However on the point you thought I was making about prices - they do seem somewhat high, but I suspect we are talking about different things when we say refurbishing. However I suspect there are also some decorators who charge a lot more for the same service to the gullible rich.
I think the point is that -- in a building like No 10 -- you will need to use heritage craftspeople, not trustatrader.
If you need to replace a door, or some flooring, or a toilet cistern, then it will have to be constructed bespoke because the building & its interior is listed.
The bespoke door or flooring will need to be made by a craftsman. The cistern may have to be sourced from a specialist dealer or made bespoke.
That is how historic, listed buildings work.😉
I have no idea whether the DM story is true, whether the sum is 200k, but your analogy was always ridiculous.
I agree with the point you are making but we are talking about order of magnitude here. It is gross. And we are talking about decoration and furnishings. Now going back to my house (no please don't) my stairs and porch are solid oak and handmade. So how do you account for that difference? None of the stuff you mention even if by craftsman should cost this unless you are paying through the nose.
Your stairs and porch are bespoke solid oak, sure.
But if you replace something in Downing Street -- say a door -- then it will have to be exactly the same as the original.
In practice, this will need to be a bespoke door made by a craftsperson in the same style as the original and with the same original material (if it can even be still sourced).
The rates charged by heritage craftspeople are very different from the rates charged by builders. It is a completely different scale, and it probably is an order of magnitude.
(As the building is listed, then any changes will need listed building consent, and so this will be insisted upon -- it is not Boris' and PNN's choice).
Two genuinely stupid moves by Johnson yesterday and both can easily be linked. The first is this story about the No 10 refit which is just crass and stupid. It says Johnson is worried - well he bloody well should be. And if the story is true then he should be ashamed.
The second story - which for me is linked - is the idiotic decision to give NHS staff a pay rise below inflation. It just looks callous and makes a mockery of all the claims about how important they are and how much they are valued.
Yes things are tough and yes we can't keep splashing taxpayers money around all over the place without regard for the debt but a 1% pay rise is £340 million. So go for 5% and make it meaningful. As the study by the London Economics consultancy shows the Government will get most of that back anyway in increased taxes.
As OGH says. Very poor optics across the board yesterday for Johnson.
Agree 100%. I can live without a pay rise for next year - it would be nice but times are tough and I’m aware others are ahead in the queue - but after the year they’ve had NHS medical staff definitely deserve one. Especially nursing staff.
I actually think this ridiculously low one for a small number is worse than none at all. It looks tokenistic.
Personally, I have no problem with 1%, and a blanket payrise for all NHS staff is poorly targeted.
An extra 2 weeks paid holiday for all those who worked in covid units, to be taken later in the year for recovery would be my suggestion.
As would be investment in training, so redeployed staff are not punished for not acquiring the skills that they should have been developing. My registrar has been on covid ICU for 3 months so has missed a large chunk of her Specialist Training. She is at risk of missing career progression as a result.
Paid holiday is a great idea. Give them all £1,000 tax free to spend on it too.
But the next couple of years are also going to see the NHS under extreme stress as they deal with the vast backlog of treatment deferred. The staff are going to be under the cosh into the mid-distance.
And politically, unlike the NHS there are going to be so many people in the private sector who have lost their jobs, taken pay cuts, lost pensions. They might also rightly claim they have made a huge sacrifice in these times of Covid.
A nurse with 10 years service already gets 10 weeks holiday
Where does that number come from?
Royal College of Nursing says 33 days, which is 6 and a half weeks. Plus BH.
>on appointment: 27 days leave and eight general public holiday days after five years service: 29 days leave + eight days general public holiday days after 10 years service: 33 days leave + eight days general public holiday days.
Two genuinely stupid moves by Johnson yesterday and both can easily be linked. The first is this story about the No 10 refit which is just crass and stupid. It says Johnson is worried - well he bloody well should be. And if the story is true then he should be ashamed.
The second story - which for me is linked - is the idiotic decision to give NHS staff a pay rise below inflation. It just looks callous and makes a mockery of all the claims about how important they are and how much they are valued.
Yes things are tough and yes we can't keep splashing taxpayers money around all over the place without regard for the debt but a 1% pay rise is £340 million. So go for 5% and make it meaningful. As the study by the London Economics consultancy shows the Government will get most of that back anyway in increased taxes.
As OGH says. Very poor optics across the board yesterday for Johnson.
Agree 100%. I can live without a pay rise for next year - it would be nice but times are tough and I’m aware others are ahead in the queue - but after the year they’ve had NHS medical staff definitely deserve one. Especially nursing staff.
I actually think this ridiculously low one for a small number is worse than none at all. It looks tokenistic.
Personally, I have no problem with 1%, and a blanket payrise for all NHS staff is poorly targeted.
An extra 2 weeks paid holiday for all those who worked in covid units, to be taken later in the year for recovery would be my suggestion.
As would be investment in training, so redeployed staff are not punished for not acquiring the skills that they should have been developing. My registrar has been on covid ICU for 3 months so has missed a large chunk of her Specialist Training. She is at risk of missing career progression as a result.
Paid holiday is a great idea. Give them all £1,000 tax free to spend on it too.
But the next couple of years are also going to see the NHS under extreme stress as they deal with the vast backlog of treatment deferred. The staff are going to be under the cosh into the mid-distance.
And politically, unlike the NHS there are going to be so many people in the private sector who have lost their jobs, taken pay cuts, lost pensions. They might also rightly claim they have made a huge sacrifice in these times of Covid.
A nurse with 10 years service already gets 10 weeks holiday
One problem with 10 or so weeks holiday is that, as posted elsewhere, you can't afford to do much with all of it. Staff rotas are a bugger, too. Back in the day I used to get 7 weeks, plus Time in Lieu for nights and Sundays. I did know one or two people who tried to save them up for a major trip, but that was frowned upon.
This is certainly a huge problem in many private companies. A lot of the staff people I work with who get 25 days a year plus public but who also have to do additional time for operations and get it in lieu will get to the end of the year and find they still have 3 or 4 weeks worth of holiday that they just can't take. Most companies have a 'use it or lose it' policy as they can't afford to have staff build up huge amounts of holiday time and as a result giving people extra holiday time as a reward is pretty pointless.
It isn't true that nurses with 10 years service get 10 weeks annual leave.
"The following entitlements are taken from section 13 of the Afc handbook. This entitlement is for a full- time worker. Part-time staff receive a pro rata amount of annual leave and public holiday days.
on appointment: 27 days leave and eight general public holiday days after five years service: 29 days leave + eight days general public holiday days after 10 years service: 33 days leave + eight days general public holiday days."
From the RCN handbook.
So 6.6 weeks based on a WTE reduced pro rata for part time.
I see the hashtag #toryscum is trending. I wonder if the angry of Islington will ever realise that most people even they think something is wrong don't live in a perpetual state of outrage and hatred all the time, and this is actually putting the average person off.
To win Labour have two big jobs, neither close to being done yet: They have to explain convincingly what they are for when we have a Heseltine + Brexit+ populist style government spending money like water.
And they have to convince millions of people currently inclined to vote Tory that they don't believe that they are 'scum', 'vermin' etc but that they are bright centrists who vote both with their hearts and heads.
The Labour membership have lost so many Rochdale Pioneers (see yesterday's brilliant analysis) that the remaining ones are unable to get the point that you cannot get people to vote for you by calling them scum. This alone renders them unfit to govern.
This is hard, but the first problem - What is Labour for? - is harder.
What is Labour for? To provide a viable alternative government for the Conservative Party seems to be a good answer to me...
The EU has no interest in Northern Ireland’s future prosperity. It just sees it as a mechanism to exert its power. It is a constitutional outrage that British companies are not free to trade without restriction to all parts of the sovereign United Kingdom. The checks that are now being demanded by the EU are so disproportionate as to be totally unreasonable. The British government bent over backwards to make a compromise to meet EU concerns that the Single Market could be compromised, but its goodwill has been exploited at every turn.
At some point this has to stop, and the unilateral extension of the grace period is the inevitable consequence of EU inflexibility. It is not, as the Irish government unhelpfully says, a breach of international law. What it is, is a sign that Britain’s patience with the EU on this issue is about to expire.
Bollox. It is the compromise arrangement that we insisted on. It is the trade deal that we negotiated. It is the operational model we signed. The EU had no interest at all in interjecting itself into the internal matters of a post-EU UK, where anyone with a brain can see that a GB-NI border is bonkers.
So, we are back to the unsolvable issue of the intra-Irish border. It must be open and unimpeded, but has to provide the hard border between the EU and UK demanded by our government. They proposed that we stay in the customs union and aligned to EU standards until a technology solution could be found. No, WE LEAVE NOW we demanded. Which means the only other place for the border is the Irish Sea.
Why do you think the Boris Burrows all lead to the Isle of Man? We have to put the customs post for the Boris Border somewhere, and the IoM fancies running duty free stores.
He's not cutting the mustard. That's all there is to it.
It's an excuse but a lot of old Labour seats and councils are lost to Labour until the Tories completely screw up.
If you look at all the Red Wall seats and councils the direction of travel is still towards the Tories and away from Labour partly because the Labour party is seen as responsible for all the local austerity and council spending cuts between 2010 -2017 as they were in power then...
The Tories have a big advantage of taking control of those seats and councils just as the spending taps were (slightly) repaired..
Two genuinely stupid moves by Johnson yesterday and both can easily be linked. The first is this story about the No 10 refit which is just crass and stupid. It says Johnson is worried - well he bloody well should be. And if the story is true then he should be ashamed.
The second story - which for me is linked - is the idiotic decision to give NHS staff a pay rise below inflation. It just looks callous and makes a mockery of all the claims about how important they are and how much they are valued.
Yes things are tough and yes we can't keep splashing taxpayers money around all over the place without regard for the debt but a 1% pay rise is £340 million. So go for 5% and make it meaningful. As the study by the London Economics consultancy shows the Government will get most of that back anyway in increased taxes.
As OGH says. Very poor optics across the board yesterday for Johnson.
Agree 100%. I can live without a pay rise for next year - it would be nice but times are tough and I’m aware others are ahead in the queue - but after the year they’ve had NHS medical staff definitely deserve one. Especially nursing staff.
I actually think this ridiculously low one for a small number is worse than none at all. It looks tokenistic.
Personally, I have no problem with 1%, and a blanket payrise for all NHS staff is poorly targeted.
An extra 2 weeks paid holiday for all those who worked in covid units, to be taken later in the year for recovery would be my suggestion.
As would be investment in training, so redeployed staff are not punished for not acquiring the skills that they should have been developing. My registrar has been on covid ICU for 3 months so has missed a large chunk of her Specialist Training. She is at risk of missing career progression as a result.
Paid holiday is a great idea. Give them all £1,000 tax free to spend on it too.
But the next couple of years are also going to see the NHS under extreme stress as they deal with the vast backlog of treatment deferred. The staff are going to be under the cosh into the mid-distance.
And politically, unlike the NHS there are going to be so many people in the private sector who have lost their jobs, taken pay cuts, lost pensions. They might also rightly claim they have made a huge sacrifice in these times of Covid.
A nurse with 10 years service already gets 10 weeks holiday
One problem with 10 or so weeks holiday is that, as posted elsewhere, you can't afford to do much with all of it. Staff rotas are a bugger, too. Back in the day I used to get 7 weeks, plus Time in Lieu for nights and Sundays. I did know one or two people who tried to save them up for a major trip, but that was frowned upon.
This is certainly a huge problem in many private companies. A lot of the staff people I work with who get 25 days a year plus public but who also have to do additional time for operations and get it in lieu will get to the end of the year and find they still have 3 or 4 weeks worth of holiday that they just can't take. Most companies have a 'use it or lose it' policy as they can't afford to have staff build up huge amounts of holiday time and as a result giving people extra holiday time as a reward is pretty pointless.
It isn't true that nurses with 10 years service get 10 weeks annual leave.
"The following entitlements are taken from section 13 of the Afc handbook. This entitlement is for a full- time worker. Part-time staff receive a pro rata amount of annual leave and public holiday days.
on appointment: 27 days leave and eight general public holiday days after five years service: 29 days leave + eight days general public holiday days after 10 years service: 33 days leave + eight days general public holiday days."
From the RCN handbook.
So 6.6 weeks based on a WTE reduced pro rata for part time.
Two genuinely stupid moves by Johnson yesterday and both can easily be linked. The first is this story about the No 10 refit which is just crass and stupid. It says Johnson is worried - well he bloody well should be. And if the story is true then he should be ashamed.
The second story - which for me is linked - is the idiotic decision to give NHS staff a pay rise below inflation. It just looks callous and makes a mockery of all the claims about how important they are and how much they are valued.
Yes things are tough and yes we can't keep splashing taxpayers money around all over the place without regard for the debt but a 1% pay rise is £340 million. So go for 5% and make it meaningful. As the study by the London Economics consultancy shows the Government will get most of that back anyway in increased taxes.
As OGH says. Very poor optics across the board yesterday for Johnson.
Agree 100%. I can live without a pay rise for next year - it would be nice but times are tough and I’m aware others are ahead in the queue - but after the year they’ve had NHS medical staff definitely deserve one. Especially nursing staff.
I actually think this ridiculously low one for a small number is worse than none at all. It looks tokenistic.
Personally, I have no problem with 1%, and a blanket payrise for all NHS staff is poorly targeted.
An extra 2 weeks paid holiday for all those who worked in covid units, to be taken later in the year for recovery would be my suggestion.
As would be investment in training, so redeployed staff are not punished for not acquiring the skills that they should have been developing. My registrar has been on covid ICU for 3 months so has missed a large chunk of her Specialist Training. She is at risk of missing career progression as a result.
Paid holiday is a great idea. Give them all £1,000 tax free to spend on it too.
But the next couple of years are also going to see the NHS under extreme stress as they deal with the vast backlog of treatment deferred. The staff are going to be under the cosh into the mid-distance.
And politically, unlike the NHS there are going to be so many people in the private sector who have lost their jobs, taken pay cuts, lost pensions. They might also rightly claim they have made a huge sacrifice in these times of Covid.
A nurse with 10 years service already gets 10 weeks holiday
One problem with 10 or so weeks holiday is that, as posted elsewhere, you can't afford to do much with all of it. Staff rotas are a bugger, too. Back in the day I used to get 7 weeks, plus Time in Lieu for nights and Sundays. I did know one or two people who tried to save them up for a major trip, but that was frowned upon.
This is certainly a huge problem in many private companies. A lot of the staff people I work with who get 25 days a year plus public but who also have to do additional time for operations and get it in lieu will get to the end of the year and find they still have 3 or 4 weeks worth of holiday that they just can't take. Most companies have a 'use it or lose it' policy as they can't afford to have staff build up huge amounts of holiday time and as a result giving people extra holiday time as a reward is pretty pointless.
It isn't true that nurses with 10 years service get 10 weeks annual leave.
"The following entitlements are taken from section 13 of the Afc handbook. This entitlement is for a full- time worker. Part-time staff receive a pro rata amount of annual leave and public holiday days.
on appointment: 27 days leave and eight general public holiday days after five years service: 29 days leave + eight days general public holiday days after 10 years service: 33 days leave + eight days general public holiday days."
From the RCN handbook.
So 6.6 weeks based on a WTE reduced pro rata for part time.
Id call it eight weeks as would include the public holidays but I guess that does depend on perspective.
I see the hashtag #toryscum is trending. I wonder if the angry of Islington will ever realise that most people even they think something is wrong don't live in a perpetual state of outrage and hatred all the time, and this is actually putting the average person off.
To win Labour have two big jobs, neither close to being done yet: They have to explain convincingly what they are for when we have a Heseltine + Brexit+ populist style government spending money like water.
And they have to convince millions of people currently inclined to vote Tory that they don't believe that they are 'scum', 'vermin' etc but that they are bright centrists who vote both with their hearts and heads.
The Labour membership have lost so many Rochdale Pioneers (see yesterday's brilliant analysis) that the remaining ones are unable to get the point that you cannot get people to vote for you by calling them scum. This alone renders them unfit to govern.
This is hard, but the first problem - What is Labour for? - is harder.
What is Labour for? To provide a viable alternative government for the Conservative Party seems to be a good answer to me...
So when are they going to start providing that?
That is what I think the Labour Party should be for, not necessarily what they are currently doing.
I see the hashtag #toryscum is trending. I wonder if the angry of Islington will ever realise that most people even they think something is wrong don't live in a perpetual state of outrage and hatred all the time, and this is actually putting the average person off.
To win Labour have two big jobs, neither close to being done yet: They have to explain convincingly what they are for when we have a Heseltine + Brexit+ populist style government spending money like water.
And they have to convince millions of people currently inclined to vote Tory that they don't believe that they are 'scum', 'vermin' etc but that they are bright centrists who vote both with their hearts and heads.
The Labour membership have lost so many Rochdale Pioneers (see yesterday's brilliant analysis) that the remaining ones are unable to get the point that you cannot get people to vote for you by calling them scum. This alone renders them unfit to govern.
This is hard, but the first problem - What is Labour for? - is harder.
They do have to answer that question. My nutshell answer would be - to build a society far more equal than the one we have today.
But the Cons have to answer the same question. They have done the one and only serious thing they were elected to do - deliver Leave - and are now devoid of any purpose other than staying in power. You could see this with that hotchpotch of a budget. Ok, all looks good for them right now, the vaccine delivering us early from the pandemic, but I predict this will change and well before the election. Difficult choices lie ahead and the government will not be able to flunk them all. Plenty of people will get pissed off and this will include some of those who voted for them last time.
So, although I share the concerns about the current polls, and about Starmer not cutting through, Labour should imo not be panicking at this point.
We know from work with military PTSD and combat fatigue that short periods of rest and group discussion are very effective at maintaining morale and cohesion. This can be both formal counselling or informal R and R in the style of @Dura_Ace.
Also...
In my experience it's really important to try to retain people in the institution after the period of maximum trauma so they are in a somewhat familiar structure. Leaving everything behind immediately might seem like a good idea but my observation is that it's not.
I am sure there will be plenty of people who feel like quitting the NHS after the Goldman Sachs Elf's 1% kick in the teeth but the conditions for recovery and recuperation are worse on the outside.
I went straight from the mean streets of Basra to unemployed in four days and was utterly lost. I went into my parents' garden shed and stayed in it for nearly a year talking only to the dog. Comrades who experienced far worse than me but stayed in for a few years in a low pressure job seemed to cope much better.
Yes, I would heartily agree. Sometimes being put in charge of the paperclips for a while is the right thing to do before getting back to either frontline or discharge.
Veterans services are very poor in the UK.
Agree with that.
ISTM that if trauma does not have space to be addressed / let out / absorbed (prob. wrong words - but you know) will pop out somewhere else later on and hurt both the person themselves, and people around them.
We know about armed forces people ending up rudderless and homeless. We also know about (I think) elevated domestic abuse rates in police families - though I am not sure of specific UK research.
I'd see that as part of the duty of care to people we ask to take those roles on our behalf.
I see the hashtag #toryscum is trending. I wonder if the angry of Islington will ever realise that most people even they think something is wrong don't live in a perpetual state of outrage and hatred all the time, and this is actually putting the average person off.
To win Labour have two big jobs, neither close to being done yet: They have to explain convincingly what they are for when we have a Heseltine + Brexit+ populist style government spending money like water.
And they have to convince millions of people currently inclined to vote Tory that they don't believe that they are 'scum', 'vermin' etc but that they are bright centrists who vote both with their hearts and heads.
The Labour membership have lost so many Rochdale Pioneers (see yesterday's brilliant analysis) that the remaining ones are unable to get the point that you cannot get people to vote for you by calling them scum. This alone renders them unfit to govern.
This is hard, but the first problem - What is Labour for? - is harder.
They do have to answer that question. My nutshell answer would be - to build a society far more equal than the one we have today.
But the Cons have to answer the same question. They have done the one and only serious thing they were elected to do - deliver Leave - and are now devoid of any purpose other than staying in power. You could see this with that hotchpotch of a budget. Ok, all looks good for them right now, the vaccine delivering us early from the pandemic, but I predict this will change and well before the election. Difficult choices lie ahead and the government will not be able to flunk them all. Plenty of people will get pissed off and this will include some of those who voted for them last time.
So, although I share the concerns about the current polls, and about Starmer not cutting through, Labour should imo not be panicking at this point.
I think the Tories have a lot riding on what is done with these "consultations".
The EU has no interest in Northern Ireland’s future prosperity. It just sees it as a mechanism to exert its power. It is a constitutional outrage that British companies are not free to trade without restriction to all parts of the sovereign United Kingdom. The checks that are now being demanded by the EU are so disproportionate as to be totally unreasonable. The British government bent over backwards to make a compromise to meet EU concerns that the Single Market could be compromised, but its goodwill has been exploited at every turn.
At some point this has to stop, and the unilateral extension of the grace period is the inevitable consequence of EU inflexibility. It is not, as the Irish government unhelpfully says, a breach of international law. What it is, is a sign that Britain’s patience with the EU on this issue is about to expire.
Bollox. It is the compromise arrangement that we insisted on. It is the trade deal that we negotiated. It is the operational model we signed. The EU had no interest at all in interjecting itself into the internal matters of a post-EU UK, where anyone with a brain can see that a GB-NI border is bonkers.
So, we are back to the unsolvable issue of the intra-Irish border. It must be open and unimpeded, but has to provide the hard border between the EU and UK demanded by our government. They proposed that we stay in the customs union and aligned to EU standards until a technology solution could be found. No, WE LEAVE NOW we demanded. Which means the only other place for the border is the Irish Sea.
Why do you think the Boris Burrows all lead to the Isle of Man? We have to put the customs post for the Boris Border somewhere, and the IoM fancies running duty free stores.
No. Just don't have a hard border anywhere, problem solved. Fudge is the spirit of the GFA.
Even if it is 200k why doesn't Boris pay for it himself ?
After he leaves politics he'll be able to 'earn' that much by giving a speech or two.
Boris Johnson is not a man of sound personal finances.
Remember back in 2008 when Ken Livingstone challenged Boris Johnson to publish his tax returns hoping to find tax dodges only to find that Johnson was on PAYE for everything and paying way more tax than he should than if he went limited liability.
Remember Johnson has two ex wives and countless kids to support.
I suspect every future bit of income is already spoken for.
So what you're saying is he's not dodgy and plays by both the spirit and letter of the tax rules despite people assuming he would be dodging his taxes?
Even if it is 200k why doesn't Boris pay for it himself ?
After he leaves politics he'll be able to 'earn' that much by giving a speech or two.
Boris Johnson is not a man of sound personal finances.
Remember back in 2008 when Ken Livingstone challenged Boris Johnson to publish his tax returns hoping to find tax dodges only to find that Johnson was on PAYE for everything and paying way more tax than he should than if he went limited liability.
Remember Johnson has two ex wives and countless kids to support.
I suspect every future bit of income is already spoken for.
So what you're saying is he's not dodgy and plays by both the spirit and letter of the tax rules despite people assuming he would be dodging his taxes?
Two genuinely stupid moves by Johnson yesterday and both can easily be linked. The first is this story about the No 10 refit which is just crass and stupid. It says Johnson is worried - well he bloody well should be. And if the story is true then he should be ashamed.
The second story - which for me is linked - is the idiotic decision to give NHS staff a pay rise below inflation. It just looks callous and makes a mockery of all the claims about how important they are and how much they are valued.
Yes things are tough and yes we can't keep splashing taxpayers money around all over the place without regard for the debt but a 1% pay rise is £340 million. So go for 5% and make it meaningful. As the study by the London Economics consultancy shows the Government will get most of that back anyway in increased taxes.
As OGH says. Very poor optics across the board yesterday for Johnson.
Agree 100%. I can live without a pay rise for next year - it would be nice but times are tough and I’m aware others are ahead in the queue - but after the year they’ve had NHS medical staff definitely deserve one. Especially nursing staff.
I actually think this ridiculously low one for a small number is worse than none at all. It looks tokenistic.
Personally, I have no problem with 1%, and a blanket payrise for all NHS staff is poorly targeted.
An extra 2 weeks paid holiday for all those who worked in covid units, to be taken later in the year for recovery would be my suggestion.
As would be investment in training, so redeployed staff are not punished for not acquiring the skills that they should have been developing. My registrar has been on covid ICU for 3 months so has missed a large chunk of her Specialist Training. She is at risk of missing career progression as a result.
Paid holiday is a great idea. Give them all £1,000 tax free to spend on it too.
But the next couple of years are also going to see the NHS under extreme stress as they deal with the vast backlog of treatment deferred. The staff are going to be under the cosh into the mid-distance.
And politically, unlike the NHS there are going to be so many people in the private sector who have lost their jobs, taken pay cuts, lost pensions. They might also rightly claim they have made a huge sacrifice in these times of Covid.
A nurse with 10 years service already gets 10 weeks holiday
One problem with 10 or so weeks holiday is that, as posted elsewhere, you can't afford to do much with all of it. Staff rotas are a bugger, too. Back in the day I used to get 7 weeks, plus Time in Lieu for nights and Sundays. I did know one or two people who tried to save them up for a major trip, but that was frowned upon.
This is certainly a huge problem in many private companies. A lot of the staff people I work with who get 25 days a year plus public but who also have to do additional time for operations and get it in lieu will get to the end of the year and find they still have 3 or 4 weeks worth of holiday that they just can't take. Most companies have a 'use it or lose it' policy as they can't afford to have staff build up huge amounts of holiday time and as a result giving people extra holiday time as a reward is pretty pointless.
It isn't true that nurses with 10 years service get 10 weeks annual leave.
"The following entitlements are taken from section 13 of the Afc handbook. This entitlement is for a full- time worker. Part-time staff receive a pro rata amount of annual leave and public holiday days.
on appointment: 27 days leave and eight general public holiday days after five years service: 29 days leave + eight days general public holiday days after 10 years service: 33 days leave + eight days general public holiday days."
From the RCN handbook.
So 6.6 weeks based on a WTE reduced pro rata for part time.
How is 41 days 6.6 weeks? It is 8.2 surely.
Public holidays count.
Not 10 weeks though.
The statutory minimum is 28 days, at least pre Brexit, so only 13 days more than the legal minimum. Obviously Nurses work more Bank Holidays than most professions, so get more lieu days.
After 32 years service, I get 32 days plus 8 BH, so not very different.
Even if it is 200k why doesn't Boris pay for it himself ?
After he leaves politics he'll be able to 'earn' that much by giving a speech or two.
Boris Johnson is not a man of sound personal finances.
Remember back in 2008 when Ken Livingstone challenged Boris Johnson to publish his tax returns hoping to find tax dodges only to find that Johnson was on PAYE for everything and paying way more tax than he should than if he went limited liability.
Remember Johnson has two ex wives and countless kids to support.
I suspect every future bit of income is already spoken for.
So what you're saying is he's not dodgy and plays by both the spirit and letter of the tax rules despite people assuming he would be dodging his taxes?
The EU has no interest in Northern Ireland’s future prosperity. It just sees it as a mechanism to exert its power. It is a constitutional outrage that British companies are not free to trade without restriction to all parts of the sovereign United Kingdom. The checks that are now being demanded by the EU are so disproportionate as to be totally unreasonable. The British government bent over backwards to make a compromise to meet EU concerns that the Single Market could be compromised, but its goodwill has been exploited at every turn.
At some point this has to stop, and the unilateral extension of the grace period is the inevitable consequence of EU inflexibility. It is not, as the Irish government unhelpfully says, a breach of international law. What it is, is a sign that Britain’s patience with the EU on this issue is about to expire.
Bollox. It is the compromise arrangement that we insisted on. It is the trade deal that we negotiated. It is the operational model we signed. The EU had no interest at all in interjecting itself into the internal matters of a post-EU UK, where anyone with a brain can see that a GB-NI border is bonkers.
So, we are back to the unsolvable issue of the intra-Irish border. It must be open and unimpeded, but has to provide the hard border between the EU and UK demanded by our government. They proposed that we stay in the customs union and aligned to EU standards until a technology solution could be found. No, WE LEAVE NOW we demanded. Which means the only other place for the border is the Irish Sea.
Why do you think the Boris Burrows all lead to the Isle of Man? We have to put the customs post for the Boris Border somewhere, and the IoM fancies running duty free stores.
No. Just don't have a hard border anywhere, problem solved. Fudge is the spirit of the GFA.
Fudge cannot be law.
It is Brexit that created that border, and the Brexiteers who decided to put it in the Irish Sea.
That is what we agreed to in the "oven ready deal".
The EU has no interest in Northern Ireland’s future prosperity. It just sees it as a mechanism to exert its power. It is a constitutional outrage that British companies are not free to trade without restriction to all parts of the sovereign United Kingdom. The checks that are now being demanded by the EU are so disproportionate as to be totally unreasonable. The British government bent over backwards to make a compromise to meet EU concerns that the Single Market could be compromised, but its goodwill has been exploited at every turn.
At some point this has to stop, and the unilateral extension of the grace period is the inevitable consequence of EU inflexibility. It is not, as the Irish government unhelpfully says, a breach of international law. What it is, is a sign that Britain’s patience with the EU on this issue is about to expire.
Bollox. It is the compromise arrangement that we insisted on. It is the trade deal that we negotiated. It is the operational model we signed. The EU had no interest at all in interjecting itself into the internal matters of a post-EU UK, where anyone with a brain can see that a GB-NI border is bonkers.
So, we are back to the unsolvable issue of the intra-Irish border. It must be open and unimpeded, but has to provide the hard border between the EU and UK demanded by our government. They proposed that we stay in the customs union and aligned to EU standards until a technology solution could be found. No, WE LEAVE NOW we demanded. Which means the only other place for the border is the Irish Sea.
Why do you think the Boris Burrows all lead to the Isle of Man? We have to put the customs post for the Boris Border somewhere, and the IoM fancies running duty free stores.
There are two massive false statements in what you have written there.
1. It was not the UK Government that insisted on there being a hard border between the UK and EU - it was the EU. To protect their precious Single Market.
2. There was never a suggestion from the EU that we remain in the Customs Union. Indeed it is completely impossible under the basic treaties that form the foundation of the EU. The only way to stay in the CU is to stay in the EU.
Two genuinely stupid moves by Johnson yesterday and both can easily be linked. The first is this story about the No 10 refit which is just crass and stupid. It says Johnson is worried - well he bloody well should be. And if the story is true then he should be ashamed.
The second story - which for me is linked - is the idiotic decision to give NHS staff a pay rise below inflation. It just looks callous and makes a mockery of all the claims about how important they are and how much they are valued.
Yes things are tough and yes we can't keep splashing taxpayers money around all over the place without regard for the debt but a 1% pay rise is £340 million. So go for 5% and make it meaningful. As the study by the London Economics consultancy shows the Government will get most of that back anyway in increased taxes.
As OGH says. Very poor optics across the board yesterday for Johnson.
Agree 100%. I can live without a pay rise for next year - it would be nice but times are tough and I’m aware others are ahead in the queue - but after the year they’ve had NHS medical staff definitely deserve one. Especially nursing staff.
I actually think this ridiculously low one for a small number is worse than none at all. It looks tokenistic.
Personally, I have no problem with 1%, and a blanket payrise for all NHS staff is poorly targeted.
An extra 2 weeks paid holiday for all those who worked in covid units, to be taken later in the year for recovery would be my suggestion.
As would be investment in training, so redeployed staff are not punished for not acquiring the skills that they should have been developing. My registrar has been on covid ICU for 3 months so has missed a large chunk of her Specialist Training. She is at risk of missing career progression as a result.
Paid holiday is a great idea. Give them all £1,000 tax free to spend on it too.
But the next couple of years are also going to see the NHS under extreme stress as they deal with the vast backlog of treatment deferred. The staff are going to be under the cosh into the mid-distance.
And politically, unlike the NHS there are going to be so many people in the private sector who have lost their jobs, taken pay cuts, lost pensions. They might also rightly claim they have made a huge sacrifice in these times of Covid.
A nurse with 10 years service already gets 10 weeks holiday
One problem with 10 or so weeks holiday is that, as posted elsewhere, you can't afford to do much with all of it. Staff rotas are a bugger, too. Back in the day I used to get 7 weeks, plus Time in Lieu for nights and Sundays. I did know one or two people who tried to save them up for a major trip, but that was frowned upon.
This is certainly a huge problem in many private companies. A lot of the staff people I work with who get 25 days a year plus public but who also have to do additional time for operations and get it in lieu will get to the end of the year and find they still have 3 or 4 weeks worth of holiday that they just can't take. Most companies have a 'use it or lose it' policy as they can't afford to have staff build up huge amounts of holiday time and as a result giving people extra holiday time as a reward is pretty pointless.
It isn't true that nurses with 10 years service get 10 weeks annual leave.
"The following entitlements are taken from section 13 of the Afc handbook. This entitlement is for a full- time worker. Part-time staff receive a pro rata amount of annual leave and public holiday days.
on appointment: 27 days leave and eight general public holiday days after five years service: 29 days leave + eight days general public holiday days after 10 years service: 33 days leave + eight days general public holiday days."
From the RCN handbook.
So 6.6 weeks based on a WTE reduced pro rata for part time.
How is 41 days 6.6 weeks? It is 8.2 surely.
Public holidays count.
Not 10 weeks though.
The statutory minimum is 28 days, at least pre Brexit, so only 13 days more than the legal minimum. Obviously Nurses work more Bank Holidays than most professions, so get more lieu days.
After 32 years service, I get 32 days plus 8 BH, so not very different.
If they are getting lieu days for bank holidays then its getting pretty close to ten weeks. Work four of them, get 45 days = 9 weeks. Much of the workforce doesnt get additional days off for working bank holidays.
The EU has no interest in Northern Ireland’s future prosperity. It just sees it as a mechanism to exert its power. It is a constitutional outrage that British companies are not free to trade without restriction to all parts of the sovereign United Kingdom. The checks that are now being demanded by the EU are so disproportionate as to be totally unreasonable. The British government bent over backwards to make a compromise to meet EU concerns that the Single Market could be compromised, but its goodwill has been exploited at every turn.
At some point this has to stop, and the unilateral extension of the grace period is the inevitable consequence of EU inflexibility. It is not, as the Irish government unhelpfully says, a breach of international law. What it is, is a sign that Britain’s patience with the EU on this issue is about to expire.
Bollox. It is the compromise arrangement that we insisted on. It is the trade deal that we negotiated. It is the operational model we signed. The EU had no interest at all in interjecting itself into the internal matters of a post-EU UK, where anyone with a brain can see that a GB-NI border is bonkers.
So, we are back to the unsolvable issue of the intra-Irish border. It must be open and unimpeded, but has to provide the hard border between the EU and UK demanded by our government. They proposed that we stay in the customs union and aligned to EU standards until a technology solution could be found. No, WE LEAVE NOW we demanded. Which means the only other place for the border is the Irish Sea.
Why do you think the Boris Burrows all lead to the Isle of Man? We have to put the customs post for the Boris Border somewhere, and the IoM fancies running duty free stores.
No. Just don't have a hard border anywhere, problem solved. Fudge is the spirit of the GFA.
Protecting the integrity of the SM was the EU's one and only true red line. That violates it.
The EU has no interest in Northern Ireland’s future prosperity. It just sees it as a mechanism to exert its power. It is a constitutional outrage that British companies are not free to trade without restriction to all parts of the sovereign United Kingdom. The checks that are now being demanded by the EU are so disproportionate as to be totally unreasonable. The British government bent over backwards to make a compromise to meet EU concerns that the Single Market could be compromised, but its goodwill has been exploited at every turn.
At some point this has to stop, and the unilateral extension of the grace period is the inevitable consequence of EU inflexibility. It is not, as the Irish government unhelpfully says, a breach of international law. What it is, is a sign that Britain’s patience with the EU on this issue is about to expire.
Bollox. It is the compromise arrangement that we insisted on. It is the trade deal that we negotiated. It is the operational model we signed. The EU had no interest at all in interjecting itself into the internal matters of a post-EU UK, where anyone with a brain can see that a GB-NI border is bonkers.
So, we are back to the unsolvable issue of the intra-Irish border. It must be open and unimpeded, but has to provide the hard border between the EU and UK demanded by our government. They proposed that we stay in the customs union and aligned to EU standards until a technology solution could be found. No, WE LEAVE NOW we demanded. Which means the only other place for the border is the Irish Sea.
Why do you think the Boris Burrows all lead to the Isle of Man? We have to put the customs post for the Boris Border somewhere, and the IoM fancies running duty free stores.
No. Just don't have a hard border anywhere, problem solved. Fudge is the spirit of the GFA.
Suits me! But we want to take back control of our borders and stop foreign types wandering in...
I see the hashtag #toryscum is trending. I wonder if the angry of Islington will ever realise that most people even they think something is wrong don't live in a perpetual state of outrage and hatred all the time, and this is actually putting the average person off.
To win Labour have two big jobs, neither close to being done yet: They have to explain convincingly what they are for when we have a Heseltine + Brexit+ populist style government spending money like water.
And they have to convince millions of people currently inclined to vote Tory that they don't believe that they are 'scum', 'vermin' etc but that they are bright centrists who vote both with their hearts and heads.
The Labour membership have lost so many Rochdale Pioneers (see yesterday's brilliant analysis) that the remaining ones are unable to get the point that you cannot get people to vote for you by calling them scum. This alone renders them unfit to govern.
This is hard, but the first problem - What is Labour for? - is harder.
What is Labour for? To provide a viable alternative government for the Conservative Party seems to be a good answer to me...
An alternative to the Tories that is materially different on principles and policy.
Otherwise we get back to the original question - what is Labour for?
The EU has no interest in Northern Ireland’s future prosperity. It just sees it as a mechanism to exert its power. It is a constitutional outrage that British companies are not free to trade without restriction to all parts of the sovereign United Kingdom. The checks that are now being demanded by the EU are so disproportionate as to be totally unreasonable. The British government bent over backwards to make a compromise to meet EU concerns that the Single Market could be compromised, but its goodwill has been exploited at every turn.
At some point this has to stop, and the unilateral extension of the grace period is the inevitable consequence of EU inflexibility. It is not, as the Irish government unhelpfully says, a breach of international law. What it is, is a sign that Britain’s patience with the EU on this issue is about to expire.
Bollox. It is the compromise arrangement that we insisted on. It is the trade deal that we negotiated. It is the operational model we signed. The EU had no interest at all in interjecting itself into the internal matters of a post-EU UK, where anyone with a brain can see that a GB-NI border is bonkers.
So, we are back to the unsolvable issue of the intra-Irish border. It must be open and unimpeded, but has to provide the hard border between the EU and UK demanded by our government. They proposed that we stay in the customs union and aligned to EU standards until a technology solution could be found. No, WE LEAVE NOW we demanded. Which means the only other place for the border is the Irish Sea.
Why do you think the Boris Burrows all lead to the Isle of Man? We have to put the customs post for the Boris Border somewhere, and the IoM fancies running duty free stores.
There are two massive false statements in what you have written there.
1. It was not the UK Government that insisted on there being a hard border between the UK and EU - it was the EU. To protect their precious Single Market.
2. There was never a suggestion from the EU that we remain in the Customs Union. Indeed it is completely impossible under the basic treaties that form the foundation of the EU. The only way to stay in the CU is to stay in the EU.
False? We demanded 3rd country status. Not them. And it is A customs union, not THE customs union as well you know.
Even if it is 200k why doesn't Boris pay for it himself ?
After he leaves politics he'll be able to 'earn' that much by giving a speech or two.
Boris Johnson is not a man of sound personal finances.
Remember back in 2008 when Ken Livingstone challenged Boris Johnson to publish his tax returns hoping to find tax dodges only to find that Johnson was on PAYE for everything and paying way more tax than he should than if he went limited liability.
Remember Johnson has two ex wives and countless kids to support.
I suspect every future bit of income is already spoken for.
IIRC didn't it turn out that it was Ken who was the one who was making use of all the tax avoidance tricks? And Boris did basically nothing to minimise his taxes.
Yes.
The timing was interesting. Boris stopped using the personal company tax structure *before* the MPs expenses scandal - IIRC it was around the time that first mutterings were made about expenses. This was before he got the big Telegraph column thing.
Given that *everyone* in politics/journalism was using this structure - effectively working as contractors for the purposes of press payments - he must of asked for it quite deliberately.
So Boris went PAYE and paid a lot more tax than required - and it must have been deliberate.
My guess is that he did this as an elephant trap for the future.
The big fee for the Telegraph column was the subject of much envy at Westminster. It was inevitable that a future opponent would bring it up. And it would be almost certain that any opponent would be using the same structure. As Ken was.
He's not cutting the mustard. That's all there is to it.
I won't vote for him but I think that is spot on actually*. I think all of the polls at the moment are just noise and garbage. Wait a year at least and then look at where they stand before deciding whether Starmer is a waste of space or not.
Personally I can easily see him becoming PM in 3 years time. But as in almost all these things it is almost entirely dependent on how badly the Tories screw things up or how well they succeed.
Two genuinely stupid moves by Johnson yesterday and both can easily be linked. The first is this story about the No 10 refit which is just crass and stupid. It says Johnson is worried - well he bloody well should be. And if the story is true then he should be ashamed.
The second story - which for me is linked - is the idiotic decision to give NHS staff a pay rise below inflation. It just looks callous and makes a mockery of all the claims about how important they are and how much they are valued.
Yes things are tough and yes we can't keep splashing taxpayers money around all over the place without regard for the debt but a 1% pay rise is £340 million. So go for 5% and make it meaningful. As the study by the London Economics consultancy shows the Government will get most of that back anyway in increased taxes.
As OGH says. Very poor optics across the board yesterday for Johnson.
Agree 100%. I can live without a pay rise for next year - it would be nice but times are tough and I’m aware others are ahead in the queue - but after the year they’ve had NHS medical staff definitely deserve one. Especially nursing staff.
I actually think this ridiculously low one for a small number is worse than none at all. It looks tokenistic.
Personally, I have no problem with 1%, and a blanket payrise for all NHS staff is poorly targeted.
An extra 2 weeks paid holiday for all those who worked in covid units, to be taken later in the year for recovery would be my suggestion.
As would be investment in training, so redeployed staff are not punished for not acquiring the skills that they should have been developing. My registrar has been on covid ICU for 3 months so has missed a large chunk of her Specialist Training. She is at risk of missing career progression as a result.
Paid holiday is a great idea. Give them all £1,000 tax free to spend on it too.
But the next couple of years are also going to see the NHS under extreme stress as they deal with the vast backlog of treatment deferred. The staff are going to be under the cosh into the mid-distance.
And politically, unlike the NHS there are going to be so many people in the private sector who have lost their jobs, taken pay cuts, lost pensions. They might also rightly claim they have made a huge sacrifice in these times of Covid.
A nurse with 10 years service already gets 10 weeks holiday
One problem with 10 or so weeks holiday is that, as posted elsewhere, you can't afford to do much with all of it. Staff rotas are a bugger, too. Back in the day I used to get 7 weeks, plus Time in Lieu for nights and Sundays. I did know one or two people who tried to save them up for a major trip, but that was frowned upon.
This is certainly a huge problem in many private companies. A lot of the staff people I work with who get 25 days a year plus public but who also have to do additional time for operations and get it in lieu will get to the end of the year and find they still have 3 or 4 weeks worth of holiday that they just can't take. Most companies have a 'use it or lose it' policy as they can't afford to have staff build up huge amounts of holiday time and as a result giving people extra holiday time as a reward is pretty pointless.
It isn't true that nurses with 10 years service get 10 weeks annual leave.
"The following entitlements are taken from section 13 of the Afc handbook. This entitlement is for a full- time worker. Part-time staff receive a pro rata amount of annual leave and public holiday days.
on appointment: 27 days leave and eight general public holiday days after five years service: 29 days leave + eight days general public holiday days after 10 years service: 33 days leave + eight days general public holiday days."
From the RCN handbook.
So 6.6 weeks based on a WTE reduced pro rata for part time.
How is 41 days 6.6 weeks? It is 8.2 surely.
Public holidays count.
Not 10 weeks though.
The statutory minimum is 28 days, at least pre Brexit, so only 13 days more than the legal minimum. Obviously Nurses work more Bank Holidays than most professions, so get more lieu days.
After 32 years service, I get 32 days plus 8 BH, so not very different.
If they are getting lieu days for bank holidays then its getting pretty close to ten weeks. Work four of them, get 45 days = 9 weeks. Much of the workforce doesnt get additional days off for working bank holidays.
No, work 4 bank holidays then 4 days are lost and then switched to other days (I think). So still 41 days. You get to take the BH quota on other days instead, you don't get double.
I get 38, BH included and did from day one (university) so arguably more generous over a career than for a nurse. In a previous 'new' university it was 35 + 8BH = 43, also from day one (hmmm, why did I leave!). Professional private sector seems to be 25 standard plus BH, but often with ability to buy more. That was case for my wife, she bought a week to match me and still got paid more than me net. She could have bought two weeks (maximum) and still got paid more than me!
There are of course plenty of people with worse holiday than nurses. Plenty with worse pay too, but their package is by no means extraordinary for the skill/qualification level.
I see the hashtag #toryscum is trending. I wonder if the angry of Islington will ever realise that most people even they think something is wrong don't live in a perpetual state of outrage and hatred all the time, and this is actually putting the average person off.
To win Labour have two big jobs, neither close to being done yet: They have to explain convincingly what they are for when we have a Heseltine + Brexit+ populist style government spending money like water.
And they have to convince millions of people currently inclined to vote Tory that they don't believe that they are 'scum', 'vermin' etc but that they are bright centrists who vote both with their hearts and heads.
The Labour membership have lost so many Rochdale Pioneers (see yesterday's brilliant analysis) that the remaining ones are unable to get the point that you cannot get people to vote for you by calling them scum. This alone renders them unfit to govern.
This is hard, but the first problem - What is Labour for? - is harder.
What is Labour for? To provide a viable alternative government for the Conservative Party seems to be a good answer to me...
An alternative to the Tories that is materially different on principles and policy.
Otherwise we get back to the original question - what is Labour for?
Symmetry - the House of Commons would look a bit silly if there weren't anyone sitting on the Opposition benches.
The EU has no interest in Northern Ireland’s future prosperity. It just sees it as a mechanism to exert its power. It is a constitutional outrage that British companies are not free to trade without restriction to all parts of the sovereign United Kingdom. The checks that are now being demanded by the EU are so disproportionate as to be totally unreasonable. The British government bent over backwards to make a compromise to meet EU concerns that the Single Market could be compromised, but its goodwill has been exploited at every turn.
At some point this has to stop, and the unilateral extension of the grace period is the inevitable consequence of EU inflexibility. It is not, as the Irish government unhelpfully says, a breach of international law. What it is, is a sign that Britain’s patience with the EU on this issue is about to expire.
Bollox. It is the compromise arrangement that we insisted on. It is the trade deal that we negotiated. It is the operational model we signed. The EU had no interest at all in interjecting itself into the internal matters of a post-EU UK, where anyone with a brain can see that a GB-NI border is bonkers.
So, we are back to the unsolvable issue of the intra-Irish border. It must be open and unimpeded, but has to provide the hard border between the EU and UK demanded by our government. They proposed that we stay in the customs union and aligned to EU standards until a technology solution could be found. No, WE LEAVE NOW we demanded. Which means the only other place for the border is the Irish Sea.
Why do you think the Boris Burrows all lead to the Isle of Man? We have to put the customs post for the Boris Border somewhere, and the IoM fancies running duty free stores.
No. Just don't have a hard border anywhere, problem solved. Fudge is the spirit of the GFA.
Fudge cannot be law.
It is Brexit that created that border, and the Brexiteers who decided to put it in the Irish Sea.
That is what we agreed to in the "oven ready deal".
A border in the Irish Sea breaches the Good Friday Agreement as much as one on the island of Ireland.
There was a transitory thrill of Schadenfreude at seeing the DUP get shafted by Johnson, but we all have to deal with the consequences now.
With hindsight, the 2016 referendum should have been in England alone on English independence from the UK and the EU. That's the movement that's taken us to this point - an England not willing to bind itself to commitments to its neighbours in Europe, or the islands of Britain and Ireland.
My preference would be for an England comfortable with playing a collaborative role in European and British Unions - but those English politicians not signed up to that should have the courage to take their convictions to their logical conclusion - and work for a transition to English independence.
It's irresponsible to allow an English Nationalist delusion to cause damage to others.
Even if it is 200k why doesn't Boris pay for it himself ?
After he leaves politics he'll be able to 'earn' that much by giving a speech or two.
Boris Johnson is not a man of sound personal finances.
Remember back in 2008 when Ken Livingstone challenged Boris Johnson to publish his tax returns hoping to find tax dodges only to find that Johnson was on PAYE for everything and paying way more tax than he should than if he went limited liability.
Remember Johnson has two ex wives and countless kids to support.
I suspect every future bit of income is already spoken for.
So what you're saying is he's not dodgy and plays by both the spirit and letter of the tax rules despite people assuming he would be dodging his taxes?
I may have mentioned it a few times on here but the focus groups have consistently picked up on the monies spent on track & trace and on contracts that seem to end up with Tory donors but what is really egregious is the fact the contracts are seemingly to those inexperienced and unqualified to deliver them.
It is a bonanza for Tory donors, pensioners are safe, and austerity for the rest of us.
We locked down to save granny, but granny doesn’t give a shite.
You really are very unpleasant today.
This pensioner does care and expects the triple lock to go, indeed it would have but for labour who decided they wanted it to stay for some strange reason (politics)
Wait, so it is Labour’s fault?
Wow. You have severe Stockholm Syndrome.
The continuation of the triple lock was a labour commitment like it or not
Oh no! The powerless and rudderless opposition made me do it.
It was probably the legendary cut-through from Dodds.
The EU has no interest in Northern Ireland’s future prosperity. It just sees it as a mechanism to exert its power. It is a constitutional outrage that British companies are not free to trade without restriction to all parts of the sovereign United Kingdom. The checks that are now being demanded by the EU are so disproportionate as to be totally unreasonable. The British government bent over backwards to make a compromise to meet EU concerns that the Single Market could be compromised, but its goodwill has been exploited at every turn.
At some point this has to stop, and the unilateral extension of the grace period is the inevitable consequence of EU inflexibility. It is not, as the Irish government unhelpfully says, a breach of international law. What it is, is a sign that Britain’s patience with the EU on this issue is about to expire.
Bollox. It is the compromise arrangement that we insisted on. It is the trade deal that we negotiated. It is the operational model we signed. The EU had no interest at all in interjecting itself into the internal matters of a post-EU UK, where anyone with a brain can see that a GB-NI border is bonkers.
So, we are back to the unsolvable issue of the intra-Irish border. It must be open and unimpeded, but has to provide the hard border between the EU and UK demanded by our government. They proposed that we stay in the customs union and aligned to EU standards until a technology solution could be found. No, WE LEAVE NOW we demanded. Which means the only other place for the border is the Irish Sea.
Why do you think the Boris Burrows all lead to the Isle of Man? We have to put the customs post for the Boris Border somewhere, and the IoM fancies running duty free stores.
There are two massive false statements in what you have written there.
1. It was not the UK Government that insisted on there being a hard border between the UK and EU - it was the EU. To protect their precious Single Market.
2. There was never a suggestion from the EU that we remain in the Customs Union. Indeed it is completely impossible under the basic treaties that form the foundation of the EU. The only way to stay in the CU is to stay in the EU.
False? We demanded 3rd country status. Not them. And it is A customs union, not THE customs union as well you know.
Nope you specifically stated 'the customs union'. So yes false on both counts.
I see the hashtag #toryscum is trending. I wonder if the angry of Islington will ever realise that most people even they think something is wrong don't live in a perpetual state of outrage and hatred all the time, and this is actually putting the average person off.
To win Labour have two big jobs, neither close to being done yet: They have to explain convincingly what they are for when we have a Heseltine + Brexit+ populist style government spending money like water.
And they have to convince millions of people currently inclined to vote Tory that they don't believe that they are 'scum', 'vermin' etc but that they are bright centrists who vote both with their hearts and heads.
The Labour membership have lost so many Rochdale Pioneers (see yesterday's brilliant analysis) that the remaining ones are unable to get the point that you cannot get people to vote for you by calling them scum. This alone renders them unfit to govern.
This is hard, but the first problem - What is Labour for? - is harder.
They do have to answer that question. My nutshell answer would be - to build a society far more equal than the one we have today.
But the Cons have to answer the same question. They have done the one and only serious thing they were elected to do - deliver Leave - and are now devoid of any purpose other than staying in power. You could see this with that hotchpotch of a budget. Ok, all looks good for them right now, the vaccine delivering us early from the pandemic, but I predict this will change and well before the election. Difficult choices lie ahead and the government will not be able to flunk them all. Plenty of people will get pissed off and this will include some of those who voted for them last time.
So, although I share the concerns about the current polls, and about Starmer not cutting through, Labour should imo not be panicking at this point.
The key word is 'equal'. A sort of language SKS is fairly keen on. The trouble is that it has at least two meanings not compatible with each other: Does Labour want greater equality of opportunity or does it want greater equality of outcomes. For myself I will queue up early and often to vote for the first, but I am just as keen to vote against the second.
And you can't have both.
Equality is like (non state) pensions: You can either have defined benefits or defined contributions. You can't have both.
I see the hashtag #toryscum is trending. I wonder if the angry of Islington will ever realise that most people even they think something is wrong don't live in a perpetual state of outrage and hatred all the time, and this is actually putting the average person off.
To win Labour have two big jobs, neither close to being done yet: They have to explain convincingly what they are for when we have a Heseltine + Brexit+ populist style government spending money like water.
And they have to convince millions of people currently inclined to vote Tory that they don't believe that they are 'scum', 'vermin' etc but that they are bright centrists who vote both with their hearts and heads.
The Labour membership have lost so many Rochdale Pioneers (see yesterday's brilliant analysis) that the remaining ones are unable to get the point that you cannot get people to vote for you by calling them scum. This alone renders them unfit to govern.
This is hard, but the first problem - What is Labour for? - is harder.
What is Labour for? To provide a viable alternative government for the Conservative Party seems to be a good answer to me...
An alternative to the Tories that is materially different on principles and policy.
Otherwise we get back to the original question - what is Labour for?
I do accept the general point, but I do think the issue of 'materially different' is a difficult one. People often complain about the parties being the same, which isn't true, but nevertheless you'll find plenty of Tories who also dislike what might be consider the parties getting closer together on some issues, as that's where the voters were.
What if the voters really want parties with consensus on major issues and with only minor differences? Does one of the present major parties just abandon the field, or seek to present as the better of the two?
It's been done to death, but it really wouldn't have been so bad if there had merely been reluctance to take certain chances if considered there was not as much data. But doing it after using government sources to trash certain vaccines or vaccination policies is just dumb.
I can't see the Mail's campaign against Boris and Carrie going anywhere. When it comes to stories like this Boris is like Blair - Teflon.
Well Boris Johnson has been sacked twice for being liar.
Never by the electorate though...
The voters of Clywd South say hello.
But, Boris -- dumbo though he is -- would at least have got the name of the constituency right.
You can't even do that.
It is Clwyd South.
I can spell it, I just don't know how to pronounce it. They should probably set out the basics of welsh pronounciation in English schools, given its comeback.
Two genuinely stupid moves by Johnson yesterday and both can easily be linked. The first is this story about the No 10 refit which is just crass and stupid. It says Johnson is worried - well he bloody well should be. And if the story is true then he should be ashamed.
The second story - which for me is linked - is the idiotic decision to give NHS staff a pay rise below inflation. It just looks callous and makes a mockery of all the claims about how important they are and how much they are valued.
Yes things are tough and yes we can't keep splashing taxpayers money around all over the place without regard for the debt but a 1% pay rise is £340 million. So go for 5% and make it meaningful. As the study by the London Economics consultancy shows the Government will get most of that back anyway in increased taxes.
As OGH says. Very poor optics across the board yesterday for Johnson.
Agree 100%. I can live without a pay rise for next year - it would be nice but times are tough and I’m aware others are ahead in the queue - but after the year they’ve had NHS medical staff definitely deserve one. Especially nursing staff.
I actually think this ridiculously low one for a small number is worse than none at all. It looks tokenistic.
Personally, I have no problem with 1%, and a blanket payrise for all NHS staff is poorly targeted.
An extra 2 weeks paid holiday for all those who worked in covid units, to be taken later in the year for recovery would be my suggestion.
As would be investment in training, so redeployed staff are not punished for not acquiring the skills that they should have been developing. My registrar has been on covid ICU for 3 months so has missed a large chunk of her Specialist Training. She is at risk of missing career progression as a result.
Paid holiday is a great idea. Give them all £1,000 tax free to spend on it too.
But the next couple of years are also going to see the NHS under extreme stress as they deal with the vast backlog of treatment deferred. The staff are going to be under the cosh into the mid-distance.
And politically, unlike the NHS there are going to be so many people in the private sector who have lost their jobs, taken pay cuts, lost pensions. They might also rightly claim they have made a huge sacrifice in these times of Covid.
A nurse with 10 years service already gets 10 weeks holiday
One problem with 10 or so weeks holiday is that, as posted elsewhere, you can't afford to do much with all of it. Staff rotas are a bugger, too. Back in the day I used to get 7 weeks, plus Time in Lieu for nights and Sundays. I did know one or two people who tried to save them up for a major trip, but that was frowned upon.
This is certainly a huge problem in many private companies. A lot of the staff people I work with who get 25 days a year plus public but who also have to do additional time for operations and get it in lieu will get to the end of the year and find they still have 3 or 4 weeks worth of holiday that they just can't take. Most companies have a 'use it or lose it' policy as they can't afford to have staff build up huge amounts of holiday time and as a result giving people extra holiday time as a reward is pretty pointless.
It isn't true that nurses with 10 years service get 10 weeks annual leave.
"The following entitlements are taken from section 13 of the Afc handbook. This entitlement is for a full- time worker. Part-time staff receive a pro rata amount of annual leave and public holiday days.
on appointment: 27 days leave and eight general public holiday days after five years service: 29 days leave + eight days general public holiday days after 10 years service: 33 days leave + eight days general public holiday days."
From the RCN handbook.
So 6.6 weeks based on a WTE reduced pro rata for part time.
How is 41 days 6.6 weeks? It is 8.2 surely.
Public holidays count.
Not 10 weeks though.
The statutory minimum is 28 days, at least pre Brexit, so only 13 days more than the legal minimum. Obviously Nurses work more Bank Holidays than most professions, so get more lieu days.
After 32 years service, I get 32 days plus 8 BH, so not very different.
If they are getting lieu days for bank holidays then its getting pretty close to ten weeks. Work four of them, get 45 days = 9 weeks. Much of the workforce doesnt get additional days off for working bank holidays.
No, we only get a lieu day if working the BH. If all 8 are worked, then the 8 lieu days are the same entitlement.
So for example if I work the Easter weekend, I get 2 days off (for Friday and Monday, both have to be taken within 6 weeks).
What's nice about that allusion - given all the recent AI talk - is that the speech it references became famous because Rutger Hauer, playing an artificial intelligence that believes it's a person, used his own human ingenuity to improve upon the script (programming?) he was given without telling Ridley Scott about it in advance. Thus making said AI sound more profoundly human than the human being chasing him, who may or may not himself have been an AI...
Hard to tell exactly when (not a great scale - 'December' should not be a point!) but is that kick up in unoccupied beds Christmas? Due to very few electives at that point, trying to get people out in time for Christmas?
What's nice about that allusion - given all the recent AI talk - is that the speech it references became famous because Rutger Hauer, playing an artificial intelligence that believes it's a person, used his own human ingenuity to improve upon the script (programming?) he was given without telling Ridley Scott about it in advance. Thus making said AI sound more profoundly human than the human being chasing him, who may or may not himself have been an AI...
Not quite - the Replicants are purely biological. They are genetically re-engineered humans. Which it is why it is hard to find them with mechanical tests.... In that world there is no AI.
What's nice about that allusion - given all the recent AI talk - is that the speech it references became famous because Rutger Hauer, playing an artificial intelligence that believes it's a person, used his own human ingenuity to improve upon the script (programming?) he was given without telling Ridley Scott about it in advance. Thus making said AI sound more profoundly human than the human being chasing him, who may or may not himself have been an AI...
Not quite - the Replicants are purely biological. They are genetically re-engineered humans. Which it is why it is hard to find them with mechanical tests.... In that world there is no AI.
I know, but I thought an engineered biological consciousness could still be considered an artificial intelligence, even if it's not mechanical.
According to Italian daily La Repubblica, Draghi told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday that they needed to “suffocate” Big Pharma to make them deliver on their contractual obligations.
So he could look at Australia, where infection rates are in single digits and authorities are confident our local production can make up the shortfall, and see an easy way to make his point, claiming he’s saved the vaccines for poor Italy.
That isn’t the case — those doses will be shared around 27 countries — but Draghi, abetted by the approval of the EU, can look like he’s doing something, even if the real challenge is the hidebound bureaucracy and poor practices in his own backyard.
What's nice about that allusion - given all the recent AI talk - is that the speech it references became famous because Rutger Hauer, playing an artificial intelligence that believes it's a person, used his own human ingenuity to improve upon the script (programming?) he was given without telling Ridley Scott about it in advance. Thus making said AI sound more profoundly human than the human being chasing him, who may or may not himself have been an AI...
Not quite - the Replicants are purely biological. They are genetically re-engineered humans. Which it is why it is hard to find them with mechanical tests.... In that world there is no AI.
I know, but I thought an engineered biological consciousness could still be considered an artificial intelligence, even if it's not mechanical.
Maybe - but the point is that a Replicant is "just" a super-human.
Even if it is 200k why doesn't Boris pay for it himself ?
After he leaves politics he'll be able to 'earn' that much by giving a speech or two.
Boris Johnson is not a man of sound personal finances.
Remember back in 2008 when Ken Livingstone challenged Boris Johnson to publish his tax returns hoping to find tax dodges only to find that Johnson was on PAYE for everything and paying way more tax than he should than if he went limited liability.
Remember Johnson has two ex wives and countless kids to support.
I suspect every future bit of income is already spoken for.
He will make TRILLIONS for his memoirs tho. That is his pension, and it is huge.
Imagine the stories. He was the politician who delivered the Brexit referendum and as prime minister delivered the final version of Brexit. AND he has been PM during Covid. World shaking things. Add in the rest of his extremely colourful life, journalism, the Spectator, London mayor, scandals, womanising, gaffe-prone Foreign Secretary.... and of course he is a very gifted writer, unlike 90% of political memoirists.
He will get many millions for these memoirs, in the UK, USA and elsewhere. I imagine they will do two or three volumes, given the amount of material
Even if it is 200k why doesn't Boris pay for it himself ?
After he leaves politics he'll be able to 'earn' that much by giving a speech or two.
Boris Johnson is not a man of sound personal finances.
Remember back in 2008 when Ken Livingstone challenged Boris Johnson to publish his tax returns hoping to find tax dodges only to find that Johnson was on PAYE for everything and paying way more tax than he should than if he went limited liability.
Remember Johnson has two ex wives and countless kids to support.
I suspect every future bit of income is already spoken for.
He will make TRILLIONS for his memoirs tho. That is his pension, and it is huge.
Imagine the stories. He was the politician who delivered the Brexit referendum and as prime minister delivered the final version of Brexit. AND he has been PM during Covid. World shaking things. Add in the rest of his extremely colourful life, journalism, the Spectator, London mayor, scandals, womanising, gaffe-prone Foreign Secretary.... and of course he is a very gifted writer, unlike 90% of political memoirists.
He will get many millions for these memoirs, in the UK, USA and elsewhere. I imagine they will do two or three volumes, given the amount of material
He is destined to be extremely comfortable.
And....he can get GPT3 to do all the hard work for him ;-)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is planning to extend its export authorisation scheme for COVID-19 vaccines to the end of June, two EU sources told Reuters on Thursday, as a shipment of AstraZeneca shots from the EU to Australia was blocked.
I see the hashtag #toryscum is trending. I wonder if the angry of Islington will ever realise that most people even they think something is wrong don't live in a perpetual state of outrage and hatred all the time, and this is actually putting the average person off.
To win Labour have two big jobs, neither close to being done yet: They have to explain convincingly what they are for when we have a Heseltine + Brexit+ populist style government spending money like water.
And they have to convince millions of people currently inclined to vote Tory that they don't believe that they are 'scum', 'vermin' etc but that they are bright centrists who vote both with their hearts and heads.
The Labour membership have lost so many Rochdale Pioneers (see yesterday's brilliant analysis) that the remaining ones are unable to get the point that you cannot get people to vote for you by calling them scum. This alone renders them unfit to govern.
This is hard, but the first problem - What is Labour for? - is harder.
They do have to answer that question. My nutshell answer would be - to build a society far more equal than the one we have today.
But the Cons have to answer the same question. They have done the one and only serious thing they were elected to do - deliver Leave - and are now devoid of any purpose other than staying in power. You could see this with that hotchpotch of a budget. Ok, all looks good for them right now, the vaccine delivering us early from the pandemic, but I predict this will change and well before the election. Difficult choices lie ahead and the government will not be able to flunk them all. Plenty of people will get pissed off and this will include some of those who voted for them last time.
So, although I share the concerns about the current polls, and about Starmer not cutting through, Labour should imo not be panicking at this point.
The key word is 'equal'. A sort of language SKS is fairly keen on. The trouble is that it has at least two meanings not compatible with each other: Does Labour want greater equality of opportunity or does it want greater equality of outcomes. For myself I will queue up early and often to vote for the first, but I am just as keen to vote against the second.
And you can't have both.
Equality is like (non state) pensions: You can either have defined benefits or defined contributions. You can't have both.
Labour obviously wants equality of opportunity - and the Tories do as well (they claim). Labour has never argued for equality of outcomes - not even under Corbyn. But what it does want is less inequality of outcomes; in other words, a society where, for example and hypothetically, those with higher incomes earn less as a multiple than those with lower incomes. So instead of Directors earning a multiple of, say, 500 times the minimum wage, they may only earn 100 times the minimum wage. To simplify, reducing our gross inequalities in income and wealth to a more civilised level does not for one moment imply equality of outcome.
I reckon Boris memoirs will be a hell of a lot better read than Dave's. If Boris wasn't so lazy, I can imagine him rinsing it like Bad Al Diaries over multiple volumes.
According to Italian daily La Repubblica, Draghi told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday that they needed to “suffocate” Big Pharma to make them deliver on their contractual obligations.
So he could look at Australia, where infection rates are in single digits and authorities are confident our local production can make up the shortfall, and see an easy way to make his point, claiming he’s saved the vaccines for poor Italy.
That isn’t the case — those doses will be shared around 27 countries — but Draghi, abetted by the approval of the EU, can look like he’s doing something, even if the real challenge is the hidebound bureaucracy and poor practices in his own backyard.
Yes, it's interesting that the EU hasn't blocked any supply to the US or UK but has chosen remote Australia to make an example of. The number of doses blocked is also extremely low, half a day's supply for the UK and about an hour for the EU. This is another domestically focussed "look, we're doing something" policy that will be self defeating.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is planning to extend its export authorisation scheme for COVID-19 vaccines to the end of June, two EU sources told Reuters on Thursday, as a shipment of AstraZeneca shots from the EU to Australia was blocked.
According to Italian daily La Repubblica, Draghi told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday that they needed to “suffocate” Big Pharma to make them deliver on their contractual obligations.
So he could look at Australia, where infection rates are in single digits and authorities are confident our local production can make up the shortfall, and see an easy way to make his point, claiming he’s saved the vaccines for poor Italy.
That isn’t the case — those doses will be shared around 27 countries — but Draghi, abetted by the approval of the EU, can look like he’s doing something, even if the real challenge is the hidebound bureaucracy and poor practices in his own backyard.
Yes, it's interesting that the EU hasn't blocked any supply to the US or UK but has chosen remote Australia to make an example of. The number of doses blocked is also extremely low, half a day's supply for the UK and about an hour for the EU. This is another domestically focussed "look, we're doing something" policy that will be self defeating.
Hard to take the morale high ground after this behaviour....
I reckon Boris memoirs will be a hell of a lot better read than Dave's. If Boris wasn't so lazy, I can imagine him rinsing it like Bad Al Diaries over multiple volumes.
If and when they are published I will actually sit down and read them. The last time prime ministerial memoirs I properly read were Thatcher's.
I tried with Cameron's, but my God they were dull. He's not as smart as he likes to think, or, he's really not a good writer, and should have got GPT3 in on the job to ghost. He came across as a bit juvenile. Naive in a bad way. And weirdly needy
Even if it is 200k why doesn't Boris pay for it himself ?
After he leaves politics he'll be able to 'earn' that much by giving a speech or two.
Boris Johnson is not a man of sound personal finances.
Remember back in 2008 when Ken Livingstone challenged Boris Johnson to publish his tax returns hoping to find tax dodges only to find that Johnson was on PAYE for everything and paying way more tax than he should than if he went limited liability.
Remember Johnson has two ex wives and countless kids to support.
I suspect every future bit of income is already spoken for.
He will make TRILLIONS for his memoirs tho. That is his pension, and it is huge.
Imagine the stories. He was the politician who delivered the Brexit referendum and as prime minister delivered the final version of Brexit. AND he has been PM during Covid. World shaking things. Add in the rest of his extremely colourful life, journalism, the Spectator, London mayor, scandals, womanising, gaffe-prone Foreign Secretary.... and of course he is a very gifted writer, unlike 90% of political memoirists.
He will get many millions for these memoirs, in the UK, USA and elsewhere. I imagine they will do two or three volumes, given the amount of material
He is destined to be extremely comfortable.
You could be his ghost writer (if you didn't already have another job).
I see the hashtag #toryscum is trending. I wonder if the angry of Islington will ever realise that most people even they think something is wrong don't live in a perpetual state of outrage and hatred all the time, and this is actually putting the average person off.
To win Labour have two big jobs, neither close to being done yet: They have to explain convincingly what they are for when we have a Heseltine + Brexit+ populist style government spending money like water.
And they have to convince millions of people currently inclined to vote Tory that they don't believe that they are 'scum', 'vermin' etc but that they are bright centrists who vote both with their hearts and heads.
The Labour membership have lost so many Rochdale Pioneers (see yesterday's brilliant analysis) that the remaining ones are unable to get the point that you cannot get people to vote for you by calling them scum. This alone renders them unfit to govern.
This is hard, but the first problem - What is Labour for? - is harder.
They do have to answer that question. My nutshell answer would be - to build a society far more equal than the one we have today.
But the Cons have to answer the same question. They have done the one and only serious thing they were elected to do - deliver Leave - and are now devoid of any purpose other than staying in power. You could see this with that hotchpotch of a budget. Ok, all looks good for them right now, the vaccine delivering us early from the pandemic, but I predict this will change and well before the election. Difficult choices lie ahead and the government will not be able to flunk them all. Plenty of people will get pissed off and this will include some of those who voted for them last time.
So, although I share the concerns about the current polls, and about Starmer not cutting through, Labour should imo not be panicking at this point.
The key word is 'equal'. A sort of language SKS is fairly keen on. The trouble is that it has at least two meanings not compatible with each other: Does Labour want greater equality of opportunity or does it want greater equality of outcomes. For myself I will queue up early and often to vote for the first, but I am just as keen to vote against the second.
And you can't have both.
Equality is like (non state) pensions: You can either have defined benefits or defined contributions. You can't have both.
Labour obviously wants equality of opportunity - and the Tories do as well (they claim). Labour has never argued for equality of outcomes - not even under Corbyn. But what it does want is less inequality of outcomes; in other words, a society where, for example and hypothetically, those with higher incomes earn less as a multiple than those with lower incomes. So instead of Directors earning a multiple of, say, 500 times the minimum wage, they may only earn 100 times the minimum wage. To simplify, reducing our gross inequalities in income and wealth to a more civilised level does not for one moment imply equality of outcome.
So greater equality of outcome is always more civilized? What's the limit - in either direction?
I see the hashtag #toryscum is trending. I wonder if the angry of Islington will ever realise that most people even they think something is wrong don't live in a perpetual state of outrage and hatred all the time, and this is actually putting the average person off.
To win Labour have two big jobs, neither close to being done yet: They have to explain convincingly what they are for when we have a Heseltine + Brexit+ populist style government spending money like water.
And they have to convince millions of people currently inclined to vote Tory that they don't believe that they are 'scum', 'vermin' etc but that they are bright centrists who vote both with their hearts and heads.
The Labour membership have lost so many Rochdale Pioneers (see yesterday's brilliant analysis) that the remaining ones are unable to get the point that you cannot get people to vote for you by calling them scum. This alone renders them unfit to govern.
This is hard, but the first problem - What is Labour for? - is harder.
They do have to answer that question. My nutshell answer would be - to build a society far more equal than the one we have today.
But the Cons have to answer the same question. They have done the one and only serious thing they were elected to do - deliver Leave - and are now devoid of any purpose other than staying in power. You could see this with that hotchpotch of a budget. Ok, all looks good for them right now, the vaccine delivering us early from the pandemic, but I predict this will change and well before the election. Difficult choices lie ahead and the government will not be able to flunk them all. Plenty of people will get pissed off and this will include some of those who voted for them last time.
So, although I share the concerns about the current polls, and about Starmer not cutting through, Labour should imo not be panicking at this point.
The key word is 'equal'. A sort of language SKS is fairly keen on. The trouble is that it has at least two meanings not compatible with each other: Does Labour want greater equality of opportunity or does it want greater equality of outcomes. For myself I will queue up early and often to vote for the first, but I am just as keen to vote against the second.
And you can't have both.
Equality is like (non state) pensions: You can either have defined benefits or defined contributions. You can't have both.
The key word is "more". More equal not equal. A significant reduction in inequality. Perfect equality (of opportunity or outcome) is not a real world possibility. Nobody sane is arguing for that. It's a strawman. The goal is a significant reduction in inequality without the need for totalitarianism or the recasting of human nature. It's not some utopian pipedream.
And no, opportunity and outcome are not separate concepts that can be silo'd. They are inextricably linked to the extent that far from being incompatible it makes no sense to talk about either in isolation. Opportunities lead to outcomes. Outcomes lead to opportunities.
For example, if we have great inequality of outcome, this feeds through as night follows day to great inequality of opportunity - since affluent parents create superior life chances for their offspring. Who make use of these to achieve superior outcomes. Which allows them to create superior opportunities for their offspring. Etc.
Labour should be about disrupting this cycle. Not completely breaking it, mind, please refer back to para 1, but acting against the grain of it. The goal being, as I say, a significant reduction in inequality. A degree of uncoupling of the link between birth circumstances (class, race, gender) and life prospects. A "more" equal society.
You say you'd queue round the block to vote for equal opportunities? Almost everyone says that - because it sounds good and the opposite sounds bad - but few on the centre or right of politics really mean it. It's a platitude. I know this because when it comes to actual policies that will make a serious dent in class privilege a reason is always found why they can't or shouldn't be attempted. All we ever hear are "bring back grammar schools" or the maximum trite of "let's make state schools so good that nobody will want to go private".
I'd be delighted for you to prove me wrong by advancing ideas other than those.
Two genuinely stupid moves by Johnson yesterday and both can easily be linked. The first is this story about the No 10 refit which is just crass and stupid. It says Johnson is worried - well he bloody well should be. And if the story is true then he should be ashamed.
The second story - which for me is linked - is the idiotic decision to give NHS staff a pay rise below inflation. It just looks callous and makes a mockery of all the claims about how important they are and how much they are valued.
Yes things are tough and yes we can't keep splashing taxpayers money around all over the place without regard for the debt but a 1% pay rise is £340 million. So go for 5% and make it meaningful. As the study by the London Economics consultancy shows the Government will get most of that back anyway in increased taxes.
As OGH says. Very poor optics across the board yesterday for Johnson.
Agree 100%. I can live without a pay rise for next year - it would be nice but times are tough and I’m aware others are ahead in the queue - but after the year they’ve had NHS medical staff definitely deserve one. Especially nursing staff.
I actually think this ridiculously low one for a small number is worse than none at all. It looks tokenistic.
Personally, I have no problem with 1%, and a blanket payrise for all NHS staff is poorly targeted.
An extra 2 weeks paid holiday for all those who worked in covid units, to be taken later in the year for recovery would be my suggestion.
As would be investment in training, so redeployed staff are not punished for not acquiring the skills that they should have been developing. My registrar has been on covid ICU for 3 months so has missed a large chunk of her Specialist Training. She is at risk of missing career progression as a result.
Paid holiday is a great idea. Give them all £1,000 tax free to spend on it too.
But the next couple of years are also going to see the NHS under extreme stress as they deal with the vast backlog of treatment deferred. The staff are going to be under the cosh into the mid-distance.
And politically, unlike the NHS there are going to be so many people in the private sector who have lost their jobs, taken pay cuts, lost pensions. They might also rightly claim they have made a huge sacrifice in these times of Covid.
A nurse with 10 years service already gets 10 weeks holiday
One problem with 10 or so weeks holiday is that, as posted elsewhere, you can't afford to do much with all of it. Staff rotas are a bugger, too. Back in the day I used to get 7 weeks, plus Time in Lieu for nights and Sundays. I did know one or two people who tried to save them up for a major trip, but that was frowned upon.
This is certainly a huge problem in many private companies. A lot of the staff people I work with who get 25 days a year plus public but who also have to do additional time for operations and get it in lieu will get to the end of the year and find they still have 3 or 4 weeks worth of holiday that they just can't take. Most companies have a 'use it or lose it' policy as they can't afford to have staff build up huge amounts of holiday time and as a result giving people extra holiday time as a reward is pretty pointless.
It isn't true that nurses with 10 years service get 10 weeks annual leave.
"The following entitlements are taken from section 13 of the Afc handbook. This entitlement is for a full- time worker. Part-time staff receive a pro rata amount of annual leave and public holiday days.
on appointment: 27 days leave and eight general public holiday days after five years service: 29 days leave + eight days general public holiday days after 10 years service: 33 days leave + eight days general public holiday days."
From the RCN handbook.
So 6.6 weeks based on a WTE reduced pro rata for part time.
My wife who is a nurse of 16 years service gets 11 weeks holiday. She obviously has to work bank holidays sometimes including Christmas, but she does get double time for these. I don't know if Winchester Hospital is different to other hospitals. For at least 5 weeks of these holidays she works bank shifts to add to her money.
My daughter who has done 3 years as a nurse at Bournemouth Hospital is on 7 weeks holiday, but that really shoots up quickly after 5 years.
Comments
Royal College of Nursing says 33 days, which is 6 and a half weeks. Plus BH.
>on appointment: 27 days leave and eight general public holiday days
after five years service: 29 days leave + eight days general public holiday days
after 10 years service: 33 days leave + eight days general public holiday days.
https://www.rcn.org.uk/get-help/rcn-advice/annual-leave-and-holiday-pay
"The following entitlements are taken from section 13 of the Afc handbook. This entitlement is for a full- time worker. Part-time staff receive a pro rata amount of annual leave and public holiday days.
on appointment: 27 days leave and eight general public holiday days
after five years service: 29 days leave + eight days general public holiday days
after 10 years service: 33 days leave + eight days general public holiday days."
From the RCN handbook.
So 6.6 weeks based on a WTE reduced pro rata for part time.
So, we are back to the unsolvable issue of the intra-Irish border. It must be open and unimpeded, but has to provide the hard border between the EU and UK demanded by our government. They proposed that we stay in the customs union and aligned to EU standards until a technology solution could be found. No, WE LEAVE NOW we demanded. Which means the only other place for the border is the Irish Sea.
Why do you think the Boris Burrows all lead to the Isle of Man? We have to put the customs post for the Boris Border somewhere, and the IoM fancies running duty free stores.
If you look at all the Red Wall seats and councils the direction of travel is still towards the Tories and away from Labour partly because the Labour party is seen as responsible for all the local austerity and council spending cuts between 2010 -2017 as they were in power then...
The Tories have a big advantage of taking control of those seats and councils just as the spending taps were (slightly) repaired..
Public holidays count.
But the Cons have to answer the same question. They have done the one and only serious thing they were elected to do - deliver Leave - and are now devoid of any purpose other than staying in power. You could see this with that hotchpotch of a budget. Ok, all looks good for them right now, the vaccine delivering us early from the pandemic, but I predict this will change and well before the election. Difficult choices lie ahead and the government will not be able to flunk them all. Plenty of people will get pissed off and this will include some of those who voted for them last time.
So, although I share the concerns about the current polls, and about Starmer not cutting through, Labour should imo not be panicking at this point.
ISTM that if trauma does not have space to be addressed / let out / absorbed (prob. wrong words - but you know) will pop out somewhere else later on and hurt both the person themselves, and people around them.
We know about armed forces people ending up rudderless and homeless. We also know about (I think) elevated domestic abuse rates in police families - though I am not sure of specific UK research.
I'd see that as part of the duty of care to people we ask to take those roles on our behalf.
https://twitter.com/p_surridge/status/1367495165959680004
The Welsh language was involved by someone crap at scrabble.
The statutory minimum is 28 days, at least pre Brexit, so only 13 days more than the legal minimum. Obviously Nurses work more Bank Holidays than most professions, so get more lieu days.
After 32 years service, I get 32 days plus 8 BH, so not very different.
It is Brexit that created that border, and the Brexiteers who decided to put it in the Irish Sea.
That is what we agreed to in the "oven ready deal".
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9325819/Britons-flock-make-private-trip-Moon.html
I'm a big fan of Musk's space endeavours but not sure I'd be signing up riight at this moment with the starship being in the exploding prototype phase of development and all.
1. It was not the UK Government that insisted on there being a hard border between the UK and EU - it was the EU. To protect their precious Single Market.
2. There was never a suggestion from the EU that we remain in the Customs Union. Indeed it is completely impossible under the basic treaties that form the foundation of the EU. The only way to stay in the CU is to stay in the EU.
'I know, we've got some silly stories about his wallpaper, that'll distract people nicely from Labour's comical opposition.'
'Brilliant!'
Otherwise we get back to the original question - what is Labour for?
The timing was interesting. Boris stopped using the personal company tax structure *before* the MPs expenses scandal - IIRC it was around the time that first mutterings were made about expenses. This was before he got the big Telegraph column thing.
Given that *everyone* in politics/journalism was using this structure - effectively working as contractors for the purposes of press payments - he must of asked for it quite deliberately.
So Boris went PAYE and paid a lot more tax than required - and it must have been deliberate.
My guess is that he did this as an elephant trap for the future.
The big fee for the Telegraph column was the subject of much envy at Westminster. It was inevitable that a future opponent would bring it up. And it would be almost certain that any opponent would be using the same structure. As Ken was.
Personally I can easily see him becoming PM in 3 years time. But as in almost all these things it is almost entirely dependent on how badly the Tories screw things up or how well they succeed.
*For clarity I mean Starmer's comment is spot on.
I get 38, BH included and did from day one (university) so arguably more generous over a career than for a nurse. In a previous 'new' university it was 35 + 8BH = 43, also from day one (hmmm, why did I leave!). Professional private sector seems to be 25 standard plus BH, but often with ability to buy more. That was case for my wife, she bought a week to match me and still got paid more than me net. She could have bought two weeks (maximum) and still got paid more than me!
There are of course plenty of people with worse holiday than nurses. Plenty with worse pay too, but their package is by no means extraordinary for the skill/qualification level.
Let's see if one constituent in the Red Wall has any pull...
There was a transitory thrill of Schadenfreude at seeing the DUP get shafted by Johnson, but we all have to deal with the consequences now.
With hindsight, the 2016 referendum should have been in England alone on English independence from the UK and the EU. That's the movement that's taken us to this point - an England not willing to bind itself to commitments to its neighbours in Europe, or the islands of Britain and Ireland.
My preference would be for an England comfortable with playing a collaborative role in European and British Unions - but those English politicians not signed up to that should have the courage to take their convictions to their logical conclusion - and work for a transition to English independence.
It's irresponsible to allow an English Nationalist delusion to cause damage to others.
It was probably the legendary cut-through from Dodds.
Or maybe it was Magic Mark Drakeford.
For myself I will queue up early and often to vote for the first, but I am just as keen to vote against the second.
And you can't have both.
Equality is like (non state) pensions: You can either have defined benefits or defined contributions. You can't have both.
What if the voters really want parties with consensus on major issues and with only minor differences? Does one of the present major parties just abandon the field, or seek to present as the better of the two?
And what about uninstalling Norton Antivirus. I had to do that once in the late 1990s, and I have never touched anything in that name since.
So for example if I work the Easter weekend, I get 2 days off (for Friday and Monday, both have to be taken within 6 weeks).
We don't want them but you cant have them either
Now you have told us the joke about the funny Welshman, can we hear the one you stole from Jimmy Carr about the miserable Scotsman ?
Ffwcia bant nol dros Glawdd Offa.
According to Italian daily La Repubblica, Draghi told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday that they needed to “suffocate” Big Pharma to make them deliver on their contractual obligations.
So he could look at Australia, where infection rates are in single digits and authorities are confident our local production can make up the shortfall, and see an easy way to make his point, claiming he’s saved the vaccines for poor Italy.
That isn’t the case — those doses will be shared around 27 countries — but Draghi, abetted by the approval of the EU, can look like he’s doing something, even if the real challenge is the hidebound bureaucracy and poor practices in his own backyard.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/blocking-australia-s-supply-was-an-easy-win-for-italy-s-new-pm-20210305-p5788j.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56292039
Imagine the stories. He was the politician who delivered the Brexit referendum and as prime minister delivered the final version of Brexit. AND he has been PM during Covid. World shaking things. Add in the rest of his extremely colourful life, journalism, the Spectator, London mayor, scandals, womanising, gaffe-prone Foreign Secretary.... and of course he is a very gifted writer, unlike 90% of political memoirists.
He will get many millions for these memoirs, in the UK, USA and elsewhere. I imagine they will do two or three volumes, given the amount of material
He is destined to be extremely comfortable.
1st doses 15,502
2nd doses 15,374
https://twitter.com/MartinLandray/status/1367774505435795458?s=20
Slightly more robust that the "Trump says" school of treatment development.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-vaccines-export/eu-to-extend-covid-vaccine-export-controls-as-astrazeneca-shipment-blocked-sources-idUSKBN2AW19S
I tried with Cameron's, but my God they were dull. He's not as smart as he likes to think, or, he's really not a good writer, and should have got GPT3 in on the job to ghost. He came across as a bit juvenile. Naive in a bad way. And weirdly needy
Al Campbell's diaries were brilliant. Addictive.
And no, opportunity and outcome are not separate concepts that can be silo'd. They are inextricably linked to the extent that far from being incompatible it makes no sense to talk about either in isolation. Opportunities lead to outcomes. Outcomes lead to opportunities.
For example, if we have great inequality of outcome, this feeds through as night follows day to great inequality of opportunity - since affluent parents create superior life chances for their offspring. Who make use of these to achieve superior outcomes. Which allows them to create superior opportunities for their offspring. Etc.
Labour should be about disrupting this cycle. Not completely breaking it, mind, please refer back to para 1, but acting against the grain of it. The goal being, as I say, a significant reduction in inequality. A degree of uncoupling of the link between birth circumstances (class, race, gender) and life prospects. A "more" equal society.
You say you'd queue round the block to vote for equal opportunities? Almost everyone says that - because it sounds good and the opposite sounds bad - but few on the centre or right of politics really mean it. It's a platitude. I know this because when it comes to actual policies that will make a serious dent in class privilege a reason is always found why they can't or shouldn't be attempted. All we ever hear are "bring back grammar schools" or the maximum trite of "let's make state schools so good that nobody will want to go private".
I'd be delighted for you to prove me wrong by advancing ideas other than those.
My daughter who has done 3 years as a nurse at Bournemouth Hospital is on 7 weeks holiday, but that really shoots up quickly after 5 years.