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Is this good for Sunak or bad? – politicalbetting.com
Is this good for Sunak or bad? – politicalbetting.com
What is very clear is that people are likely to die when in normal circumstances they would have received help earlier.
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Strike settled.
People are going to die, there are no winners from this.
I mat have to sedate my father as he is furious at the profession putting lives at risk.
For the first time I can remember I've been thinking hard about what would happen if one of our family got into a situation where they needed an ambulance, for example if a child got Strep A sepsis. Knowing that if things go badly wrong there's a system waiting for you is one of those safety nets that it feels scary to have pulled away.
Emergency care is also different from elective care and more salient for wealthier voters. If you have insurance you can go private for a knee operation or hip replacement, but if you fall on a slippery front step and break your pelvis or suffer a brain haemorrhage then the NHS is your only option.
There is no magic nurse tree.
Although I suppose being roasted would be worse.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/63587909.amp
The nursing unions could and should point at that the actual cost to the nhs would be roughly neutral because the current lack of nurses means temporary workers are required to meet minimum standards at vast rates per shift (often £800+). From what I’m hearing locus hospital doctors can easily be on £2000 a shift at the moment.
A lot of politics is about picking the right allies and the right enemies. Sunak has chosen to ally himself with the devils and make enemies of the angels. That Starmer and Sunak are both inexperienced in this politics lark is becoming increasingly obvious.
It's blooming obvious that the "right" answer is somewhere between 6 and 8 percent. But any union going in asking for 8 percent wouldn't be rewarded for reasonableness, it would be squeezed down to five.
Asking for 19 is just a piss-take.
As a brexiteer surely you understand that the numbers at the beginning of a negotiation are only the starting point?
https://twitter.com/haggis_uk/status/1603368565608005634?s=46&t=mvgHYhIsrd1_IriIWSQPpQ
She doesn’t understand that skilled labour is in short supply, at least in the medium term. The words of someone who sells old rope and doesn’t understand that some workers actually provide valuable services.
That said, I don't doubt the government will get the blame. Nurses arouse sympathy, in a way that train drivers do not.
But as things stand, the polls show that the striking nurses have more support than the government.
And whilst having the government brought down by unions would be a bad thing as a general principle, I can imagine a fair few people responding to the premature collapse of this government with "oh well, never mind".
Now, the unions have gone on strike, demanding whatever per cent, and the government are just saying ‘we can’t afford that, but we’re not negotiating, independent pay review, burble burble, wibble wibble’.
So, to me, there are two possible intentions at work. Either, the government does indeed have institutional amnesia - which I doubt - or they are happy to see the strikes because they see a double benefit: culture war bollocks, divide and conquer and continuing to run the NHS down so they can say it’s broken, we’re going to privatise it.
So they’re happy for people to die, for the country to continue to have shockingly bad healthcare for god knows how long, to pursue their ideological goals.
They’re a government of sociopaths. They figure they’ve got two years left in power, they’re intent on doing as much damage as they can. They’re happy to damage the country with their ideological Brexit, they’re happy to damage the country with their ideological desire to get rid of the NHS. And there’s the happy side effect of salting the ground so badly for Labour that, if they win next time, they’ll just be clearing up the Tory bin fire they’ll be bequeathed with.
This shower of shite are pound shop Trumps, gaslighting the public while they and their mates grift the country to the bone.
https://twitter.com/carolvorders/status/1604898904721526794?s=46&t=mvgHYhIsrd1_IriIWSQPpQ
The motley crew that is the current Conservative party still seem captured by the idea that conflict is the the only way to get things done. A long period in opposition may be the only cure, and even then..
I don’t hate Camilla, I pity her.
Her Scottish husband is due a spell of chokey in Spain if that helps?
William and Kate are still popular with both Remainers and Leavers, Tories and Labour voters
The Government would be better off accomodating the NHS workers and if union destruction is their manifesto, crush the rail workers.
I note all the PB Conservatives are falling into their 1980s Thatcherite line over this issue. Remember though, Thatcher picked and chose her battles.
Tribe = first
Everything else = secondary
Perhaps understanding and utilization of appropriate staff is the key? I am certain that a ward will have a mix of staffing - some able to do more complex things, some less so. There is no one 'nurse' role.
Thatcher in 1980s: stood up to the miners' strike after stockpiling coal reserves, with catastrophic consequences for mining communities but managing to weaken the grip of militant union power on the economy; Sunak in 2020s: let's do the same with Nurses and Paramedics in the middle of an unprecedented NHS crisis
Thatcher in 1980s: cut income and corporate taxes from previously high levels after raising VAT significantly and balancing the budget. Truss in 2020s: let's slash taxes across the board in an unfunded fashion
Thatcher in 1980s: reform financial services and consumer regulations from previously very restrictive post-war rules. Johnson, Truss and Sunak in 2020s: let's pretend to do the same from a completely different baseline in the middle of an existential climate crisis
Thatcher in 1980s: express concern about too much European integration in a speech in Bruges, after bringing the UK into the European single market and deepening integration over many years. Entire Tory party in 2010s and 2020s: let's make the most critical bits of that Bruges speech the basis for our entire philosophy on Europe
And finally, Thatcher in 1980s: strong willed, charismatic female prime minister. Tories in 2020s: let's appoint a female prime minister who looks and sounds a bit like Thatcher. Never mind the policies, that'll do the trick.
Who will ever forget the unsurpassed @JackW Ed Miliband riff. A guitar sole that echoed down the PB years. Perhaps 500 performances? Maybe double that.
I aim for the stars, but realise that I’ll never be as big a space cadet as the mighty Jacobite.
https://www.themedicportal.com/blog/update-ucas-application-stats-for-2022-entry-medicine/
Maggie left office over thirty years ago, her finest hours were more like forty years ago.
We now have a generation of politicians whose only direct experience of Thatcher was seeing her on John Craven's Newsround, if that. And the real, interesting politician has been replaced by a cartoon.
It happens. But it causes people to have a funny idea about What Would Maggie Do?
There is an analogy there with the Conservative Party. They’ve forgotten what their USP is too.
Now she has apparently defrauded the Exchequer she is unceremoniously demoted to “the Scotswoman”.
Shades of Andy Murray et al.
https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/practice-personal-finance/gp-earnings-increase-but-expenses-rise-faster-than-income/
And if it is, Scotty would have been banned years ago.
I voted for the centre-right Centre Party for the Riksdag and for the regional council, and for the centre-right Liberals for the local council. Both parties are allies of the Liberal Democrats.
The NHS’s performance has declined dramatically since 2010. That isn’t an accident. There are multiple reasons, not least massive bed blocking because social care is so woeful. Of course the government can’t seriously address that cos it would mean taking money from their core voters. Can’t shrink the inheritance can we?
This government wants US-style inequalities. They want terrible public services, they want health insurance not free at the point of use healthcare, they don’t give a flying fuck about ordinary people. They only care about getting richer and making sure their taxes don’t go to improving the lives of their perceived inferiors - the poor, the feckless, the scroungers - in the slightest way. Yet they wrap themselves in the the flag and gibber on about bollocks - sovereignty! Immigrants! - to deceive the gullible amd incurious and to give ‘legitimate concerns’ talking points for the misanthropic and venal. Trumpian.