Can't sell the flat for what he thinks he should get is the real issue. There is a price at which someone will buy, but it is probably a lot lower than he thought he was going to inherit.
Economics 101. Back in the real world, the story tells us buyers must be over 70 and pay £11,000 a year in service charges. What does that Venn diagram look like?
So no-one would buy for one pound?
Well, first, they'd have to live in the area already to know it was for sale; then they would need to be over 70, unable to afford a normally-priced flat, yet still able to pay £11,000 a year in service charges. So what's the Venn diagram?
And that ignores that your reductio ad absurdum would repel buyers because at that price there *must* be something wrong.
My point is that there will be a price that someone will pay. Clearly the inheritors don't want to take an offer of one pound, but there must be a level at which someone would buy.
Growing anger within the Whitehall security apparatus at what are being seen as attempts by No.10 to blame failures in the vetting process for the Mandelson scandal. Keir Starmer is playing a very dangerous game.
Yes, Rayner's tax affairs may ultimately end any potential leadership bid by her. Which is why I make Streeting now likeliest to succeed Starmer if and when he goes
There are really no good candidates.
Streeting is probably the best of a not great bunch
I reckon Streeting will disappoint. Don't like the guy - too much weasel DNA I reckon. Not what is needed by a country replacing Starmer.
Well given it is going to have to be a Labour candidate if Streeting went in the next year or 2, if it is a choice between Streeting, Rayner or Ed Miliband to lead the UK on the world stage it is no contest
The equal argument would be the utter shits how Badenoch would be.
Granted she is a pin up girl of Antipidean Farmers for giving them an agricultural trade agreement that they are still mssturbsting over, her arrogance and ego and argumentative tendencies would be a disaster when diplomacy is key
Add in the disgraced Mossad Agent the MP for Witham and Tel Aviv and it's crystal clear that the UK would be globally ridiculed by a Tory Government
You are a very bitter person. It must be getting pretty nasty in the bunker
Truth hurts
Your does...
Starmer is fucked.
You will eventually see Kemi Badenoch in Downing Street.
Growing anger within the Whitehall security apparatus at what are being seen as attempts by No.10 to blame failures in the vetting process for the Mandelson scandal. Keir Starmer is playing a very dangerous game.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
Going to university doesn't make you clever, it just gives you qualifications. I have no objection to someone without a degree being PM. In fact I would welcome it. We massively overstate the importance of a degree*. However, I don't think Rayner is bright. Just ruthless. So while I'd welcome someone without a degree becoming PM, I wouldn't welcome Rayner specifically becoming PM.
*And don't come back to me with 'so you'd be happy with a doctor without a medical degree' - of course people need to get the proper training for the job they do. It just doesn't need to be in the form of a degree. There isn't a degree in 'running the country'. PPE or Classics or English Literature don't count.
Doctors did not used to have medical degrees, and until recently did not need them. I can't remember the details but think it was only after the war that most doctors had degrees. More recently, doctors might opt to do the non-degree exams (either LMSSA or the conjoint LRCP MRCS) alongside their medical degrees as a belt-and-braces approach: fail one and you could still qualify via the other. This route was closed under the Blair government iirc.
As an aside for @Flatlander who was talking about the Profumo affair, Dr Stephen Ward, the osteopath, had qualified as a doctor in the United States but his qualification was not recognised by our General Medical Council in the 1960s. America has MD and DO, which Ward had and is a joint (no pun intended) degree in medicine and osteopathy.
Stephen Ward, an osteopath. Peter Mandelson's husband doing an osteopahty course. I think any future vetting should focus on this obvious warning sign.
Vetting failures on Mandelson are a complete red herring. Everyone knew in 2024 that Mandelson had been a Cabinet Minister. Everyone knew in 2024 about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and everyone knew what Epstein was about. The only thing not known then was that he had been leaking government business but if that had been known, he'd have been sacked if not charged.
The only way vetting could have discovered this is by asking the American government for access to the Epstein files!
Vetting is just a smokescreen to protect Starmer by bamboozling the Tories.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
I would just say so what
You seem to think the only way to succeed is to go to University which is nonsense
Indeed, maybe we would be better with street wise, practical and honest people, then some of those governing us
I went to Uni and im useless
My issue with @HYUFD is he seems to think the only way to success is to go to University which is obviously silly
Angela Rayner has a formidable back story and to say she shouldn't have got pregnant at 16 is out of order
Indeed the 50% University policy of Blair was wrong and it is good to see the change to a more sensible mix with FEs
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
Going to university doesn't make you clever, it just gives you qualifications. I have no objection to someone without a degree being PM. In fact I would welcome it. We massively overstate the importance of a degree*. However, I don't think Rayner is bright. Just ruthless. So while I'd welcome someone without a degree becoming PM, I wouldn't welcome Rayner specifically becoming PM.
*And don't come back to me with 'so you'd be happy with a doctor without a medical degree' - of course people need to get the proper training for the job they do. It just doesn't need to be in the form of a degree. There isn't a degree in 'running the country'. PPE or Classics or English Literature don't count.
Doctors did not used to have medical degrees, and until recently did not need them. I can't remember the details but think it was only after the war that most doctors had degrees. More recently, doctors might opt to do the non-degree exams (either LMSSA or the conjoint LRCP MRCS) alongside their medical degrees as a belt-and-braces approach: fail one and you could still qualify via the other. This route was closed under the Blair government iirc.
As an aside for @Flatlander who was talking about the Profumo affair, Dr Stephen Ward, the osteopath, had qualified as a doctor in the United States but his qualification was not recognised by our General Medical Council in the 1960s. America has MD and DO, which Ward had and is a joint (no pun intended) degree in medicine and osteopathy.
One of my great (something) grandfathers had a successful medical career after an apprenticeship with an apothecary in SW Wales. He didn't actually pass the exams until later, either. He got a couple of degrees later, too, but one at least 'simply' required him to turn up to the university and take (and pass) the relevant exams.
His apprentice-master signed him off as being of 'good moral character' too, although he had an illegitimate son. He abandoned the mother and the baby and went off to London, where he did very well for himself!
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
I would just say so what
You seem to think the only way to succeed is to go to University which is nonsense
Indeed, maybe we would be better with street wise, practical and honest people, then some of those governing us
I went to Uni and im useless
My issue with @HYUFD is he seems to think the only way to success is to go to University which is obviously silly
Angela Rayner has a formidable back story and to say she shouldn't have got pregnant at 16 is out of order
Indeed the 50% University policy of Blair was wrong and it is good to see the change to a more sensible mix with FEs
No, Winston Churchill did not go to university, nor did Disraeli, nor did Major nor did Lloyd George. All became PM but they all got more qualifications at school than Rayner did.
If you followed traditional religious teaching you wouldn't get pregnant until married, though there are young single mothers who got good qualifications and even degrees
Tories on the skids. Maybe like me not a fan of the self regarding Baddenoch
If Labour finish 2nd and Tories 5th Kemi is toast
In Scotland? I disagree. Certainly if that was the case across the UK, yes (or, fourth - I'm not expecting the SNP to beat them nationwide).
They will do tolerably well enough in London to offset Scotland/Wales. Scotland looks like 2011 for them in vote share and constituencies won but a place lower in seats overall. Wales will be their worst ever result. Locals outside London bad but they have very few councils up to lose (and will hold at least one as only a third up) London - theyll lose Bexley to Reform and Bromley to NoC probably but likely gain Westminster and Barnet and hold Harrow, Hillingdon and Kensington for a wash overall. So for Kemi to claim a chink of light she wouuld need tk also retain the Croydon mayoralty and take one or more of Wandsworth, Enfield, Croydon
Can't sell the flat for what he thinks he should get is the real issue. There is a price at which someone will buy, but it is probably a lot lower than he thought he was going to inherit.
Economics 101. Back in the real world, the story tells us buyers must be over 70 and pay £11,000 a year in service charges. What does that Venn diagram look like?
So no-one would buy for one pound?
Well, first, they'd have to live in the area already to know it was for sale; then they would need to be over 70, unable to afford a normally-priced flat, yet still able to pay £11,000 a year in service charges. So what's the Venn diagram?
And that ignores that your reductio ad absurdum would repel buyers because at that price there *must* be something wrong.
My point is that there will be a price that someone will pay. Clearly the inheritors don't want to take an offer of one pound, but there must be a level at which someone would buy.
Is there though?
Given the liabilities that the ownership incurs maybe even paying £1 would be too much, especially given the hassle of living in one of these sorts of properties with the way they are run, and the open-ended nature of the service charge commitment. £11,000 a year this year, but how much in five years time?
It should be dead, it is dead, but I'm not sure that Labour has the capacity to end the Starmer Government. It's like a gangrenous limb that they cannot amputate. As weak as it looked, Starmer was clearly wise tactically to prevent Burnham from standing, because if he had not, the future of his premiership would probably be counted in weeks. As things stand, there are no good options, so perhaps the necrotic limb just stays, infecting the whole body. Perhaps we will see single figure polling before Starmer goes.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
I would just say so what
You seem to think the only way to succeed is to go to University which is nonsense
Indeed, maybe we would be better with street wise, practical and honest people, then some of those governing us
I went to Uni and im useless
My issue with @HYUFD is he seems to think the only way to success is to go to University which is obviously silly
Angela Rayner has a formidable back story and to say she shouldn't have got pregnant at 16 is out of order
Indeed the 50% University policy of Blair was wrong and it is good to see the change to a more sensible mix with FEs
No, Winston Churchill did not go to university, nor did Disraeli, nor did Major nor did Lloyd George. All became PM but they all got more qualifications at school than Rayner did.
If you followed traditional religious teaching you wouldn't get pregnant until married
Apart from Mary, the mother of the Messiah of course.
Can't sell the flat for what he thinks he should get is the real issue. There is a price at which someone will buy, but it is probably a lot lower than he thought he was going to inherit.
Economics 101. Back in the real world, the story tells us buyers must be over 70 and pay £11,000 a year in service charges. What does that Venn diagram look like?
So no-one would buy for one pound?
Well, first, they'd have to live in the area already to know it was for sale; then they would need to be over 70, unable to afford a normally-priced flat, yet still able to pay £11,000 a year in service charges. So what's the Venn diagram?
And that ignores that your reductio ad absurdum would repel buyers because at that price there *must* be something wrong.
There is a lack of financial education and understanding here all round. £11k a year for that kind of property isn't ridiculous, including council tax (£1k), and weekly home care (worth approx £1.5k?). Having an on site hub and restaurant radically transforms the social life of the residents for the better. Care is also easier to access. If they are downsizing then being able to comfortably pay 10-15 years service charge towards end of life is not going to be particularly unusual.
86% of residents are happy - this is a good place to live, far more suitable for someone with declining health and mobility than trying to maintain a 3/4 bed family home on their own.
But it goes against the mindset of the UK property owning obsessions, service charges are as seen as rent which is seen as dead money. Capital must be preserved to pass down the generations even if that means poorer quality of life for those who have accumulated the capital.
I understand that the council by-election in Ynys Mon, which those of us who'd given it any thought, were under the impression was a nailed on Plaid Cymru hold, has been won by Reform.
And the one in Clevedon which most thought Labour would come fourth ended up being held.
Growing anger within the Whitehall security apparatus at what are being seen as attempts by No.10 to blame failures in the vetting process for the Mandelson scandal. Keir Starmer is playing a very dangerous game.
I think Starmer’s tendency to look to blame anyone but himself for pretty much everything (and fail to really sell it) is a quality that hasn’t stood him in good stead for leadership. All politicians play the blame game, but he is particularly poor at landing the delivery.
This Epstein stuff should be seen as pretty bad news for Reform in G&D. Makes the Greens the clear frontrunners and standard-bearers for the anti-Reform left. Was always going to be quite a delicate balancing act for Reform to come through the middle.
They're still fighting hard though - it will certainly be truly remarkable if they win.
Yes, Rayner's tax affairs may ultimately end any potential leadership bid by her. Which is why I make Streeting now likeliest to succeed Starmer if and when he goes
There are really no good candidates.
Streeting is probably the best of a not great bunch
I reckon Streeting will disappoint. Don't like the guy - too much weasel DNA I reckon. Not what is needed by a country replacing Starmer.
Well given it is going to have to be a Labour candidate if Streeting went in the next year or 2, if it is a choice between Streeting, Rayner or Ed Miliband to lead the UK on the world stage it is no contest
The equal argument would be the utter shits how Badenoch would be.
Granted she is a pin up girl of Antipidean Farmers for giving them an agricultural trade agreement that they are still mssturbsting over, her arrogance and ego and argumentative tendencies would be a disaster when diplomacy is key
Add in the disgraced Mossad Agent the MP for Witham and Tel Aviv and it's crystal clear that the UK would be globally ridiculed by a Tory Government
That deal eliminated most tariffs on goods like cars, Scotch whisky, and fashion from the UK to Australia and also boosted UK services and digital trade. Australian beef and lamb are still just 1% of the UK meat market
Name us one deal that she signed as Trade Secretary that was on more favourable terms than the one it replaced?
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
I would just say so what
You seem to think the only way to succeed is to go to University which is nonsense
Indeed, maybe we would be better with street wise, practical and honest people, then some of those governing us
I went to Uni and im useless
My issue with @HYUFD is he seems to think the only way to success is to go to University which is obviously silly
Angela Rayner has a formidable back story and to say she shouldn't have got pregnant at 16 is out of order
Indeed the 50% University policy of Blair was wrong and it is good to see the change to a more sensible mix with FEs
No, Winston Churchill did not go to university, nor did Disraeli, nor did Major nor did Lloyd George. All became PM but they all got more qualifications at school than Rayner did.
If you followed traditional religious teaching you wouldn't get pregnant until married, though there are young single mothers who got good qualifications and even degrees
There's been a few good news anecdotes on here about the NHS, so to balance things up I thought I'd share a story from my mother of a false economy leading to much greater cost.
"A resident here, Harry, went in to [an outer London] private hospital as an NHS patient for a hip replacement, sent home in a TAXI 2days after op, dumped in the carpark, I don't know how he got to his flat but the wound opened, he is now very ill in NHS hospital."
My mother has been recommended surgery to correct a case of Cavus foot that has developed as part of her Parkinson's, but recovery from surgery requires keeping weight off the foot for six weeks, so consensus among Parkinson sufferers is that the surgery is a ticket to requiring a wheelchair - at further expense for the NHS.
The NHS do seem overly focused on surgery as the cure for all ills, but then completely neglecting what happens afterwards.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
I would just say so what
You seem to think the only way to succeed is to go to University which is nonsense
Indeed, maybe we would be better with street wise, practical and honest people, then some of those governing us
I went to Uni and im useless
My issue with @HYUFD is he seems to think the only way to success is to go to University which is obviously silly
Angela Rayner has a formidable back story and to say she shouldn't have got pregnant at 16 is out of order
Indeed the 50% University policy of Blair was wrong and it is good to see the change to a more sensible mix with FEs
No, Winston Churchill did not go to university, nor did Disraeli, nor did Major nor did Lloyd George. All became PM but they all got more qualifications at school than Rayner did.
If you followed traditional religious teaching you wouldn't get pregnant until married
Who is the clever person
The University Graduate who learns what is required to pass exams and often doesnt enter a work environment until 22 or later, often drops in to a mid level role or
Someone with or without qualifications who enters work at 16, learns skills either white or blue collar, builds a career of understanding and knowledge and almost certainly a greater appreciation of real life.
BTW there is no right answer.
Those who think there is a right answer are IMHO the ones who are wrong.
One thing nobody in the media seems to be talking about is polling with alternative leaders.
Polling showed Labour would do much better with Burnham as leader instead of Starmer.
But polling showed they would do worse than Starmer with just about anybody else, and Rayner polled particularly poorly.
Is Labour really going to do a rerun of the Conservatives with Truss and elect someone who is even less popular than Starmer - and that's before they even start in the role.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
I would just say so what
You seem to think the only way to succeed is to go to University which is nonsense
Indeed, maybe we would be better with street wise, practical and honest people, then some of those governing us
I went to Uni and im useless
My issue with @HYUFD is he seems to think the only way to success is to go to University which is obviously silly
Angela Rayner has a formidable back story and to say she shouldn't have got pregnant at 16 is out of order
Indeed the 50% University policy of Blair was wrong and it is good to see the change to a more sensible mix with FEs
No, Winston Churchill did not go to university, nor did Disraeli, nor did Major nor did Lloyd George. All became PM but they all got more qualifications at school than Rayner did.
If you followed traditional religious teaching you wouldn't get pregnant until married, though there are young single mothers who got good qualifications and even degrees
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
I would just say so what
You seem to think the only way to succeed is to go to University which is nonsense
Indeed, maybe we would be better with street wise, practical and honest people, then some of those governing us
I went to Uni and im useless
My issue with @HYUFD is he seems to think the only way to success is to go to University which is obviously silly
Angela Rayner has a formidable back story and to say she shouldn't have got pregnant at 16 is out of order
Indeed the 50% University policy of Blair was wrong and it is good to see the change to a more sensible mix with FEs
No, Winston Churchill did not go to university, nor did Disraeli, nor did Major nor did Lloyd George. All became PM but they all got more qualifications at school than Rayner did.
If you followed traditional religious teaching you wouldn't get pregnant until married, though there are young single mothers who got good qualifications and even degrees
Do you think Christ would not be compassionate ?
Traditional religious teaching has very little to do with Christ and everything to do with the Western Roman Empire and successors exerting authority over its subjects. Gnostics Gnow the score
Can't sell the flat for what he thinks he should get is the real issue. There is a price at which someone will buy, but it is probably a lot lower than he thought he was going to inherit.
Economics 101. Back in the real world, the story tells us buyers must be over 70 and pay £11,000 a year in service charges. What does that Venn diagram look like?
So no-one would buy for one pound?
Well, first, they'd have to live in the area already to know it was for sale; then they would need to be over 70, unable to afford a normally-priced flat, yet still able to pay £11,000 a year in service charges. So what's the Venn diagram?
And that ignores that your reductio ad absurdum would repel buyers because at that price there *must* be something wrong.
There is a lack of financial education and understanding here all round. £11k a year for that kind of property isn't ridiculous, including council tax (£1k), and weekly home care (worth approx £1.5k?). Having an on site hub and restaurant radically transforms the social life of the residents for the better. Care is also easier to access. If they are downsizing then being able to comfortably pay 10-15 years service charge towards end of life is not going to be particularly unusual.
86% of residents are happy - this is a good place to live, far more suitable for someone with declining health and mobility than trying to maintain a 3/4 bed family home on their own.
But it goes against the mindset of the UK property owning obsessions, service charges are as seen as rent which is seen as dead money. Capital must be preserved to pass down the generations even if that means poorer quality of life for those who have accumulated the capital.
Whilst you are correct about the advantages, paying service charges ad infinitum for services no longer required seems unfair.
Maybe it would be better not to 'sell' these properties but just charge a realistic rent. Selling them is just hiding costs.
Or at least be clear up front about the resale value.
And let’s be honest about how the generation before those cabinet ministers, the old stagers of New Labour, really see the prime minister: they think he’s at best a bit of a cold fish who works hard yet can’t understand politics like they can. At worst, they think he’s an idiot.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
Laughable to suggest that Rayner hasn't worked hard.
Her upbringing was somewhat more difficult than Wes Streeting, whose dad played a significant role in his upbringing.
Rayners mum was illiterate & was bi-polar. Angela Rayner was by most accounts the primary carer for her mum and her 2 younger siblings from aged 10.
I know she's not everyones cup of tea.
Not sure why you are embarrassing yourself with this nonsense.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
I would just say so what
You seem to think the only way to succeed is to go to University which is nonsense
Indeed, maybe we would be better with street wise, practical and honest people, then some of those governing us
I went to Uni and im useless
My issue with @HYUFD is he seems to think the only way to success is to go to University which is obviously silly
Angela Rayner has a formidable back story and to say she shouldn't have got pregnant at 16 is out of order
Indeed the 50% University policy of Blair was wrong and it is good to see the change to a more sensible mix with FEs
No, Winston Churchill did not go to university, nor did Disraeli, nor did Major nor did Lloyd George. All became PM but they all got more qualifications at school than Rayner did.
If you followed traditional religious teaching you wouldn't get pregnant until married, though there are young single mothers who got good qualifications and even degrees
Fortunately, following traditional religious teaching stopped being important in our politicians last century.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
Going to university doesn't make you clever, it just gives you qualifications. I have no objection to someone without a degree being PM. In fact I would welcome it. We massively overstate the importance of a degree*. However, I don't think Rayner is bright. Just ruthless. So while I'd welcome someone without a degree becoming PM, I wouldn't welcome Rayner specifically becoming PM.
*And don't come back to me with 'so you'd be happy with a doctor without a medical degree' - of course people need to get the proper training for the job they do. It just doesn't need to be in the form of a degree. There isn't a degree in 'running the country'. PPE or Classics or English Literature don't count.
She didn't even just fail to get a degree, she failed to even get GCSEs!
Might I politely suggest you get out an meet more people from outside your bubble. Having helped with the finances of a lot of working class/benefit scroungers (depending on your POV) you underestimate just how aspirational and ambitious they are. Their routes to financial wellbeing and becoming an established figure, in their locale, may be unconventional and illegal in some cases, but the drive is there.
Reform in many ways recognise that drive and make promises that resonate with them. It's just that those promises like many a politicians promises are somewhat detached from economic reality. But don't underestimate the drive the poor have.
One thing nobody in the media seems to be talking about is polling with alternative leaders.
Polling showed Labour would do much better with Burnham as leader instead of Starmer.
But polling showed they would do worse than Starmer with just about anybody else, and Rayner polled particularly poorly.
Is Labour really going to do a rerun of the Conservatives with Truss and elect someone who is even less popular than Starmer - and that's before they even start in the role.
Labour are in a proper cleft stick but I just do not see Starmer being able to blame everyone and anyone but him
Can't sell the flat for what he thinks he should get is the real issue. There is a price at which someone will buy, but it is probably a lot lower than he thought he was going to inherit.
Economics 101. Back in the real world, the story tells us buyers must be over 70 and pay £11,000 a year in service charges. What does that Venn diagram look like?
So no-one would buy for one pound?
Well, first, they'd have to live in the area already to know it was for sale; then they would need to be over 70, unable to afford a normally-priced flat, yet still able to pay £11,000 a year in service charges. So what's the Venn diagram?
And that ignores that your reductio ad absurdum would repel buyers because at that price there *must* be something wrong.
There is a lack of financial education and understanding here all round. £11k a year for that kind of property isn't ridiculous, including council tax (£1k), and weekly home care (worth approx £1.5k?). Having an on site hub and restaurant radically transforms the social life of the residents for the better. Care is also easier to access. If they are downsizing then being able to comfortably pay 10-15 years service charge towards end of life is not going to be particularly unusual.
86% of residents are happy - this is a good place to live, far more suitable for someone with declining health and mobility than trying to maintain a 3/4 bed family home on their own.
But it goes against the mindset of the UK property owning obsessions, service charges are as seen as rent which is seen as dead money. Capital must be preserved to pass down the generations even if that means poorer quality of life for those who have accumulated the capital.
Not everything is about money. Many older people will see this as akin to a nursing home which is beneath their dignity because hey! they are not demented or incontinent. No-one from outside the local area will know the flat is for sale anyway so for them the price is irrelevant, and in any case, few would want to leave their social lives behind by moving across country. That is before the high service charges.
Can't sell the flat for what he thinks he should get is the real issue. There is a price at which someone will buy, but it is probably a lot lower than he thought he was going to inherit.
Economics 101. Back in the real world, the story tells us buyers must be over 70 and pay £11,000 a year in service charges. What does that Venn diagram look like?
So no-one would buy for one pound?
Well, first, they'd have to live in the area already to know it was for sale; then they would need to be over 70, unable to afford a normally-priced flat, yet still able to pay £11,000 a year in service charges. So what's the Venn diagram?
And that ignores that your reductio ad absurdum would repel buyers because at that price there *must* be something wrong.
There is a lack of financial education and understanding here all round. £11k a year for that kind of property isn't ridiculous, including council tax (£1k), and weekly home care (worth approx £1.5k?). Having an on site hub and restaurant radically transforms the social life of the residents for the better. Care is also easier to access. If they are downsizing then being able to comfortably pay 10-15 years service charge towards end of life is not going to be particularly unusual.
86% of residents are happy - this is a good place to live, far more suitable for someone with declining health and mobility than trying to maintain a 3/4 bed family home on their own.
But it goes against the mindset of the UK property owning obsessions, service charges are as seen as rent which is seen as dead money. Capital must be preserved to pass down the generations even if that means poorer quality of life for those who have accumulated the capital.
Whilst you are correct about the advantages, paying service charges ad infinitum for services no longer required seems unfair.
Maybe it would be better not to 'sell' these properties but just charge a realistic rent. Selling them is just hiding costs.
Or at least be clear up front about the resale value.
A large chunk of the service charges will be for having a subsidised restaurant and 24 hour site management for example, also maintenance of common areas, these are all needed whether the flats are occupied or not. Indeed for the restaurant the fewer that are occupied the greater the subsidy required.
There's been a few good news anecdotes on here about the NHS, so to balance things up I thought I'd share a story from my mother of a false economy leading to much greater cost.
"A resident here, Harry, went in to [an outer London] private hospital as an NHS patient for a hip replacement, sent home in a TAXI 2days after op, dumped in the carpark, I don't know how he got to his flat but the wound opened, he is now very ill in NHS hospital."
My mother has been recommended surgery to correct a case of Cavus foot that has developed as part of her Parkinson's, but recovery from surgery requires keeping weight off the foot for six weeks, so consensus among Parkinson sufferers is that the surgery is a ticket to requiring a wheelchair - at further expense for the NHS.
The NHS do seem overly focused on surgery as the cure for all ills, but then completely neglecting what happens afterwards.
I think, Mr LP, that your first case is a criticism of the private hospital, although also perhaps of the contracts manager in the NHS. When I worked in a private hospital, for a short time in the 80's, the surgeons always sent cases where there had been problems to the nearest NHS hospital.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
I would just say so what
You seem to think the only way to succeed is to go to University which is nonsense
Indeed, maybe we would be better with street wise, practical and honest people, then some of those governing us
I went to Uni and im useless
The billionaire's trick I have been told, is to recognise you are useless, but hire very, very smart people.
Rayner's deprived upbringing is not dissimilar to that of JD Vance.
Both should be applauded for finding a way to progress upwards from a difficult start in life.
That doesn't mean though that you should necessarily want either to be in charge of their country.
Though it may be interesting to note people who condemn one of the pair for their background while praising the other for it.
JD Vance was a lawyer with a degree from Yale
It was the Marines that saved JD Vance according to himself in Hillbilly Elegy.
Vance's MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) was 4341 (Combat Correspondent, id est typist) that makes him a POG (Person Other than Grunt) and the much despised and lowest form of USMC life.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
I would just say so what
You seem to think the only way to succeed is to go to University which is nonsense
Indeed, maybe we would be better with street wise, practical and honest people, then some of those governing us
I went to Uni and im useless
My issue with @HYUFD is he seems to think the only way to success is to go to University which is obviously silly
Angela Rayner has a formidable back story and to say she shouldn't have got pregnant at 16 is out of order
Indeed the 50% University policy of Blair was wrong and it is good to see the change to a more sensible mix with FEs
No, Winston Churchill did not go to university, nor did Disraeli, nor did Major nor did Lloyd George. All became PM but they all got more qualifications at school than Rayner did.
If you followed traditional religious teaching you wouldn't get pregnant until married
Who is the clever person
The University Graduate who learns what is required to pass exams and often doesnt enter a work environment until 22 or later, often drops in to a mid level role or
Someone with or without qualifications who enters work at 16, learns skills either white or blue collar, builds a career of understanding and knowledge and almost certainly a greater appreciation of real life.
BTW there is no right answer.
Those who think there is a right answer are IMHO the ones who are wrong.
It's a false dichotomy.
My brother-in-law here in Ireland is a welder. A blue collar occupation. So by your argument he would have left school at 16, gone straight into work, learned his trade that way, etc.
But he has had a technically-focused third level education. He's a graduate. Very highly skilled and good at what he does and well-paid for it.
The problem in Britain is that we have an idea of University that it is Oxbridge. It is a Classical education of the Trivium. All books in ancient libraries. Even the practical sciences are a bit of an oddity, more eccentrics in disused parts of buildings, rather than the core focus of the institution.
There's no room for a welder receiving an appropriate third-level education at a British University.
And so that's why British rates of graduate education are lower than its peers, and yet the debate in Britain is focused on making it lower still, and so the British economy lacks the skills to succeed, imports migrants to fill the gaps, and the culture is anti-education. It's so self-harming.
Can't sell the flat for what he thinks he should get is the real issue. There is a price at which someone will buy, but it is probably a lot lower than he thought he was going to inherit.
Economics 101. Back in the real world, the story tells us buyers must be over 70 and pay £11,000 a year in service charges. What does that Venn diagram look like?
So no-one would buy for one pound?
Well, first, they'd have to live in the area already to know it was for sale; then they would need to be over 70, unable to afford a normally-priced flat, yet still able to pay £11,000 a year in service charges. So what's the Venn diagram?
And that ignores that your reductio ad absurdum would repel buyers because at that price there *must* be something wrong.
There is a lack of financial education and understanding here all round. £11k a year for that kind of property isn't ridiculous, including council tax (£1k), and weekly home care (worth approx £1.5k?). Having an on site hub and restaurant radically transforms the social life of the residents for the better. Care is also easier to access. If they are downsizing then being able to comfortably pay 10-15 years service charge towards end of life is not going to be particularly unusual.
86% of residents are happy - this is a good place to live, far more suitable for someone with declining health and mobility than trying to maintain a 3/4 bed family home on their own.
But it goes against the mindset of the UK property owning obsessions, service charges are as seen as rent which is seen as dead money. Capital must be preserved to pass down the generations even if that means poorer quality of life for those who have accumulated the capital.
Not everything is about money. Many older people will see this as akin to a nursing home which is beneath their dignity because hey! they are not demented or incontinent. No-one from outside the local area will know the flat is for sale anyway so for them the price is irrelevant, and in any case, few would want to leave their social lives behind by moving across country. That is before the high service charges.
My parents have moved to a similarish place. The exit fee is 30% of property value which keeps the service charges a bit lower than this for a bigger property but the costs beyond a standard flat are very real and have to be paid somehow, and however that is done, it will mean that inheritors typically get less than the purchase price of the property.
It is just a mindset thing, I have zero doubt that my parents have made a good decision, and I'd be very happy to be at a similar place at their stage of life. They are far from nursing homes, lots of very happy residents with great social lives in their 80s and 90s.
Basically, in Britain university is tied up with the class system. University is seen as a way to escape being working class and to get a job that doesn't involve getting your hands dirty.
The essential problem is looking down on people who have a working class coded job. The whole tradesman's entrance kind of thing.
Growing anger within the Whitehall security apparatus at what are being seen as attempts by No.10 to blame failures in the vetting process for the Mandelson scandal. Keir Starmer is playing a very dangerous game.
I think Starmer’s tendency to look to blame anyone but himself for pretty much everything (and fail to really sell it) is a quality that hasn’t stood him in good stead for leadership. All politicians play the blame game, but he is particularly poor at landing the delivery.
The column has some flaws - the art of leadership includes the art of delegation. To delegate areas of policy to others is at the heart of the job of PM. Gordon Brown drove himself and others mad, attempting to run the government himself. It can't be done.
What seems to be broken (and needs some kind of change) is the structure of PM and ministers, who then are supposed to *lead* their departments.
I would argue that MPs need a career ladder and training - expecting someone who can get elected as MP to accidentally have the managerial skills to be CEO of a very large organisation, seems archaic in this age.
Why not professional qualifications? Internships running lower levels of government depts as back benchers?
One thing nobody in the media seems to be talking about is polling with alternative leaders.
Polling showed Labour would do much better with Burnham as leader instead of Starmer.
But polling showed they would do worse than Starmer with just about anybody else, and Rayner polled particularly poorly.
Is Labour really going to do a rerun of the Conservatives with Truss and elect someone who is even less popular than Starmer - and that's before they even start in the role.
The problem is that Starmer has never inspired loyalty or devotion in any part of his party, really. He was there as the best on offer at the time - someone who sounded and looked more serious and moderate and who most could settle on as being an acceptable face. He has never created an ideology or “ism” or unity of purpose and he has been very transactional in his loyalties and his relationships with those in the party.
This means that now he faces genuine adversity he does not have a steel core of support who will back him through thick and thin - think of the Blairites and the Brownites in the New Labour years, heck, even the Momentum crowd under Corbyn. At best he has the Chancellor who is also a figure without a power base of her own.
I think he was more weakened in the eyes of his MPs than he realised by entering government with that low vote share. He has done very little to keep them on side since.
So yes, I really do think Labour MPs don’t see that alternatives could poll worse as a factor in their calculations. At the end of the day they didn’t enter politics for this. It should be said that the parallels with Johnson are also clear, hence why the subsequent leadership election was all about typical Tory topics like low taxes - it made the MPs feel better after a long period of being (in their eyes) treated badly and drifting politically and ideologically.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work
Are you saying Rayner has not worked hard?
She’s done jobs I would never do, not even if you paid me £3,000 per hour.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work
Are you saying Rayner has not worked hard?
She’s done jobs I would never do, not even if you paid me £3,000 per hour.
Scottish Westminster Figures with MiC are very tasty
SNP 28 Ref 23 Lab 20 LD 12 Con 11 Grn 5
This is the sort of stuff that’s going to see the Tories ditch Kemi in May.
They are bad, but she certainly won't be ditched. I don't think there is any appetite for that at all. She is proving to be a competent and feisty opposition leader (at last), and the Tories simply have to play the long game. We are still perambulating along Protest Street.
There's been a few good news anecdotes on here about the NHS, so to balance things up I thought I'd share a story from my mother of a false economy leading to much greater cost.
"A resident here, Harry, went in to [an outer London] private hospital as an NHS patient for a hip replacement, sent home in a TAXI 2days after op, dumped in the carpark, I don't know how he got to his flat but the wound opened, he is now very ill in NHS hospital."
My mother has been recommended surgery to correct a case of Cavus foot that has developed as part of her Parkinson's, but recovery from surgery requires keeping weight off the foot for six weeks, so consensus among Parkinson sufferers is that the surgery is a ticket to requiring a wheelchair - at further expense for the NHS.
The NHS do seem overly focused on surgery as the cure for all ills, but then completely neglecting what happens afterwards.
I think, Mr LP, that your first case is a criticism of the private hospital, although also perhaps of the contracts manager in the NHS. When I worked in a private hospital, for a short time in the 80's, the surgeons always sent cases where there had been problems to the nearest NHS hospital.
With my Aunt, the lack of coordination between the various bits of the hospital (NHS) and the care teams outside was chronic.
Because I was down as next of kin, they started phoning me to ask what the other people were doing!
Growing anger within the Whitehall security apparatus at what are being seen as attempts by No.10 to blame failures in the vetting process for the Mandelson scandal. Keir Starmer is playing a very dangerous game.
I think Starmer’s tendency to look to blame anyone but himself for pretty much everything (and fail to really sell it) is a quality that hasn’t stood him in good stead for leadership. All politicians play the blame game, but he is particularly poor at landing the delivery.
The column has some flaws - the art of leadership includes the art of delegation. To delegate areas of policy to others is at the heart of the job of PM. Gordon Brown drove himself and others mad, attempting to run the government himself. It can't be done.
What seems to be broken (and needs some kind of change) is the structure of PM and ministers, who then are supposed to *lead* their departments.
I would argue that MPs need a career ladder and training - expecting someone who can get elected as MP to accidentally have the managerial skills to be CEO of a very large organisation, seems archaic in this age.
Why not professional qualifications? Internships running lower levels of government depts as back benchers?
Good delegation in politics is very hard. Because delegation generally requires (a) trust and (b) the leader to take responsibility for failings. Politicians are not a bunch known for a tremendous propensity for either of these things. It’s why a clear communicator who takes responsibility and speaks beyond the bubble would do very well in the current political climate.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work
Are you saying Rayner has not worked hard?
She’s done jobs I would never do, not even if you paid me £3,000 per hour.
Yes, Rayner's tax affairs may ultimately end any potential leadership bid by her. Which is why I make Streeting now likeliest to succeed Starmer if and when he goes
There are really no good candidates.
Streeting is probably the best of a not great bunch
I reckon Streeting will disappoint. Don't like the guy - too much weasel DNA I reckon. Not what is needed by a country replacing Starmer.
Well given it is going to have to be a Labour candidate if Streeting went in the next year or 2, if it is a choice between Streeting, Rayner or Ed Miliband to lead the UK on the world stage it is no contest
The equal argument would be the utter shits how Badenoch would be.
Granted she is a pin up girl of Antipidean Farmers for giving them an agricultural trade agreement that they are still mssturbsting over, her arrogance and ego and argumentative tendencies would be a disaster when diplomacy is key
Add in the disgraced Mossad Agent the MP for Witham and Tel Aviv and it's crystal clear that the UK would be globally ridiculed by a Tory Government
You are a very bitter person. It must be getting pretty nasty in the bunker
Truth hurts
Your does...
Starmer is fucked.
You will eventually see Kemi Badenoch in Downing Street.
The truth does hurt. That's why we are seeing bitter and twisted comments from bullshit59
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
Laughable to suggest that Rayner hasn't worked hard.
Her upbringing was somewhat more difficult than Wes Streeting, whose dad played a significant role in his upbringing.
Rayners mum was illiterate & was bi-polar. Angela Rayner was by most accounts the primary carer for her mum and her 2 younger siblings from aged 10.
I know she's not everyones cup of tea.
Not sure why you are embarrassing yourself with this nonsense.
I admire her for reaching the places she has but I despair of her apparent hatred of 'the Tories'. Making politics too tribal does no-one any favours. We are a horrifically fractured country - Brexit, covid, Scotland - any number of divisive issues and politicians accepting that people may hold different views without being evil, or scum, would be a good thing.
Scottish Westminster Figures with MiC are very tasty
SNP 28 Ref 23 Lab 20 LD 12 Con 11 Grn 5
This is the sort of stuff that’s going to see the Tories ditch Kemi in May.
They are bad, but she certainly won't be ditched. I don't think there is any appetite for that at all. She is proving to be a competent and feisty opposition leader (at last), and the Tories simply have to play the long game. We are still perambulating along Protest Street.
Yep. We are in angryville. We were here in April 2024 when the opposotion had a 25 point lead with YouGov that became a 10% lead 3 months later at a GE. The fed up and cant be arsed (both Tories and Labourites this time) wont be arsed until a GE beckons The pollster that includes the 'meh' 5/10 voters is Ashcroft if anyone wznts to track the 'less interested' pattern
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
I would just say so what
You seem to think the only way to succeed is to go to University which is nonsense
Indeed, maybe we would be better with street wise, practical and honest people, then some of those governing us
I went to Uni and im useless
My issue with @HYUFD is he seems to think the only way to success is to go to University which is obviously silly
Angela Rayner has a formidable back story and to say she shouldn't have got pregnant at 16 is out of order
Indeed the 50% University policy of Blair was wrong and it is good to see the change to a more sensible mix with FEs
No, Winston Churchill did not go to university, nor did Disraeli, nor did Major nor did Lloyd George. All became PM but they all got more qualifications at school than Rayner did.
If you followed traditional religious teaching you wouldn't get pregnant until married
Who is the clever person
The University Graduate who learns what is required to pass exams and often doesnt enter a work environment until 22 or later, often drops in to a mid level role or
Someone with or without qualifications who enters work at 16, learns skills either white or blue collar, builds a career of understanding and knowledge and almost certainly a greater appreciation of real life.
BTW there is no right answer.
Those who think there is a right answer are IMHO the ones who are wrong.
It's a false dichotomy.
My brother-in-law here in Ireland is a welder. A blue collar occupation. So by your argument he would have left school at 16, gone straight into work, learned his trade that way, etc.
But he has had a technically-focused third level education. He's a graduate. Very highly skilled and good at what he does and well-paid for it.
The problem in Britain is that we have an idea of University that it is Oxbridge. It is a Classical education of the Trivium. All books in ancient libraries. Even the practical sciences are a bit of an oddity, more eccentrics in disused parts of buildings, rather than the core focus of the institution.
There's no room for a welder receiving an appropriate third-level education at a British University.
And so that's why British rates of graduate education are lower than its peers, and yet the debate in Britain is focused on making it lower still, and so the British economy lacks the skills to succeed, imports migrants to fill the gaps, and the culture is anti-education. It's so self-harming.
I think that's a bit unfair re: Oxbridge science.
It might be rather more theoretical than practical in some cases, but many of the facilities are world class and are definitely not disused parts of buildings.
I even got to weld something and mix concrete, albeit mostly for the lolz. There was admittely a lot more maths.
Scottish Westminster Figures with MiC are very tasty
SNP 28 Ref 23 Lab 20 LD 12 Con 11 Grn 5
This is the sort of stuff that’s going to see the Tories ditch Kemi in May.
Well up to a point. But I'd say Tories will take a broader UK-wide view and I don't think Scotland will necessarily be representative. Clearly if they are fourth of fifth nationally that is bad news for them.
A friend of mine has an autistic 15 year old son. He's a lovely lad but weirdly keen on seeing the manager of his favourite football team sacked, even if they're doing rather better than they were a year ago or whenever he came in. If they're not in the top four of the Premiership he wants someone else to do the job. And his team are never going to be in the top four of the Premiership. They were in the old Division 1 once, but that was long ago. Those on the blue side calling for Kemi to be replaced remind me of that lad. Because I don't see who can do better. I don't think the Tories are ever going to be in government again in my lifetime. Kemi is in the sweetest spot they have; become more Jenricky and they lose voters to the Lib Dems; become more Cleverlyy and they lose voters to Reform. All thiose voters they lost to Reform: they're not Tories who'll come home, they never much liked the Tories in the first place but they voted for them because they were the most not-Labour. The only future I can see for them is hanging on grimly and hoping Reform collapse as and when Farage moves on.
There's been a few good news anecdotes on here about the NHS, so to balance things up I thought I'd share a story from my mother of a false economy leading to much greater cost.
"A resident here, Harry, went in to [an outer London] private hospital as an NHS patient for a hip replacement, sent home in a TAXI 2days after op, dumped in the carpark, I don't know how he got to his flat but the wound opened, he is now very ill in NHS hospital."
My mother has been recommended surgery to correct a case of Cavus foot that has developed as part of her Parkinson's, but recovery from surgery requires keeping weight off the foot for six weeks, so consensus among Parkinson sufferers is that the surgery is a ticket to requiring a wheelchair - at further expense for the NHS.
The NHS do seem overly focused on surgery as the cure for all ills, but then completely neglecting what happens afterwards.
I think, Mr LP, that your first case is a criticism of the private hospital, although also perhaps of the contracts manager in the NHS. When I worked in a private hospital, for a short time in the 80's, the surgeons always sent cases where there had been problems to the nearest NHS hospital.
With my Aunt, the lack of coordination between the various bits of the hospital (NHS) and the care teams outside was chronic.
Because I was down as next of kin, they started phoning me to ask what the other people were doing!
Having been on both sides of that particular fence I sympathise. Sometimes it doesn't work well; other times at all!
Scottish Westminster Figures with MiC are very tasty
SNP 28 Ref 23 Lab 20 LD 12 Con 11 Grn 5
This is the sort of stuff that’s going to see the Tories ditch Kemi in May.
Well up to a point. But I'd say Tories will take a broader UK-wide view and I don't think Scotland will necessarily be representative. Clearly if they are fourth of fifth nationally that is bad news for them.
A friend of mine has an autistic 15 year old son. He's a lovely lad but weirdly keen on seeing the manager of his favourite football team sacked, even if they're doing rather better than they were a year ago or whenever he came in. If they're not in the top four of the Premiership he wants someone else to do the job. And his team are never going to be in the top four of the Premiership. They were in the old Division 1 once, but that was long ago. Those on the blue side calling for Kemi to be replaced remind me of that lad. Because I don't see who can do better. I don't think the Tories are ever going to be in government again in my lifetime. Kemi is in the sweetest spot they have; become more Jenricky and they lose voters to the Lib Dems; become more Cleverlyy and they lose voters to Reform. All thiose voters they lost to Reform: they're not Tories who'll come home, they never much liked the Tories in the first place but they voted for them because they were the most not-Labour. The only future I can see for them is hanging on grimly and hoping Reform collapse as and when Farage moves on.
Id agree a majrity govt is off the table for a long time but we are talking a 5% swing perhaps to leading a coalition or a minority. MRPs and 'proportionate swing' are deceitful guides sometimes
I’m pretty sure ditching Kemi will make the Tory problem worse, not better.
People aren’t avoiding voting Tory because of Badenoch, as much as there is a tendency to try and make it all about her. The reasons are much more deep seated than that.
There's been a few good news anecdotes on here about the NHS, so to balance things up I thought I'd share a story from my mother of a false economy leading to much greater cost.
"A resident here, Harry, went in to [an outer London] private hospital as an NHS patient for a hip replacement, sent home in a TAXI 2days after op, dumped in the carpark, I don't know how he got to his flat but the wound opened, he is now very ill in NHS hospital."
My mother has been recommended surgery to correct a case of Cavus foot that has developed as part of her Parkinson's, but recovery from surgery requires keeping weight off the foot for six weeks, so consensus among Parkinson sufferers is that the surgery is a ticket to requiring a wheelchair - at further expense for the NHS.
The NHS do seem overly focused on surgery as the cure for all ills, but then completely neglecting what happens afterwards.
I think, Mr LP, that your first case is a criticism of the private hospital, although also perhaps of the contracts manager in the NHS. When I worked in a private hospital, for a short time in the 80's, the surgeons always sent cases where there had been problems to the nearest NHS hospital.
With my Aunt, the lack of coordination between the various bits of the hospital (NHS) and the care teams outside was chronic.
Because I was down as next of kin, they started phoning me to ask what the other people were doing!
Having been on both sides of that particular fence I sympathise. Sometimes it doesn't work well; other times at all!
Everyone was well intentioned and hard working. The system wasn't letting them do their job.
I found myself sketching, in my head a web based* tool that would present, per patient, documentation, actions taken, actions to take, alerts, contacts in the various agencies that are part of the solution for that patient....
*So runs on everything - laptops, desktops, tablets and phones.
EDIT: It reminded me of an occasion when I saw a contractor for the road people trying to dig a hole with a shovel. No chance with that tool - he was hammering away, giving it his best, but...
One thing nobody in the media seems to be talking about is polling with alternative leaders.
Polling showed Labour would do much better with Burnham as leader instead of Starmer.
But polling showed they would do worse than Starmer with just about anybody else, and Rayner polled particularly poorly.
Is Labour really going to do a rerun of the Conservatives with Truss and elect someone who is even less popular than Starmer - and that's before they even start in the role.
The problem is that Starmer has never inspired loyalty or devotion in any part of his party, really. He was there as the best on offer at the time - someone who sounded and looked more serious and moderate and who most could settle on as being an acceptable face. He has never created an ideology or “ism” or unity of purpose and he has been very transactional in his loyalties and his relationships with those in the party.
This means that now he faces genuine adversity he does not have a steel core of support who will back him through thick and thin - think of the Blairites and the Brownites in the New Labour years, heck, even the Momentum crowd under Corbyn. At best he has the Chancellor who is also a figure without a power base of her own.
I think he was more weakened in the eyes of his MPs than he realised by entering government with that low vote share. He has done very little to keep them on side since.
So yes, I really do think Labour MPs don’t see that alternatives could poll worse as a factor in their calculations. At the end of the day they didn’t enter politics for this. It should be said that the parallels with Johnson are also clear, hence why the subsequent leadership election was all about typical Tory topics like low taxes - it made the MPs feel better after a long period of being (in their eyes) treated badly and drifting politically and ideologically.
On Starmer inspiring loyalty: I remember eavesdropping on a conversation in a Manchester pub between three Labour Party members at the time of his election, comparing the merits of him, Lisa Nandy and Rebecca Long-Bailey. They all favoured Starmer, but none of them with enthusiasm. Someone at the time memorably suggested the tagline for his campaign should be "He'll do, I suppose."
That said, I've recently spoken to several middle-class-left-but-not-Labour family members who feel astonishingly let down by him: they had been wildly excited by the prospect of 'dull but competent', had sort of assumed he was very clever and had all sorts of workable ideas ready to go, and have been astonished by the mess of the last 18 months.
Growing anger within the Whitehall security apparatus at what are being seen as attempts by No.10 to blame failures in the vetting process for the Mandelson scandal. Keir Starmer is playing a very dangerous game.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
Going to university doesn't make you clever, it just gives you qualifications. I have no objection to someone without a degree being PM. In fact I would welcome it. We massively overstate the importance of a degree*. However, I don't think Rayner is bright. Just ruthless. So while I'd welcome someone without a degree becoming PM, I wouldn't welcome Rayner specifically becoming PM.
*And don't come back to me with 'so you'd be happy with a doctor without a medical degree' - of course people need to get the proper training for the job they do. It just doesn't need to be in the form of a degree. There isn't a degree in 'running the country'. PPE or Classics or English Literature don't count.
Doctors did not used to have medical degrees, and until recently did not need them. I can't remember the details but think it was only after the war that most doctors had degrees. More recently, doctors might opt to do the non-degree exams (either LMSSA or the conjoint LRCP MRCS) alongside their medical degrees as a belt-and-braces approach: fail one and you could still qualify via the other. This route was closed under the Blair government iirc.
As an aside for @Flatlander who was talking about the Profumo affair, Dr Stephen Ward, the osteopath, had qualified as a doctor in the United States but his qualification was not recognised by our General Medical Council in the 1960s. America has MD and DO, which Ward had and is a joint (no pun intended) degree in medicine and osteopathy.
Stephen Ward, an osteopath. Peter Mandelson's husband doing an osteopahty course. I think any future vetting should focus on this obvious warning sign.
Vetting failures on Mandelson are a complete red herring. Everyone knew in 2024 that Mandelson had been a Cabinet Minister. Everyone knew in 2024 about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and everyone knew what Epstein was about. The only thing not known then was that he had been leaking government business but if that had been known, he'd have been sacked if not charged.
The only way vetting could have discovered this is by asking the American government for access to the Epstein files!
Vetting is just a smokescreen to protect Starmer by bamboozling the Tories.
I can'r remember exactly, as its changed so often, but wasn't the official line at the time that the files didn't exist ?
Scottish Westminster Figures with MiC are very tasty
SNP 28 Ref 23 Lab 20 LD 12 Con 11 Grn 5
This is the sort of stuff that’s going to see the Tories ditch Kemi in May.
They are bad, but she certainly won't be ditched. I don't think there is any appetite for that at all. She is proving to be a competent and feisty opposition leader (at last), and the Tories simply have to play the long game. We are still perambulating along Protest Street.
One thing that she has lost is the Jenrick firewall.
If the results are as bad as feared, the the May results will show over half of Tory MPs losing their seats.
The other thing that is focussing minds if this is the worst government ever, why are the Tories doing so badly, Labour led by 33% during the Truss premiership.
There's been a few good news anecdotes on here about the NHS, so to balance things up I thought I'd share a story from my mother of a false economy leading to much greater cost.
"A resident here, Harry, went in to [an outer London] private hospital as an NHS patient for a hip replacement, sent home in a TAXI 2days after op, dumped in the carpark, I don't know how he got to his flat but the wound opened, he is now very ill in NHS hospital."
My mother has been recommended surgery to correct a case of Cavus foot that has developed as part of her Parkinson's, but recovery from surgery requires keeping weight off the foot for six weeks, so consensus among Parkinson sufferers is that the surgery is a ticket to requiring a wheelchair - at further expense for the NHS.
The NHS do seem overly focused on surgery as the cure for all ills, but then completely neglecting what happens afterwards.
I think, Mr LP, that your first case is a criticism of the private hospital, although also perhaps of the contracts manager in the NHS. When I worked in a private hospital, for a short time in the 80's, the surgeons always sent cases where there had been problems to the nearest NHS hospital.
With my Aunt, the lack of coordination between the various bits of the hospital (NHS) and the care teams outside was chronic.
Because I was down as next of kin, they started phoning me to ask what the other people were doing!
Having been on both sides of that particular fence I sympathise. Sometimes it doesn't work well; other times at all!
Everyone was well intentioned and hard working. The system wasn't letting them do their job.
I found myself sketching, in my head a web based* tool that would present, per patient, documentation, actions taken, actions to take, alerts, contacts in the various agencies that are part of the solution for that patient....
*So runs on everything - laptops, desktops, tablets and phones.
EDIT: It reminded me of an occasion when I saw a contractor for the road people trying to dig a hole with a shovel. No chance with that tool - he was hammering away, giving it his best, but...
On which subject: my youngest has a repeat prescription. But having recently turned 11, something has changed in the NHS system. Apparently parents can no longer access the medical records of their children once children turn 11. But also, children can't access their own medical records until they turn 13. The hoops we are having to jump through are baffling. And the system seems almost designed to make it impossible to contact them: emails bounce back, the 'message here' section on the app has no 'here', the surgery claim not to be able to hear you when you ring up. In practice, you have to physically go down to the surgery along with your tech and hope you get a sympathetic receptionist.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
I would just say so what
You seem to think the only way to succeed is to go to University which is nonsense
Indeed, maybe we would be better with street wise, practical and honest people, then some of those governing us
I went to Uni and im useless
My issue with @HYUFD is he seems to think the only way to success is to go to University which is obviously silly
Angela Rayner has a formidable back story and to say she shouldn't have got pregnant at 16 is out of order
Indeed the 50% University policy of Blair was wrong and it is good to see the change to a more sensible mix with FEs
No, Winston Churchill did not go to university, nor did Disraeli, nor did Major nor did Lloyd George. All became PM but they all got more qualifications at school than Rayner did.
If you followed traditional religious teaching you wouldn't get pregnant until married
Who is the clever person
The University Graduate who learns what is required to pass exams and often doesnt enter a work environment until 22 or later, often drops in to a mid level role or
Someone with or without qualifications who enters work at 16, learns skills either white or blue collar, builds a career of understanding and knowledge and almost certainly a greater appreciation of real life.
BTW there is no right answer.
Those who think there is a right answer are IMHO the ones who are wrong.
It's a false dichotomy.
My brother-in-law here in Ireland is a welder. A blue collar occupation. So by your argument he would have left school at 16, gone straight into work, learned his trade that way, etc.
But he has had a technically-focused third level education. He's a graduate. Very highly skilled and good at what he does and well-paid for it.
The problem in Britain is that we have an idea of University that it is Oxbridge. It is a Classical education of the Trivium. All books in ancient libraries. Even the practical sciences are a bit of an oddity, more eccentrics in disused parts of buildings, rather than the core focus of the institution.
There's no room for a welder receiving an appropriate third-level education at a British University.
And so that's why British rates of graduate education are lower than its peers, and yet the debate in Britain is focused on making it lower still, and so the British economy lacks the skills to succeed, imports migrants to fill the gaps, and the culture is anti-education. It's so self-harming.
I think that's a bit unfair re: Oxbridge science.
It might be rather more theoretical than practical in some cases, but many of the facilities are world class and are definitely not disused parts of buildings.
I even got to weld something and mix concrete, albeit mostly for the lolz. There was admittely a lot more maths.
I'm more thinking about the British cultural idea of university, rather than the reality. I'm sure there are many universities doing very good work on technical and practical education that isn't book-focused, but it isn't flourishing because it isn't the idea that Britain has about university.
I've been saying for ages that Starmer is politically inept, he's smart enough for the job, and basically a decent man, but he's simply not cut out for leading a political party or a government. He walks into traps of his own making far too frequently.
Scottish Westminster Figures with MiC are very tasty
SNP 28 Ref 23 Lab 20 LD 12 Con 11 Grn 5
This is the sort of stuff that’s going to see the Tories ditch Kemi in May.
They are bad, but she certainly won't be ditched. I don't think there is any appetite for that at all. She is proving to be a competent and feisty opposition leader (at last), and the Tories simply have to play the long game. We are still perambulating along Protest Street.
One thing that she has lost is the Jenrick firewall.
If the results are as bad as feared, the the May results will show over half of Tory MPs losing their seats.
The other thing that is focussing minds if this is the worst government ever, why are the Tories doing so badly, Labour led by 33% during the Truss premiership.
Yes but in those days Labour weren't tainted by recent government, and obviously Reform and the Greens weren't there then in any sizeable form. We are no longer in a world of two-and-a-half party politics and anyone expecting that world to snap back into place is living in denial.
Scottish Westminster Figures with MiC are very tasty
SNP 28 Ref 23 Lab 20 LD 12 Con 11 Grn 5
This is the sort of stuff that’s going to see the Tories ditch Kemi in May.
Well up to a point. But I'd say Tories will take a broader UK-wide view and I don't think Scotland will necessarily be representative. Clearly if they are fourth of fifth nationally that is bad news for them.
A friend of mine has an autistic 15 year old son. He's a lovely lad but weirdly keen on seeing the manager of his favourite football team sacked, even if they're doing rather better than they were a year ago or whenever he came in. If they're not in the top four of the Premiership he wants someone else to do the job. And his team are never going to be in the top four of the Premiership. They were in the old Division 1 once, but that was long ago. Those on the blue side calling for Kemi to be replaced remind me of that lad. Because I don't see who can do better. I don't think the Tories are ever going to be in government again in my lifetime. Kemi is in the sweetest spot they have; become more Jenricky and they lose voters to the Lib Dems; become more Cleverlyy and they lose voters to Reform. All thiose voters they lost to Reform: they're not Tories who'll come home, they never much liked the Tories in the first place but they voted for them because they were the most not-Labour. The only future I can see for them is hanging on grimly and hoping Reform collapse as and when Farage moves on.
The Tories must feast on Labour's collapse as best they can, and get enough seats to prevent Reform gaining a majority and become a vital coalition partner. Then distinguish themselves in office, avoiding any massive banana skins like the Lib Dems and tuition fees.
I’m pretty sure ditching Kemi will make the Tory problem worse, not better.
That is something some want
Yes. Because her policies are shit - Populist and unConservative.
Why should a One Nation Conservative warm to her when she says we are not centre right party anymore, we are right wing and all you centrists can jog off somewhere else? 🤷♀️
To be honest, the bad elections the Conservatives will suffer in May is mostly down to the farce and shambles we were in government come the end,
Inside the Tories’ handling of the Mandelson saga:
✅LOTO + Whips playing a Commons blinder 😎‘We’re getting quite good at this opposition thing’ 📈And a shadow cabinet meeting on polling – Badenoch is leading the Party, like Cameron
There's been a few good news anecdotes on here about the NHS, so to balance things up I thought I'd share a story from my mother of a false economy leading to much greater cost.
"A resident here, Harry, went in to [an outer London] private hospital as an NHS patient for a hip replacement, sent home in a TAXI 2days after op, dumped in the carpark, I don't know how he got to his flat but the wound opened, he is now very ill in NHS hospital."
My mother has been recommended surgery to correct a case of Cavus foot that has developed as part of her Parkinson's, but recovery from surgery requires keeping weight off the foot for six weeks, so consensus among Parkinson sufferers is that the surgery is a ticket to requiring a wheelchair - at further expense for the NHS.
The NHS do seem overly focused on surgery as the cure for all ills, but then completely neglecting what happens afterwards.
I think, Mr LP, that your first case is a criticism of the private hospital, although also perhaps of the contracts manager in the NHS. When I worked in a private hospital, for a short time in the 80's, the surgeons always sent cases where there had been problems to the nearest NHS hospital.
With my Aunt, the lack of coordination between the various bits of the hospital (NHS) and the care teams outside was chronic.
Because I was down as next of kin, they started phoning me to ask what the other people were doing!
Having been on both sides of that particular fence I sympathise. Sometimes it doesn't work well; other times at all!
Everyone was well intentioned and hard working. The system wasn't letting them do their job.
I found myself sketching, in my head a web based* tool that would present, per patient, documentation, actions taken, actions to take, alerts, contacts in the various agencies that are part of the solution for that patient....
*So runs on everything - laptops, desktops, tablets and phones.
EDIT: It reminded me of an occasion when I saw a contractor for the road people trying to dig a hole with a shovel. No chance with that tool - he was hammering away, giving it his best, but...
There were proposals, about 20-25 years ago, for the NHS to have one standard system of documentation, as you say web-based. Unfortunately the technology at the time wasn't good enough and the scheme was scrapped. Not sure whether it was by the Coalition or just before. Last time I was taken into hospital the ambulance team had tablets whereon they could access my GP records, so we are now getting there. The fragmentation of secondary care doesn't, IMHO, help, though.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
I would just say so what
You seem to think the only way to succeed is to go to University which is nonsense
Indeed, maybe we would be better with street wise, practical and honest people, then some of those governing us
I went to Uni and im useless
My issue with @HYUFD is he seems to think the only way to success is to go to University which is obviously silly
Angela Rayner has a formidable back story and to say she shouldn't have got pregnant at 16 is out of order
Indeed the 50% University policy of Blair was wrong and it is good to see the change to a more sensible mix with FEs
No, Winston Churchill did not go to university, nor did Disraeli, nor did Major nor did Lloyd George. All became PM but they all got more qualifications at school than Rayner did.
If you followed traditional religious teaching you wouldn't get pregnant until married
Who is the clever person
The University Graduate who learns what is required to pass exams and often doesnt enter a work environment until 22 or later, often drops in to a mid level role or
Someone with or without qualifications who enters work at 16, learns skills either white or blue collar, builds a career of understanding and knowledge and almost certainly a greater appreciation of real life.
BTW there is no right answer.
Those who think there is a right answer are IMHO the ones who are wrong.
It's a false dichotomy.
My brother-in-law here in Ireland is a welder. A blue collar occupation. So by your argument he would have left school at 16, gone straight into work, learned his trade that way, etc.
But he has had a technically-focused third level education. He's a graduate. Very highly skilled and good at what he does and well-paid for it.
The problem in Britain is that we have an idea of University that it is Oxbridge. It is a Classical education of the Trivium. All books in ancient libraries. Even the practical sciences are a bit of an oddity, more eccentrics in disused parts of buildings, rather than the core focus of the institution.
There's no room for a welder receiving an appropriate third-level education at a British University.
And so that's why British rates of graduate education are lower than its peers, and yet the debate in Britain is focused on making it lower still, and so the British economy lacks the skills to succeed, imports migrants to fill the gaps, and the culture is anti-education. It's so self-harming.
I think that's a bit unfair re: Oxbridge science.
It might be rather more theoretical than practical in some cases, but many of the facilities are world class and are definitely not disused parts of buildings.
I even got to weld something and mix concrete, albeit mostly for the lolz. There was admittely a lot more maths.
I'm more thinking about the British cultural idea of university, rather than the reality. I'm sure there are many universities doing very good work on technical and practical education that isn't book-focused, but it isn't flourishing because it isn't the idea that Britain has about university.
And no-one is willing to pay for it.
This. This. This.
We need to break down the wall between the managerial class - who are taught to despise domain knowledge and those who have the knowledge.
See the BritVolt discussions (in government and finance) where people are congratulating BritVolt on having proper generalists running it, rather than those ghastly technical oils.
Scottish Westminster Figures with MiC are very tasty
SNP 28 Ref 23 Lab 20 LD 12 Con 11 Grn 5
This is the sort of stuff that’s going to see the Tories ditch Kemi in May.
Wishful thinking.
Kemi cutting through is not welcome apparently
The Tories doing worse than 2024 is not cut through.
You have a problem with Kemi, but what it is reflected in the polls is her improvement to the point her approval ratings are better than Farage and eclipse Starmer
The conservative vote share has marginally improved and there is time on her side
The other aspect of this that really concerns me is that another unnecessary leadership row only hands more gist to Reform and Farage
There's been a few good news anecdotes on here about the NHS, so to balance things up I thought I'd share a story from my mother of a false economy leading to much greater cost.
"A resident here, Harry, went in to [an outer London] private hospital as an NHS patient for a hip replacement, sent home in a TAXI 2days after op, dumped in the carpark, I don't know how he got to his flat but the wound opened, he is now very ill in NHS hospital."
My mother has been recommended surgery to correct a case of Cavus foot that has developed as part of her Parkinson's, but recovery from surgery requires keeping weight off the foot for six weeks, so consensus among Parkinson sufferers is that the surgery is a ticket to requiring a wheelchair - at further expense for the NHS.
The NHS do seem overly focused on surgery as the cure for all ills, but then completely neglecting what happens afterwards.
I think, Mr LP, that your first case is a criticism of the private hospital, although also perhaps of the contracts manager in the NHS. When I worked in a private hospital, for a short time in the 80's, the surgeons always sent cases where there had been problems to the nearest NHS hospital.
With my Aunt, the lack of coordination between the various bits of the hospital (NHS) and the care teams outside was chronic.
Because I was down as next of kin, they started phoning me to ask what the other people were doing!
Having been on both sides of that particular fence I sympathise. Sometimes it doesn't work well; other times at all!
Everyone was well intentioned and hard working. The system wasn't letting them do their job.
I found myself sketching, in my head a web based* tool that would present, per patient, documentation, actions taken, actions to take, alerts, contacts in the various agencies that are part of the solution for that patient....
*So runs on everything - laptops, desktops, tablets and phones.
EDIT: It reminded me of an occasion when I saw a contractor for the road people trying to dig a hole with a shovel. No chance with that tool - he was hammering away, giving it his best, but...
You see so many things in hospitals and care settings where you can't help but think - give me a month or ten and I'll have that sorted.
The problem is that they work in silos and are forever running to catch up.
Scottish Westminster Figures with MiC are very tasty
SNP 28 Ref 23 Lab 20 LD 12 Con 11 Grn 5
This is the sort of stuff that’s going to see the Tories ditch Kemi in May.
Wishful thinking.
Kemi cutting through is not welcome apparently
The Tories doing worse than 2024 is not cut through.
You have a problem with Kemi, but what it is reflected in the polls is her improvement to the point her approval ratings are better than Farage and eclipse Starmer
The conservative vote share has marginally improved and there is time on her side
The other aspect of this that really concerns me is that another unnecessary leadership row only hands more gist to Reform and Farage
Scottish Westminster Figures with MiC are very tasty
SNP 28 Ref 23 Lab 20 LD 12 Con 11 Grn 5
This is the sort of stuff that’s going to see the Tories ditch Kemi in May.
Well up to a point. But I'd say Tories will take a broader UK-wide view and I don't think Scotland will necessarily be representative. Clearly if they are fourth of fifth nationally that is bad news for them.
A friend of mine has an autistic 15 year old son. He's a lovely lad but weirdly keen on seeing the manager of his favourite football team sacked, even if they're doing rather better than they were a year ago or whenever he came in. If they're not in the top four of the Premiership he wants someone else to do the job. And his team are never going to be in the top four of the Premiership. They were in the old Division 1 once, but that was long ago. Those on the blue side calling for Kemi to be replaced remind me of that lad. Because I don't see who can do better. I don't think the Tories are ever going to be in government again in my lifetime. Kemi is in the sweetest spot they have; become more Jenricky and they lose voters to the Lib Dems; become more Cleverlyy and they lose voters to Reform. All thiose voters they lost to Reform: they're not Tories who'll come home, they never much liked the Tories in the first place but they voted for them because they were the most not-Labour. The only future I can see for them is hanging on grimly and hoping Reform collapse as and when Farage moves on.
The Tories must feast on Labour's collapse as best they can, and get enough seats to prevent Reform gaining a majority and become a vital coalition partner. Then distinguish themselves in office, avoiding any massive banana skins like the Lib Dems and tuition fees.
If the Tories allow Reform to get into power via coalition it will be the end of the Tory party - because at that point you may as well have voted reform.
There’s really no question to which Angela Rayner is the answer.
If she can’t run her own household without getting into financial trouble, what chance her running the country?
Can we imagine her turning up to a meeting with Trump or Xi, and be taken remotely seriously?
Her household was in financial trouble when she was born, because she grew up in poverty being raised by her grandma and left school at 16 without any qualifications.
I like the idea of a PM with an authentic working class background who has overcome extreme adversity to get to the top. Any foreign leader worth their salt would take seriously someone who has, although some are obviously not worth their salt. I wouldn't blame her for looking down on those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, like Trump.
Had she got to Oxbridge from that background or made herself a self made millionaire you might have a point but otherwise there are millions of single mother's raised on council estates who left school with no qualifications and maybe got a middle class office job with a bit of hard work. It doesn't mean they should be PM!
Rayner would be a better campaigner than Starmer no doubt and she she would rally the left more behind her as Corbyn did but she would turn off centrist swing voters and in terms of actual competence for the job Starmer would be better. Sir Keir was himself raised in a relatively working class household and through sheer hard work did manage to get to university and an Oxford postgrad degree and the bar and KC and on that basis if it were a choice between Rayner or keeping Starmer I would keep him
So your view is that she should know her place and stay there.
She has no degree and got no qualifications to speak of at school, effectively Rayner still is working class, just one who knows how to navigate a path to the top of the Labour party.
Starmer for all his faults actually did take himself from the skilled working class to the upper middle class by sheer hard work. Streeting too was working class by background, with relatives in prison and son of a single mother in a council flat who also got himself to Cambridge and the upper middle class by hard work
Going to university doesn't make you clever, it just gives you qualifications. I have no objection to someone without a degree being PM. In fact I would welcome it. We massively overstate the importance of a degree*. However, I don't think Rayner is bright. Just ruthless. So while I'd welcome someone without a degree becoming PM, I wouldn't welcome Rayner specifically becoming PM.
*And don't come back to me with 'so you'd be happy with a doctor without a medical degree' - of course people need to get the proper training for the job they do. It just doesn't need to be in the form of a degree. There isn't a degree in 'running the country'. PPE or Classics or English Literature don't count.
Doctors did not used to have medical degrees, and until recently did not need them. I can't remember the details but think it was only after the war that most doctors had degrees. More recently, doctors might opt to do the non-degree exams (either LMSSA or the conjoint LRCP MRCS) alongside their medical degrees as a belt-and-braces approach: fail one and you could still qualify via the other. This route was closed under the Blair government iirc.
As an aside for @Flatlander who was talking about the Profumo affair, Dr Stephen Ward, the osteopath, had qualified as a doctor in the United States but his qualification was not recognised by our General Medical Council in the 1960s. America has MD and DO, which Ward had and is a joint (no pun intended) degree in medicine and osteopathy.
Stephen Ward, an osteopath. Peter Mandelson's husband doing an osteopahty course. I think any future vetting should focus on this obvious warning sign.
Vetting failures on Mandelson are a complete red herring. Everyone knew in 2024 that Mandelson had been a Cabinet Minister. Everyone knew in 2024 about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and everyone knew what Epstein was about. The only thing not known then was that he had been leaking government business but if that had been known, he'd have been sacked if not charged.
The only way vetting could have discovered this is by asking the American government for access to the Epstein files!
Vetting is just a smokescreen to protect Starmer by bamboozling the Tories.
I can'r remember exactly, as its changed so often, but wasn't the official line at the time that the files didn't exist ?
James Hacker: How am I going to explain the missing documents to "The Mail"?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well, this is what we normally do in circumstances like these.
James Hacker: [reads memo] This file contains the complete set of papers, except for a number of secret documents, a few others which are part of still active files, some correspondence lost in the floods of 1967...
James Hacker: Was 1967 a particularly bad winter?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: No, a marvellous winter. We lost no end of embarrassing files.
James Hacker: [reads] Some records which went astray in the move to London and others when the War Office was incorporated in the Ministry of Defence, and the normal withdrawal of papers whose publication could give grounds for an action for libel or breach of confidence or cause embarrassment to friendly governments.
James Hacker: That's pretty comprehensive. How many does that normally leave for them to look at?
James Hacker: How many does it actually leave? About a hundred?... Fifty?... Ten?... Five?... Four?... Three?... Two?... One?... *Zero?*
Comments
@DPJHodges
Growing anger within the Whitehall security apparatus at what are being seen as attempts by No.10 to blame failures in the vetting process for the Mandelson scandal. Keir Starmer is playing a very dangerous game.
https://x.com/DPJHodges/status/2019714827594424619
Starmer is fucked.
You will eventually see Kemi Badenoch in Downing Street.
The only way vetting could have discovered this is by asking the American government for access to the Epstein files!
Vetting is just a smokescreen to protect Starmer by bamboozling the Tories.
@benrileysmith
A masterful and brutal column from
@patrickkmaguire, a chronicler of the Starmer project who today sounds its death knell. Here are the closing lines.
https://x.com/benrileysmith/status/2019703531075494265
His apprentice-master signed him off as being of 'good moral character' too, although he had an illegitimate son. He abandoned the mother and the baby and went off to London, where he did very well for himself!
If you followed traditional religious teaching you wouldn't get pregnant until married, though there are young single mothers who got good qualifications and even degrees
London - theyll lose Bexley to Reform and Bromley to NoC probably but likely gain Westminster and Barnet and hold Harrow, Hillingdon and Kensington for a wash overall.
So for Kemi to claim a chink of light she wouuld need tk also retain the Croydon mayoralty and take one or more of Wandsworth, Enfield, Croydon
Given the liabilities that the ownership incurs maybe even paying £1 would be too much, especially given the hassle of living in one of these sorts of properties with the way they are run, and the open-ended nature of the service charge commitment. £11,000 a year this year, but how much in five years time?
86% of residents are happy - this is a good place to live, far more suitable for someone with declining health and mobility than trying to maintain a 3/4 bed family home on their own.
But it goes against the mindset of the UK property owning obsessions, service charges are as seen as rent which is seen as dead money. Capital must be preserved to pass down the generations even if that means poorer quality of life for those who have accumulated the capital.
2 most intriguing results.
They're still fighting hard though - it will certainly be truly remarkable if they win.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law
"A resident here, Harry, went in to [an outer London] private hospital as an NHS patient for a hip replacement, sent home in a TAXI 2days after op, dumped in the carpark, I don't know how he got to his flat but the wound opened, he is now very ill in NHS hospital."
My mother has been recommended surgery to correct a case of Cavus foot that has developed as part of her Parkinson's, but recovery from surgery requires keeping weight off the foot for six weeks, so consensus among Parkinson sufferers is that the surgery is a ticket to requiring a wheelchair - at further expense for the NHS.
The NHS do seem overly focused on surgery as the cure for all ills, but then completely neglecting what happens afterwards.
The University Graduate who learns what is required to pass exams and often doesnt enter a work environment until 22 or later, often drops in to a mid level role or
Someone with or without qualifications who enters work at 16, learns skills either white or blue collar, builds a career of understanding and knowledge and almost certainly a greater appreciation of real life.
BTW there is no right answer.
Those who think there is a right answer are IMHO the ones who are wrong.
Polling showed Labour would do much better with Burnham as leader instead of Starmer.
But polling showed they would do worse than Starmer with just about anybody else, and Rayner polled particularly poorly.
Is Labour really going to do a rerun of the Conservatives with Truss and elect someone who is even less popular than Starmer - and that's before they even start in the role.
Gnostics Gnow the score
Maybe it would be better not to 'sell' these properties but just charge a realistic rent. Selling them is just hiding costs.
Or at least be clear up front about the resale value.
https://x.com/RuthDavidsonPC/status/2019705681054671267
And let’s be honest about how the generation before those cabinet ministers, the old stagers of New Labour, really see the prime minister: they think he’s at best a bit of a cold fish who works hard yet can’t understand politics like they can. At worst, they think he’s an idiot.
Her upbringing was somewhat more difficult than Wes Streeting, whose dad played a significant role in his upbringing.
Rayners mum was illiterate & was bi-polar.
Angela Rayner was by most accounts the primary carer for her mum and her 2 younger siblings from aged 10.
I know she's not everyones cup of tea.
Not sure why you are embarrassing yourself with this nonsense.
Reform in many ways recognise that drive and make promises that resonate with them. It's just that those promises like many a politicians promises are somewhat detached from economic reality. But don't underestimate the drive the poor have.
Ultimately the buck stops at the top
SNP 28
Ref 23
Lab 20
LD 12
Con 11
Grn 5
My brother-in-law here in Ireland is a welder. A blue collar occupation. So by your argument he would have left school at 16, gone straight into work, learned his trade that way, etc.
But he has had a technically-focused third level education. He's a graduate. Very highly skilled and good at what he does and well-paid for it.
The problem in Britain is that we have an idea of University that it is Oxbridge. It is a Classical education of the Trivium. All books in ancient libraries. Even the practical sciences are a bit of an oddity, more eccentrics in disused parts of buildings, rather than the core focus of the institution.
There's no room for a welder receiving an appropriate third-level education at a British University.
And so that's why British rates of graduate education are lower than its peers, and yet the debate in Britain is focused on making it lower still, and so the British economy lacks the skills to succeed, imports migrants to fill the gaps, and the culture is anti-education. It's so self-harming.
It is just a mindset thing, I have zero doubt that my parents have made a good decision, and I'd be very happy to be at a similar place at their stage of life. They are far from nursing homes, lots of very happy residents with great social lives in their 80s and 90s.
The essential problem is looking down on people who have a working class coded job. The whole tradesman's entrance kind of thing.
What seems to be broken (and needs some kind of change) is the structure of PM and ministers, who then are supposed to *lead* their departments.
I would argue that MPs need a career ladder and training - expecting someone who can get elected as MP to accidentally have the managerial skills to be CEO of a very large organisation, seems archaic in this age.
Why not professional qualifications? Internships running lower levels of government depts as back benchers?
Commission preliminarily finds TikTok's addictive design in breach of the Digital Services Act
This means that now he faces genuine adversity he does not have a steel core of support who will back him through thick and thin - think of the Blairites and the Brownites in the New Labour years, heck, even the Momentum crowd under Corbyn. At best he has the Chancellor who is also a figure without a power base of her own.
I think he was more weakened in the eyes of his MPs than he realised by entering government with that low vote share. He has done very little to keep them on side since.
So yes, I really do think Labour MPs don’t see that alternatives could poll worse as a factor in their calculations. At the end of the day they didn’t enter politics for this. It should be said that the parallels with Johnson are also clear, hence why the subsequent leadership election was all about typical Tory topics like low taxes - it made the MPs feel better after a long period of being (in their eyes) treated badly and drifting politically and ideologically.
She is proving to be a competent and feisty opposition leader (at last), and the Tories simply have to play the long game.
We are still perambulating along Protest Street.
Because I was down as next of kin, they started phoning me to ask what the other people were doing!
The fed up and cant be arsed (both Tories and Labourites this time) wont be arsed until a GE beckons
The pollster that includes the 'meh' 5/10 voters is Ashcroft if anyone wznts to track the 'less interested' pattern
It might be rather more theoretical than practical in some cases, but many of the facilities are world class and are definitely not disused parts of buildings.
I even got to weld something and mix concrete, albeit mostly for the lolz. There was admittely a lot more maths.
A friend of mine has an autistic 15 year old son. He's a lovely lad but weirdly keen on seeing the manager of his favourite football team sacked, even if they're doing rather better than they were a year ago or whenever he came in. If they're not in the top four of the Premiership he wants someone else to do the job. And his team are never going to be in the top four of the Premiership. They were in the old Division 1 once, but that was long ago. Those on the blue side calling for Kemi to be replaced remind me of that lad.
Because I don't see who can do better. I don't think the Tories are ever going to be in government again in my lifetime. Kemi is in the sweetest spot they have; become more Jenricky and they lose voters to the Lib Dems; become more Cleverlyy and they lose voters to Reform. All thiose voters they lost to Reform: they're not Tories who'll come home, they never much liked the Tories in the first place but they voted for them because they were the most not-Labour. The only future I can see for them is hanging on grimly and hoping Reform collapse as and when Farage moves on.
People aren’t avoiding voting Tory because of Badenoch, as much as there is a tendency to try and make it all about her. The reasons are much more deep seated than that.
They werent supposed to climb off the floor
I found myself sketching, in my head a web based* tool that would present, per patient, documentation, actions taken, actions to take, alerts, contacts in the various agencies that are part of the solution for that patient....
*So runs on everything - laptops, desktops, tablets and phones.
EDIT: It reminded me of an occasion when I saw a contractor for the road people trying to dig a hole with a shovel. No chance with that tool - he was hammering away, giving it his best, but...
That said, I've recently spoken to several middle-class-left-but-not-Labour family members who feel astonishingly let down by him: they had been wildly excited by the prospect of 'dull but competent', had sort of assumed he was very clever and had all sorts of workable ideas ready to go, and have been astonished by the mess of the last 18 months.
If the results are as bad as feared, the the May results will show over half of Tory MPs losing their seats.
The other thing that is focussing minds if this is the worst government ever, why are the Tories doing so badly, Labour led by 33% during the Truss premiership.
And no-one is willing to pay for it.
Why should a One Nation Conservative warm to her when she says we are not centre right party anymore, we are right wing and all you centrists can jog off somewhere else? 🤷♀️
To be honest, the bad elections the Conservatives will suffer in May is mostly down to the farce and shambles we were in government come the end,
https://x.com/TaliFraser/status/2019706004456571023
Inside the Tories’ handling of the Mandelson saga:
✅LOTO + Whips playing a Commons blinder
😎‘We’re getting quite good at this opposition thing’
📈And a shadow cabinet meeting on polling – Badenoch is leading the Party, like Cameron
Last time I was taken into hospital the ambulance team had tablets whereon they could access my GP records, so we are now getting there. The fragmentation of secondary care doesn't, IMHO, help, though.
We need to break down the wall between the managerial class - who are taught to despise domain knowledge and those who have the knowledge.
See the BritVolt discussions (in government and finance) where people are congratulating BritVolt on having proper generalists running it, rather than those ghastly technical oils.
The conservative vote share has marginally improved and there is time on her side
The other aspect of this that really concerns me is that another unnecessary leadership row only hands more gist to Reform and Farage
The problem is that they work in silos and are forever running to catch up.
James Hacker: How am I going to explain the missing documents to "The Mail"?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Well, this is what we normally do in circumstances like these.
James Hacker: [reads memo] This file contains the complete set of papers, except for a number of secret documents, a few others which are part of still active files, some correspondence lost in the floods of 1967...
James Hacker: Was 1967 a particularly bad winter?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: No, a marvellous winter. We lost no end of embarrassing files.
James Hacker: [reads] Some records which went astray in the move to London and others when the War Office was incorporated in the Ministry of Defence, and the normal withdrawal of papers whose publication could give grounds for an action for libel or breach of confidence or cause embarrassment to friendly governments.
James Hacker: That's pretty comprehensive. How many does that normally leave for them to look at?
James Hacker: How many does it actually leave? About a hundred?... Fifty?... Ten?... Five?... Four?... Three?... Two?... One?... *Zero?*
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes, Minister.