Sunak’s Tories need a good response to this – politicalbetting.com

System · December 2022

Sunak’s Tories need a good response to this – politicalbetting.com

Labour’s plan for the NHS in 30 seconds? pic.twitter.com/b31KiNLgCi

Carnyx · December 2022

Hmm, I wonder. Especially at a time when the workers are being hard hit on all sides, is there any adequate rebuttal? I bet the Tories try bleating on about "Corbyn".

StuartDickson · December 2022

Had a really difficult night working in Paeds A&E. Massive waiting times but we worked as a great NHS team and got through it. I was actually feeling pretty good. Then I saw what @WesStreeting said in the Telegraph. Thanks. Didn't think our morale could sink any lower.

#SOSNHS

https://twitter.com/andrewmeyerson/status/1601895195150356480?s=46&t=fTPzlF86OvOWp6hCi5dQXA

Carnyx · December 2022

StuartDickson said:
Had a really difficult night working in Paeds A&E. Massive waiting times but we worked as a great NHS team and got through it. I was actually feeling pretty good. Then I saw what @WesStreeting said in the Telegraph. Thanks. Didn't think our morale could sink any lower.

#SOSNHS

https://twitter.com/andrewmeyerson/status/1601895195150356480?s=46&t=fTPzlF86OvOWp6hCi5dQXA

Presumably refers to this?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/11/wes-streeting-labour-bma-nhs-plans-gps

CarlottaVance · December 2022

Abolishing non-dom status could raise £3.2bn a year (assuming non doms don't take steps to avoid it, and there's a first time for everything) how a 1.6% increase in the NHS Budget (£199bn) is going to fund "more doctors and nurses than ever" is an intriguing question.....good politics, but laughable economics.

StuartDickson · December 2022

5th pro-Scotland poll in a row, from 4 different pollsters.

Scottish independence VI
(+/- change last YG / +/- change IndyRef1)

Yes 53% (+4 / +8)
No 47% (-4 / -8)

(YouGov/The Times; 6-9 December; 1,090)

StuartDickson · December 2022

Carnyx said:

StuartDickson said:
Had a really difficult night working in Paeds A&E. Massive waiting times but we worked as a great NHS team and got through it. I was actually feeling pretty good. Then I saw what @WesStreeting said in the Telegraph. Thanks. Didn't think our morale could sink any lower.

#SOSNHS

https://twitter.com/andrewmeyerson/status/1601895195150356480?s=46&t=fTPzlF86OvOWp6hCi5dQXA
Presumably refers to this?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/11/wes-streeting-labour-bma-nhs-plans-gps

…

CarlottaVance · December 2022

Lynch says it’s press and network rail propaganda to ask questions about the draining support for strikes from RMT.. but he should listen to this from Labour MP..

https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1602575131838119936

Labour MP Carolyn Harris says union leaders need to "listen closer" to the people on strike, who are telling her "they can't afford" to keep up strike action.

https://twitter.com/FirstEdition/status/1600617814217334801

DavidL · December 2022

Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?

RochdalePioneers · December 2022

Carnyx said:
Hmm, I wonder. Especially at a time when the workers are being hard hit on all sides, is there any adequate rebuttal? I bet the Tories try bleating on about "Corbyn".

Wes Streeting gets attacked on left-wing Twitter as the antichrist. To listen to Streeting is to listen to a Tory apparently.

OnlyLivingBoy · December 2022

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?

I dunno, when people can get an operation in less than 3 years?

Theuniondivvie · December 2022

StuartDickson said:
5th pro-Scotland poll in a row, from 4 different pollsters.

Scottish independence VI
(+/- change last YG / +/- change IndyRef1)

Yes 53% (+4 / +8)
No 47% (-4 / -8)

(YouGov/The Times; 6-9 December; 1,090)

Crystal ball time.

RochdalePioneers · December 2022

CarlottaVance said:
Abolishing non-dom status could raise £3.2bn a year (assuming non doms don't take steps to avoid it, and there's a first time for everything) how a 1.6% increase in the NHS Budget (£199bn) is going to fund "more doctors and nurses than ever" is an intriguing question.....good politics, but laughable economics.

The reality is simple - "how can we afford that" gets met with "how can we NOT afford it? Whats the cost of not doing it?". The growing general strike is a bankism form of capitalism failing in its basic principles - that people doing work the economy needs cannot afford to pay their bills never mind have surplus cash to spend on consumption.

So we either invest in paying workers enough money or the system grinds to a halt. What happens to our society and our way of life if millions of people drop productivity because they are cold and hungry, never mind that they have cost so many other people their jobs because they have no cash to spend on consumption. What happens to educational standards when so many kids are sat hungry and dirty in the classroom?

Labour should talk about this more. Britain is broken. We either spend money on the things we need or it gets more broken. And how do we pay for it? Simple! We borrow, and invest. And gain a return on that investment. It used to be called capitalism. Until the Tory donor class scrapped it in favour of bankism.

CarlottaVance · December 2022

Mishal Husain asked the average loss to members for striking

Mick Lynch told her "I find this a shocking stance that the BBC will take - you are just parroting the most right wing stuff you can get hold of on behalf of the establishment."

She replied: "They're called questions"

https://twitter.com/danbloom1/status/1602577212003213312

Carnyx · December 2022

StuartDickson said:

Carnyx said:

StuartDickson said:
Had a really difficult night working in Paeds A&E. Massive waiting times but we worked as a great NHS team and got through it. I was actually feeling pretty good. Then I saw what @WesStreeting said in the Telegraph. Thanks. Didn't think our morale could sink any lower.

#SOSNHS

https://twitter.com/andrewmeyerson/status/1601895195150356480?s=46&t=fTPzlF86OvOWp6hCi5dQXA
Presumably refers to this?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/11/wes-streeting-labour-bma-nhs-plans-gps
……

Thanks. Malicious headline?

DavidL · December 2022

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:
Hmm, I wonder. Especially at a time when the workers are being hard hit on all sides, is there any adequate rebuttal? I bet the Tories try bleating on about "Corbyn".
Wes Streeting gets attacked on left-wing Twitter as the antichrist. To listen to Streeting is to listen to a Tory apparently.

By coincidence I was speaking to a very long term Labour supporter last night who had heard the Streeting interview on the Today program (weirdly, he wasn't listening to the conclusion of the cricket like normal people) and his first thoughts were who on earth was this junior Tory Minister sent out to give this simplistic rubbish? He was genuinely surprised when at the end of the interview he found out this was Streeting representing Labour and he was far from happy about it.

Scott_xP · December 2022

'Why don't you just interview yourself?' Mick Lynch tears into Richard Madeley https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/mick-lynch-tears-into-richard-madeley-why-dont-you-just-interview-yourself_uk_63974783e4b015bb573d7134

MaxPB · December 2022

CarlottaVance said:
Lynch says it’s press and network rail propaganda to ask questions about the draining support for strikes from RMT.. but he should listen to this from Labour MP..

https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1602575131838119936

Labour MP Carolyn Harris says union leaders need to "listen closer" to the people on strike, who are telling her "they can't afford" to keep up strike action.

https://twitter.com/FirstEdition/status/1600617814217334801

Gravity always wins. The union can't fund these strikes indefinitely and the workers need to, you know, work to get paid. At a time of high inflation they probably need to work overtime if they are able. In the end Network Rail mat realise that the workers will accept a low ball offer because they will not be able to afford further strikes.

This is true for all of the strikers, but most especially the Royal Mail ones. Business is draining away from them and they are driving the company into bankruptcy at which point none of them have any jobs. Unions and management in this country are the worst among the world.

RochdalePioneers · December 2022

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?

When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have to wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.

Eabhal · December 2022

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?

It was just a wish list really. Impossible in current labour market conditions, unless they loosen up immigration?

We only ever talk about the supply side of the NHS, not why demand on it is increasing so much. Not a single mention of obesity or chronic conditions in that video.

MaxPB · December 2022

Eabhal said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
It was just a wish list really. Impossible in current labour market conditions, unless they loosen up immigration?

We only ever talk about the supply side of the NHS, not why demand on it is increasing so much. Not a single mention of obesity or chronic conditions in that video.

Because that would mean people taking responsibility for their own health and circumstances rather than delegating responsibility to the state as seems the norm for all circumstances now. Neither party seems to want to make the point on personal responsibility.

DavidL · December 2022

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
I dunno, when people can get an operation in less than 3 years?

If you take 100 people at random anywhere in the UK the chances are that 2 of them already work for the NHS. Surely there must come a point when more of everything is balanced by making better use of what we already have? Streeting, in fairness, does seem to recognise that (if not in his 30 second blurb) which is why he is unpopular with some of the unions.

OnlyLivingBoy · December 2022

RochdalePioneers said:

CarlottaVance said:
Abolishing non-dom status could raise £3.2bn a year (assuming non doms don't take steps to avoid it, and there's a first time for everything) how a 1.6% increase in the NHS Budget (£199bn) is going to fund "more doctors and nurses than ever" is an intriguing question.....good politics, but laughable economics.
The reality is simple - "how can we afford that" gets met with "how can we NOT afford it? Whats the cost of not doing it?". The growing general strike is a bankism form of capitalism failing in its basic principles - that people doing work the economy needs cannot afford to pay their bills never mind have surplus cash to spend on consumption.

So we either invest in paying workers enough money or the system grinds to a halt. What happens to our society and our way of life if millions of people drop productivity because they are cold and hungry, never mind that they have cost so many other people their jobs because they have no cash to spend on consumption. What happens to educational standards when so many kids are sat hungry and dirty in the classroom?

Labour should talk about this more. Britain is broken. We either spend money on the things we need or it gets more broken. And how do we pay for it? Simple! We borrow, and invest. And gain a return on that investment. It used to be called capitalism. Until the Tory donor class scrapped it in favour of bankism.

The other false economy aspect of starving the NHS of the money it needs is that we have hundreds of thousands of people who can't work because they're awaiting treatment, which is why we're the only major economy whose labour force participation rate is well below the level it was in late 2019. That means more money spent on benefits and less tax coming in. Forget about the human cost of all this, simply in cash terms it's a self defeating policy.
This country will take years to fix after the Tories have trashed it so thoroughly. Maybe it can't even be fixed.

RochdalePioneers · December 2022

Eabhal said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
It was just a wish list really. Impossible in current labour market conditions, unless they loosen up immigration?

We only ever talk about the supply side of the NHS, not why demand on it is increasing so much. Not a single mention of obesity or chronic conditions in that video.

That will come. A lot of people have been conditioned to think that lectures about what they eat or how many steps they do is either the nanny state, a waste of money, or none of our business. So we have scrapped most of the cheaper intervene before there is a problem schemes in favour of huge cost remedial care afterwards schemes.

Nigelb · December 2022

I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.

RochdalePioneers · December 2022

OnlyLivingBoy said:

RochdalePioneers said:

CarlottaVance said:
Abolishing non-dom status could raise £3.2bn a year (assuming non doms don't take steps to avoid it, and there's a first time for everything) how a 1.6% increase in the NHS Budget (£199bn) is going to fund "more doctors and nurses than ever" is an intriguing question.....good politics, but laughable economics.
The reality is simple - "how can we afford that" gets met with "how can we NOT afford it? Whats the cost of not doing it?". The growing general strike is a bankism form of capitalism failing in its basic principles - that people doing work the economy needs cannot afford to pay their bills never mind have surplus cash to spend on consumption.

So we either invest in paying workers enough money or the system grinds to a halt. What happens to our society and our way of life if millions of people drop productivity because they are cold and hungry, never mind that they have cost so many other people their jobs because they have no cash to spend on consumption. What happens to educational standards when so many kids are sat hungry and dirty in the classroom?

Labour should talk about this more. Britain is broken. We either spend money on the things we need or it gets more broken. And how do we pay for it? Simple! We borrow, and invest. And gain a return on that investment. It used to be called capitalism. Until the Tory donor class scrapped it in favour of bankism.
The other false economy aspect of starving the NHS of the money it needs is that we have hundreds of thousands of people who can't work because they're awaiting treatment, which is why we're the only major economy whose labour force participation rate is well below the level it was in late 2019. That means more money spent on benefits and less tax coming in. Forget about the human cost of all this, simply in cash terms it's a self defeating policy.
This country will take years to fix after the Tories have trashed it so thoroughly. Maybe it can't even be fixed.

True - and the other component isn't just cash, its attitude. The Tories have made people mean-spirited. Who pays for that / why should I pay / how can we afford it / we're full / its a magic money tree / why should they get a pay rise I don't etc etc etc.

Cash can make some significant improvements quickly. Warming people's souls so that they aren't so bitter will take longer.

MaxPB · December 2022

Nigelb said:
I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.

In the face of a 9% pay offer strikes are no longer justified. If I were network rail management I'd let them strike and then lower the offer in January to 5%.

MaxPB · December 2022

RochdalePioneers said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

RochdalePioneers said:

CarlottaVance said:
Abolishing non-dom status could raise £3.2bn a year (assuming non doms don't take steps to avoid it, and there's a first time for everything) how a 1.6% increase in the NHS Budget (£199bn) is going to fund "more doctors and nurses than ever" is an intriguing question.....good politics, but laughable economics.
The reality is simple - "how can we afford that" gets met with "how can we NOT afford it? Whats the cost of not doing it?". The growing general strike is a bankism form of capitalism failing in its basic principles - that people doing work the economy needs cannot afford to pay their bills never mind have surplus cash to spend on consumption.

So we either invest in paying workers enough money or the system grinds to a halt. What happens to our society and our way of life if millions of people drop productivity because they are cold and hungry, never mind that they have cost so many other people their jobs because they have no cash to spend on consumption. What happens to educational standards when so many kids are sat hungry and dirty in the classroom?

Labour should talk about this more. Britain is broken. We either spend money on the things we need or it gets more broken. And how do we pay for it? Simple! We borrow, and invest. And gain a return on that investment. It used to be called capitalism. Until the Tory donor class scrapped it in favour of bankism.
The other false economy aspect of starving the NHS of the money it needs is that we have hundreds of thousands of people who can't work because they're awaiting treatment, which is why we're the only major economy whose labour force participation rate is well below the level it was in late 2019. That means more money spent on benefits and less tax coming in. Forget about the human cost of all this, simply in cash terms it's a self defeating policy.
This country will take years to fix after the Tories have trashed it so thoroughly. Maybe it can't even be fixed.
True - and the other component isn't just cash, its attitude. The Tories have made people mean-spirited. Who pays for that / why should I pay / how can we afford it / we're full / its a magic money tree / why should they get a pay rise I don't etc etc etc.

Cash can make some significant improvements quickly. Warming people's souls so that they aren't so bitter will take longer.

Who pays for it is a valid question. That you think it's "mean spirited" shows how deluded you are. Aren't you supposed to be a Lib Dem these days? They're all about balanced budgets.

SandyRentool · December 2022

Public sector wage increases averaging 2.7%

Private sector wage increases averaging 6.9%

And yet the usual suspects keep telling me that it is those nasty public sector unionised layabouts who are stoking an inflationary spiral.

TheScreamingEagles · December 2022

Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.

Theuniondivvie · December 2022

MaxPB said:

Nigelb said:
I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.
In the face of a 9% pay offer strikes are no longer justified. If I were network rail management I'd let them strike and then lower the offer in January to 5%.

Rail workers are being offered an immediate rise of 9% to their wages? Wow, that’s pretty good, they should definitely accept it if that’s what’s on the table.

Ghedebrav · December 2022

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:
Hmm, I wonder. Especially at a time when the workers are being hard hit on all sides, is there any adequate rebuttal? I bet the Tories try bleating on about "Corbyn".
Wes Streeting gets attacked on left-wing Twitter as the antichrist. To listen to Streeting is to listen to a Tory apparently.

Left wing twitter was the underlying reason why the Musk purchase was enough to make me quit. My own values would probably be seen by most on here as quite far left; radically so even - but I flatter myself that I'm rational and have enough self awareness to realise that I'm in the minority, and a moderately centre-left government is preferable to a centre-right one (never mind one with a long and public track record off gross incompetence, law breaking and a strong whiff of corruption).

These idiots don't understand how much they help the right - or how their absolutism undermines democracy in a similar, if less obvious, way than the 6th Jan Capitol Bellend Convention. More frustrating still - and this goes for a poltical posturers across the spectrum - is how little most of these folk actually do to support society. Instead of tweeting to the chamber, why not invest that effort into, I dunno, becoming a school governor? Actually standing as a councillor? Volunteer to keep parks tidy? Etc?

SandyRentool · December 2022

MaxPB said:

Nigelb said:
I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.
In the face of a 9% pay offer strikes are no longer justified. If I were network rail management I'd let them strike and then lower the offer in January to 5%.

The offer is 5%.

4% is next year's offer.

Saying 9% is spin and bullshit.

Taz · December 2022

CarlottaVance said:
Lynch says it’s press and network rail propaganda to ask questions about the draining support for strikes from RMT.. but he should listen to this from Labour MP..

https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1602575131838119936

Labour MP Carolyn Harris says union leaders need to "listen closer" to the people on strike, who are telling her "they can't afford" to keep up strike action.

https://twitter.com/FirstEdition/status/1600617814217334801

‘Propaganda’, he’s losing it. I’ve said here I support the strikes but Carolyn Harris is right and I think he’s making errors and will see support ebb away.

ydoethur · December 2022

Ghedebrav said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:
Hmm, I wonder. Especially at a time when the workers are being hard hit on all sides, is there any adequate rebuttal? I bet the Tories try bleating on about "Corbyn".
Wes Streeting gets attacked on left-wing Twitter as the antichrist. To listen to Streeting is to listen to a Tory apparently.
Left wing twitter was the underlying reason why the Musk purchase was enough to make me quit. My own values would probably be seen by most on here as quite far left; radically so even - but I flatter myself that I'm rational and have enough self awareness to realise that I'm in the minority, and a moderately centre-left government is preferable to a centre-right one (never mind one with a long and public track record off gross incompetence, law breaking and a strong whiff of corruption).

These idiots don't understand how much they help the right - or how their absolutism undermines democracy in a similar, if less obvious, way than the 6th Jan Capitol Bellend Convention. More frustrating still - and this goes for a poltical posturers across the spectrum - is how little most of these folk actually do to support society. Instead of tweeting to the chamber, why not invest that effort into, I dunno, becoming a school governor? Actually standing as a councillor? Volunteer to keep parks tidy? Etc?

Only a strong whiff?!!!

TheScreamingEagles · December 2022

Nigelb said:
I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.

He's an appeaser, his comments on Ukraine confirm he is a terrible human being.

MaxPB · December 2022

OnlyLivingBoy said:

RochdalePioneers said:

CarlottaVance said:
Abolishing non-dom status could raise £3.2bn a year (assuming non doms don't take steps to avoid it, and there's a first time for everything) how a 1.6% increase in the NHS Budget (£199bn) is going to fund "more doctors and nurses than ever" is an intriguing question.....good politics, but laughable economics.
The reality is simple - "how can we afford that" gets met with "how can we NOT afford it? Whats the cost of not doing it?". The growing general strike is a bankism form of capitalism failing in its basic principles - that people doing work the economy needs cannot afford to pay their bills never mind have surplus cash to spend on consumption.

So we either invest in paying workers enough money or the system grinds to a halt. What happens to our society and our way of life if millions of people drop productivity because they are cold and hungry, never mind that they have cost so many other people their jobs because they have no cash to spend on consumption. What happens to educational standards when so many kids are sat hungry and dirty in the classroom?

Labour should talk about this more. Britain is broken. We either spend money on the things we need or it gets more broken. And how do we pay for it? Simple! We borrow, and invest. And gain a return on that investment. It used to be called capitalism. Until the Tory donor class scrapped it in favour of bankism.
The other false economy aspect of starving the NHS of the money it needs is that we have hundreds of thousands of people who can't work because they're awaiting treatment, which is why we're the only major economy whose labour force participation rate is well below the level it was in late 2019. That means more money spent on benefits and less tax coming in. Forget about the human cost of all this, simply in cash terms it's a self defeating policy.
This country will take years to fix after the Tories have trashed it so thoroughly. Maybe it can't even be fixed.

The NHS has enough money, it is badly deployed. But beyond that we're putting an unlimited healthcare liability on a resource limited organisation. That eventually tells and we're seeing the result of 30 years of neglect on public health messaging on personal responsibility to stay healthy and that the NHS is there as a last resort if you're actually sick, not because you turned into a slovenly fat bastard, got type 2 diabetes and now you're foot is falling off.

DavidL · December 2022

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have ito wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.

I have no fetish about the marketisation of the NHS but I do question the NHS's productivity. Our health spend has continued to rise in real terms in good times and bad. It is doing so now. We now spend £124bn on the NHS. This is an almost unimaginable sum of money. According to this website https://www.gilliankenny.com/blog/nhs-budget/ the original budget for the NHS was £427m which is the equivalent of £15bn today. So the NHS budget, in real terms, has increased by something like a factor of 7 since its creation.

More importantly, we are not far from the average spend for a western European country in terms of GDP on health. And we seem to be getting materially poorer results. An investigation into why is long overdue.

Ghedebrav · December 2022

Theuniondivvie said:

MaxPB said:

Nigelb said:
I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.
In the face of a 9% pay offer strikes are no longer justified. If I were network rail management I'd let them strike and then lower the offer in January to 5%.
Rail workers are being offered an immediate rise of 9% to their wages? Wow, that’s pretty good, they should definitely accept it if that’s what’s on the table.

It's not. It's 5%, then 4% the following year. Despite the fact that that doesn't even add up to 9% (cos of how maths works, FFS, and that's from someone with a flat 'C' at GCSE), it's being frustratingly reported uncritically as a 9% rise all over the place. Rights and wrongs aside, this is a 5% increase, not a 9% increase.

ydoethur · December 2022

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have ito wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.
I have no fetish about the marketisation of the NHS but I do question the NHS's productivity. Our health spend has continued to rise in real terms in good times and bad. It is doing so now. We now spend £124bn on the NHS. This is an almost unimaginable sum of money. According to this website https://www.gilliankenny.com/blog/nhs-budget/ the original budget for the NHS was £427m which is the equivalent of £15bn today. So the NHS budget, in real terms, has increased by something like a factor of 7 since its creation.

More importantly, we are not far from the average spend for a western European country in terms of GDP on health. And we seem to be getting materially poorer results. An investigation into why is long overdue.

That last paragraph - just for the NHS, or does it include spending on private healthcare?

OnlyLivingBoy · December 2022

DavidL said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
I dunno, when people can get an operation in less than 3 years?
If you take 100 people at random anywhere in the UK the chances are that 2 of them already work for the NHS. Surely there must come a point when more of everything is balanced by making better use of what we already have? Streeting, in fairness, does seem to recognise that (if not in his 30 second blurb) which is why he is unpopular with some of the unions.

Demands on the NHS are rising because of an ageing population. That means it needs more staff. The "more for less" attitude is why we are where we now, with millions waiting for operations, a rising sickness benefit bill and the system unable to fill vacancies because the pay is so shit. It's been completely broken by years of Tory incompetence and indifference.

Ghedebrav · December 2022

MaxPB said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

RochdalePioneers said:

CarlottaVance said:
Abolishing non-dom status could raise £3.2bn a year (assuming non doms don't take steps to avoid it, and there's a first time for everything) how a 1.6% increase in the NHS Budget (£199bn) is going to fund "more doctors and nurses than ever" is an intriguing question.....good politics, but laughable economics.
The reality is simple - "how can we afford that" gets met with "how can we NOT afford it? Whats the cost of not doing it?". The growing general strike is a bankism form of capitalism failing in its basic principles - that people doing work the economy needs cannot afford to pay their bills never mind have surplus cash to spend on consumption.

So we either invest in paying workers enough money or the system grinds to a halt. What happens to our society and our way of life if millions of people drop productivity because they are cold and hungry, never mind that they have cost so many other people their jobs because they have no cash to spend on consumption. What happens to educational standards when so many kids are sat hungry and dirty in the classroom?

Labour should talk about this more. Britain is broken. We either spend money on the things we need or it gets more broken. And how do we pay for it? Simple! We borrow, and invest. And gain a return on that investment. It used to be called capitalism. Until the Tory donor class scrapped it in favour of bankism.
The other false economy aspect of starving the NHS of the money it needs is that we have hundreds of thousands of people who can't work because they're awaiting treatment, which is why we're the only major economy whose labour force participation rate is well below the level it was in late 2019. That means more money spent on benefits and less tax coming in. Forget about the human cost of all this, simply in cash terms it's a self defeating policy.
This country will take years to fix after the Tories have trashed it so thoroughly. Maybe it can't even be fixed.
The NHS has enough money, it is badly deployed. But beyond that we're putting an unlimited healthcare liability on a resource limited organisation. That eventually tells and we're seeing the result of 30 years of neglect on public health messaging on personal responsibility to stay healthy and that the NHS is there as a last resort if you're actually sick, not because you turned into a slovenly fat bastard, got type 2 diabetes and now you're foot is falling off.

Despite the fact that communication is the cheapest and easiest lever a government can pull to effect change, it is always the first target for cuts (because it's easy to do so).

DecrepiterJohnL · December 2022

Alcoholics to be given ketamine to see if it helps reduce heavy drinking
It follows an earlier study which found participants who had ketamine combined with therapy stayed completely sober, representing 86% abstinence in the six-month follow-up.
https://news.sky.com/story/alcoholics-to-be-given-ketamine-to-see-if-it-helps-reduce-heavy-drinking-12767184

MaxPB · December 2022

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have ito wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.
I have no fetish about the marketisation of the NHS but I do question the NHS's productivity. Our health spend has continued to rise in real terms in good times and bad. It is doing so now. We now spend £124bn on the NHS. This is an almost unimaginable sum of money. According to this website https://www.gilliankenny.com/blog/nhs-budget/ the original budget for the NHS was £427m which is the equivalent of £15bn today. So the NHS budget, in real terms, has increased by something like a factor of 7 since its creation.

More importantly, we are not far from the average spend for a western European country in terms of GDP on health. And we seem to be getting materially poorer results. An investigation into why is long overdue.

Because other European countries don't have the same fat and lazy population we do. Healthcare which is completely free ends up becoming abused by people who make shit lifestyle choices. Society is paying for a generation of people who ate too many pies, drank too much wine and put too much salt on their chips. Worse still we're also paying their lavish public funded DB pensions.

Ghedebrav · December 2022

ydoethur said:

Ghedebrav said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:
Hmm, I wonder. Especially at a time when the workers are being hard hit on all sides, is there any adequate rebuttal? I bet the Tories try bleating on about "Corbyn".
Wes Streeting gets attacked on left-wing Twitter as the antichrist. To listen to Streeting is to listen to a Tory apparently.
Left wing twitter was the underlying reason why the Musk purchase was enough to make me quit. My own values would probably be seen by most on here as quite far left; radically so even - but I flatter myself that I'm rational and have enough self awareness to realise that I'm in the minority, and a moderately centre-left government is preferable to a centre-right one (never mind one with a long and public track record off gross incompetence, law breaking and a strong whiff of corruption).

These idiots don't understand how much they help the right - or how their absolutism undermines democracy in a similar, if less obvious, way than the 6th Jan Capitol Bellend Convention. More frustrating still - and this goes for a poltical posturers across the spectrum - is how little most of these folk actually do to support society. Instead of tweeting to the chamber, why not invest that effort into, I dunno, becoming a school governor? Actually standing as a councillor? Volunteer to keep parks tidy? Etc?
Only a strong whiff?!!!

Well yeah - I'm trying to not be libellous. But... yeah.

Nigelb · December 2022

.

SandyRentool said:

MaxPB said:

Nigelb said:
I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.
In the face of a 9% pay offer strikes are no longer justified. If I were network rail management I'd let them strike and then lower the offer in January to 5%.
The offer is 5%.

4% is next year's offer.

Saying 9% is spin and bullshit.

Neither side in the dispute are covering themselves in glory.

Gallowgate · December 2022

MaxPB said:

Nigelb said:
I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.
In the face of a 9% pay offer strikes are no longer justified. If I were network rail management I'd let them strike and then lower the offer in January to 5%.

Its 9% over 2 years when inflation is at 10% per year, isn’t it?

SandyRentool · December 2022

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.

Time for the employers to make an offer that matches average private sector pay rises then.

Eabhal · December 2022

MaxPB said:

Eabhal said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
It was just a wish list really. Impossible in current labour market conditions, unless they loosen up immigration?

We only ever talk about the supply side of the NHS, not why demand on it is increasing so much. Not a single mention of obesity or chronic conditions in that video.
Because that would mean people taking responsibility for their own health and circumstances rather than delegating responsibility to the state as seems the norm for all circumstances now. Neither party seems to want to make the point on personal responsibility.

I'd go for early intervention on child obesity/sugar tax etc, but there is something in a £100 tax discount if your BMI is <25, like health insurance in the US.

My main concern is that universal nature of the NHS is being undermined. I know two people who have had surgery for sports injuries done privately, and it's these kind of fit, >£40,000 individuals who will end up paying lots of tax to support a NHS that is undermined by widespread obesity. That turns people into Tories.

I also know a Doctor who cannot work as she's on a huge waiting list for knee surgery. How stupid is that?

DavidL · December 2022

MaxPB said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have ito wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.
I have no fetish about the marketisation of the NHS but I do question the NHS's productivity. Our health spend has continued to rise in real terms in good times and bad. It is doing so now. We now spend £124bn on the NHS. This is an almost unimaginable sum of money. According to this website https://www.gilliankenny.com/blog/nhs-budget/ the original budget for the NHS was £427m which is the equivalent of £15bn today. So the NHS budget, in real terms, has increased by something like a factor of 7 since its creation.

More importantly, we are not far from the average spend for a western European country in terms of GDP on health. And we seem to be getting materially poorer results. An investigation into why is long overdue.
Because other European countries don't have the same fat and lazy population we do. Healthcare which is completely free ends up becoming abused by people who make shit lifestyle choices. Society is paying for a generation of people who ate too many pies, drank too much wine and put too much salt on their chips. Worse still we're also paying their lavish public funded DB pensions.

In fairness such a lifestyle significantly reduces the cost of DB systems. If they all became gym rats the system would have collapsed long ago.

TheScreamingEagles · December 2022

SandyRentool said:

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.
Time for the employers to make an offer that matches average private sector pay rises then.

So long as the unions agree to modernisation.

It is a fecking joke you cannot use contactless on the trains like you can on TfL because of the unions.

Carnyx · December 2022

TheScreamingEagles said:

SandyRentool said:

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.
Time for the employers to make an offer that matches average private sector pay rises then.
So long as the unions agree to modernisation.

It is a fecking joke you cannot use contactless on the trains like you can on TfL because of the unions.

Is it really the unions? For very many years it was the *companies* that didn't want to know about common ticketing and so on across companies and services.

TheScreamingEagles · December 2022

Like Royal Mail staff, railway staff are digging their own graves.

DavidL · December 2022

ydoethur said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have ito wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.
I have no fetish about the marketisation of the NHS but I do question the NHS's productivity. Our health spend has continued to rise in real terms in good times and bad. It is doing so now. We now spend £124bn on the NHS. This is an almost unimaginable sum of money. According to this website https://www.gilliankenny.com/blog/nhs-budget/ the original budget for the NHS was £427m which is the equivalent of £15bn today. So the NHS budget, in real terms, has increased by something like a factor of 7 since its creation.

More importantly, we are not far from the average spend for a western European country in terms of GDP on health. And we seem to be getting materially poorer results. An investigation into why is long overdue.
That last paragraph - just for the NHS, or does it include spending on private healthcare?

I didn't look it up for this but I recall that having been behind for a considerable time our health spending was moving closer to average as a share of GDP. I suspect that includes private health care as well.

Taz · December 2022

Gallowgate said:

MaxPB said:

Nigelb said:
I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.
In the face of a 9% pay offer strikes are no longer justified. If I were network rail management I'd let them strike and then lower the offer in January to 5%.
Its 9% over 2 years when inflation is at 10% per year, isn’t it?

Passenger numbers are down 20% pre covid. A high pay rise will simply be passed on to passengers. It’s not just pay they are striking over it is compulsory redundancies too.

MaxPB · December 2022

Eabhal said:

MaxPB said:

Eabhal said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
It was just a wish list really. Impossible in current labour market conditions, unless they loosen up immigration?

We only ever talk about the supply side of the NHS, not why demand on it is increasing so much. Not a single mention of obesity or chronic conditions in that video.
Because that would mean people taking responsibility for their own health and circumstances rather than delegating responsibility to the state as seems the norm for all circumstances now. Neither party seems to want to make the point on personal responsibility.
I'd go for early intervention on child obesity/sugar tax etc, but there is something in a £100 tax discount if your BMI is <25, like health insurance in the US.

My main concern is that universal nature of the NHS is being undermined. I know two people who have had surgery for sports injuries done privately, and it's these kind of fit, >£40,000 individuals who will end up paying lots of tax to support a NHS that is undermined by widespread obesity. That turns people into Tories.

I also know a Doctor who cannot work as she's on a huge waiting list for knee surgery. How stupid is that?

In the same way I prioritise work, the NHS needs to as well. It's shitty but it's a resource limited environment. Not everyone is going to be seen to tomorrow. Getting working age people fit and healthy has got to be the priority. It almost seems like it's the other way around, as with everything else in the country.

Ghedebrav · December 2022

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
I dunno, when people can get an operation in less than 3 years?
If you take 100 people at random anywhere in the UK the chances are that 2 of them already work for the NHS. Surely there must come a point when more of everything is balanced by making better use of what we already have? Streeting, in fairness, does seem to recognise that (if not in his 30 second blurb) which is why he is unpopular with some of the unions.
Demands on the NHS are rising because of an ageing population. That means it needs more staff. The "more for less" attitude is why we are where we now, with millions waiting for operations, a rising sickness benefit bill and the system unable to fill vacancies because the pay is so shit. It's been completely broken by years of Tory incompetence and indifference.

He doesn't say how we will increase the workforce. They already struggle to recruit, but so do many public sector professions - teaching, police, prison officers etc.

It's not just about pay, either. Conditions, but also people have the basic skills and aptitude for the training. This is why (IMVHO) sorting schools is, long term, the real answer to most of our problems. But that's a looong term thing, so not attractive politically.

Gallowgate · December 2022

TheScreamingEagles said:

SandyRentool said:

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.
Time for the employers to make an offer that matches average private sector pay rises then.
So long as the unions agree to modernisation.

It is a fecking joke you cannot use contactless on the trains like you can on TfL because of the unions.

The Tyne and Wear Metro still doesn’t offer contactless tap in tap out. I’m not sure that has anything to do with unions.

ydoethur · December 2022

SandyRentool said:

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.
Time for the employers to make an offer that matches average private sector pay rises then.

What deduction do you make for the much more generous pension arrangement for drivers?

(I know it's not just about drivers, but the question stands.)

TheScreamingEagles · December 2022

Carnyx said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

SandyRentool said:

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.
Time for the employers to make an offer that matches average private sector pay rises then.
So long as the unions agree to modernisation.

It is a fecking joke you cannot use contactless on the trains like you can on TfL because of the unions.
Is it really the unions? For very many years it was the *companies* that didn't want to know about common ticketing and so on across companies and services.

It is, I think most of you know what industry I work in, there was going to be a pilot in the rest of GB to roll out contactless Oyster cards, the DfT was told by the unions they would go on strike if this happened.

kinabalu · December 2022

SandyRentool said:

MaxPB said:

Nigelb said:
I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.
In the face of a 9% pay offer strikes are no longer justified. If I were network rail management I'd let them strike and then lower the offer in January to 5%.
The offer is 5%.

4% is next year's offer.

Saying 9% is spin and bullshit.

Yes. If we're doing this doubling up business we should say inflation is 20%.

Theuniondivvie · December 2022

Gallowgate said:

MaxPB said:

Nigelb said:
I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.
In the face of a 9% pay offer strikes are no longer justified. If I were network rail management I'd let them strike and then lower the offer in January to 5%.
Its 9% over 2 years when inflation is at 10% per year, isn’t it?

By their framing shall ye know them.

DavidL · December 2022

Gallowgate said:

MaxPB said:

Nigelb said:
I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.
In the face of a 9% pay offer strikes are no longer justified. If I were network rail management I'd let them strike and then lower the offer in January to 5%.
Its 9% over 2 years when inflation is at 10% per year, isn’t it?

Inflation won't be 10% next year, it will be more like 5%. But yes, 9% over 2 years is not a 9% wage increase and it is dishonest to claim that it is.

ydoethur · December 2022

Ghedebrav said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
I dunno, when people can get an operation in less than 3 years?
If you take 100 people at random anywhere in the UK the chances are that 2 of them already work for the NHS. Surely there must come a point when more of everything is balanced by making better use of what we already have? Streeting, in fairness, does seem to recognise that (if not in his 30 second blurb) which is why he is unpopular with some of the unions.
Demands on the NHS are rising because of an ageing population. That means it needs more staff. The "more for less" attitude is why we are where we now, with millions waiting for operations, a rising sickness benefit bill and the system unable to fill vacancies because the pay is so shit. It's been completely broken by years of Tory incompetence and indifference.
He doesn't say how we will increase the workforce. They already struggle to recruit, but so do many public sector professions - teaching, police, prison officers etc.

It's not just about pay, either. Conditions, but also people have the basic skills and aptitude for the training. This is why (IMVHO) sorting schools is, long term, the real answer to most of our problems. But that's a looong term thing, so not attractive politically.

Would also be extremely expensive. Because that's another thing we've chronically underfunded for literally decades while making lots of mindless changes at the top.

Bluntly, we can have a French style system for the money we pay now, or a Scandinavian system if we put in 60% more money. We have been trying to have a Scandi system on a French resource base, which unsurprisingly is now disintegrating.

RochdalePioneers · December 2022

MaxPB said:

RochdalePioneers said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

RochdalePioneers said:

CarlottaVance said:
Abolishing non-dom status could raise £3.2bn a year (assuming non doms don't take steps to avoid it, and there's a first time for everything) how a 1.6% increase in the NHS Budget (£199bn) is going to fund "more doctors and nurses than ever" is an intriguing question.....good politics, but laughable economics.
The reality is simple - "how can we afford that" gets met with "how can we NOT afford it? Whats the cost of not doing it?". The growing general strike is a bankism form of capitalism failing in its basic principles - that people doing work the economy needs cannot afford to pay their bills never mind have surplus cash to spend on consumption.

So we either invest in paying workers enough money or the system grinds to a halt. What happens to our society and our way of life if millions of people drop productivity because they are cold and hungry, never mind that they have cost so many other people their jobs because they have no cash to spend on consumption. What happens to educational standards when so many kids are sat hungry and dirty in the classroom?

Labour should talk about this more. Britain is broken. We either spend money on the things we need or it gets more broken. And how do we pay for it? Simple! We borrow, and invest. And gain a return on that investment. It used to be called capitalism. Until the Tory donor class scrapped it in favour of bankism.
The other false economy aspect of starving the NHS of the money it needs is that we have hundreds of thousands of people who can't work because they're awaiting treatment, which is why we're the only major economy whose labour force participation rate is well below the level it was in late 2019. That means more money spent on benefits and less tax coming in. Forget about the human cost of all this, simply in cash terms it's a self defeating policy.
This country will take years to fix after the Tories have trashed it so thoroughly. Maybe it can't even be fixed.
True - and the other component isn't just cash, its attitude. The Tories have made people mean-spirited. Who pays for that / why should I pay / how can we afford it / we're full / its a magic money tree / why should they get a pay rise I don't etc etc etc.

Cash can make some significant improvements quickly. Warming people's souls so that they aren't so bitter will take longer.
Who pays for it is a valid question. That you think it's "mean spirited" shows how deluded you are. Aren't you supposed to be a Lib Dem these days? They're all about balanced budgets.

Who pays for it is a valid question. But it isn't one that most voters (and increasing numbers of Tory MPs) are qualified to answer. Recruiting medical staff and adding capacity costs money. But - shockingly - not doing so also costs money. We seem to ignore the impact cost of all the people who either can't work or work less efficiently due to chronic conditions and treatments they won't get for months or years. Or we recognise the costs and simply blame the "workshy" people who are sick and in pain.

It is that mental condition - blame the people we have made sick, or poor, or cold - which is mean spirited. And it is pushed and encouraged by the Tory party for votes.

algarkirk · December 2022

Nigelb said:
I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.

Yes. The choice Lynch made to bully Mishal Husain this morning was very odd. Firstly because she is a truly soft touch and asks really easy questions (she often makes the mistake of asking long ones instead of sharp ones), secondly because she is obviously human and full of charm and not a Martian, and thirdly because the bit of the R4 audience represented by me thinks it's wrong to bully women in all circumstances.

Lynch is normally a top performer. He has let his side down.

CarlottaVance · December 2022

MaxPB said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have ito wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.
I have no fetish about the marketisation of the NHS but I do question the NHS's productivity. Our health spend has continued to rise in real terms in good times and bad. It is doing so now. We now spend £124bn on the NHS. This is an almost unimaginable sum of money. According to this website https://www.gilliankenny.com/blog/nhs-budget/ the original budget for the NHS was £427m which is the equivalent of £15bn today. So the NHS budget, in real terms, has increased by something like a factor of 7 since its creation.

More importantly, we are not far from the average spend for a western European country in terms of GDP on health. And we seem to be getting materially poorer results. An investigation into why is long overdue.
Because other European countries don't have the same fat and lazy population we do.

4th worst in Europe, behind only Turkey, Malta & Israel:

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/353747/9789289057738-eng.pdf

Fairliered · December 2022

Theuniondivvie said:

StuartDickson said:
5th pro-Scotland poll in a row, from 4 different pollsters.

Scottish independence VI
(+/- change last YG / +/- change IndyRef1)

Yes 53% (+4 / +8)
No 47% (-4 / -8)

(YouGov/The Times; 6-9 December; 1,090)
Crystal ball time.

Is that so Harry Kane can keep it under the bar?

TheScreamingEagles · December 2022

SandyRentool said:

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.
Time for the employers to make an offer that matches average private sector pay rises then.

Passenger numbers are down 20% pre Covid, if your company's revenue drops by 20% in the private sector you look at redundancies and/or pay freezes/cuts.

ydoethur · December 2022

DavidL said:

Gallowgate said:

MaxPB said:

Nigelb said:
I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.
In the face of a 9% pay offer strikes are no longer justified. If I were network rail management I'd let them strike and then lower the offer in January to 5%.
Its 9% over 2 years when inflation is at 10% per year, isn’t it?
Inflation won't be 10% next year, it will be more like 5%. But yes, 9% over 2 years is not a 9% wage increase and it is dishonest to claim that it is.

We hope. A year ago, I don't think anyone foresaw inflation of 10-12% this year.

MaxPB · December 2022

TheScreamingEagles said:

SandyRentool said:

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.
Time for the employers to make an offer that matches average private sector pay rises then.
So long as the unions agree to modernisation.

It is a fecking joke you cannot use contactless on the trains like you can on TfL because of the unions.

Surely that's railway companies not unions. Contactless will automatically charge the lowest fair available on the tap in/out. Railway companies have been dragging their feet on it for years. I'm open to being corrected, though.

turbotubbs · December 2022

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have ito wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.
I have no fetish about the marketisation of the NHS but I do question the NHS's productivity. Our health spend has continued to rise in real terms in good times and bad. It is doing so now. We now spend £124bn on the NHS. This is an almost unimaginable sum of money. According to this website https://www.gilliankenny.com/blog/nhs-budget/ the original budget for the NHS was £427m which is the equivalent of £15bn today. So the NHS budget, in real terms, has increased by something like a factor of 7 since its creation.

More importantly, we are not far from the average spend for a western European country in terms of GDP on health. And we seem to be getting materially poorer results. An investigation into why is long overdue.

What treatments were available in 1948? Take cancer - there were NO chemotherapies. Nothing. Get cancer - if it could be cut out, you might make it, but if it had spread, or was a blood cancer, that was it. Morphine if needed till you died.

Take joint replacements - no new hip for aging folks - just lots of pain and worsening mobility until death.

Take fertility - couldn't conceive? Oh well you can always adopt.

And on and on and on. We could turn health back to 1948 if you want. Would save a lot on pensions too as most cancer diagnoses would be a death sentence (rather than 1 in 2 living at least 10 more years, which is the current figure).

These advances don't come cheap. Mono-clonal antibodies (any medicine with a name that ends in MAB) are like Erlich's magic bullet, but they are extremely expensive.

We could do a lot to help ourselves. Ban smoking completely and make being overweight socially unacceptable. Get everyone taking exercise - mandatory 3 miles a day by government tracker or else. But if we are not prepared to do that, maybe we have to find the money for our 'free' NHS.

RochdalePioneers · December 2022

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.

Lets assume that the strikes end tomorrow. Would users of Avanti or Northern or Transpennine notice a difference? The dead hand of DfT mandarins are responsible for the strikes as they are for the non-functioning of various large chunks of the system when there are no strikes.

ydoethur · December 2022

CarlottaVance said:

MaxPB said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have ito wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.
I have no fetish about the marketisation of the NHS but I do question the NHS's productivity. Our health spend has continued to rise in real terms in good times and bad. It is doing so now. We now spend £124bn on the NHS. This is an almost unimaginable sum of money. According to this website https://www.gilliankenny.com/blog/nhs-budget/ the original budget for the NHS was £427m which is the equivalent of £15bn today. So the NHS budget, in real terms, has increased by something like a factor of 7 since its creation.

More importantly, we are not far from the average spend for a western European country in terms of GDP on health. And we seem to be getting materially poorer results. An investigation into why is long overdue.
Because other European countries don't have the same fat and lazy population we do.
4th worst in Europe, behind only Turkey, Malta & Israel:

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/353747/9789289057738-eng.pdf

Genuinely surprised to learn;

(1) that the Israeli population are obese

(2) that they are in Europe.

kinabalu · December 2022

Fairliered said:

Theuniondivvie said:

StuartDickson said:
5th pro-Scotland poll in a row, from 4 different pollsters.

Scottish independence VI
(+/- change last YG / +/- change IndyRef1)

Yes 53% (+4 / +8)
No 47% (-4 / -8)

(YouGov/The Times; 6-9 December; 1,090)
Crystal ball time.

Is that so Harry Kane can keep it under the bar?

Please. I'm just emerging from that.

Theuniondivvie · December 2022

DavidL said:

Gallowgate said:

MaxPB said:

Nigelb said:
I thought Lynch was supposed to be a good media performer ?

Whether he thought them fair or not - and they weren't unreasonable, IMO & FWIW - his response to the questions on R4 was distinctly counterproductive.
In the face of a 9% pay offer strikes are no longer justified. If I were network rail management I'd let them strike and then lower the offer in January to 5%.
Its 9% over 2 years when inflation is at 10% per year, isn’t it?
Inflation won't be 10% next year, it will be more like 5%. But yes, 9% over 2 years is not a 9% wage increase and it is dishonest to claim that it is.

Jezza Eeyor Hunt isn’t predicting anything good for next year, unless an inflation busting recession counts?

RochdalePioneers · December 2022

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have ito wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.
I have no fetish about the marketisation of the NHS but I do question the NHS's productivity. Our health spend has continued to rise in real terms in good times and bad. It is doing so now. We now spend £124bn on the NHS. This is an almost unimaginable sum of money. According to this website https://www.gilliankenny.com/blog/nhs-budget/ the original budget for the NHS was £427m which is the equivalent of £15bn today. So the NHS budget, in real terms, has increased by something like a factor of 7 since its creation.

More importantly, we are not far from the average spend for a western European country in terms of GDP on health. And we seem to be getting materially poorer results. An investigation into why is long overdue.

Again, look at the structure. The Lansley reforms are comedically bad. Spend the money on healthcare and not layers of competing management. Spend the money on *preventative* healthcare - hard to do when so many can't see a GP or a Dentist when they need one.

Ghedebrav · December 2022

ydoethur said:

Ghedebrav said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
I dunno, when people can get an operation in less than 3 years?
If you take 100 people at random anywhere in the UK the chances are that 2 of them already work for the NHS. Surely there must come a point when more of everything is balanced by making better use of what we already have? Streeting, in fairness, does seem to recognise that (if not in his 30 second blurb) which is why he is unpopular with some of the unions.
Demands on the NHS are rising because of an ageing population. That means it needs more staff. The "more for less" attitude is why we are where we now, with millions waiting for operations, a rising sickness benefit bill and the system unable to fill vacancies because the pay is so shit. It's been completely broken by years of Tory incompetence and indifference.
He doesn't say how we will increase the workforce. They already struggle to recruit, but so do many public sector professions - teaching, police, prison officers etc.

It's not just about pay, either. Conditions, but also people have the basic skills and aptitude for the training. This is why (IMVHO) sorting schools is, long term, the real answer to most of our problems. But that's a looong term thing, so not attractive politically.
Would also be extremely expensive. Because that's another thing we've chronically underfunded for literally decades while making lots of mindless changes at the top.

Bluntly, we can have a French style system for the money we pay now, or a Scandinavian system if we put in 60% more money. We have been trying to have a Scandi system on a French resource base, which unsurprisingly is now disintegrating.

Or if you want the full Finnish system everyone loves, you'd need to abolish the private sector...

FeersumEnjineeya · December 2022

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have ito wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.
I have no fetish about the marketisation of the NHS but I do question the NHS's productivity. Our health spend has continued to rise in real terms in good times and bad. It is doing so now. We now spend £124bn on the NHS. This is an almost unimaginable sum of money. According to this website https://www.gilliankenny.com/blog/nhs-budget/ the original budget for the NHS was £427m which is the equivalent of £15bn today. So the NHS budget, in real terms, has increased by something like a factor of 7 since its creation.

More importantly, we are not far from the average spend for a western European country in terms of GDP on health. And we seem to be getting materially poorer results. An investigation into why is long overdue.

The one massive problem that is repeatedly cited is bed-blocking by patients who no longer need to be in hospital but cannot be discharged because there is no social care available for them. Why can this not be sorted?

Fairliered · December 2022

Carnyx said:

StuartDickson said:
Had a really difficult night working in Paeds A&E. Massive waiting times but we worked as a great NHS team and got through it. I was actually feeling pretty good. Then I saw what @WesStreeting said in the Telegraph. Thanks. Didn't think our morale could sink any lower.

#SOSNHS

https://twitter.com/andrewmeyerson/status/1601895195150356480?s=46&t=fTPzlF86OvOWp6hCi5dQXA
Presumably refers to this?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/11/wes-streeting-labour-bma-nhs-plans-gps

Mrs F tried to get a GP appointment this morning. Having constantly tried to get through to the surgery from the moment the lines opened, and having redialled 85 times before she eventually got through, she was told that all today’s appointments had been taken, and to try again tomorrow. If Labour can sort out GPs, they’ll be getting the votes from the Fairliered household.

SouthamObserver · December 2022

MaxPB said:

CarlottaVance said:
Lynch says it’s press and network rail propaganda to ask questions about the draining support for strikes from RMT.. but he should listen to this from Labour MP..

https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1602575131838119936

Labour MP Carolyn Harris says union leaders need to "listen closer" to the people on strike, who are telling her "they can't afford" to keep up strike action.

https://twitter.com/FirstEdition/status/1600617814217334801
Gravity always wins. The union can't fund these strikes indefinitely and the workers need to, you know, work to get paid. At a time of high inflation they probably need to work overtime if they are able. In the end Network Rail mat realise that the workers will accept a low ball offer because they will not be able to afford further strikes.

This is true for all of the strikers, but most especially the Royal Mail ones. Business is draining away from them and they are driving the company into bankruptcy at which point none of them have any jobs. Unions and management in this country are the worst among the world.

The bottom line is that if you treat people crappily for long enough they quit, strike or stop caring about doing their jobs to an adequate standard. Everyone loses as a result.

OnlyLivingBoy · December 2022

TheScreamingEagles said:

Carnyx said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

SandyRentool said:

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.
Time for the employers to make an offer that matches average private sector pay rises then.
So long as the unions agree to modernisation.

It is a fecking joke you cannot use contactless on the trains like you can on TfL because of the unions.
Is it really the unions? For very many years it was the *companies* that didn't want to know about common ticketing and so on across companies and services.
It is, I think most of you know what industry I work in, there was going to be a pilot in the rest of GB to roll out contactless Oyster cards, the DfT was told by the unions they would go on strike if this happened.

If the unions are the blockage then why have the same unions not blocked it in London or Liverpool? I use Oyster on the trains in London and Mick Lynch hasn't tried to stop me.

Eabhal · December 2022

turbotubbs said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have ito wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.
I have no fetish about the marketisation of the NHS but I do question the NHS's productivity. Our health spend has continued to rise in real terms in good times and bad. It is doing so now. We now spend £124bn on the NHS. This is an almost unimaginable sum of money. According to this website https://www.gilliankenny.com/blog/nhs-budget/ the original budget for the NHS was £427m which is the equivalent of £15bn today. So the NHS budget, in real terms, has increased by something like a factor of 7 since its creation.

More importantly, we are not far from the average spend for a western European country in terms of GDP on health. And we seem to be getting materially poorer results. An investigation into why is long overdue.
What treatments were available in 1948? Take cancer - there were NO chemotherapies. Nothing. Get cancer - if it could be cut out, you might make it, but if it had spread, or was a blood cancer, that was it. Morphine if needed till you died.

Take joint replacements - no new hip for aging folks - just lots of pain and worsening mobility until death.

Take fertility - couldn't conceive? Oh well you can always adopt.

And on and on and on. We could turn health back to 1948 if you want. Would save a lot on pensions too as most cancer diagnoses would be a death sentence (rather than 1 in 2 living at least 10 more years, which is the current figure).

These advances don't come cheap. Mono-clonal antibodies (any medicine with a name that ends in MAB) are like Erlich's magic bullet, but they are extremely expensive.

We could do a lot to help ourselves. Ban smoking completely and make being overweight socially unacceptable. Get everyone taking exercise - mandatory 3 miles a day by government tracker or else. But if we are not prepared to do that, maybe we have to find the money for our 'free' NHS.

It's this vicious relationship between more chronic conditions and better ways of treating them. As I said to Foxy before, I don't actually have any issue with us spending more on keeping people happy and healthy as a society - that's a good thing. It's just so much of the pressure is avoidable.

turbotubbs · December 2022

ydoethur said:

CarlottaVance said:

MaxPB said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have ito wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.
I have no fetish about the marketisation of the NHS but I do question the NHS's productivity. Our health spend has continued to rise in real terms in good times and bad. It is doing so now. We now spend £124bn on the NHS. This is an almost unimaginable sum of money. According to this website https://www.gilliankenny.com/blog/nhs-budget/ the original budget for the NHS was £427m which is the equivalent of £15bn today. So the NHS budget, in real terms, has increased by something like a factor of 7 since its creation.

More importantly, we are not far from the average spend for a western European country in terms of GDP on health. And we seem to be getting materially poorer results. An investigation into why is long overdue.
Because other European countries don't have the same fat and lazy population we do.
4th worst in Europe, behind only Turkey, Malta & Israel:

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/353747/9789289057738-eng.pdf
Genuinely surprised to learn;

(1) that the Israeli population are obese

(2) that they are in Europe.

Eurovision?

MaxPB · December 2022

SouthamObserver said:

MaxPB said:

CarlottaVance said:
Lynch says it’s press and network rail propaganda to ask questions about the draining support for strikes from RMT.. but he should listen to this from Labour MP..

https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1602575131838119936

Labour MP Carolyn Harris says union leaders need to "listen closer" to the people on strike, who are telling her "they can't afford" to keep up strike action.

https://twitter.com/FirstEdition/status/1600617814217334801
Gravity always wins. The union can't fund these strikes indefinitely and the workers need to, you know, work to get paid. At a time of high inflation they probably need to work overtime if they are able. In the end Network Rail mat realise that the workers will accept a low ball offer because they will not be able to afford further strikes.

This is true for all of the strikers, but most especially the Royal Mail ones. Business is draining away from them and they are driving the company into bankruptcy at which point none of them have any jobs. Unions and management in this country are the worst among the world.
The bottom line is that if you treat people crappily for long enough they quit, strike or stop caring about doing their jobs to an adequate standard. Everyone loses as a result.

Let them quit. They won't because they're sitting it out until they get nice five figure voluntary redundancy pay offs, but I'd absolutely let them quit.

ydoethur · December 2022

Ghedebrav said:

ydoethur said:

Ghedebrav said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
I dunno, when people can get an operation in less than 3 years?
If you take 100 people at random anywhere in the UK the chances are that 2 of them already work for the NHS. Surely there must come a point when more of everything is balanced by making better use of what we already have? Streeting, in fairness, does seem to recognise that (if not in his 30 second blurb) which is why he is unpopular with some of the unions.
Demands on the NHS are rising because of an ageing population. That means it needs more staff. The "more for less" attitude is why we are where we now, with millions waiting for operations, a rising sickness benefit bill and the system unable to fill vacancies because the pay is so shit. It's been completely broken by years of Tory incompetence and indifference.
He doesn't say how we will increase the workforce. They already struggle to recruit, but so do many public sector professions - teaching, police, prison officers etc.

It's not just about pay, either. Conditions, but also people have the basic skills and aptitude for the training. This is why (IMVHO) sorting schools is, long term, the real answer to most of our problems. But that's a looong term thing, so not attractive politically.
Would also be extremely expensive. Because that's another thing we've chronically underfunded for literally decades while making lots of mindless changes at the top.

Bluntly, we can have a French style system for the money we pay now, or a Scandinavian system if we put in 60% more money. We have been trying to have a Scandi system on a French resource base, which unsurprisingly is now disintegrating.
Or if you want the full Finnish system everyone loves, you'd need to abolish the private sector...

Thing is, if you properly resourced the state sector I don't think many people would choose private schools instead. They're expensive, often inconvenient to get to and - elephant in the room - the quality of teaching is often a bit naff.

So you wouldn't need to abolish it. Just watch it wither away.

Gove had actually grasped this, but he didn't quite understand how to achieve it and his prescription ultimately made the problem worse rather than better.

Eabhal · December 2022

Gallowgate said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

SandyRentool said:

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.
Time for the employers to make an offer that matches average private sector pay rises then.
So long as the unions agree to modernisation.

It is a fecking joke you cannot use contactless on the trains like you can on TfL because of the unions.
The Tyne and Wear Metro still doesn’t offer contactless tap in tap out. I’m not sure that has anything to do with unions.

The Tyne tunnel has fucked me 3 times now.

TheScreamingEagles · December 2022

OnlyLivingBoy said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Carnyx said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

SandyRentool said:

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.
Time for the employers to make an offer that matches average private sector pay rises then.
So long as the unions agree to modernisation.

It is a fecking joke you cannot use contactless on the trains like you can on TfL because of the unions.
Is it really the unions? For very many years it was the *companies* that didn't want to know about common ticketing and so on across companies and services.
It is, I think most of you know what industry I work in, there was going to be a pilot in the rest of GB to roll out contactless Oyster cards, the DfT was told by the unions they would go on strike if this happened.
If the unions are the blockage then why have the same unions not blocked it in London or Liverpool? I use Oyster on the trains in London and Mick Lynch hasn't tried to stop me.

Because I don't think they realised the ramifications of the Oyster card.

The lack of conductors on the tube was a factor.

HYUFD · December 2022

Then all the non doms will move abroad taking their investments in the UK economy and levy funds with them.

Streeting is a possible future Labour leader and PM but wrong on this. It looks like class war like their plan to abolish charity status for private schools. Even post Corbyn Starmer's more centrist Labour Party still will throw some class war meat to its base when needed, see also its plan to abolish the House of Lords.

Sunak having been a successful Goldman Sachs banker should stick to his guns and continue to keep non dom status and stand up for private schools and the Lords and our constitution. Conservative principles win or lose

CarlottaVance · December 2022

ydoethur said:

CarlottaVance said:

MaxPB said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have ito wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.
I have no fetish about the marketisation of the NHS but I do question the NHS's productivity. Our health spend has continued to rise in real terms in good times and bad. It is doing so now. We now spend £124bn on the NHS. This is an almost unimaginable sum of money. According to this website https://www.gilliankenny.com/blog/nhs-budget/ the original budget for the NHS was £427m which is the equivalent of £15bn today. So the NHS budget, in real terms, has increased by something like a factor of 7 since its creation.

More importantly, we are not far from the average spend for a western European country in terms of GDP on health. And we seem to be getting materially poorer results. An investigation into why is long overdue.
Because other European countries don't have the same fat and lazy population we do.
4th worst in Europe, behind only Turkey, Malta & Israel:

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/353747/9789289057738-eng.pdf
Genuinely surprised to learn;

(1) that the Israeli population are obese

(2) that they are in Europe.

The Israel ranking surprised me too - its the WHO Europe region, so if we exclude Israel and Turkey (90% of population in Asia), we're second worst, behind only Malta, and easily worst among large European countries.

RochdalePioneers · December 2022

TheScreamingEagles said:

SandyRentool said:

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.
Time for the employers to make an offer that matches average private sector pay rises then.
So long as the unions agree to modernisation.

It is a fecking joke you cannot use contactless on the trains like you can on TfL because of the unions.

I agree with the need for contactless - though its not so much unions the issue as the inability to make contactless work with myriads of fares for the same journey. Remember though that the "modernisation" being asked for is to largely suspend preventative maintenance on track and signals infrastructure, to make all trains Driver Only regardless of the impracticalities of this, and to remove most of the staff on the network.

As a good northern chap you know that not every bit of the network is self-contained and designed for it like the DLR. How do you do DOO at P13/14 at Manchester Piccadilly? Heavily curved platforms, large crowds, large numbers of different types of train all with different lengths. Remember that the "modernisation" imposes DOO at the same time at cutting large numbers of station staff . Its another fantasy solution from a party who not that long ago proposed "a digital railway" as the solution for that very line with no clue what it meant or what specifically it would implement.

Gallowgate · December 2022

Eabhal said:

Gallowgate said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

SandyRentool said:

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.
Time for the employers to make an offer that matches average private sector pay rises then.
So long as the unions agree to modernisation.

It is a fecking joke you cannot use contactless on the trains like you can on TfL because of the unions.
The Tyne and Wear Metro still doesn’t offer contactless tap in tap out. I’m not sure that has anything to do with unions.
The Tyne tunnel has fucked me 3 times now.

Three times here also

Eabhal · December 2022

MaxPB said:

Eabhal said:

MaxPB said:

Eabhal said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
It was just a wish list really. Impossible in current labour market conditions, unless they loosen up immigration?

We only ever talk about the supply side of the NHS, not why demand on it is increasing so much. Not a single mention of obesity or chronic conditions in that video.
Because that would mean people taking responsibility for their own health and circumstances rather than delegating responsibility to the state as seems the norm for all circumstances now. Neither party seems to want to make the point on personal responsibility.
I'd go for early intervention on child obesity/sugar tax etc, but there is something in a £100 tax discount if your BMI is <25, like health insurance in the US.

My main concern is that universal nature of the NHS is being undermined. I know two people who have had surgery for sports injuries done privately, and it's these kind of fit, >£40,000 individuals who will end up paying lots of tax to support a NHS that is undermined by widespread obesity. That turns people into Tories.

I also know a Doctor who cannot work as she's on a huge waiting list for knee surgery. How stupid is that?

In the same way I prioritise work, the NHS needs to as well. It's shitty but it's a resource limited environment. Not everyone is going to be seen to tomorrow. Getting working age people fit and healthy has got to be the priority. It almost seems like it's the other way around, as with everything else in the country.

I only waited 19 months for my operation because it wasn't affecting my ability to run or work. I would've gone private otherwise.

Mexicanpete · December 2022

...

HYUFD said:
Then all the non doms will move abroad taking their investments in the UK economy and levy funds with them.

Streeting is a possible future Labour leader and PM but wrong on this. It looks like class war like their plan to abolish charity status for private schools. Even post Corbyn Starmer's more centrist Labour Party still will throw some class war meat to its base when needed, see also its plan to abolish the House of Lords.

Sunak having been a successful banker should stick to his guns and continue to keep non dom status and stand up for private schools and the Lords and our constitution. Conservative principles win or lose

Meanwhile the peasants grow evermore cold and hungry. Let them eat cake!

ydoethur · December 2022

CarlottaVance said:

ydoethur said:

CarlottaVance said:

MaxPB said:

DavidL said:

RochdalePioneers said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
When people can see a doctor. When people can get operations. When people don't have ito wait half the day for an ambulance. I do wonder how many of your 1.3m people are healthcare professionals and how many are the people managing the Lansley market structure on salaries vastly above the front line healthcare professionals.

The solution you are reaching for is to abolish the marketisation of the NHS. Which I suspect you aren't in favour of.
I have no fetish about the marketisation of the NHS but I do question the NHS's productivity. Our health spend has continued to rise in real terms in good times and bad. It is doing so now. We now spend £124bn on the NHS. This is an almost unimaginable sum of money. According to this website https://www.gilliankenny.com/blog/nhs-budget/ the original budget for the NHS was £427m which is the equivalent of £15bn today. So the NHS budget, in real terms, has increased by something like a factor of 7 since its creation.

More importantly, we are not far from the average spend for a western European country in terms of GDP on health. And we seem to be getting materially poorer results. An investigation into why is long overdue.
Because other European countries don't have the same fat and lazy population we do.
4th worst in Europe, behind only Turkey, Malta & Israel:

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/353747/9789289057738-eng.pdf
Genuinely surprised to learn;

(1) that the Israeli population are obese

(2) that they are in Europe.
The Israel ranking surprised me too - its the WHO Europe region, so if we exclude Israel and Turkey (90% of population in Asia), we're second worst, behind only Malta, and easily worst among large European countries.

That makes more sense now!

I'm intrigued by the idea of a Eurovision for obesity suggested above though. I'm now imagining what form it would take...

Morris_Dancer · December 2022

Good morning, everyone.

Saw my GP for the first time in almost two decades yesterday. Polite fellow, the appointment I made in person, a week prior. So it's not horrendous everywhere.

Theuniondivvie · December 2022

Fairliered said:

Carnyx said:

StuartDickson said:
Had a really difficult night working in Paeds A&E. Massive waiting times but we worked as a great NHS team and got through it. I was actually feeling pretty good. Then I saw what @WesStreeting said in the Telegraph. Thanks. Didn't think our morale could sink any lower.

#SOSNHS

https://twitter.com/andrewmeyerson/status/1601895195150356480?s=46&t=fTPzlF86OvOWp6hCi5dQXA
Presumably refers to this?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/11/wes-streeting-labour-bma-nhs-plans-gps
Mrs F tried to get a GP appointment this morning. Having constantly tried to get through to the surgery from the moment the lines opened, and having redialled 85 times before she eventually got through, she was told that all today’s appointments had been taken, and to try again tomorrow. If Labour can sort out GPs, they’ll be getting the votes from the Fairliered household.

I don’t think Westminster would have oversight of GPs in Scotland would they?
Not to fall down the rabbit hole of anecdotage but I’ve never had a problem getting an appointment at my surgery (thankfully not often required so far) even during COVID. Mildly surprising since it’s in the East End of Glasgow and I’d expect demand to be high.

HYUFD · December 2022

Ghedebrav said:

ydoethur said:

Ghedebrav said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

DavidL said:
Perhaps the most obvious rebuttal is that rather being a source of funds the abolition of non dom status may well reduce the tax take in the UK. Labour always seem to assume that taxpayers are geese waiting quietly to be plucked and will not respond to changes in the tax code in any way other than writing larger cheques. These geese can and, in many cases, would, fly away taking their spending and tax payments with them. Would those that remained do more than make up the difference? Who knows? Certainly not Wes Streeting.

Plus the NHS already employs 1.3m people. At what point do we think that is enough?
I dunno, when people can get an operation in less than 3 years?
If you take 100 people at random anywhere in the UK the chances are that 2 of them already work for the NHS. Surely there must come a point when more of everything is balanced by making better use of what we already have? Streeting, in fairness, does seem to recognise that (if not in his 30 second blurb) which is why he is unpopular with some of the unions.
Demands on the NHS are rising because of an ageing population. That means it needs more staff. The "more for less" attitude is why we are where we now, with millions waiting for operations, a rising sickness benefit bill and the system unable to fill vacancies because the pay is so shit. It's been completely broken by years of Tory incompetence and indifference.
He doesn't say how we will increase the workforce. They already struggle to recruit, but so do many public sector professions - teaching, police, prison officers etc.

It's not just about pay, either. Conditions, but also people have the basic skills and aptitude for the training. This is why (IMVHO) sorting schools is, long term, the real answer to most of our problems. But that's a looong term thing, so not attractive politically.
Would also be extremely expensive. Because that's another thing we've chronically underfunded for literally decades while making lots of mindless changes at the top.

Bluntly, we can have a French style system for the money we pay now, or a Scandinavian system if we put in 60% more money. We have been trying to have a Scandi system on a French resource base, which unsurprisingly is now disintegrating.
Or if you want the full Finnish system everyone loves, you'd need to abolish the private sector...

Singapore and Canada are now ahead of Finland in the PISA rankings and plenty of private schools there.

Even Finland has some private religious schools

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-50563833.amp

Driver · December 2022

Carnyx said:

StuartDickson said:
Had a really difficult night working in Paeds A&E. Massive waiting times but we worked as a great NHS team and got through it. I was actually feeling pretty good. Then I saw what @WesStreeting said in the Telegraph. Thanks. Didn't think our morale could sink any lower.

#SOSNHS

https://twitter.com/andrewmeyerson/status/1601895195150356480?s=46&t=fTPzlF86OvOWp6hCi5dQXA
Presumably refers to this?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/11/wes-streeting-labour-bma-nhs-plans-gps

Sounds plausible. The BMA has been hostile to every change to the NHS. Including its creation.

RochdalePioneers · December 2022

TheScreamingEagles said:

Carnyx said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

SandyRentool said:

TheScreamingEagles said:
Time to mobilise the striking rail workers into the military and make them work for the armed forces.

If they refuse, lock them up at Manston.

This cannot go on.
Time for the employers to make an offer that matches average private sector pay rises then.
So long as the unions agree to modernisation.

It is a fecking joke you cannot use contactless on the trains like you can on TfL because of the unions.
Is it really the unions? For very many years it was the *companies* that didn't want to know about common ticketing and so on across companies and services.
It is, I think most of you know what industry I work in, there was going to be a pilot in the rest of GB to roll out contactless Oyster cards, the DfT was told by the unions they would go on strike if this happened.

Its much bigger than that. The fares system won't work with contactless in its current form. As an example, Sheffield to Manchester Piccadilly. - which of the eleven return fares is the system taking from your card? The whole fares system needs to be torched and replaced by something sane. But the DfT hates that idea as fares complexity makes money. When proposals have been made to genuinely simplify the DfT have refused.

Once you sort the fares out so that there are fixed prices for each journey, then we can make contactless work.

Driver · December 2022

As for the "plan" in the header, it's no plan at all - how will they actually fund it? The proposed funding mechanism will raise, if they're lucky, zero.

Sunak’s Tories need a good response to this – politicalbetting.com

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