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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Johnson care home comment row – Day 2

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited July 2020 in General
imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Johnson care home comment row – Day 2

Piers Morgan – I can't even look at Boris Johnson anymore, especially after what he said about care homes… the blame game is now starting… & everyone but the government is going to end up being blamed for this.#GMB pic.twitter.com/8d5V3GV8gC

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Comments

  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Boris - when in a hole never admit you are in a hole... Just keep digging and eventually you will get out.

    Fairly soon I think this philosophy is going to result in him being buried alive..
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043
    Another day, another set of lies.

  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Covid tracing app news - Ireland edition

    The Irish Covid tracing app is released today. I've been staying with my in-laws in Cork since March, so I've downloaded the app.

    The description of the app says that it uses the Apple/Google Bluetooth exposure notification service. However, it seems to turn on location services. If I try to turn off location services I receive a notification that the exposure notification service won't work without it.

    Seems a bit weird.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    You will know them by whom they follow on twatter.

    Piers Moron and Andrew Cooper.

    Not good.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    fpt

    Yes we went through this some time ago (care home finances/situation/owners/profits).

    Interesting that at the time @eadric bemoaned that we were talking about fluff when the real story was C-19 itself. Interesting also that care homes are on their way to becoming perhaps the single most important element in the C-19 episode.

    PB leading the pack again.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    TOPPING said:

    fpt

    Yes we went through this some time ago (care home finances/situation/owners/profits).

    Interesting that at the time @eadric bemoaned that we were talking about fluff when the real story was C-19 itself. Interesting also that care homes are on their way to becoming perhaps the single most important element in the C-19 episode.

    PB leading the pack again.

    Absolutely. Care homes have been a major political issue for years that have needed looking at and its a shame when its brought up its normally for mud slinging and no more.

    We got into some very interesting discussions here months ago on care and it is definitely a major issue worthy of more discussion. More enlightened discussion certainly.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    FPT
    MaxPB said:

    Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.

    The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.

    Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
    That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.

    Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.

    That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.

    The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,969
    edited July 2020
    Lordy, I cannot imagine what inspired the wonderful Susie Dent to choose this as her word of the day.


    https://twitter.com/susie_dent/status/1280415002801975296
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    MaxPB said:

    Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
    Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?

    The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?

    Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    FPT

    MaxPB said:

    Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.

    The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.

    Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
    That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.

    Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.

    That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.

    The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
    In the care industry, the care company pays rent at over the odds to a separate (usually based in a tax haven) company also owned by the same person. It's a gigantic scam industry which incidentally looks after the sick and aged.

    Tackling the ownership structures and forcing them to rent from companies or individuals not linked to the directors or owners is an easy and uncontroversial change.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    I'm not entirely sure that some (k)nobs you met at university are a solid foundation for your entire political outlook.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    Following pb's revelation that Susan Rice's years at Oxford overlapped with our own dear Prime Minister's, more money has poured on to her and she is now 4.6 or a little over 7/2 against being the Democrats' VP nominee. She is 4/1 with the books and there is a small arb if you are quick.

    Harris has drifted to 2.3; Duckworth has been nibbled into 11.5.

  • EssexitEssexit Posts: 1,956
    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    Covid tracing app news - Ireland edition

    The Irish Covid tracing app is released today. I've been staying with my in-laws in Cork since March, so I've downloaded the app.

    The description of the app says that it uses the Apple/Google Bluetooth exposure notification service. However, it seems to turn on location services. If I try to turn off location services I receive a notification that the exposure notification service won't work without it.

    Seems a bit weird.

    Why is that weird ?
    If you won't let the app acmes your phone's location service, it can't know where you are or where you've been. How can it then tell you if you've potentially been exposed to someone subsequently tested as infected (which is what the app is supposed to do) ?
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013
    It does feel to me like Care Homes are a classic case of the British problem. Which is that we find a very expensive way of doing something. And then can't / won't pay for it. People don't want to be on the hook looking after their parents who thanks to expensive modern medicine can live for decades into retirement. So someone else needs to do it. But we don't want a national care system because booo taxes so instead we find ourselves in a place where people pay £lots to warehouse their supposedly loved ones in a box with imported carers on the minimum wage because its yet another job that Brits largely refuse to do.

    We don't want to personally care for our parents. We don't want the job of caring for someone else's parents. We don't want the bloody foreigners who end up caring for our parents. And we don't want to pay for it but end up doing so in a system where seemingly nobody can get by. No wonder "just dump them back in the care homes virus or not" because government policy. Nobody seems to care.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,043

    Following pb's revelation that Susan Rice's years at Oxford overlapped with our own dear Prime Minister's, more money has poured on to her and she is now 4.6 or a little over 7/2 against being the Democrats' VP nominee. She is 4/1 with the books and there is a small arb if you are quick.

    Harris has drifted to 2.3; Duckworth has been nibbled into 11.5.

    Hopefully she had nothing to do with the lying scumbag.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    MaxPB said:

    FPT

    MaxPB said:

    Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.

    The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.

    Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
    That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.

    Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.

    That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.

    The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
    In the care industry, the care company pays rent at over the odds to a separate (usually based in a tax haven) company also owned by the same person. It's a gigantic scam industry which incidentally looks after the sick and aged.

    Tackling the ownership structures and forcing them to rent from companies or individuals not linked to the directors or owners is an easy and uncontroversial change.
    [Citation Needed]

    There are many thousands of Care providers. Some may do that, just as some in other sectors, but when there are thousands of providers there are going to be some bad apples. But they won't be able to stay around for long as they won't be able to meet their costs.

    Have you got evidence that the cost of providing 24/7 care to people with dementia isn't the reason behind high costs and that dodgy rent is instead? Across many thousands of providers.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Nigelb said:

    Covid tracing app news - Ireland edition

    The Irish Covid tracing app is released today. I've been staying with my in-laws in Cork since March, so I've downloaded the app.

    The description of the app says that it uses the Apple/Google Bluetooth exposure notification service. However, it seems to turn on location services. If I try to turn off location services I receive a notification that the exposure notification service won't work without it.

    Seems a bit weird.

    Why is that weird ?
    If you won't let the app acmes your phone's location service, it can't know where you are or where you've been. How can it then tell you if you've potentially been exposed to someone subsequently tested as infected (which is what the app is supposed to do) ?
    It's supposed to know who you've been close to using bluetooth proximity. If my phone has been next to another phone it can tell that using the bluetooth signal. It makes no odds whether the two phones were in Skibbereen or Bantry - bluetooth is a short-range system so they must have been close together in the same location.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    I'm not entirely sure that some (k)nobs you met at university are a solid foundation for your entire political outlook.
    Early impressions were confirmed by closer interaction later in life.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Nigelb said:

    Covid tracing app news - Ireland edition

    The Irish Covid tracing app is released today. I've been staying with my in-laws in Cork since March, so I've downloaded the app.

    The description of the app says that it uses the Apple/Google Bluetooth exposure notification service. However, it seems to turn on location services. If I try to turn off location services I receive a notification that the exposure notification service won't work without it.

    Seems a bit weird.

    Why is that weird ?
    If you won't let the app acmes your phone's location service, it can't know where you are or where you've been. How can it then tell you if you've potentially been exposed to someone subsequently tested as infected (which is what the app is supposed to do) ?
    Isn't the whole point of the decentralised approach to not need this stuff. It just keeps the Bluetooth/app ID of other phones it has come into contact with for more than two minutes then pings them if you get a positive test result?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149

    MaxPB said:

    FPT

    MaxPB said:

    Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.

    The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.

    Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
    That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.

    Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.

    That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.

    The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
    In the care industry, the care company pays rent at over the odds to a separate (usually based in a tax haven) company also owned by the same person. It's a gigantic scam industry which incidentally looks after the sick and aged.

    Tackling the ownership structures and forcing them to rent from companies or individuals not linked to the directors or owners is an easy and uncontroversial change.
    [Citation Needed]

    There are many thousands of Care providers. Some may do that, just as some in other sectors, but when there are thousands of providers there are going to be some bad apples. But they won't be able to stay around for long as they won't be able to meet their costs.

    Have you got evidence that the cost of providing 24/7 care to people with dementia isn't the reason behind high costs and that dodgy rent is instead? Across many thousands of providers.
    https://www.ft.com/content/952317a6-36c1-11ea-a6d3-9a26f8c3cba4

    may interest.
  • StereotomyStereotomy Posts: 4,092

    MaxPB said:

    Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
    Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?

    The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?

    Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
    Nationalise? Heavens, no.

    Worker ownership will do just fine.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912
    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Believe me, much more research was carried out subsequently. Early impressions were entirely confirmed.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    eek said:

    eek said:

    While it's clearly true that some (nobody knows how many) patients were discharged from hospitals into care homes without being tested, are we not in danger of missing the bigger issue, which I suspect is care home staff?

    I suspect much of the transmission in care homes was/is from staff, particularly those who are peripatetic, often agency workers, working on zero contract hours and, logically, in the poorer care homes. The failure here was in not testing staff, even more so than residents. And of course staff spread it within their communities as well, if C-19 positive.

    I don't think there was any capacity to test staff on the scale necessary in the first couple of months of the crisis. When Hancock and the PM said they had thrown "a protective ring around care homes right from the start", this was clearly not true. Regardless of who is to blame, lack of testing of staff must have been a major factor in the spread.

    While true is the Government going to pay the money that would be required?
    By “government” you mean “taxpayer” - and if so which? Heirs, for example?
    Between Northern_Al and other posters it's clear that the issues are at the cheaper end of the market where costs are (by far) the biggest issue and where (I suspect) there is no plausible source of tax from which you could raise the money required.

    Shall we just say that the North is a very different place..
    The government review into Care Homes showed that the problem was with LA provided places which the LAs underfunded - the Care Homes charging self-funders more to make up the difference. Clearly LA funding needs to improve - but from where? General taxation or local taxation? I suspect Eastbourne and Camden might have different answers.

    https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/care-homes-market-study#government-responses-to-the-findings

    On this the Scottish Administration does appear to be ahead of its English & Welsh counterparts.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967

    It does feel to me like Care Homes are a classic case of the British problem. Which is that we find a very expensive way of doing something. And then can't / won't pay for it. People don't want to be on the hook looking after their parents who thanks to expensive modern medicine can live for decades into retirement. So someone else needs to do it. But we don't want a national care system because booo taxes so instead we find ourselves in a place where people pay £lots to warehouse their supposedly loved ones in a box with imported carers on the minimum wage because its yet another job that Brits largely refuse to do.

    We don't want to personally care for our parents. We don't want the job of caring for someone else's parents. We don't want the bloody foreigners who end up caring for our parents. And we don't want to pay for it but end up doing so in a system where seemingly nobody can get by. No wonder "just dump them back in the care homes virus or not" because government policy. Nobody seems to care.

    That's about it.

    Plus the NHS doesn't want lots of old people filling up its hospitals so they get rid of them asap.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047
    Essexit said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
    Only Living Boy is Scottish, so could be St Andrews? One of our nat posters at the time of the indyref was psychologically scarred by his experience of braying toffs at St Andrews. Who knows, it may even be the same person, though it was a different name.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
    Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?

    The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?

    Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
    Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Carnyx said:

    MaxPB said:

    FPT

    MaxPB said:

    Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.

    The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.

    Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
    That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.

    Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.

    That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.

    The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
    In the care industry, the care company pays rent at over the odds to a separate (usually based in a tax haven) company also owned by the same person. It's a gigantic scam industry which incidentally looks after the sick and aged.

    Tackling the ownership structures and forcing them to rent from companies or individuals not linked to the directors or owners is an easy and uncontroversial change.
    [Citation Needed]

    There are many thousands of Care providers. Some may do that, just as some in other sectors, but when there are thousands of providers there are going to be some bad apples. But they won't be able to stay around for long as they won't be able to meet their costs.

    Have you got evidence that the cost of providing 24/7 care to people with dementia isn't the reason behind high costs and that dodgy rent is instead? Across many thousands of providers.
    https://www.ft.com/content/952317a6-36c1-11ea-a6d3-9a26f8c3cba4

    may interest.
    That article makes many of the points I was making. That actually the sector is underfunded (not overfunded) and that businesses are struggling to make a profit (not raking it in) and that many companies are losing money.

    That some businesses like Four Seasons may be mismanaged and going broke as a result doesn't condemn over 5000 businesses within the sector as all being like that.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
    Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?

    The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?

    Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
    Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
    The government should take the blame for its policy of dumping residents out of hospital back into care homes without testing them. That the care home sector is bad is a given - but it was bad before the government decided that 20k+ care home deaths was ok.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
    Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?

    The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?

    Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
    Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
    The government pays for care (or private individuals do) so if the costs for PPE goes up then the government needs to pay more and/or fees need to go up.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    We don't want to personally care for our parents.

    I thought we did this crap months ago?

    Caring for an elderly relative with dementia, or multiple other health problems is hard. It's not something you can do in your spare time while you hold down a full-time job to pay the mortgage on your small semi-detached (that doesn't have room for granny anyway).
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
    Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?

    The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?

    Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
    Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
    It may be because local authorities don’t fully fund the places they use which leads Care Home providers to charge self-funders more. So who should pick up that bill? Local authority council tax payers, or general taxation?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    We don't want to personally care for our parents.

    I thought we did this crap months ago?

    Caring for an elderly relative with dementia, or multiple other health problems is hard. It's not something you can do in your spare time while you hold down a full-time job to pay the mortgage on your small semi-detached (that doesn't have room for granny anyway).
    Indeed. And caring for dozens of people with dementia and health problems who all live together I'm guessing is no piece of cake either!

    I imagine most 24/7 care homes would have more staff than residents.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    In our market study, we have identified two broad areas where we have found problems in the market. These are:

    (a) those requiring care need greater support in choosing a care home and greater protections when they are resident. Current and prospective care home residents must be able to make the right choices, and must be protected if things do not work out as expected; and

    (b) issues around state-funded care and the provision of sustainable capacity. The market must support the state’s intention to ensure that all those who have care needs have them met. This requires that the industry must be sustainable and incentivised to invest and modernise to meet future needs.


    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a1fdf54e5274a75088c4286/england-short-summary-care-homes-market-study.pdf
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912

    Essexit said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
    Only Living Boy is Scottish, so could be St Andrews? One of our nat posters at the time of the indyref was psychologically scarred by his experience of braying toffs at St Andrews. Who knows, it may even be the same person, though it was a different name.
    You have correctly identified the town. I wasn't at university there, though. I had further exposure to these people at university later on, which confirmed earlier impressions. It wasn't me posting back in 2014, I was a Unionist then. I still like to observe how high-up people interact with waiting staff, it is an excellent way of obtaining insights into their character. In case you think I'm being partisan, John Major scores very highly in this regard.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,575

    TOPPING said:

    fpt

    Yes we went through this some time ago (care home finances/situation/owners/profits).

    Interesting that at the time @eadric bemoaned that we were talking about fluff when the real story was C-19 itself. Interesting also that care homes are on their way to becoming perhaps the single most important element in the C-19 episode.

    PB leading the pack again.

    Absolutely. Care homes have been a major political issue for years that have needed looking at and its a shame when its brought up its normally for mud slinging and no more.

    We got into some very interesting discussions here months ago on care and it is definitely a major issue worthy of more discussion. More enlightened discussion certainly.
    Two separate issues are being conflated here, though.

    One is that state of the care home sector - which is, of course, a matter of government responsibility as much as it is of the private sector. That whole debate is necessarily a long term one; there are failings on both sides - of management and provision on the one hand, and of funding and regulation on the other. There is no quick fix.

    The other (which is what the furore is about) is the responsibility for infection control during an epidemic. Of course individual homes bear some responsibility for admissions, but that largely rests with government and its institutions such as PHE.
    Given the known variability of the quality of management in the sector, national policy and control is of paramount importance.

    Johnson's line about uncertainties about transmission etc is the purest bullshit. The simple fundamentals of epidemic control - identification of sources of infection, isolation of infected patients, and protection of vulnerable populations are common to all outbreaks.
    Those principles were massively breached to empty the hospitals early on in the pandemic.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718

    It does feel to me like Care Homes are a classic case of the British problem. Which is that we find a very expensive way of doing something. And then can't / won't pay for it. People don't want to be on the hook looking after their parents who thanks to expensive modern medicine can live for decades into retirement. So someone else needs to do it. But we don't want a national care system because booo taxes so instead we find ourselves in a place where people pay £lots to warehouse their supposedly loved ones in a box with imported carers on the minimum wage because its yet another job that Brits largely refuse to do.

    We don't want to personally care for our parents. We don't want the job of caring for someone else's parents. We don't want the bloody foreigners who end up caring for our parents. And we don't want to pay for it but end up doing so in a system where seemingly nobody can get by. No wonder "just dump them back in the care homes virus or not" because government policy. Nobody seems to care.

    That's about it.

    Plus the NHS doesn't want lots of old people filling up its hospitals so they get rid of them asap.
    Mr P is quite right. And the NHS doesn't want old peop[le in hospital because they stay there a long time not being 'cured'. Sadly, there's no cure for old age.

    One issue which the team to which I was seconded had was overwork. Low-paid agency staff would do two (or occasionally more) shifts per day in different homes. We tried to do something about it, but it wasn't always easy, and I was saddened to learn, during the Covid-19 crisis, that it was still going on.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Care Homes contd. (England)

    1. Most care homes serve a mix of self-funded and state-funded residents. The sector has to some extent maintained provision by charging self-funded residents in homes higher fees, we estimate the average cost for care to a self-funder to be £44,000 a year, around 40% more than local authorities pay on average. We do not consider this to be sustainable; we have seen very few examples of investment in new care home capacity primarily focussed at the LA-funded sector. The upshot will be that in the future LAs will not be able to provide services to all those with eligible needs. Moreover, the number of elderly people who are likely to need support, and the acuity of their care needs, is likely to increase.
    12. We estimate that local authority-fees are currently, on average, around 5-10% below total cost for these homes, equivalent to around a £200-300 million shortfall in funding (UK-wide) for the care homes most exposed to local authority-funded residents. If local authorities were to pay the full cost of care for all the care home places they fund across the UK, this would cost them around £1 billion a year more.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
    Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?

    The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?

    Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
    Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
    It may be because local authorities don’t fully fund the places they use which leads Care Home providers to charge self-funders more. So who should pick up that bill? Local authority council tax payers, or general taxation?
    It all comes from general taxation anyway
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Nigelb said:

    Covid tracing app news - Ireland edition

    The Irish Covid tracing app is released today. I've been staying with my in-laws in Cork since March, so I've downloaded the app.

    The description of the app says that it uses the Apple/Google Bluetooth exposure notification service. However, it seems to turn on location services. If I try to turn off location services I receive a notification that the exposure notification service won't work without it.

    Seems a bit weird.

    Why is that weird ?
    If you won't let the app acmes your phone's location service, it can't know where you are or where you've been. How can it then tell you if you've potentially been exposed to someone subsequently tested as infected (which is what the app is supposed to do) ?
    The whole point of the Apple/Google solution is that it's not a tracking app, it's only interested in lists of numbers representing other devices you meet.

    What Ireland appears to have done is taken their solution, and stuffed a tracking app on top of it.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Essexit said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
    Well let's see it would be Durham or Exeter or perhaps St. Andrews.

    And as you say not where BoJo was.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Essexit said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
    Only Living Boy is Scottish, so could be St Andrews? One of our nat posters at the time of the indyref was psychologically scarred by his experience of braying toffs at St Andrews. Who knows, it may even be the same person, though it was a different name.
    I find that you will discover whether someone is worth employing by seeing how they talk to Receptionists, Security Guards and (if they get that far) waiters / waitresses
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
    Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?

    The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?

    Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
    Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
    The government pays for care (or private individuals do) so if the costs for PPE goes up then the government needs to pay more and/or fees need to go up.
    No, the government pays a company for services rendered. If the cost of care goes up then they need to charge more, fair enough, but they can't ask for a bail out. Every time there's a bail out of the private sector and we socialise losses while letting shareholders walk away with decades worth of profits we damage the argument for capitalism.

    These companies have taken years of dividends, when the time came for them to pay up, they claimed poverty. No. It's time for private companies to decide whether they want to be in private ownership or not. I'm more than happy for the state to take ownership of bailed out companies and wipe out shareholders and bondholders but the consequence free bail out these companies asked for was not fair on the taxpayer or private clients who have been finding years worth of profits.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,089
    eek said:

    Boris - when in a hole never admit you are in a hole... Just keep digging and eventually you will get out.

    Fairly soon I think this philosophy is going to result in him being buried alive..

    Unfortunately, I'm increasingly of the view that the remarks made here by a government loyalist in the early days of Dom's Adventures in Durhamland were right. Not morally right, but an accurate reflection of reality.

    Unless 40+ Conservative MPs defect to the opposition, or 183 vote against him in an internal vote of confidence, there's no reason for him to go anywhere. And having purged the most obvious traitors in 2019, those are both huge hurdles.

    There's no actual process to get Boris or his favourites out before 2024. So until then, we plebs should just jog on. I think some of them enjoy the impotent rage.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
    Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?

    The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?

    Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
    Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
    It may be because local authorities don’t fully fund the places they use which leads Care Home providers to charge self-funders more. So who should pick up that bill? Local authority council tax payers, or general taxation?
    The shareholders. If they find that the industry is unprofitable then call time and sell up.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
    Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?

    The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?

    Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
    Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
    The government pays for care (or private individuals do) so if the costs for PPE goes up then the government needs to pay more and/or fees need to go up.
    The PPE issue wasn't just price - it was obtaining supply at any price.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Believe me, much more research was carried out subsequently. Early impressions were entirely confirmed.
    LOL

    So you ventured to Durham, Exeter, St. Andrews, the Sloaney Pony, Boujis, the Phene, the 151 (or Raffles) and Ham Polo Club.

    All for research purposes.

    And now you are in the financial services industry or one related to it.

    Stockholm Syndrome anyone?
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,013

    We don't want to personally care for our parents.

    I thought we did this crap months ago?

    Caring for an elderly relative with dementia, or multiple other health problems is hard. It's not something you can do in your spare time while you hold down a full-time job to pay the mortgage on your small semi-detached (that doesn't have room for granny anyway).
    I know. That's why I don't want to care for my parents.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    TOPPING said:

    Essexit said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
    Well let's see it would be Durham or Exeter or perhaps St. Andrews.

    And as you say not where BoJo was.
    A friend of mine was at Christ Church (Oxford University) in the 1970s when a dining club - I do not know if they were a college club or universityy society) smashed many of the windows in the smaller - but still massive - quadrangle. Rather than identify and punish the culprits, who did not have the guts to confess, the authorities simply sent the bill to every undergrad in residence. My friend was not happy ...

    The dining clubs were still smashing up restaurants into the 2000s - I recall this well as I had dinner in a nice country gastropub a year or two after it was trashed, as it happens (a friend of mine lives nearby). The problem was that the clubs had to go further and further out and the natives tended to be less simpatico and to call the police without further ado.

    Those show a kind of upbringing and mentality as young adults which I find utterly disturbing, above all the irresponsibility and sense that others would clean up after then.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited July 2020
    TOPPING said:

    Essexit said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
    Well let's see it would be Durham or Exeter or perhaps St. Andrews.

    And as you say not where BoJo was.
    OLB said he was talking about St Andrews - I continually see the same in Durham when visiting during term time (which I've done so for 30 odd + years) and friends with none posh children in Durham confirm the same.

    And I understand that arrogance get's you places
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    https://twitter.com/mrmitchell78/status/1280373424100200450?s=20

    I remember the first reports coming through - “Power outage at Aldgate” was how it started....
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    Late to this and I'm sure I'm only echoing what everyone bar the most supine of Johnson sycophants have said already but really - what appalling comments. Seeking to deflect blame for the care home fiasco (which cost thousands of lives) onto the front line staff who worked for peanuts through the epidemic whilst he faffed around to no great effect except for ensuring we have the worst covid outcome in the world. Quite incredible. How low can this man go? How on earth have we ended up with an individual like this as our PM? Answers on a postcard.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,881

    MaxPB said:

    FPT

    MaxPB said:

    Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.

    The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.

    Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
    That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.

    Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.

    That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.

    The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
    In the care industry, the care company pays rent at over the odds to a separate (usually based in a tax haven) company also owned by the same person. It's a gigantic scam industry which incidentally looks after the sick and aged.

    Tackling the ownership structures and forcing them to rent from companies or individuals not linked to the directors or owners is an easy and uncontroversial change.
    [Citation Needed]

    There are many thousands of Care providers. Some may do that, just as some in other sectors, but when there are thousands of providers there are going to be some bad apples. But they won't be able to stay around for long as they won't be able to meet their costs.

    Have you got evidence that the cost of providing 24/7 care to people with dementia isn't the reason behind high costs and that dodgy rent is instead? Across many thousands of providers.
    It's very hard to get the evidence because there are so many holding companies, shell companies, offshore arrangements, being based in tax havens etc.

    But according to this report, of the 26 largest care home providers: 18 had separated operating and property companies, (they think this is so that if they get sued, there are no assets to go after), 12/26 had significant purchases from related companies, most of those backed by private equity (4/5) have offshore owners in a tax haven.

    https://chpi.org.uk/papers/reports/plugging-the-leaks-in-the-uk-care-home-industry/

  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    edited July 2020
    eek said:

    Essexit said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
    Only Living Boy is Scottish, so could be St Andrews? One of our nat posters at the time of the indyref was psychologically scarred by his experience of braying toffs at St Andrews. Who knows, it may even be the same person, though it was a different name.
    I find that you will discover whether someone is worth employing by seeing how they talk to Receptionists, Security Guards and (if they get that far) waiters / waitresses
    I used to work for an organization where one of the security guards ended up moving sideways and working beside me. His comments on the attitudes of [edit] some of the more elevated managers and staff to the uniformed staff were quite a revelation! "Wouldn't even say good morning ..."
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
    Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?

    The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?

    Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
    Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
    The government pays for care (or private individuals do) so if the costs for PPE goes up then the government needs to pay more and/or fees need to go up.
    No, the government pays a company for services rendered. If the cost of care goes up then they need to charge more, fair enough, but they can't ask for a bail out. Every time there's a bail out of the private sector and we socialise losses while letting shareholders walk away with decades worth of profits we damage the argument for capitalism.

    These companies have taken years of dividends, when the time came for them to pay up, they claimed poverty. No. It's time for private companies to decide whether they want to be in private ownership or not. I'm more than happy for the state to take ownership of bailed out companies and wipe out shareholders and bondholders but the consequence free bail out these companies asked for was not fair on the taxpayer or private clients who have been finding years worth of profits.
    You take that attitude across all sectors during a pandemic?

    So you opposed the furlough scheme and everything else the government has done during the pandemic? If so you're being consistent. If not, why should frontline sectors during a pandemic be abandoned while other sectors get support?

    If we socialise self-inflicted losses then absolutely that is a problem. But a once in a century pandemic is a different matter.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,785

    Essexit said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
    Only Living Boy is Scottish, so could be St Andrews? One of our nat posters at the time of the indyref was psychologically scarred by his experience of braying toffs at St Andrews. Who knows, it may even be the same person, though it was a different name.
    You have correctly identified the town. I wasn't at university there, though. I had further exposure to these people at university later on, which confirmed earlier impressions. It wasn't me posting back in 2014, I was a Unionist then. I still like to observe how high-up people interact with waiting staff, it is an excellent way of obtaining insights into their character. In case you think I'm being partisan, John Major scores very highly in this regard.
    I don't know if I've ever been this specific, but the culture shock that confirmed me as centre left was the realisation that the braying Tory toffs of St. Andrews didn't have the slightest clue about life outside their bubble and, moreover, didn't really give a flying damn.

    By contrast, I got on OK with a few of the more working class liibertarians who crept round the edges of the StAs Tory society. Even if their ideas were often bat crazy, they were OK people.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,346
    ONS deaths data out.
    No of deaths is below average by 3.4%
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    eek said:

    TOPPING said:

    Essexit said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
    Well let's see it would be Durham or Exeter or perhaps St. Andrews.

    And as you say not where BoJo was.
    OLB said he was talking about St Andrews - I continually see the same in Durham when visiting during term time (which I've done so for 30 odd + years) and friends with none posh children in Durham confirm the same.

    And I understand that arrogance get's you places
    An education which includes correct apostrophe usage?

    :smile:
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556

    eek said:

    Boris - when in a hole never admit you are in a hole... Just keep digging and eventually you will get out.

    Fairly soon I think this philosophy is going to result in him being buried alive..

    Unfortunately, I'm increasingly of the view that the remarks made here by a government loyalist in the early days of Dom's Adventures in Durhamland were right. Not morally right, but an accurate reflection of reality.

    Unless 40+ Conservative MPs defect to the opposition, or 183 vote against him in an internal vote of confidence, there's no reason for him to go anywhere. And having purged the most obvious traitors in 2019, those are both huge hurdles.

    There's no actual process to get Boris or his favourites out before 2024. So until then, we plebs should just jog on. I think some of them enjoy the impotent rage.
    Freezing Stamp Duty? £1.3 billion
    Cost of the Job Retention Scheme? £123 billion
    Watching Piers Morgan rant and wail because Boris dared to demure from his sacred view of Who Is To Blame?

    Priceless :wink:
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    https://twitter.com/mrmitchell78/status/1280373424100200450?s=20

    I remember the first reports coming through - “Power outage at Aldgate” was how it started....

    Bloody hell, remember that like it was yesterday. Listening to Radio 5 driving up the M3 to London as the whole thing unfolded, and realising eventually that the whole city was going to be closed before I arrived there, making a couple of calls to family to reassure them then turning round and heading back home.

    A very dark day.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    kinabalu said:

    Late to this and I'm sure I'm only echoing what everyone bar the most supine of Johnson sycophants have said already but really - what appalling comments. Seeking to deflect blame for the care home fiasco (which cost thousands of lives) onto the front line staff who worked for peanuts through the epidemic whilst he faffed around to no great effect except for ensuring we have the worst covid outcome in the world. Quite incredible. How low can this man go? How on earth have we ended up with an individual like this as our PM? Answers on a postcard.

    Jeremy Corbyn.

    Wish you were here.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    ONS deaths data out.
    No of deaths is below average by 3.4%

    No doubt people wanting to score points won't look at the annual excess deaths figure and will instead only count deaths that were above average.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Believe me, much more research was carried out subsequently. Early impressions were entirely confirmed.
    LOL

    So you ventured to Durham, Exeter, St. Andrews, the Sloaney Pony, Boujis, the Phene, the 151 (or Raffles) and Ham Polo Club.

    All for research purposes.

    And now you are in the financial services industry or one related to it.

    Stockholm Syndrome anyone?
    Er, you seem better acquainted with this world than me, perhaps unsurprisingly given your choice of headgear.
    I'm just noting that I have had plenty of opportunities for observing our ruling class close up, and frequently it has been revealing to see how they interact with people that they barely acknowledge they are even interacting with.
    Of course Johnson has a long history of kicking down and kissing up throughout his hack career, so dumping on minimum wage care workers is entirely in character.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587

    It does feel to me like Care Homes are a classic case of the British problem. Which is that we find a very expensive way of doing something. And then can't / won't pay for it. People don't want to be on the hook looking after their parents who thanks to expensive modern medicine can live for decades into retirement. So someone else needs to do it. But we don't want a national care system because booo taxes so instead we find ourselves in a place where people pay £lots to warehouse their supposedly loved ones in a box with imported carers on the minimum wage because its yet another job that Brits largely refuse to do.

    We don't want to personally care for our parents. We don't want the job of caring for someone else's parents. We don't want the bloody foreigners who end up caring for our parents. And we don't want to pay for it but end up doing so in a system where seemingly nobody can get by. No wonder "just dump them back in the care homes virus or not" because government policy. Nobody seems to care.

    There is a point at which one cannot care for one's parents. My father in his last weeks was totally immobile and needed assistance throughout his waking hours.

    When selecting a care home for a relative due diligence is a must. I visited places I wouldn't kennel a dog. There were homes that I wanted to leave within moments of my arrival. The aroma of stale urine and cabbage was unbearable in one.

    Unbelievably all were expensive, but the price differential between the best and the worst was not as much as expected.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047

    Essexit said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
    Only Living Boy is Scottish, so could be St Andrews? One of our nat posters at the time of the indyref was psychologically scarred by his experience of braying toffs at St Andrews. Who knows, it may even be the same person, though it was a different name.
    You have correctly identified the town. I wasn't at university there, though. I had further exposure to these people at university later on, which confirmed earlier impressions. It wasn't me posting back in 2014, I was a Unionist then. I still like to observe how high-up people interact with waiting staff, it is an excellent way of obtaining insights into their character. In case you think I'm being partisan, John Major scores very highly in this regard.
    Thatcher too. :blush:


  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Believe me, much more research was carried out subsequently. Early impressions were entirely confirmed.
    LOL

    So you ventured to Durham, Exeter, St. Andrews, the Sloaney Pony, Boujis, the Phene, the 151 (or Raffles) and Ham Polo Club.

    All for research purposes.

    And now you are in the financial services industry or one related to it.

    Stockholm Syndrome anyone?
    Er, you seem better acquainted with this world than me, perhaps unsurprisingly given your choice of headgear.
    I'm just noting that I have had plenty of opportunities for observing our ruling class close up, and frequently it has been revealing to see how they interact with people that they barely acknowledge they are even interacting with.
    Of course Johnson has a long history of kicking down and kissing up throughout his hack career, so dumping on minimum wage care workers is entirely in character.
    "plenty of opportunities for observing our ruling class close up"

    1) Do you not consider yourself a member of the ruling class, had you so chosen; and
    2) How did you bear it. Or was it to further your own position?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    Carnyx said:

    eek said:

    Essexit said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
    Only Living Boy is Scottish, so could be St Andrews? One of our nat posters at the time of the indyref was psychologically scarred by his experience of braying toffs at St Andrews. Who knows, it may even be the same person, though it was a different name.
    I find that you will discover whether someone is worth employing by seeing how they talk to Receptionists, Security Guards and (if they get that far) waiters / waitresses
    I used to work for an organization where one of the security guards ended up moving sideways and working beside me. His comments on the attitudes of [edit] some of the more elevated managers and staff to the uniformed staff were quite a revelation!
    Sir Alex Ferguson told a story of visiting the hugely dominant Ballydoyle racing stables in Ireland (who won both the Derby and Oaks last Saturday) and being impressed that the trainer, Aidan O'Brien, addressed by name all of the work riders and support staff. He returned to Old Trafford determined to get to know all his staff.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,711
    edited July 2020
    Essexit said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
    3 universities have more private school students as a percentage than Oxford, the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music and the Courtauld Institute of Art.

    A further 3 universities have fewer private school students as a percentage than Oxford but more private school students as a percentage than Cambridge, St Andrews, Durham and Imperial

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/thetab.com/uk/2019/09/19/uk-private-school-universities-125931/amp
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited July 2020
    rkrkrk said:



    MaxPB said:

    FPT

    MaxPB said:

    Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.

    The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.

    Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
    That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.

    Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.

    That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.

    The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
    In the care industry, the care company pays rent at over the odds to a separate (usually based in a tax haven) company also owned by the same person. It's a gigantic scam industry which incidentally looks after the sick and aged.

    Tackling the ownership structures and forcing them to rent from companies or individuals not linked to the directors or owners is an easy and uncontroversial change.
    [Citation Needed]

    There are many thousands of Care providers. Some may do that, just as some in other sectors, but when there are thousands of providers there are going to be some bad apples. But they won't be able to stay around for long as they won't be able to meet their costs.

    Have you got evidence that the cost of providing 24/7 care to people with dementia isn't the reason behind high costs and that dodgy rent is instead? Across many thousands of providers.
    It's very hard to get the evidence because there are so many holding companies, shell companies, offshore arrangements, being based in tax havens etc.

    But according to this report, of the 26 largest care home providers: 18 had separated operating and property companies, (they think this is so that if they get sued, there are no assets to go after), 12/26 had significant purchases from related companies, most of those backed by private equity (4/5) have offshore owners in a tax haven.

    https://chpi.org.uk/papers/reports/plugging-the-leaks-in-the-uk-care-home-industry/

    Out of a sector of over 5000 providers.

    Separating assets in Limited Companies is standard practice in many industries for the largest providers as you you said to limit liability. Looking at only the largest providers will distort things.

    12 out of 'top 26' is fewer than half purchasing from related companies - 12 from over 5000 is a different matter entirely.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    eek said:

    Essexit said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
    Only Living Boy is Scottish, so could be St Andrews? One of our nat posters at the time of the indyref was psychologically scarred by his experience of braying toffs at St Andrews. Who knows, it may even be the same person, though it was a different name.
    I find that you will discover whether someone is worth employing by seeing how they talk to Receptionists, Security Guards and (if they get that far) waiters / waitresses
    That's so unbelievably true.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    Durham is full of right tw*ts so that makes sense.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Believe me, much more research was carried out subsequently. Early impressions were entirely confirmed.
    LOL

    So you ventured to Durham, Exeter, St. Andrews, the Sloaney Pony, Boujis, the Phene, the 151 (or Raffles) and Ham Polo Club.

    All for research purposes.

    And now you are in the financial services industry or one related to it.

    Stockholm Syndrome anyone?
    Of course Johnson has a long history of kicking down and kissing up
    Complete contrast with Thatcher - who behaved atrociously with colleagues but was solicitousness itself with Downing St staff.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    TOPPING said:

    kinabalu said:

    Late to this and I'm sure I'm only echoing what everyone bar the most supine of Johnson sycophants have said already but really - what appalling comments. Seeking to deflect blame for the care home fiasco (which cost thousands of lives) onto the front line staff who worked for peanuts through the epidemic whilst he faffed around to no great effect except for ensuring we have the worst covid outcome in the world. Quite incredible. How low can this man go? How on earth have we ended up with an individual like this as our PM? Answers on a postcard.

    Jeremy Corbyn.

    Wish you were here.
    Johnson is a fucking disgrace. I think you know this.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Honestly, I'd like to see how much he has taken out of his company over the last decade and then compare it to how much was spent on infectious disease planning. These owners are basically all shysters and troughers.
    Do you have that attitude for all sectors of business?

    The only reason energy is expensive is that the owners of energy companies are all shysters and troughers?

    Should we nationalise everything and become a Communist utopia in your eyes?
    Well no, they all went to their shareholders for cash calls in the last few months. That's what shareholders are for. I'm taking issue with this idea that the government should take the blame for carehome owners not wanting to spend the money they needed to.
    The government pays for care (or private individuals do) so if the costs for PPE goes up then the government needs to pay more and/or fees need to go up.
    No, the government pays a company for services rendered. If the cost of care goes up then they need to charge more, fair enough, but they can't ask for a bail out. Every time there's a bail out of the private sector and we socialise losses while letting shareholders walk away with decades worth of profits we damage the argument for capitalism.

    These companies have taken years of dividends, when the time came for them to pay up, they claimed poverty. No. It's time for private companies to decide whether they want to be in private ownership or not. I'm more than happy for the state to take ownership of bailed out companies and wipe out shareholders and bondholders but the consequence free bail out these companies asked for was not fair on the taxpayer or private clients who have been finding years worth of profits.
    You take that attitude across all sectors during a pandemic?

    So you opposed the furlough scheme and everything else the government has done during the pandemic? If so you're being consistent. If not, why should frontline sectors during a pandemic be abandoned while other sectors get support?

    If we socialise self-inflicted losses then absolutely that is a problem. But a once in a century pandemic is a different matter.
    Yes, it's why I was against bailing out Virgin Atlantic. The furlough scheme was an employee subsidy, not a company bail out. Company shareholders don't benefit from it.
  • StereotomyStereotomy Posts: 4,092

    ONS deaths data out.
    No of deaths is below average by 3.4%

    Over what period?
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,387

    ONS deaths data out.
    No of deaths is below average by 3.4%

    Over what period?
    A comparison of this week this year against this week in a basket of previous years.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912

    Essexit said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Also, Johnson and his ilk weren't in Durham (I'm guessing). They were in Oxford. Which is not as good as being in Cambridge, I grant you.
    Only Living Boy is Scottish, so could be St Andrews? One of our nat posters at the time of the indyref was psychologically scarred by his experience of braying toffs at St Andrews. Who knows, it may even be the same person, though it was a different name.
    You have correctly identified the town. I wasn't at university there, though. I had further exposure to these people at university later on, which confirmed earlier impressions. It wasn't me posting back in 2014, I was a Unionist then. I still like to observe how high-up people interact with waiting staff, it is an excellent way of obtaining insights into their character. In case you think I'm being partisan, John Major scores very highly in this regard.
    Thatcher too. :blush:


    I have heard similar about Thatcher, who was apparently quite kind in her personal life. Equally many left wing people are quite obnoxious on a personal level. My view is that there is no excuse for rudeness, which I hope is also largely reflected in my interactions here.
  • StereotomyStereotomy Posts: 4,092

    rkrkrk said:



    MaxPB said:

    FPT

    MaxPB said:

    Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.

    The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.

    Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
    That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.

    Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.

    That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.

    The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
    In the care industry, the care company pays rent at over the odds to a separate (usually based in a tax haven) company also owned by the same person. It's a gigantic scam industry which incidentally looks after the sick and aged.

    Tackling the ownership structures and forcing them to rent from companies or individuals not linked to the directors or owners is an easy and uncontroversial change.
    [Citation Needed]

    There are many thousands of Care providers. Some may do that, just as some in other sectors, but when there are thousands of providers there are going to be some bad apples. But they won't be able to stay around for long as they won't be able to meet their costs.

    Have you got evidence that the cost of providing 24/7 care to people with dementia isn't the reason behind high costs and that dodgy rent is instead? Across many thousands of providers.
    It's very hard to get the evidence because there are so many holding companies, shell companies, offshore arrangements, being based in tax havens etc.

    But according to this report, of the 26 largest care home providers: 18 had separated operating and property companies, (they think this is so that if they get sued, there are no assets to go after), 12/26 had significant purchases from related companies, most of those backed by private equity (4/5) have offshore owners in a tax haven.

    https://chpi.org.uk/papers/reports/plugging-the-leaks-in-the-uk-care-home-industry/

    Out of a sector of over 5000 providers.

    Separating assets in Limited Companies is standard practice in many industries for the largest providers as you you said to limit liability. Looking at only the largest providers will distort things.

    12 out of 'top 26' is fewer than half purchasing from related companies - 12 from over 5000 is a different matter entirely.
    "The companies examined have a combined income of £10.4bn, representing 68% of the total estimated market value for independent providers in 2017."
  • StereotomyStereotomy Posts: 4,092

    ONS deaths data out.
    No of deaths is below average by 3.4%

    Over what period?
    A comparison of this week this year against this week in a basket of previous years.
    Got a link for other weeks?
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    kinabalu said:

    Late to this and I'm sure I'm only echoing what everyone bar the most supine of Johnson sycophants have said already but really - what appalling comments. Seeking to deflect blame for the care home fiasco (which cost thousands of lives) onto the front line staff who worked for peanuts through the epidemic whilst he faffed around to no great effect except for ensuring we have the worst covid outcome in the world. Quite incredible. How low can this man go? How on earth have we ended up with an individual like this as our PM? Answers on a postcard.

    Jeremy Corbyn.

    Wish you were here.
    Johnson is a fucking disgrace. I think you know this.
    And he would be licking his wounds on the features desk of the Spectator or somesuch had not your party put Jeremy Corbyn up against him.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    It does feel to me like Care Homes are a classic case of the British problem. Which is that we find a very expensive way of doing something. And then can't / won't pay for it. People don't want to be on the hook looking after their parents who thanks to expensive modern medicine can live for decades into retirement. So someone else needs to do it. But we don't want a national care system because booo taxes so instead we find ourselves in a place where people pay £lots to warehouse their supposedly loved ones in a box with imported carers on the minimum wage because its yet another job that Brits largely refuse to do.

    We don't want to personally care for our parents. We don't want the job of caring for someone else's parents. We don't want the bloody foreigners who end up caring for our parents. And we don't want to pay for it but end up doing so in a system where seemingly nobody can get by. No wonder "just dump them back in the care homes virus or not" because government policy. Nobody seems to care.

    There is a point at which one cannot care for one's parents. My father in his last weeks was totally immobile and needed assistance throughout his waking hours.

    When selecting a care home for a relative due diligence is a must. I visited places I wouldn't kennel a dog. There were homes that I wanted to leave within moments of my arrival. The aroma of stale urine and cabbage was unbearable in one.

    Unbelievably all were expensive, but the price differential between the best and the worst was not as much as expected.
    Doesn't surprise me whatsoever. The cost of providing 24/7 care is going to be exorbitantly expensive come what may.

    The difference between doing so with well motivated staff who keep busy cleaning and those who can't be arsed is going to be a difference more of attitude, training, discipline and standards than a difference of cost.
  • stjohnstjohn Posts: 1,777

    Lordy, I cannot imagine what inspired the wonderful Susie Dent to choose this as her word of the day.


    https://twitter.com/susie_dent/status/1280415002801975296

    Susie Dent is an anagram of Estudines - apartments for students in France.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    rkrkrk said:



    MaxPB said:

    FPT

    MaxPB said:

    Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.

    The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.

    Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
    That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.

    Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.

    That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.

    The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
    In the care industry, the care company pays rent at over the odds to a separate (usually based in a tax haven) company also owned by the same person. It's a gigantic scam industry which incidentally looks after the sick and aged.

    Tackling the ownership structures and forcing them to rent from companies or individuals not linked to the directors or owners is an easy and uncontroversial change.
    [Citation Needed]

    There are many thousands of Care providers. Some may do that, just as some in other sectors, but when there are thousands of providers there are going to be some bad apples. But they won't be able to stay around for long as they won't be able to meet their costs.

    Have you got evidence that the cost of providing 24/7 care to people with dementia isn't the reason behind high costs and that dodgy rent is instead? Across many thousands of providers.
    It's very hard to get the evidence because there are so many holding companies, shell companies, offshore arrangements, being based in tax havens etc.

    But according to this report, of the 26 largest care home providers: 18 had separated operating and property companies, (they think this is so that if they get sued, there are no assets to go after), 12/26 had significant purchases from related companies, most of those backed by private equity (4/5) have offshore owners in a tax haven.

    https://chpi.org.uk/papers/reports/plugging-the-leaks-in-the-uk-care-home-industry/

    Out of a sector of over 5000 providers.

    Separating assets in Limited Companies is standard practice in many industries for the largest providers as you you said to limit liability. Looking at only the largest providers will distort things.

    12 out of 'top 26' is fewer than half purchasing from related companies - 12 from over 5000 is a different matter entirely.
    "The companies examined have a combined income of £10.4bn, representing 68% of the total estimated market value for independent providers in 2017."
    Everyone knows someone, somewhere is minting it at granny's expense. The failure to tighten up on this nonsense is on the Tories mind.
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,387

    ONS deaths data out.
    No of deaths is below average by 3.4%

    Over what period?
    A comparison of this week this year against this week in a basket of previous years.
    Got a link for other weeks?
    It's this series:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending26june2020

    You can find previous whole bulletins at the bottom, if the graphical summary isn't enough detail.
  • No_Offence_AlanNo_Offence_Alan Posts: 3,703
    MaxPB said:

    FPT

    MaxPB said:

    Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.

    The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.

    Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
    That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.

    Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.

    That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.

    The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
    In the care industry, the care company pays rent at over the odds to a separate (usually based in a tax haven) company also owned by the same person. It's a gigantic scam industry which incidentally looks after the sick and aged.

    Tackling the ownership structures and forcing them to rent from companies or individuals not linked to the directors or owners is an easy and uncontroversial change.
    I have a family member who works in a care home. The home is run by those well-known uber-capitalists - The Methodists.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited July 2020

    rkrkrk said:



    MaxPB said:

    FPT

    MaxPB said:

    Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.

    The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.

    Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
    That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.

    Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.

    That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.

    The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
    In the care industry, the care company pays rent at over the odds to a separate (usually based in a tax haven) company also owned by the same person. It's a gigantic scam industry which incidentally looks after the sick and aged.

    Tackling the ownership structures and forcing them to rent from companies or individuals not linked to the directors or owners is an easy and uncontroversial change.
    [Citation Needed]

    There are many thousands of Care providers. Some may do that, just as some in other sectors, but when there are thousands of providers there are going to be some bad apples. But they won't be able to stay around for long as they won't be able to meet their costs.

    Have you got evidence that the cost of providing 24/7 care to people with dementia isn't the reason behind high costs and that dodgy rent is instead? Across many thousands of providers.
    It's very hard to get the evidence because there are so many holding companies, shell companies, offshore arrangements, being based in tax havens etc.

    But according to this report, of the 26 largest care home providers: 18 had separated operating and property companies, (they think this is so that if they get sued, there are no assets to go after), 12/26 had significant purchases from related companies, most of those backed by private equity (4/5) have offshore owners in a tax haven.

    https://chpi.org.uk/papers/reports/plugging-the-leaks-in-the-uk-care-home-industry/

    Out of a sector of over 5000 providers.

    Separating assets in Limited Companies is standard practice in many industries for the largest providers as you you said to limit liability. Looking at only the largest providers will distort things.

    12 out of 'top 26' is fewer than half purchasing from related companies - 12 from over 5000 is a different matter entirely.
    Multi-company structures are indeed common, especially in industries where there's a high possibility of being sued. Nothing particularly wrong with that.

    However, that doesn't mean that care homes should be operated like Starbucks or Amazon, and it's legitimate to enquire as to whether there's abuse and profiteering occurring from companies with government contracts to care for people.

    Like any industry, there will be good and bad people running them. Let's make sure that good practices are incentivised as much as possible.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    rkrkrk said:



    MaxPB said:

    FPT

    MaxPB said:

    Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.

    The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.

    Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
    That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.

    Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.

    That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.

    The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
    In the care industry, the care company pays rent at over the odds to a separate (usually based in a tax haven) company also owned by the same person. It's a gigantic scam industry which incidentally looks after the sick and aged.

    Tackling the ownership structures and forcing them to rent from companies or individuals not linked to the directors or owners is an easy and uncontroversial change.
    [Citation Needed]

    There are many thousands of Care providers. Some may do that, just as some in other sectors, but when there are thousands of providers there are going to be some bad apples. But they won't be able to stay around for long as they won't be able to meet their costs.

    Have you got evidence that the cost of providing 24/7 care to people with dementia isn't the reason behind high costs and that dodgy rent is instead? Across many thousands of providers.
    It's very hard to get the evidence because there are so many holding companies, shell companies, offshore arrangements, being based in tax havens etc.

    But according to this report, of the 26 largest care home providers: 18 had separated operating and property companies, (they think this is so that if they get sued, there are no assets to go after), 12/26 had significant purchases from related companies, most of those backed by private equity (4/5) have offshore owners in a tax haven.

    https://chpi.org.uk/papers/reports/plugging-the-leaks-in-the-uk-care-home-industry/

    Out of a sector of over 5000 providers.

    Separating assets in Limited Companies is standard practice in many industries for the largest providers as you you said to limit liability. Looking at only the largest providers will distort things.

    12 out of 'top 26' is fewer than half purchasing from related companies - 12 from over 5000 is a different matter entirely.
    "The companies examined have a combined income of £10.4bn, representing 68% of the total estimated market value for independent providers in 2017."
    So it excludes a third by market value.

    And I'm curious how market value is determined for the smallest providers. Easier to determine market value for listed stock than for wholly owned limited family businesses.
  • StereotomyStereotomy Posts: 4,092

    ONS deaths data out.
    No of deaths is below average by 3.4%

    Over what period?
    A comparison of this week this year against this week in a basket of previous years.
    Got a link for other weeks?
    It's this series:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending26june2020

    You can find previous whole bulletins at the bottom, if the graphical summary isn't enough detail.
    Thanks. So from that it looks like covid causes excess deaths but- as seen from recent data- lockdown doesn't.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Sandpit said:

    rkrkrk said:



    MaxPB said:

    FPT

    MaxPB said:

    Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.

    The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.

    Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
    That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.

    Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.

    That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.

    The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
    In the care industry, the care company pays rent at over the odds to a separate (usually based in a tax haven) company also owned by the same person. It's a gigantic scam industry which incidentally looks after the sick and aged.

    Tackling the ownership structures and forcing them to rent from companies or individuals not linked to the directors or owners is an easy and uncontroversial change.
    [Citation Needed]

    There are many thousands of Care providers. Some may do that, just as some in other sectors, but when there are thousands of providers there are going to be some bad apples. But they won't be able to stay around for long as they won't be able to meet their costs.

    Have you got evidence that the cost of providing 24/7 care to people with dementia isn't the reason behind high costs and that dodgy rent is instead? Across many thousands of providers.
    It's very hard to get the evidence because there are so many holding companies, shell companies, offshore arrangements, being based in tax havens etc.

    But according to this report, of the 26 largest care home providers: 18 had separated operating and property companies, (they think this is so that if they get sued, there are no assets to go after), 12/26 had significant purchases from related companies, most of those backed by private equity (4/5) have offshore owners in a tax haven.

    https://chpi.org.uk/papers/reports/plugging-the-leaks-in-the-uk-care-home-industry/

    Out of a sector of over 5000 providers.

    Separating assets in Limited Companies is standard practice in many industries for the largest providers as you you said to limit liability. Looking at only the largest providers will distort things.

    12 out of 'top 26' is fewer than half purchasing from related companies - 12 from over 5000 is a different matter entirely.
    Multi-company structures are indeed common, especially in industries where there's a high possibility of being sued.

    However, that doesn't mean that care homes should be operated like Starbucks or Amazon, and it's legitimate to enquire as to whether there's abuse and profiteering occurring from companies with government contracts to care for people.
    Absolutely of course.

    But nobody rational would suggest all coffee shops or cafes are the same as those operated by Starbucks and simply ignore the great proportion of coffee shops or cafes that are family operated.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,912
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    FPT:
    I learned everything I needed to know about Johnson and his ilk working as a waiter when I was a teenager, in a town with a university popular with English public school Oxbridge rejects. The casual rudeness to those considered their social inferiors is entirely familiar. It's no surprise to see him blaming the working class and immigrant workforce, mostly women, who've been risking their own health and wellbeing in minimum wage jobs in the care sector, for the mistakes of his government.

    Everything you needed to know from some ra spilling your beer when they gave it to you?

    I think more research is needed.
    Believe me, much more research was carried out subsequently. Early impressions were entirely confirmed.
    LOL

    So you ventured to Durham, Exeter, St. Andrews, the Sloaney Pony, Boujis, the Phene, the 151 (or Raffles) and Ham Polo Club.

    All for research purposes.

    And now you are in the financial services industry or one related to it.

    Stockholm Syndrome anyone?
    Er, you seem better acquainted with this world than me, perhaps unsurprisingly given your choice of headgear.
    I'm just noting that I have had plenty of opportunities for observing our ruling class close up, and frequently it has been revealing to see how they interact with people that they barely acknowledge they are even interacting with.
    Of course Johnson has a long history of kicking down and kissing up throughout his hack career, so dumping on minimum wage care workers is entirely in character.
    "plenty of opportunities for observing our ruling class close up"

    1) Do you not consider yourself a member of the ruling class, had you so chosen; and
    2) How did you bear it. Or was it to further your own position?
    I don't consider myself to be a member of the ruling class, more like an observer at the margins.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Bloody hell just reading that FT article about care homes.

    One of them had been owned by Guy Hands. And then Spencer Haber! Both ex-Lehman Bros. Surely anyone who has likewise worked at Lehman should hang their head in shame.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    FPT

    MaxPB said:

    Whenever the topic of care homes comes up the fact they're expensive is used as evidence they're profitable rather than simply considering that providing quality care is expensive.

    The thing that always strikes me as remarkable is that for every staff member on 24/7 requires FIVE full time equivalent staff.

    Philip, if there was no money in it they wouldn't be doing it. Quite simply the owners are a bunch of shysters who use opaque property holding companies to siphon cash from the companies and then post nominal losses to claim poverty. If care home companies were required to directly own the property they were present in or rent from a non-beneficial landlord it would "solve" the money problems overnight.
    That's a disgusting attitude Max that I'd expect far from left anti-business Marxists not yourself.

    Some owners may be shysters but that can happen in any industry, but that's far from universal or typical.

    That a business pays rent (or if not has debt to pay for a property) is not either a disgrace or unusual.

    The most expensive part of care, like the most expensive part of almost any business, is presumably the staffing. It takes FIVE full time equivalent staff per one person on the rota to provide 24/7 care - or another way of phrasing it is that even on minimum wage including National Insurance etc to have one person on costs the equivalent of nearly £60 per hour.
    In the care industry, the care company pays rent at over the odds to a separate (usually based in a tax haven) company also owned by the same person. It's a gigantic scam industry which incidentally looks after the sick and aged.

    Tackling the ownership structures and forcing them to rent from companies or individuals not linked to the directors or owners is an easy and uncontroversial change.
    I have a family member who works in a care home. The home is run by those well-known uber-capitalists - The Methodists.
    And who owns the property and what property management fees do they pay? I'm sure they do a great job with caring for people.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263

    We don't want to personally care for our parents.

    I thought we did this crap months ago?

    Caring for an elderly relative with dementia, or multiple other health problems is hard. It's not something you can do in your spare time while you hold down a full-time job to pay the mortgage on your small semi-detached (that doesn't have room for granny anyway).
    It can be done, and I did it for both of mine, with a full-time job and as an MP respectively - I'd sometimes have to break off from a constituency meeting to rush off for one emergency or another, but constituents understood. My parents preferred support for several hours a day and precautions at other times to care by strangers, and I never questioned whether it was reasonable - it was just part of the deal of being a family (the Russian bit of me, I guess - it's a common view there and in Southern and Eastern Europe). I find the British tradition of putting parents in care homes a bit chilling unless it's essential. But yes, it's tough, and I don't favour it as the only available model.
This discussion has been closed.