won't stay for the current package, so it needs to be more. Possibly you're all fools for not signing up to become teachers today. But there is an employment market, and The Lady said how buckable it is.
(As for me, I need to go and spend some of my private sector day doing private sector stuff.)
One of the problems with the public sector is that a large proportion of the package is pension. That's extremely valuable to me at 59. When I joined the Civil Service (for the first time) at 30, it wasn't so important but I could get a mortgage on my salary so I treated it as a "nice to have". Now, with 30 year olds facing years of not being able to get on the housing ladder, they need the cash
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
But simply looking at the increase in wages doesn't give an accurate figure. Those in the public sector have final salary pension schemes which are tied to those increased earnings, whether on final salary or even an average salary basis. Those in the private sector don't. They will have a defined contribution pension which is far less generous. Those in the public sector have greatly enhanced rights in respect of sick pay, maternity rights, leave, etc Whilst it is true that some of the gold plating has been stripped off these they are still worth a lot of money, particularly for younger women and older workers more prone to lengthy illnesses.
These rights don't come for free. They cost the tax payer money. So the total cost of employing that person is higher than the private sector equivalent.
Don't forget they also have yearly increments within their bands, so they get the yearly increase and an increase in their band until they reach the top, and far greater holiday entitlement as well.
Pay really is not the only part of the package. Their pay may be less than the private sector but their package is far greater than what the private sector gets.
Not all public sector workers get automatic pay uplifts, DWP is on spot salaries, for example. Yes we get greater holiday entitlement, but if your wages go up by 5% then surely the cost of your annual leave goes up by 5% as does the cost of providing my pension (which is now career average revalued). We don't get anything that actually costs money. If you look at the non-salary parts of a pay package, the only things of real value are the holiday and the pension. What do you get? I can't believe you just get your salary and nothing more.
People in the private sector have so much fantasy about the public sector, it is unbelievable.
A mate in the pub yesterday complained he has lost $9,000 due to selling his share options too soon. Maybe he is not a good comparator as he is in a much better-paid job than me, but in the public sector you can *never* aspire to that sort of bounce.
Not all people in the private sector get share options.
Most don't.
As you asked, and I don't mind saying.
I get a DC pension, company contribution between 6 and 9% depending on my contribution between 3 adn 6%
I get 25 days holidays plus bank, I can buy extra holidays up to 2.
My last company now gives all new starters NEST pension which is worse than what they gave me when I started.
I think it is easy to assume people in the private sector view public sector salaries and packages from a position of ignorance. I know about the NHS from my wife working there.
Obviously that is no more the whole public sector as your guy with share options is the private sector.
We'll, if that is all you are getting and you don't get health insurance or a company car etc then I certainly get better holiday (31½ plus bank) and my employer pension contributions are much more valuable.
I also work flexitime which is a bit of a scam as it builds up without noticing and then I can take a day off. But I accept it 😉 I don't particularly get flexible working as I work for a part of the Civil Service that is open to the public 9-5, and I am no longer allowed to WFH.
However if my salary went up by 5% and so did yours, then the proportionate cost uncreade would still be the same.
My wife's employer contributions are 26.7% in her NHS roles.
My cost of living was 3%. My company proudly does its bit every year to keep private pay awards down. If I was younger I'd leave, but I plan to leave at Xmas so see no point.
I don't work flexitime but have core hours. So as long as I work my contracted hours they are okay. It allows me to start at 7.30 and finish at 4.
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
Starmer has shown himself able to learn lessons in the past but learning this one involves making personal sacrifices. I get being an addicted fan of a football team, I am one, but he is the PM. Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches. And he can clearly afford to buy his own glasses.
"Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches" - I thought we were told this was impossible?
A question - what happened for previous PMs and Northern Ireland Secs?
I don't think they were football fans like Starmer is. He supports Arsenal viscerally. It's a part of him. It's ridiculous but that's what supporting a football club is and it's a common affliction. But Starmer is not just anyone. He is the PM. He needs to ration the games he goes to and when he does go he needs to sit in the directors' box, as other politicians do. Yes, it's a pain. Yes, it means he can no longer go with his son to every game. But unfortunately for him this comes with the territory. It's what you sign up to when you become a national leader in a democracy.
Starmer has no more "need" to go to Arsenal than any football fan. I suspect most football fans buy their own specs and clothes as well. He needs to grow up, realise that 107 grand in freebies makes him look worse than a Tory and start coming up with ideas to make this country a better place. "Free gear Keir and Victoria Sponge" are nicknames that he should do all he can to shed.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
That is a well-balanced comment. There is also a lot of built-in inefficiency. The DWP is funded by the Treasury based on how long we spend talking to unemployed people, many of whom are perfectly capable of finding their next job unaided. I think we should be paid based on getting more people into work, or maybe getting the benefit bill down, but that would put the Permanent Secretary's bonus at risk, so it won't happen. Management is comfortable with employing people and making them talk to unemployed people, but working out how to get people into work is beyond them.
Yes there’s a whole pile of perverse incentives that need to be eliminated.
Everyone in the DWP should get their bonus based on the number of people employed and unemployed.
It ends up like the San Francisco homeless problem, where there’s hundreds of people on $200k salaries that want there to always be a homeless problem.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
But simply looking at the increase in wages doesn't give an accurate figure. Those in the public sector have final salary pension schemes which are tied to those increased earnings, whether on final salary or even an average salary basis. Those in the private sector don't. They will have a defined contribution pension which is far less generous. Those in the public sector have greatly enhanced rights in respect of sick pay, maternity rights, leave, etc Whilst it is true that some of the gold plating has been stripped off these they are still worth a lot of money, particularly for younger women and older workers more prone to lengthy illnesses.
These rights don't come for free. They cost the tax payer money. So the total cost of employing that person is higher than the private sector equivalent.
Don't forget they also have yearly increments within their bands, so they get the yearly increase and an increase in their band until they reach the top, and far greater holiday entitlement as well.
Pay really is not the only part of the package. Their pay may be less than the private sector but their package is far greater than what the private sector gets.
Not all public sector workers get automatic pay uplifts, DWP is on spot salaries, for example. Yes we get greater holiday entitlement, but if your wages go up by 5% then surely the cost of your annual leave goes up by 5% as does the cost of providing my pension (which is now career average revalued). We don't get anything that actually costs money. If you look at the non-salary parts of a pay package, the only things of real value are the holiday and the pension. What do you get? I can't believe you just get your salary and nothing more.
People in the private sector have so much fantasy about the public sector, it is unbelievable.
A mate in the pub yesterday complained he has lost $9,000 due to selling his share options too soon. Maybe he is not a good comparator as he is in a much better-paid job than me, but in the public sector you can *never* aspire to that sort of bounce.
Not all people in the private sector get share options.
Most don't.
As you asked, and I don't mind saying.
I get a DC pension, company contribution between 6 and 9% depending on my contribution between 3 adn 6%
I get 25 days holidays plus bank, I can buy extra holidays up to 2.
My last company now gives all new starters NEST pension which is worse than what they gave me when I started.
I think it is easy to assume people in the private sector view public sector salaries and packages from a position of ignorance. I know about the NHS from my wife working there.
Obviously that is no more the whole public sector as your guy with share options is the private sector.
Yes and if company is not making good profits you get NO payrise and if you do they cut workforce to pay for it and you have to take up the slack.
And the basic redundancy package as well when it is time for the carriage clock and picture of a spitfire.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
If you take the NHS, it would benefit hugely from one central IT system that worked*. As it is, you have different providers for primary care (at least three different large providers), hospitals, sometimes intensive care units etc. A lot of things are sent by email and then re-entered in a different system (e.g. hospital consultant -> GP communication).
This is obvious in research, where it's not even real time and so some collation takes place, e.g. we can get, in England:
Hospital data based on data submitted for payments
Primary care, for two of the large providers, separately, not linkable
Primary care, through openSAFELY, for one of the same providers and the remaining one, again not linked
Limited linkage of hospital data with one of those primary care providers
Beyond very basics, intensive care unit data from three different organisations, depending on whether neonatal, paediatric or adult)
Data on prescriptions issued by GPs, but not by hospitals
Data on prescriptions dispensed by community pharmacies, but not by hospitals
The largest part of most research projects is accessing these data and then linking them. It's pretty much as fragmented, or more so, in actual care, I think. In Scotland it's a bit better as there is at least an identifier (CHI) that exists across most of these data and is more reliable than e.g. NHS numbers. In Wales, research data are much more integrated in SAIL. Even there though, we did a study in Wales and were never able to get England hospital data linked in (it's not unusual for residents of Wales to end up in England hospitals, particularly for more specialist things, where e.g. Liverpool might be closer than Cardiff).
But, anyway. Lots of people sending emails (even letters!), copying data from one place to another, taking time and making mistakes that impact on care.
*this the sticking point of course - and probably the end of career for whichever minister pushes it They could even still have the patchwork of providers if all the systems could talk to each other automatically.
Labour tried the big top-down IT approach with NPfIT and CfH. They didn't work. That's left the system, I suggest, with a fear of trying again, so we have this bottom-up approach. Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses. But, yes, we have PhD students spending months on data access for data that I often suspect has significant biases in it.
What the NHS needs is a data ‘framework’, that allows multiple suppliers to compete for contracts, rather than a massive national project which will inevitably overrun and lead to dependence on one supplier.
Yes, my reference to centralised IT was a bit tongue in cheek as the * explanation hopefully made clear.
Agreed data standards would solve it, sure. At present, the different primary care database providers have different fields with different names, which make combining them tricky (mapping would be easy enough if just different field names, but what is recorded fundamentally differs). Hospitals differ completely from that and use a completely different coding system for diagnoses, for example.
There's no reason why one couldn't, going forward, define a data framework and give all providers X years to be compliant, plus and automated messaging system that enables relevant data entered in a hospital to be mirrored to the primary care record and the GP alerted if necessary.
On topic - Anyone and I mean ANYONE who pretends to know what will happen at the US elections is deluding themelves. Even if they turn out to be right it will be luck rather than judgement.
On 2020 polls Trump will get a landslide. On 2022 polls Harris will get a landslide. On any polls it really is all down to turnout between the two immovable voting blocs. The Reps are smaller but generally more likely to turnout and with a system rigged in their favour. If the Dems get their folk to the polls then they win. If they don't then they don't.
Far too early to write off Starmer - after all, he's outlasted Truss and the track record on kicking out Prime Ministers who have won landslide election victories is about two and a half years (Thatcher in 1990, Johnson in 2022) so unless anything really serious comes through (and none of this is really that serious), Starmer is safe.
He will now be feeling akin to a man trying to walk south over London Bridge at 8.30am on a Tuesday morning but headwinds are part and parcel of the job and he had a rough start as Labour leader yet while the Conservative Party's role in his 2024 election triumph can never be understated, he wasn't entirely a passenger on that train.
To be fair to the Conservatives on here, especially those who have come out swinging since July 5th having been less than strident in their own Party's defence while in office, the local council by-elections last evening were decent for the party with gains in the West End of London and Worthing as well as Gedling last Monday.
However, in St Neots, the Conservatives came third behind the LDs and a successful Indpendent in a seat they currently held so as always it's a curate's egg on a Friday morning served with a side of humble pie.
We yearn, no ache perhaps, for some proper polling but I think we know the current party is fragmented with the Conservatives, Labour, Reform, LDs and the Greens all in the mix. The Scottish polling confirms that with the SNP trying to pick themselves up from their poor election result.
None of this matters very much at this time - the key event will be the Budget which for all its financial content, is a political document first and foremost. The astute move would be to get the pain in now and keep saying, pace Howard Jones, "things can only get better". I'm fascinated to see the OBR numbers for borrowing projected forward and whether we can get somewhere near fiscal balance by the end of the Parliament which would be an achievement.
Will, for example, the Conservative Party leadership candidates commit, in advance of the Budget, to reverse any and all tax rises? If they do, how do they intend to make up the shortfall?
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
That is a well-balanced comment. There is also a lot of built-in inefficiency. The DWP is funded by the Treasury based on how long we spend talking to unemployed people, many of whom are perfectly capable of finding their next job unaided. I think we should be paid based on getting more people into work, or maybe getting the benefit bill down, but that would put the Permanent Secretary's bonus at risk, so it won't happen. Management is comfortable with employing people and making them talk to unemployed people, but working out how to get people into work is beyond them.
A friend got signed off sick, with significant mental health issues, going into 2008.
He spent several years unemployed.
As part of his recovery, he applied for jobs, pretty much every day. He told me that the lady monitoring his case was almost terrified the first time he came in, and gave her a printed copy of the spreadsheet of jobs applied for, result, follow up dates etc.
"National debt at 100% of GDP for first time since 1960s The chancellor is already seeking big savings to fill, what she says, is a £22bn legacy black hole in the public finances."
Liz Truss was right. We need to champion economic growth. If we could cut our way to growth, George Osborne might have paid off the national debt.
She was right about the condition but her diagnosis and remedy was a shambles and has done far more to undermine championing growth than the so-called enemies of growth she used to rattle on about.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
If you take the NHS, it would benefit hugely from one central IT system that worked*. As it is, you have different providers for primary care (at least three different large providers), hospitals, sometimes intensive care units etc. A lot of things are sent by email and then re-entered in a different system (e.g. hospital consultant -> GP communication).
This is obvious in research, where it's not even real time and so some collation takes place, e.g. we can get, in England:
Hospital data based on data submitted for payments
Primary care, for two of the large providers, separately, not linkable
Primary care, through openSAFELY, for one of the same providers and the remaining one, again not linked
Limited linkage of hospital data with one of those primary care providers
Beyond very basics, intensive care unit data from three different organisations, depending on whether neonatal, paediatric or adult)
Data on prescriptions issued by GPs, but not by hospitals
Data on prescriptions dispensed by community pharmacies, but not by hospitals
The largest part of most research projects is accessing these data and then linking them. It's pretty much as fragmented, or more so, in actual care, I think. In Scotland it's a bit better as there is at least an identifier (CHI) that exists across most of these data and is more reliable than e.g. NHS numbers. In Wales, research data are much more integrated in SAIL. Even there though, we did a study in Wales and were never able to get England hospital data linked in (it's not unusual for residents of Wales to end up in England hospitals, particularly for more specialist things, where e.g. Liverpool might be closer than Cardiff).
But, anyway. Lots of people sending emails (even letters!), copying data from one place to another, taking time and making mistakes that impact on care.
*this the sticking point of course - and probably the end of career for whichever minister pushes it They could even still have the patchwork of providers if all the systems could talk to each other automatically.
Labour tried the big top-down IT approach with NPfIT and CfH. They didn't work. That's left the system, I suggest, with a fear of trying again, so we have this bottom-up approach. Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses. But, yes, we have PhD students spending months on data access for data that I often suspect has significant biases in it.
What the NHS needs is a data ‘framework’, that allows multiple suppliers to compete for contracts, rather than a massive national project which will inevitably overrun and lead to dependence on one supplier.
Yes, my reference to centralised IT was a bit tongue in cheek as the * explanation hopefully made clear.
Agreed data standards would solve it, sure. At present, the different primary care database providers have different fields with different names, which make combining them tricky (mapping would be easy enough if just different field names, but what is recorded fundamentally differs). Hospitals differ completely from that and use a completely different coding system for diagnoses, for example.
There's no reason why one couldn't, going forward, define a data framework and give all providers X years to be compliant, plus and automated messaging system that enables relevant data entered in a hospital to be mirrored to the primary care record and the GP alerted if necessary.
"Agreed data standards would solve it, sure. At present, the different primary care database providers have different fields with different names, which make combining them tricky (mapping would be easy enough if just different field names, but what is recorded fundamentally differs). Hospitals differ completely from that and use a completely different coding system for diagnoses, for example."
This should not have been allowed to happen. As you say needs data framework. Open data standards.
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
Starmer has shown himself able to learn lessons in the past but learning this one involves making personal sacrifices. I get being an addicted fan of a football team, I am one, but he is the PM. Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches. And he can clearly afford to buy his own glasses.
"Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches" - I thought we were told this was impossible?
A question - what happened for previous PMs and Northern Ireland Secs?
I don't think they were football fans like Starmer is. He supports Arsenal viscerally. It's a part of him. It's ridiculous but that's what supporting a football club is and it's a common affliction. But Starmer is not just anyone. He is the PM. He needs to ration the games he goes to and when he does go he needs to sit in the directors' box, as other politicians do. Yes, it's a pain. Yes, it means he can no longer go with his son to every game. But unfortunately for him this comes with the territory. It's what you sign up to when you become a national leader in a democracy.
What do the fans do, who can't afford 4 figures a year for a season ticket?
Buy a cracked fire stick from the bloke down the pub.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
That is a well-balanced comment. There is also a lot of built-in inefficiency. The DWP is funded by the Treasury based on how long we spend talking to unemployed people, many of whom are perfectly capable of finding their next job unaided. I think we should be paid based on getting more people into work, or maybe getting the benefit bill down, but that would put the Permanent Secretary's bonus at risk, so it won't happen. Management is comfortable with employing people and making them talk to unemployed people, but working out how to get people into work is beyond them.
Worse than that. As benefit recipients became seen as workshy leeches, performative cruelty became the order of the day, with claimants to be harried and sanctioned. Arrive on time and there's an hour wait but five minutes late and there's a fine of a day's benefits. Go to your local JobCentre. Those security guards did not used to be needed.
I think the conclusion is correct. It is not fatal. They can recover. But will they.
"This is not a fatal moment for Sir Keir’s prime ministership. But it is a failure from which it is vital that Sir Keir should learn. He needs a stronger commitment to standards, effectively and independently enforced, so that politics and government can begin to be trusted again. That is not happening at the moment. But it is indispensable. Without it, the risks facing Labour in government will only continue to grow."
Starmer has shown himself able to learn lessons in the past but learning this one involves making personal sacrifices. I get being an addicted fan of a football team, I am one, but he is the PM. Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches. And he can clearly afford to buy his own glasses.
"Maybe the solution is just not to go to matches" - I thought we were told this was impossible?
A question - what happened for previous PMs and Northern Ireland Secs?
I don't think they were football fans like Starmer is. He supports Arsenal viscerally. It's a part of him. It's ridiculous but that's what supporting a football club is and it's a common affliction. But Starmer is not just anyone. He is the PM. He needs to ration the games he goes to and when he does go he needs to sit in the directors' box, as other politicians do. Yes, it's a pain. Yes, it means he can no longer go with his son to every game. But unfortunately for him this comes with the territory. It's what you sign up to when you become a national leader in a democracy.
Maybe he thinks a) that ardent football support will gain him more brownie points with the electorate hence he is making a thing about it; or b) he believes that such rules shouldn't apply to him and PM though he may be, he is damn well going to do as he pleases.
Otherwise your point is almost trivial in its self-evidential truth.
My theory is that as a lawyer, Starmer thinks the rules, and laws, absolutely do apply to him.
And the rules say he can take freebies but must declare them, so as a lawyer, he does take them and does (eventually) declare them, so that's fine. Obviously it's bad politics but Starmer is lawyer first and politician second, literally in his case.
In the early days of New Labour, I talked to some legal types (very junior) on the their team. I asked why they thought using obscure legislation for Royal Parks to arrest people holding up signs saying "Remember Tibet", when the Chinese premier visited was OK.
They said
- The law existed. - The law said that what they were doing was lawful. - Therefore there was a moral imperative to do this. And it was shameful to question it. Because it was the law.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
But simply looking at the increase in wages doesn't give an accurate figure. Those in the public sector have final salary pension schemes which are tied to those increased earnings, whether on final salary or even an average salary basis. Those in the private sector don't. They will have a defined contribution pension which is far less generous. Those in the public sector have greatly enhanced rights in respect of sick pay, maternity rights, leave, etc Whilst it is true that some of the gold plating has been stripped off these they are still worth a lot of money, particularly for younger women and older workers more prone to lengthy illnesses.
These rights don't come for free. They cost the tax payer money. So the total cost of employing that person is higher than the private sector equivalent.
Do you have any numbers for "public sector on final salary pensions"? I think it might not be as many as some assume.
The civil service pension scheme, for example, switched to career average not final salary in 2007 for new joiners, and in 2012 for existing members. A relative had a fight to not be re-categorised as a Civil Servant soon after that for this reason.
And it switched from RPI to CPI in 2010.
And normal pension age is the same as state pension age.
OTOH the pension appears to be CPI linked so nto capped as aggressively as some.
When I began in academia, there was a final salary pension scheme. Now, it's a complicated mix of defined benefits and defined contributions above a certain threshold. It's better than many schemes, but it's not pure final salary and not what it was.
A friend was union rep for his dept, the older lecturers were very annoyed that the younger lecturers wouldn't vote against the pension changes. The friend had to explain that they'd worked out that they'd just be paying higher contributions to maintain their older colleagues DB pensions and there'd be FA left when they retired.
There is a widespread but incorrect view that fiscal rules are there to reassure financial markets. This motive is hardly ever mentioned in the academic literature on fiscal rules, for a very obvious reason. Fiscal rules are there because governments can exploit low information voters, or voters that are not worried about debt sustainability. By contrast financial markets involve high information actors. They don’t need fiscal rules, or ratings agencies for the major countries for that matter, to tell them about the implications of fiscal decisions.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
If you take the NHS, it would benefit hugely from one central IT system that worked*. As it is, you have different providers for primary care (at least three different large providers), hospitals, sometimes intensive care units etc. A lot of things are sent by email and then re-entered in a different system (e.g. hospital consultant -> GP communication).
This is obvious in research, where it's not even real time and so some collation takes place, e.g. we can get, in England:
Hospital data based on data submitted for payments
Primary care, for two of the large providers, separately, not linkable
Primary care, through openSAFELY, for one of the same providers and the remaining one, again not linked
Limited linkage of hospital data with one of those primary care providers
Beyond very basics, intensive care unit data from three different organisations, depending on whether neonatal, paediatric or adult)
Data on prescriptions issued by GPs, but not by hospitals
Data on prescriptions dispensed by community pharmacies, but not by hospitals
The largest part of most research projects is accessing these data and then linking them. It's pretty much as fragmented, or more so, in actual care, I think. In Scotland it's a bit better as there is at least an identifier (CHI) that exists across most of these data and is more reliable than e.g. NHS numbers. In Wales, research data are much more integrated in SAIL. Even there though, we did a study in Wales and were never able to get England hospital data linked in (it's not unusual for residents of Wales to end up in England hospitals, particularly for more specialist things, where e.g. Liverpool might be closer than Cardiff).
But, anyway. Lots of people sending emails (even letters!), copying data from one place to another, taking time and making mistakes that impact on care.
*this the sticking point of course - and probably the end of career for whichever minister pushes it They could even still have the patchwork of providers if all the systems could talk to each other automatically.
Labour tried the big top-down IT approach with NPfIT and CfH. They didn't work. That's left the system, I suggest, with a fear of trying again, so we have this bottom-up approach. Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses. But, yes, we have PhD students spending months on data access for data that I often suspect has significant biases in it.
What the NHS needs is a data ‘framework’, that allows multiple suppliers to compete for contracts, rather than a massive national project which will inevitably overrun and lead to dependence on one supplier.
Yes, my reference to centralised IT was a bit tongue in cheek as the * explanation hopefully made clear.
Agreed data standards would solve it, sure. At present, the different primary care database providers have different fields with different names, which make combining them tricky (mapping would be easy enough if just different field names, but what is recorded fundamentally differs). Hospitals differ completely from that and use a completely different coding system for diagnoses, for example.
There's no reason why one couldn't, going forward, define a data framework and give all providers X years to be compliant, plus and automated messaging system that enables relevant data entered in a hospital to be mirrored to the primary care record and the GP alerted if necessary.
"Agreed data standards would solve it, sure. At present, the different primary care database providers have different fields with different names, which make combining them tricky (mapping would be easy enough if just different field names, but what is recorded fundamentally differs). Hospitals differ completely from that and use a completely different coding system for diagnoses, for example."
This should not have been allowed to happen. As you say needs data framework. Open data standards.
What really matters is standards for data interchange. It should not matter that different systems use different labels for the same thing (and in Welsh Wales, it is probably inevitable) provided data can be exported and imported between otherwise incompatible systems.
Historically a FSP often paid 60ths or 80ths of final salary, so the private part of your pension amounted to 50-67% of your last year salary plus state pension on top. Does that sound about right to the 70 and 80 something's on here?
Looking at my generation, I've been orthodox on pensions, private sector for all my jobs, several years of FSP in my pot from early career and defined contribution since, which has been as high as 10% matched for a few years. I'll probably fall just shy of 40 years work at retirement.
My expectation from pension estimates is that I'll get somewhere around 35%, perhaps a little below, of my last year salary in private pension when I retire, obviously still with state pension on top.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
“Average earnings growth in the whole of the private sector was 6.1% in the year to January, marginally down on 6.2% in the year to December. In the public sector, the rate of growth was 5.9% in the year to January, the same as the revised figure for the year to December.”
But simply looking at the increase in wages doesn't give an accurate figure. Those in the public sector have final salary pension schemes which are tied to those increased earnings, whether on final salary or even an average salary basis. Those in the private sector don't. They will have a defined contribution pension which is far less generous. Those in the public sector have greatly enhanced rights in respect of sick pay, maternity rights, leave, etc Whilst it is true that some of the gold plating has been stripped off these they are still worth a lot of money, particularly for younger women and older workers more prone to lengthy illnesses.
These rights don't come for free. They cost the tax payer money. So the total cost of employing that person is higher than the private sector equivalent.
Don't forget they also have yearly increments within their bands, so they get the yearly increase and an increase in their band until they reach the top, and far greater holiday entitlement as well.
Pay really is not the only part of the package. Their pay may be less than the private sector but their package is far greater than what the private sector gets.
Not all public sector workers get automatic pay uplifts, DWP is on spot salaries, for example. Yes we get greater holiday entitlement, but if your wages go up by 5% then surely the cost of your annual leave goes up by 5% as does the cost of providing my pension (which is now career average revalued). We don't get anything that actually costs money. If you look at the non-salary parts of a pay package, the only things of real value are the holiday and the pension. What do you get? I can't believe you just get your salary and nothing more.
People in the private sector have so much fantasy about the public sector, it is unbelievable.
A mate in the pub yesterday complained he has lost $9,000 due to selling his share options too soon. Maybe he is not a good comparator as he is in a much better-paid job than me, but in the public sector you can *never* aspire to that sort of bounce.
Not all people in the private sector get share options.
Most don't.
As you asked, and I don't mind saying.
I get a DC pension, company contribution between 6 and 9% depending on my contribution between 3 adn 6%
I get 25 days holidays plus bank, I can buy extra holidays up to 2.
My last company now gives all new starters NEST pension which is worse than what they gave me when I started.
I think it is easy to assume people in the private sector view public sector salaries and packages from a position of ignorance. I know about the NHS from my wife working there.
Obviously that is no more the whole public sector as your guy with share options is the private sector.
Yes and if company is not making good profits you get NO payrise and if you do they cut workforce to pay for it and you have to take up the slack.
Both private and public sector pension provision have deteriorated for all but those protected by being close to retirement and the lucky few at the very top. DB gone in private sector, career average rather than final in remaining public sector DB. Rather than tearing strips off each other, the focus should be on why both are getting stiffed compared to the previous generation.
In 1972 13% of the population was aged over 65. In 2022 this had increased to 19%. By 2072, this is forecast to be 27%.
Britain could have made the choice to increase the proportion of each worker's income spent on supporting pensioners by more than two (because the number of workers will also have decreased) but it hasn't, and so no future generation will benefit from the generous pension provision for the boomer and prior generation.
Interesting. Reeves could dig herself out of the political mess of the Winter Fuel Allowance scrapping by using the bump in CGT receipts this year because so many people are selling assets before 30th Oct.
Alternatively, the Telegraph wants to label Labour as stupid.
Three things.
Using windfalls to pay for ongoing commitments is the stupid that Britain has been doing for years, and is part of why we're in this hole.
If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?
Would the apparently inevitable Jenrick/Badenoch government of 2029 reintroduce a winter bonus for all pensioners? Of course they won't.
"If there is a couple of billion more to spend, is replenishing something that is mostly a freebie find for the well-off really the best way of doing it?"
I thought you were all for massive pay rises for doctors and trains drivers ?
I'm in favour of reality and arithmetic.
If the cost to the nation of allowing the strikes to drag on was higher than paying up, then settle the strikes.
If recruitment and retention are a problem, pay more.
The problem with the "they should accept X and be grateful model" is that the government can't enforce it.
Well, up to a point. If recruitment and retention are a problem, make the job more attractive, sure.
But acceding to strikers demands doesn't make fewer strikes. It shows that strikes work and brings them back for more.
While it might be true that some of the strikers have had below inflation pay increases, that's true of everyone. It's bot obvious why private sector workers should accept higher taxes so public sector workers can have higher pay increases than them. Inflation isn't the right comparator: the comparator should be what the given worker might earn by changing jobs.
But what we are seeing is Labour's broken business model in action: it ALWAYS loads more on to the private sector to pay for the public sector than is sustainable.
Then, when they inevitably get booted out for mismanaging the economy, we will be treated to the orchestrated outrage of "Tory cuts!". No. Tory economic sanity, Labour economic profligacy. The cycle continues as it has for decades.
To actually reduce the cost of the pubic sector requires productivity increases.
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
That is a well-balanced comment. There is also a lot of built-in inefficiency. The DWP is funded by the Treasury based on how long we spend talking to unemployed people, many of whom are perfectly capable of finding their next job unaided. I think we should be paid based on getting more people into work, or maybe getting the benefit bill down, but that would put the Permanent Secretary's bonus at risk, so it won't happen. Management is comfortable with employing people and making them talk to unemployed people, but working out how to get people into work is beyond them.
Worse than that. As benefit recipients became seen as workshy leeches, performative cruelty became the order of the day, with claimants to be harried and sanctioned. Arrive on time and there's an hour wait but five minutes late and there's a fine of a day's benefits. Go to your local JobCentre. Those security guards did not used to be needed.
It has been the way for a long while now.
About a decade ago my neighbour, who was on benefits as he could no longer get interim teaching work due to oversupply of trainee teachers, had retrained and got a new job. He was sanctioned for 2 weeks before he started his new job. The reason. He had not applied for any jobs. He explained he had already got a job and was waiting to start so there was little point. They didn't care. Just witheld his money.
I still don’t really understand why Labour didn’t really grasp the media narrative over the summer and do some big set piece moments of positivity and change rather than focussing on the doom and gloom of the upcoming budget and how wrong everything is.
I know Boris boosterism was derided but there is something in a leader being able to encourage, motivate and inspire the voters and Labour haven’t really been trying on that front.
Comments
Productivity increases only come from process change and investment in technology that allows people to do more work for less effort.
The later is how we got from *everyone* working in agriculture to a 1%. Which means that, say, @Foxy can waste his time saving lives, rather than harvesting the wheat with a hand held sickle.
From what I've seen of the public sector, it is a curates egg. Some parts are quite modern. Much is layers of antiquated behaviours and systems, piled onto numerous, incompatible IT systems that just mimic practises that were mentioned in the Pickwick Papers.
The result is very uneven work loading - often people working very hard to do things that are not actually what they want to be doing. Or really need to be doing. But telling your boss that "I'm not doing the useless stuff" is a good way to fire yourself. And outside
What we need is a continuous, low level, small scale, reworking of the system.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
I fervently hope Harris wins but I think it's going to be very close.
She is happy there. She gets the extra holidays, in her regular role she helps people with learning difficulties and gets alot of satisfaction from it, and she gets the pension that the casual worker at the swimming pool won't get.
We elect MPs to run the country's finances we do not elect advisors to sanction what we can and cannot do.
The OBR off its own admission admits it has a faulty forecasting model which is too slow, why on earth would you trust the country's future to them ?
but Trump is impossible so it has to be Harris.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president/clintontrumpfavorability.html
This is obvious in research, where it's not even real time and so some collation takes place, e.g. we can get, in England:
- Hospital data based on data submitted for payments
- Primary care, for two of the large providers, separately, not linkable
- Primary care, through openSAFELY, for one of the same providers and the remaining one, again not linked
- Limited linkage of hospital data with one of those primary care providers
- Beyond very basics, intensive care unit data from three different organisations, depending on whether neonatal, paediatric or adult)
- Data on prescriptions issued by GPs, but not by hospitals
- Data on prescriptions dispensed by community pharmacies, but not by hospitals
The largest part of most research projects is accessing these data and then linking them. It's pretty much as fragmented, or more so, in actual care, I think.In Scotland it's a bit better as there is at least an identifier (CHI) that exists across most of these data and is more reliable than e.g. NHS numbers. In Wales, research data are much more integrated in SAIL. Even there though, we did a study in Wales and were never able to get England hospital data linked in (it's not unusual for residents of Wales to end up in England hospitals, particularly for more specialist things, where e.g. Liverpool might be closer than Cardiff).
But, anyway. Lots of people sending emails (even letters!), copying data from one place to another, taking time and making mistakes that impact on care.
*this the sticking point of course - and probably the end of career for whichever minister pushes it
Which at a basic level means SKS not being seen in a box at Arsenal, nor at the FA Cup Final or the Osais concerts next summer.
Most don't.
As you asked, and I don't mind saying.
I get a DC pension, company contribution between 6 and 9% depending on my contribution between 3 adn 6%
I get 25 days holidays plus bank, I can buy extra holidays up to 2.
My last company now gives all new starters NEST pension which is worse than what they gave me when I started.
I think it is easy to assume people in the private sector view public sector salaries and packages from a position of ignorance. I know about the NHS from my wife working there.
Obviously that is no more the whole public sector as your guy with share options is the private sector.
But the worst by far is the failure to communicate the plan (is there one?) in a coherent way combining realism and sunlit uplands.
At least Starmer supports Arsenal, but he can't even get the optics of that right. Maybe a (rather crucial) win on Sunday will sort it all.
On the Lib-Dems. The vulnerability there will be the better than expected number of MPs. Which means MPs where the candidate wasn't expected to win. And the complete lack of sensible vetting in any party, as far as I can see.
A question - what happened for previous PMs and Northern Ireland Secs?
It was always clear that Osborne introduced it only to trip up the next Labour government politically.
You can of course argue that they're no more accurate than anyone else, and the basis of their assumptions, but it's a far more reliable metric of the effects of policy changes than anything politicians are likely to provide.
The UK is a poor country pretending its still a rich one and until we get back in to creating wealth we will all suffer.
Starmer is PM in a time of restraint - except for himself and his friends, who continue to enjoy plenty paid for by the rest of us.
I am employed by a university, which counts as the public sector for some purposes and as a third category for other purposes. HMG puts no money directly into my pension fund. The money that pays for me and contributions to my pension fund, i.e. the university's income, comes partly from HMG (through various different routes), but more these days from student fees paid for by individuals, their families, their employers or the national governments of the countries from which they come. Middle class families in China sending their kids to study in the UK probably accounts for more of the money that pays for me than HMG.
Similarly, I have some sympathy over the cost of Lady Starmer's wardrobe, although it would be better if it was provided in a way that didn't give rise to a pecuniary benefit
This feels like the claims David Cameron made when he became PM, but I'm not enough into the detail to know if this is a normal artefact of the way defence planning works or doesn't work (separately to the services usually wanting diamond-encrusted tanks and similar).
FWIW, I think Starmer and Co are not being anything like aggressive enough in nailing responsibilities for finances onto the previous Government. I hate to say it, but they need a Bad 'Al to string the Tories up by their balls.
Andy Bruce
@BruceReuters
💥 Biggest September drop for consumer confidence since 1976 👇
Survey company @GfK links this to messaging around the Budget and withdrawal of winter fuel allowance.
Quite a serious charge - the idea that the government is risking a self-fulfilling prophecy of gloom.
Not being enthusiastic about the Tories (or Labour) I hope they don't.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/harry-uk-charles-william-kate-meghan-royal-family-b2616044.html
Interfering in politics, especially other countries' politics, is not a good look for the Royal Family, even its most loosely attached fringes.
I also work flexitime which is a bit of a scam as it builds up without noticing and then I can take a day off. But I accept it 😉 I don't particularly get flexible working as I work for a part of the Civil Service that is open to the public 9-5, and I am no longer allowed to WFH.
However if my salary went up by 5% and so did yours, then the proportionate cost uncreade would still be the same.
I had alot of faith in them to get the UK growing again, so far so disappointing.
What it needs is continuous redevelopment of the existing systems, to *evolve* them towards talking to each other.
I didn't expect SKS to show himself to be rotten quite so early, though.
And that is Labour's problem. Most voters do not pay attention. It is not good enough for Reeves to complain about the economically nebulous construct of ‘black holes’ rather than point to specific unfunded tax cuts or spending, and now Labour has gone quiet as next month's budget looms.
I'm very glad I retired from an NHS job in 2003, with a Final Salary pension. Im also glad that my job was revalued upwards some nine months before I retired!
Otherwise your point is almost trivial in its self-evidential truth.
But here's the thing. If we expect fortyish years of work to fund twenty years of retirement, that number smells about right. The scandalous thing is when other employers don't do this, dumping the problem on future Britain.
And yes, that's a good justification for lower pay now offsetting good pensions in the future. But pay isn't about "ought". Even when companies make mega profits, their duty is to pay as much of that as possible to their shareholders and as little as they can get away with to their staff. Nothing shameful in that, but there's no point pretending otherwise. High pay isn't about merit, it's about having an employer who doesn't have to be careful with the pennies.
And in the case of lots of public sector jobs, the recruitment and retention evidence is that people won't stay for the current package, so it needs to be more. Possibly you're all fools for not signing up to become teachers today. But there is an employment market, and The Lady said how buckable it is.
(As for me, I need to go and spend some of my private sector day doing private sector stuff.)
The chancellor is already seeking big savings to fill, what she says, is a £22bn legacy black hole in the public finances."
https://news.sky.com/story/national-debt-at-100-of-gdp-for-first-time-since-1960s-13218196
Do you not follow @owenjonesjourno?
And the rules say he can take freebies but must declare them, so as a lawyer, he does take them and does (eventually) declare them, so that's fine. Obviously it's bad politics but Starmer is lawyer first and politician second, literally in his case.
Starmer will only go if HE decides to go or there is a Parliamentary vote of no confidence. The former is not impossible but he won't be deposed because this isn't the Con Pty Revolving Door System
My cost of living was 3%. My company proudly does its bit every year to keep private pay awards down. If I was younger I'd leave, but I plan to leave at Xmas so see no point.
I don't work flexitime but have core hours. So as long as I work my contracted hours they are okay. It allows me to start at 7.30 and finish at 4.
I also WFH one day a week.
He needs to grow up, realise that 107 grand in freebies makes him look worse than a Tory and start coming up with ideas to make this country a better place.
"Free gear Keir and Victoria Sponge" are nicknames that he should do all he can to shed.
Everyone in the DWP should get their bonus based on the number of people employed and unemployed.
It ends up like the San Francisco homeless problem, where there’s hundreds of people on $200k salaries that want there to always be a homeless problem.
Agreed data standards would solve it, sure. At present, the different primary care database providers have different fields with different names, which make combining them tricky (mapping would be easy enough if just different field names, but what is recorded fundamentally differs). Hospitals differ completely from that and use a completely different coding system for diagnoses, for example.
There's no reason why one couldn't, going forward, define a data framework and give all providers X years to be compliant, plus and automated messaging system that enables relevant data entered in a hospital to be mirrored to the primary care record and the GP alerted if necessary.
On 2020 polls Trump will get a landslide. On 2022 polls Harris will get a landslide. On any polls it really is all down to turnout between the two immovable voting blocs. The Reps are smaller but generally more likely to turnout and with a system rigged in their favour. If the Dems get their folk to the polls then they win. If they don't then they don't.
Will they? Your guess is as good as mine.
Far too early to write off Starmer - after all, he's outlasted Truss and the track record on kicking out Prime Ministers who have won landslide election victories is about two and a half years (Thatcher in 1990, Johnson in 2022) so unless anything really serious comes through (and none of this is really that serious), Starmer is safe.
He will now be feeling akin to a man trying to walk south over London Bridge at 8.30am on a Tuesday morning but headwinds are part and parcel of the job and he had a rough start as Labour leader yet while the Conservative Party's role in his 2024 election triumph can never be understated, he wasn't entirely a passenger on that train.
To be fair to the Conservatives on here, especially those who have come out swinging since July 5th having been less than strident in their own Party's defence while in office, the local council by-elections last evening were decent for the party with gains in the West End of London and Worthing as well as Gedling last Monday.
However, in St Neots, the Conservatives came third behind the LDs and a successful Indpendent in a seat they currently held so as always it's a curate's egg on a Friday morning served with a side of humble pie.
We yearn, no ache perhaps, for some proper polling but I think we know the current party is fragmented with the Conservatives, Labour, Reform, LDs and the Greens all in the mix. The Scottish polling confirms that with the SNP trying to pick themselves up from their poor election result.
None of this matters very much at this time - the key event will be the Budget which for all its financial content, is a political document first and foremost. The astute move would be to get the pain in now and keep saying, pace Howard Jones, "things can only get better". I'm fascinated to see the OBR numbers for borrowing projected forward and whether we can get somewhere near fiscal balance by the end of the Parliament which would be an achievement.
Will, for example, the Conservative Party leadership candidates commit, in advance of the Budget, to reverse any and all tax rises? If they do, how do they intend to make up the shortfall?
He spent several years unemployed.
As part of his recovery, he applied for jobs, pretty much every day. He told me that the lady monitoring his case was almost terrified the first time he came in, and gave her a printed copy of the spreadsheet of jobs applied for, result, follow up dates etc.
This should not have been allowed to happen. As you say needs data framework. Open data standards.
They said
- The law existed.
- The law said that what they were doing was lawful.
- Therefore there was a moral imperative to do this. And it was shameful to question it. Because it was the law.
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2024/09/october-budget-4-good-and-bad-reasons.html
Historically a FSP often paid 60ths or 80ths of final salary, so the private part of your pension amounted to 50-67% of your last year salary plus state pension on top. Does that sound about right to the 70 and 80 something's on here?
Looking at my generation, I've been orthodox on pensions, private sector for all my jobs, several years of FSP in my pot from early career and defined contribution since, which has been as high as 10% matched for a few years. I'll probably fall just shy of 40 years work at retirement.
My expectation from pension estimates is that I'll get somewhere around 35%, perhaps a little below, of my last year salary in private pension when I retire, obviously still with state pension on top.
In 2022 this had increased to 19%.
By 2072, this is forecast to be 27%.
Britain could have made the choice to increase the proportion of each worker's income spent on supporting pensioners by more than two (because the number of workers will also have decreased) but it hasn't, and so no future generation will benefit from the generous pension provision for the boomer and prior generation.
About a decade ago my neighbour, who was on benefits as he could no longer get interim teaching work due to oversupply of trainee teachers, had retrained and got a new job. He was sanctioned for 2 weeks before he started his new job. The reason. He had not applied for any jobs. He explained he had already got a job and was waiting to start so there was little point. They didn't care. Just witheld his money.
I know Boris boosterism was derided but there is something in a leader being able to encourage, motivate and inspire the voters and Labour haven’t really been trying on that front.