This morning I agreed to work one of my days off next week. This afternoon I agreed to work tomorrow, one of my days off this week

When I got back to the office this afternoon, I remembered to check the rota to see what my other day off was this week. It was today

I forgot that I'd already agreed to work a day off. But I probably would have agreed to do it anyway. I haven't got anything planned for tomorrow, and could always use the extra cash

The lovely lady who does all the rotas, holiday and pay, and asks me to work days off, called me a star today. I was only agreeing for my pecuniary benefit, but being on her good side is a definite free plus

Based on 2nd roll call so far, would say that this could go on for a LONG time.

Assuming that neither McCarthy OR his base (in more ways than one!) opponents cave.

Andy_JS said:

"Matt Goodwin
@GoodwinMJ

"we have more than 100 years of making things safe for children. Car seats, seat belts, no cigarette vending machines, fences around pools ... by contrast life went onto phone apps 10 yrs ago & the protections we have for kids are zero, absolutely zero""

https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1609283243723083778

I am constantly told "we have an app; do you have our app?" these days, and I have to regularly say I have quite enough of my life on my phone thanks - and don't fancy it.

Jordan now 18

noneoftheabove said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Based on 2nd roll call so far, would say that this could go on for a LONG time.

Assuming that neither McCarthy OR his base (in more ways than one!) opponents cave.

Kamala Harris should step in and say under an arcane and bizarre interpretation of the Constitution the Vice President can decide the winner of this election arbitrarily......

We don't want to confirm the neo-Nazis in their view of the constitution, thanks.

Had a longish chat tonight with my cousin who's a fairly senior NHS doctor in a London hospital. His view is that it's the A&E crunch that's the major factor in the ills plus the inability to discharge single older people who's families are refusing to take them in or fund social care.

On the first I told him the solution is fairly simple. A&E records the NHS number of every patient who visits. It is a very easy exercise to see which GP surgeries are not seeing enough patients with their given resources. Give them a month to get their house in order or their contract will be handed to a GP partnership that does meet the standard. It's literally a piece of piss to find out and then just needs some tough action from ministers to actually close those failing GP partnerships. I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the availability of GP appointments would surge if the government did this and suddenly a whole bunch of leeches and hangers on within the partnerships would end up getting sacked to hire more doctors and nurses for appointments.

These strikes could have been avoided with a 5% rise across the public sector last spring. They'd have been accepted and the government knew well what the inflation rate would be later in the year.
It would have set a baseline for the private sector, too. A government with strategic thought would have been all over it.
Can anyone spot a flaw in my thinking?

dixiedean said:

These strikes could have been avoided with a 5% rise across the public sector last spring. They'd have been accepted and the government knew well what the inflation rate would be later in the year.
It would have set a baseline for the private sector, too. A government with strategic thought would have been all over it.
Can anyone spot a flaw in my thinking?

Last spring, we didn't have a government. We had a bunch of failed drunks in charge.

LostPassword said:

noneoftheabove said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Based on 2nd roll call so far, would say that this could go on for a LONG time.

Assuming that neither McCarthy OR his base (in more ways than one!) opponents cave.

Kamala Harris should step in and say under an arcane and bizarre interpretation of the Constitution the Vice President can decide the winner of this election arbitrarily......

Funny that Jonathan should have mentioned Bercow earlier. That precedent would suggest the Dems nominating a Republican who would be acceptable to enough moderate Republicans to win with Democrat support, but who would really piss off the Republican far-right.

Liz Cheney would be great, or Mitt Romney.

Neither are eligible!

dixiedean said:

These strikes could have been avoided with a 5% rise across the public sector last spring. They'd have been accepted and the government knew well what the inflation rate would be later in the year.
It would have set a baseline for the private sector, too. A government with strategic thought would have been all over it.
Can anyone spot a flaw in my thinking?

The term ‘strategic thought’

Casino_Royale said:

Andy_JS said:

"Matt Goodwin
@GoodwinMJ

"we have more than 100 years of making things safe for children. Car seats, seat belts, no cigarette vending machines, fences around pools ... by contrast life went onto phone apps 10 yrs ago & the protections we have for kids are zero, absolutely zero""

https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1609283243723083778

I am constantly told "we have an app; do you have our app?" these days, and I have to regularly say I have quite enough of my life on my phone thanks - and don't fancy it.

Banking anywhere in the UK without being pestered to add an app to your phone is becoming increasingly difficult, annoyingly.

Yes, what I want is control of my entire financial position enabled by a single device that I could drop or lose in a moment's notice, thanks. I also don't want to be made to feel like some sort of leper because I want to go into a branch and get you to do that task rather than be made to do it myself through my phone.

The other thing that annoyed me was trying to go out anywhere post-covid for a bit - please set up, order and pay for everything through our app which you will use precisely once and then never touch again. Um, no.

I think that the government think that these strikes can be assimilated in to post covid normality. After going through the 'lockdown' etc, where you can't leave the house other than for exercise, strikes are just not a particularly big issue for people... there's no trains, so what. Also, the hospitals are piled up with people dying, well that all happened before. After we had Christmas being cancelled last year for everyone, not being able to go somewhere by train, just doesn't really register very highly, it is just an annoyance rather than the radical disruption it used to be.

ydoethur said:

LostPassword said:

noneoftheabove said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Based on 2nd roll call so far, would say that this could go on for a LONG time.

Assuming that neither McCarthy OR his base (in more ways than one!) opponents cave.

Kamala Harris should step in and say under an arcane and bizarre interpretation of the Constitution the Vice President can decide the winner of this election arbitrarily......

Funny that Jonathan should have mentioned Bercow earlier. That precedent would suggest the Dems nominating a Republican who would be acceptable to enough moderate Republicans to win with Democrat support, but who would really piss off the Republican far-right.

Liz Cheney would be great, or Mitt Romney.

Neither are eligible!

Given how over herethe main parties (sometimes) don't stand against an incumbent Speaker, who votes to break ties in according to careful principles (mostly), I've sometimes felt we might as well make the role one for a retiring MP, rather than someone actually sitting in the House.

ydoethur said:

dixiedean said:

These strikes could have been avoided with a 5% rise across the public sector last spring. They'd have been accepted and the government knew well what the inflation rate would be later in the year.
It would have set a baseline for the private sector, too. A government with strategic thought would have been all over it.
Can anyone spot a flaw in my thinking?

Last spring, we didn't have a government. We had a bunch of failed drunks in charge.

You spotted it!

ydoethur said:

LostPassword said:

noneoftheabove said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Based on 2nd roll call so far, would say that this could go on for a LONG time.

Assuming that neither McCarthy OR his base (in more ways than one!) opponents cave.

Kamala Harris should step in and say under an arcane and bizarre interpretation of the Constitution the Vice President can decide the winner of this election arbitrarily......

Funny that Jonathan should have mentioned Bercow earlier. That precedent would suggest the Dems nominating a Republican who would be acceptable to enough moderate Republicans to win with Democrat support, but who would really piss off the Republican far-right.

Liz Cheney would be great, or Mitt Romney.

Neither are eligible!

I believe Cheney is eligible - the Speaker does not have to be a member of the House. SSI or Jim Miller will correct me if in error.

LostPassword said:

Stuartinromford said:

Sean_F said:

Private sector wages are growing by 6.5% and will outpace inflation before long.

Expecting NHS workers to settle for much less is pointless.

As pointed out upthread, the government ought to welcome increases in real wages.

They did, indeed they celebrated them...

... until the government was at risk of having to pay them.

The greater the gap between private sector pay increases (which increase tax revenues thanks to fiscal drag) and public sector pay increases (which increase public spending) the faster the deficit will be reduced.

Given that even private sector wages are falling by several percent in real terms then the government strategy demands an eye-watering real terms cut in public sector pay.

This is the one thing that this government exists to do. If they back down from this strategy it precipitates a major crisis.

There’s no point picking an unwinnable fight. People will just leave the public sector in search of higher wages.

dixiedean said:

ydoethur said:

dixiedean said:

These strikes could have been avoided with a 5% rise across the public sector last spring. They'd have been accepted and the government knew well what the inflation rate would be later in the year.
It would have set a baseline for the private sector, too. A government with strategic thought would have been all over it.
Can anyone spot a flaw in my thinking?

Last spring, we didn't have a government. We had a bunch of failed drunks in charge.

You spotted it!

I don't think these strikes would have happened with Truss in charge. They know Sunak is weak.

JohnO said:

ydoethur said:

LostPassword said:

noneoftheabove said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Based on 2nd roll call so far, would say that this could go on for a LONG time.

Assuming that neither McCarthy OR his base (in more ways than one!) opponents cave.

Kamala Harris should step in and say under an arcane and bizarre interpretation of the Constitution the Vice President can decide the winner of this election arbitrarily......

Funny that Jonathan should have mentioned Bercow earlier. That precedent would suggest the Dems nominating a Republican who would be acceptable to enough moderate Republicans to win with Democrat support, but who would really piss off the Republican far-right.

Liz Cheney would be great, or Mitt Romney.

Neither are eligible!

I believe Cheney is eligible - the Speaker does not have to be a member of the House. SSI or Jim Miller will correct me if in error.

John, check your Signal.

WHY am I suddenly starting to see the distinct advantages of FPTP???

dixiedean said:

MaxPB said:

Had a longish chat tonight with my cousin who's a fairly senior NHS doctor in a London hospital. His view is that it's the A&E crunch that's the major factor in the ills plus the inability to discharge single older people who's families are refusing to take them in or fund social care.

On the first I told him the solution is fairly simple. A&E records the NHS number of every patient who visits. It is a very easy exercise to see which GP surgeries are not seeing enough patients with their given resources. Give them a month to get their house in order or their contract will be handed to a GP partnership that does meet the standard. It's literally a piece of piss to find out and then just needs some tough action from ministers to actually close those failing GP partnerships. I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the availability of GP appointments would surge if the government did this and suddenly a whole bunch of leeches and hangers on within the partnerships would end up getting sacked to hire more doctors and nurses for appointments.

And where are these doctors and nurses sitting waiting to be hired, exactly?

Working as locums or through agencies, we've got enough money to fully fund the number of doctors we need for GPs, the crooked GP partnerships just want to funnel money to their spouses, kids and other various hangers ons because they've discovered the government just doesn't give a shit about their performance in terms of actually seeing patients.

TheScreamingEagles said:

ydoethur said:

LostPassword said:

noneoftheabove said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Based on 2nd roll call so far, would say that this could go on for a LONG time.

Assuming that neither McCarthy OR his base (in more ways than one!) opponents cave.

Kamala Harris should step in and say under an arcane and bizarre interpretation of the Constitution the Vice President can decide the winner of this election arbitrarily......

Funny that Jonathan should have mentioned Bercow earlier. That precedent would suggest the Dems nominating a Republican who would be acceptable to enough moderate Republicans to win with Democrat support, but who would really piss off the Republican far-right.

Liz Cheney would be great, or Mitt Romney.

Neither are eligible!

Yes they are.

You don't need to member of the House of Representatives to be Speaker.

I suppose technically a Speaker is an officer of the House rather than a member of it, but since there has never been somebody even considered for the office who isn't a member it doesn't seem likely they would be held eligible in the event of a Supreme Court Challenge.

MaxPB said:

dixiedean said:

MaxPB said:

Had a longish chat tonight with my cousin who's a fairly senior NHS doctor in a London hospital. His view is that it's the A&E crunch that's the major factor in the ills plus the inability to discharge single older people who's families are refusing to take them in or fund social care.

On the first I told him the solution is fairly simple. A&E records the NHS number of every patient who visits. It is a very easy exercise to see which GP surgeries are not seeing enough patients with their given resources. Give them a month to get their house in order or their contract will be handed to a GP partnership that does meet the standard. It's literally a piece of piss to find out and then just needs some tough action from ministers to actually close those failing GP partnerships. I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the availability of GP appointments would surge if the government did this and suddenly a whole bunch of leeches and hangers on within the partnerships would end up getting sacked to hire more doctors and nurses for appointments.

And where are these doctors and nurses sitting waiting to be hired, exactly?

Working as locums or through agencies, we've got enough money to fully fund the number of doctors we need for GPs, the crooked GP partnerships just want to funnel money to their spouses, kids and other various hangers ons because they've discovered the government just doesn't give a shit about their performance in terms of actually seeing patients.

My father is being offered silly money to come out of retirement.

ydoethur said:

LostPassword said:

noneoftheabove said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Based on 2nd roll call so far, would say that this could go on for a LONG time.

Assuming that neither McCarthy OR his base (in more ways than one!) opponents cave.

Kamala Harris should step in and say under an arcane and bizarre interpretation of the Constitution the Vice President can decide the winner of this election arbitrarily......

Funny that Jonathan should have mentioned Bercow earlier. That precedent would suggest the Dems nominating a Republican who would be acceptable to enough moderate Republicans to win with Democrat support, but who would really piss off the Republican far-right.

Liz Cheney would be great, or Mitt Romney.

Neither are eligible!

I thought anyone could be House Speaker?

And hence the nightmare scenario of Trump getting the role and being high in the line of succession.

ydoethur said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

ydoethur said:

LostPassword said:

noneoftheabove said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Based on 2nd roll call so far, would say that this could go on for a LONG time.

Assuming that neither McCarthy OR his base (in more ways than one!) opponents cave.

Kamala Harris should step in and say under an arcane and bizarre interpretation of the Constitution the Vice President can decide the winner of this election arbitrarily......

Funny that Jonathan should have mentioned Bercow earlier. That precedent would suggest the Dems nominating a Republican who would be acceptable to enough moderate Republicans to win with Democrat support, but who would really piss off the Republican far-right.

Liz Cheney would be great, or Mitt Romney.

Neither are eligible!

Yes they are.

You don't need to member of the House of Representatives to be Speaker.

I suppose technically a Speaker is an officer of the House rather than a member of it, but since there has never been somebody even considered for the office who isn't a member it doesn't seem likely they would be held eligible in the event of a Supreme Court Challenge.

Eh, with this Court it'd depend on if they liked the winner or not.

Just kidding, even they have had to show occasional principles when it comes to this stuff.

TheScreamingEagles said:

MaxPB said:

dixiedean said:

MaxPB said:

Had a longish chat tonight with my cousin who's a fairly senior NHS doctor in a London hospital. His view is that it's the A&E crunch that's the major factor in the ills plus the inability to discharge single older people who's families are refusing to take them in or fund social care.

On the first I told him the solution is fairly simple. A&E records the NHS number of every patient who visits. It is a very easy exercise to see which GP surgeries are not seeing enough patients with their given resources. Give them a month to get their house in order or their contract will be handed to a GP partnership that does meet the standard. It's literally a piece of piss to find out and then just needs some tough action from ministers to actually close those failing GP partnerships. I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the availability of GP appointments would surge if the government did this and suddenly a whole bunch of leeches and hangers on within the partnerships would end up getting sacked to hire more doctors and nurses for appointments.

And where are these doctors and nurses sitting waiting to be hired, exactly?

Working as locums or through agencies, we've got enough money to fully fund the number of doctors we need for GPs, the crooked GP partnerships just want to funnel money to their spouses, kids and other various hangers ons because they've discovered the government just doesn't give a shit about their performance in terms of actually seeing patients.

My father is being offered silly money to come out of retirement.

Silly in the sense of a lot, or silly as in it's actually Monopoly money and they're hoping he won't notice?

kle4 said:

ydoethur said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

ydoethur said:

LostPassword said:

noneoftheabove said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Based on 2nd roll call so far, would say that this could go on for a LONG time.

Assuming that neither McCarthy OR his base (in more ways than one!) opponents cave.

Kamala Harris should step in and say under an arcane and bizarre interpretation of the Constitution the Vice President can decide the winner of this election arbitrarily......

Funny that Jonathan should have mentioned Bercow earlier. That precedent would suggest the Dems nominating a Republican who would be acceptable to enough moderate Republicans to win with Democrat support, but who would really piss off the Republican far-right.

Liz Cheney would be great, or Mitt Romney.

Neither are eligible!

Yes they are.

You don't need to member of the House of Representatives to be Speaker.

I suppose technically a Speaker is an officer of the House rather than a member of it, but since there has never been somebody even considered for the office who isn't a member it doesn't seem likely they would be held eligible in the event of a Supreme Court Challenge.

Eh, with this Court it'd depend on if they liked the winner or not.

Just kidding, even they have had to show occasional principles when it comes to this stuff.

Really? That *would* be a dramatic break with tradition.

For the rest, I think it's safe to assume they wouldn't like the winner.

ydoethur said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

ydoethur said:

LostPassword said:

noneoftheabove said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Based on 2nd roll call so far, would say that this could go on for a LONG time.

Assuming that neither McCarthy OR his base (in more ways than one!) opponents cave.

Kamala Harris should step in and say under an arcane and bizarre interpretation of the Constitution the Vice President can decide the winner of this election arbitrarily......

Funny that Jonathan should have mentioned Bercow earlier. That precedent would suggest the Dems nominating a Republican who would be acceptable to enough moderate Republicans to win with Democrat support, but who would really piss off the Republican far-right.

Liz Cheney would be great, or Mitt Romney.

Neither are eligible!

Yes they are.

You don't need to member of the House of Representatives to be Speaker.

I suppose technically a Speaker is an officer of the House rather than a member of it, but since there has never been somebody even considered for the office who isn't a member it doesn't seem likely they would be held eligible in the event of a Supreme Court Challenge.

As the Constitution does not explicitly state that the speaker must be an incumbent member of the House, it is permissible for representatives to vote for someone who is not a member of the House at the time, and non-members have received a few votes in various speaker elections over the past several years. Every person elected speaker, however, has been a member.

All these problems with A&E will go away when we leave the EU:

Here’s the video in which Vote Leave promised shorter A&E waiting times once we left the EU.

https://twitter.com/WritesBright/status/1609980791936745472?s=20&t=GPHVN8-nIH40byWIfO10gA

ydoethur said:

kle4 said:

ydoethur said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

ydoethur said:

LostPassword said:

noneoftheabove said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Based on 2nd roll call so far, would say that this could go on for a LONG time.

Assuming that neither McCarthy OR his base (in more ways than one!) opponents cave.

Kamala Harris should step in and say under an arcane and bizarre interpretation of the Constitution the Vice President can decide the winner of this election arbitrarily......

Funny that Jonathan should have mentioned Bercow earlier. That precedent would suggest the Dems nominating a Republican who would be acceptable to enough moderate Republicans to win with Democrat support, but who would really piss off the Republican far-right.

Liz Cheney would be great, or Mitt Romney.

Neither are eligible!

Yes they are.

You don't need to member of the House of Representatives to be Speaker.

I suppose technically a Speaker is an officer of the House rather than a member of it, but since there has never been somebody even considered for the office who isn't a member it doesn't seem likely they would be held eligible in the event of a Supreme Court Challenge.

Eh, with this Court it'd depend on if they liked the winner or not.

Just kidding, even they have had to show occasional principles when it comes to this stuff.

Really? That *would* be a dramatic break with tradition.

For the rest, I think it's safe to assume they wouldn't like the winner.

I said occasional.

ydoethur said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MaxPB said:

dixiedean said:

MaxPB said:

Had a longish chat tonight with my cousin who's a fairly senior NHS doctor in a London hospital. His view is that it's the A&E crunch that's the major factor in the ills plus the inability to discharge single older people who's families are refusing to take them in or fund social care.

On the first I told him the solution is fairly simple. A&E records the NHS number of every patient who visits. It is a very easy exercise to see which GP surgeries are not seeing enough patients with their given resources. Give them a month to get their house in order or their contract will be handed to a GP partnership that does meet the standard. It's literally a piece of piss to find out and then just needs some tough action from ministers to actually close those failing GP partnerships. I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the availability of GP appointments would surge if the government did this and suddenly a whole bunch of leeches and hangers on within the partnerships would end up getting sacked to hire more doctors and nurses for appointments.

And where are these doctors and nurses sitting waiting to be hired, exactly?

Working as locums or through agencies, we've got enough money to fully fund the number of doctors we need for GPs, the crooked GP partnerships just want to funnel money to their spouses, kids and other various hangers ons because they've discovered the government just doesn't give a shit about their performance in terms of actually seeing patients.

My father is being offered silly money to come out of retirement.

Silly in the sense of a lot, or silly as in it's actually Monopoly money and they're hoping he won't notice?

Silly as he could earn more in a day than he used to earn in a week.

TinkyWinky said:

MaxPB said:

Had a longish chat tonight with my cousin who's a fairly senior NHS doctor in a London hospital. His view is that it's the A&E crunch that's the major factor in the ills plus the inability to discharge single older people who's families are refusing to take them in or fund social care.

On the first I told him the solution is fairly simple. A&E records the NHS number of every patient who visits. It is a very easy exercise to see which GP surgeries are not seeing enough patients with their given resources. Give them a month to get their house in order or their contract will be handed to a GP partnership that does meet the standard. It's literally a piece of piss to find out and then just needs some tough action from ministers to actually close those failing GP partnerships. I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the availability of GP appointments would surge if the government did this and suddenly a whole bunch of leeches and hangers on within the partnerships would end up getting sacked to hire more doctors and nurses for appointments.

Awesome. I've got an image in my head of Harry Maguire leaning on the advertising boarding in the last Euros explaining the complexities of the offside trap to his perplexed WAG.

I was talking to my cousin's son the other day and he said he really wanted to meet a giant. So I told him the solution was fairly easy. I gave him some beans and told him to plant them in his back garden. Within a couple of days, a vine will appear and if he climbs it, he can meet the giant. Although he better be careful as the giant is a frightful thing. He seemed happy enough with that.

After that I drove home but on the way back managed to catch the homeless alcoholic with the three legged dog who keeps pestering everyone at the traffic lights. I leaned out of my car window and told him he just needed to have a wash, get a job and put the dog down and within a few years he could be driving a car like mine. With that, I sped off as the traffic lights had turned.

You must have had very high hopes for this post to invest so much time in it.

TheScreamingEagles said:

ydoethur said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

MaxPB said:

dixiedean said:

MaxPB said:

Had a longish chat tonight with my cousin who's a fairly senior NHS doctor in a London hospital. His view is that it's the A&E crunch that's the major factor in the ills plus the inability to discharge single older people who's families are refusing to take them in or fund social care.

On the first I told him the solution is fairly simple. A&E records the NHS number of every patient who visits. It is a very easy exercise to see which GP surgeries are not seeing enough patients with their given resources. Give them a month to get their house in order or their contract will be handed to a GP partnership that does meet the standard. It's literally a piece of piss to find out and then just needs some tough action from ministers to actually close those failing GP partnerships. I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the availability of GP appointments would surge if the government did this and suddenly a whole bunch of leeches and hangers on within the partnerships would end up getting sacked to hire more doctors and nurses for appointments.

And where are these doctors and nurses sitting waiting to be hired, exactly?

Working as locums or through agencies, we've got enough money to fully fund the number of doctors we need for GPs, the crooked GP partnerships just want to funnel money to their spouses, kids and other various hangers ons because they've discovered the government just doesn't give a shit about their performance in terms of actually seeing patients.

My father is being offered silly money to come out of retirement.

Silly in the sense of a lot, or silly as in it's actually Monopoly money and they're hoping he won't notice?

Silly as he could earn more in a day than he used to earn in a week.

Shouldn't you be claiming another first on the NEW THREAD?

dixiedean said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

Under US Constitution, the Speaker of the House does NOT have to be an elected Representative.

Step forward Donald. In your country's hour of need.

Yes, Donald, step forward.

As long as you are standing on the edge of a very high cliff. Looking outwards.

Luckyguy1983 said:

dixiedean said:

MaxPB said:

Had a longish chat tonight with my cousin who's a fairly senior NHS doctor in a London hospital. His view is that it's the A&E crunch that's the major factor in the ills plus the inability to discharge single older people who's families are refusing to take them in or fund social care.

On the first I told him the solution is fairly simple. A&E records the NHS number of every patient who visits. It is a very easy exercise to see which GP surgeries are not seeing enough patients with their given resources. Give them a month to get their house in order or their contract will be handed to a GP partnership that does meet the standard. It's literally a piece of piss to find out and then just needs some tough action from ministers to actually close those failing GP partnerships. I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the availability of GP appointments would surge if the government did this and suddenly a whole bunch of leeches and hangers on within the partnerships would end up getting sacked to hire more doctors and nurses for appointments.

And where are these doctors and nurses sitting waiting to be hired, exactly?

Not an answer, but on a related note, this comment below the line on John Redwood's blog really interested me:

"Governments seek advice from the Royal Medical Colleges about NHS practices and development, and the lack of bed provision is almost entirely down to their advice 30 years ago that most surgery would involve one-day care only in the future – this of course, as is usual in the NHS, did not take account of an increase in patients nor in medical advances. Someone at the Ministry of Health should have firmly pointed this out, but apparently didn’t.

Similarly, the Royal Colleges did not want an increase in the number of doctors, because rarity value increases salaries – this was well known in medical circles, and confirmed by a BMA vote in 2008 AGAINST an increase in medical training positions. Funny how the media don’t sniff these matters out and publicise them, isn’t it?... "

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/01/03/a-and-e-and-nhs-management/#comments

I wonder how our very own @foxinsoxuk voted?

Here's a taste of the contemporaneous report:

"Delegates at the annual BMA conference voted by a narrow majority to restrict the number of places at medical schools to avoid “overproduction of doctors with limited career opportunities.” They also agreed on a complete ban on opening new medical schools.

David Sochart, from Manchester and Salford, warned that in the current job climate allowing too many new doctors into the market would risk devaluing the profession and make newly qualified doctors prey to “unscrupulous …"

https://www.bmj.com/content/337/bmj.a748.full

Luckyguy1983 said:

dixiedean said:

MaxPB said:

Had a longish chat tonight with my cousin who's a fairly senior NHS doctor in a London hospital. His view is that it's the A&E crunch that's the major factor in the ills plus the inability to discharge single older people who's families are refusing to take them in or fund social care.

On the first I told him the solution is fairly simple. A&E records the NHS number of every patient who visits. It is a very easy exercise to see which GP surgeries are not seeing enough patients with their given resources. Give them a month to get their house in order or their contract will be handed to a GP partnership that does meet the standard. It's literally a piece of piss to find out and then just needs some tough action from ministers to actually close those failing GP partnerships. I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the availability of GP appointments would surge if the government did this and suddenly a whole bunch of leeches and hangers on within the partnerships would end up getting sacked to hire more doctors and nurses for appointments.

And where are these doctors and nurses sitting waiting to be hired, exactly?

Not an answer, but on a related note, this comment below the line on John Redwood's blog really interested me:

"Governments seek advice from the Royal Medical Colleges about NHS practices and development, and the lack of bed provision is almost entirely down to their advice 30 years ago that most surgery would involve one-day care only in the future – this of course, as is usual in the NHS, did not take account of an increase in patients nor in medical advances. Someone at the Ministry of Health should have firmly pointed this out, but apparently didn’t.

Similarly, the Royal Colleges did not want an increase in the number of doctors, because rarity value increases salaries – this was well known in medical circles, and confirmed by a BMA vote in 2008 AGAINST an increase in medical training positions. Funny how the media don’t sniff these matters out and publicise them, isn’t it?... "

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/01/03/a-and-e-and-nhs-management/#comments

I wonder how our very own @foxinsoxuk voted?

Interesting. However. Has no one noticed over 30 years about the beds?
Equally. Was the shortage of training a secret for 15 years since that vote?

NEW THREAD

TheScreamingEagles said:

MaxPB said:

dixiedean said:

MaxPB said:

Had a longish chat tonight with my cousin who's a fairly senior NHS doctor in a London hospital. His view is that it's the A&E crunch that's the major factor in the ills plus the inability to discharge single older people who's families are refusing to take them in or fund social care.

On the first I told him the solution is fairly simple. A&E records the NHS number of every patient who visits. It is a very easy exercise to see which GP surgeries are not seeing enough patients with their given resources. Give them a month to get their house in order or their contract will be handed to a GP partnership that does meet the standard. It's literally a piece of piss to find out and then just needs some tough action from ministers to actually close those failing GP partnerships. I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the availability of GP appointments would surge if the government did this and suddenly a whole bunch of leeches and hangers on within the partnerships would end up getting sacked to hire more doctors and nurses for appointments.

And where are these doctors and nurses sitting waiting to be hired, exactly?

Working as locums or through agencies, we've got enough money to fully fund the number of doctors we need for GPs, the crooked GP partnerships just want to funnel money to their spouses, kids and other various hangers ons because they've discovered the government just doesn't give a shit about their performance in terms of actually seeing patients.

My father is being offered silly money to come out of retirement.

My mum is a retired GP. I've suggested she could go back to doing the job if she wanted, but she says it would probably require a lot of training because things have changed a lot over the last few years.

turbotubbs said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

dixiedean said:

MaxPB said:

Had a longish chat tonight with my cousin who's a fairly senior NHS doctor in a London hospital. His view is that it's the A&E crunch that's the major factor in the ills plus the inability to discharge single older people who's families are refusing to take them in or fund social care.

On the first I told him the solution is fairly simple. A&E records the NHS number of every patient who visits. It is a very easy exercise to see which GP surgeries are not seeing enough patients with their given resources. Give them a month to get their house in order or their contract will be handed to a GP partnership that does meet the standard. It's literally a piece of piss to find out and then just needs some tough action from ministers to actually close those failing GP partnerships. I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the availability of GP appointments would surge if the government did this and suddenly a whole bunch of leeches and hangers on within the partnerships would end up getting sacked to hire more doctors and nurses for appointments.

And where are these doctors and nurses sitting waiting to be hired, exactly?

Not an answer, but on a related note, this comment below the line on John Redwood's blog really interested me:

"Governments seek advice from the Royal Medical Colleges about NHS practices and development, and the lack of bed provision is almost entirely down to their advice 30 years ago that most surgery would involve one-day care only in the future – this of course, as is usual in the NHS, did not take account of an increase in patients nor in medical advances. Someone at the Ministry of Health should have firmly pointed this out, but apparently didn’t.

Similarly, the Royal Colleges did not want an increase in the number of doctors, because rarity value increases salaries – this was well known in medical circles, and confirmed by a BMA vote in 2008 AGAINST an increase in medical training positions. Funny how the media don’t sniff these matters out and publicise them, isn’t it?... "

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/01/03/a-and-e-and-nhs-management/#comments

I wonder how our very own @foxinsoxuk voted?

The keeping salaries high by restricting training has long been known. Pharmacy has seen the reverse in the last 15 years. Many more schools of pharmacy leads to many more pharmacists which drive down wages, notably for locus work, and caused a crash in student recruitment. (Why go into pharmacy, there are no jobs and the pay is shit…). Reversing a bit now (pandemic has raised healthcare profile, and we are past the dip in teenagers), but it’s a cautionary tale.

It's not really a cautionary tale; an abundance in something making it more readily available and affordable is a good thing. How dare they 'ban' medical schools?

Luckyguy1983 said:

turbotubbs said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

dixiedean said:

MaxPB said:

Had a longish chat tonight with my cousin who's a fairly senior NHS doctor in a London hospital. His view is that it's the A&E crunch that's the major factor in the ills plus the inability to discharge single older people who's families are refusing to take them in or fund social care.

On the first I told him the solution is fairly simple. A&E records the NHS number of every patient who visits. It is a very easy exercise to see which GP surgeries are not seeing enough patients with their given resources. Give them a month to get their house in order or their contract will be handed to a GP partnership that does meet the standard. It's literally a piece of piss to find out and then just needs some tough action from ministers to actually close those failing GP partnerships. I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the availability of GP appointments would surge if the government did this and suddenly a whole bunch of leeches and hangers on within the partnerships would end up getting sacked to hire more doctors and nurses for appointments.

And where are these doctors and nurses sitting waiting to be hired, exactly?

Not an answer, but on a related note, this comment below the line on John Redwood's blog really interested me:

"Governments seek advice from the Royal Medical Colleges about NHS practices and development, and the lack of bed provision is almost entirely down to their advice 30 years ago that most surgery would involve one-day care only in the future – this of course, as is usual in the NHS, did not take account of an increase in patients nor in medical advances. Someone at the Ministry of Health should have firmly pointed this out, but apparently didn’t.

Similarly, the Royal Colleges did not want an increase in the number of doctors, because rarity value increases salaries – this was well known in medical circles, and confirmed by a BMA vote in 2008 AGAINST an increase in medical training positions. Funny how the media don’t sniff these matters out and publicise them, isn’t it?... "

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/01/03/a-and-e-and-nhs-management/#comments

I wonder how our very own @foxinsoxuk voted?

The keeping salaries high by restricting training has long been known. Pharmacy has seen the reverse in the last 15 years. Many more schools of pharmacy leads to many more pharmacists which drive down wages, notably for locus work, and caused a crash in student recruitment. (Why go into pharmacy, there are no jobs and the pay is shit…). Reversing a bit now (pandemic has raised healthcare profile, and we are past the dip in teenagers), but it’s a cautionary tale.

It's not really a cautionary tale; an abundance in something making it more readily available and affordable is a good thing. How dare they 'ban' medical schools?

What's this? Is John Redwood and his blog comments doing pb's finest freethinker's thinking for him again? Heaven forbid.

Free market though innit.

BartholomewRoberts said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

LostPassword said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

On topic.

Yeah, screwing over nurses and NHS employees is never a good look, then you have to remember the pandemic and the money pissed up against a wall with the PPE and it looks horrific.

As Thatcher's go to man, Ken Clarke said the NHS unions were the most militant trade unions he had ever dealt with.

As for the rail strikers, crush the fuckers, make them bankrupt, don't back down Rishi, the more strikes we get the more WFH I get.

As for the Royal Mail, they are signing their own death warrant.

How much of the stuff we receive through the post do we actually need to receive? Letters etc are better sent on email. Takeaway catalogues etc I do not need. Parcels have a choice of bastard companies to screw up deliveries. I like my postie, but his time is short.

On the train strikers, the problem is that they aren't thinking it through. If we don't need the trains because more people will work from home, why have they made such a fuss to get people back into the office? If we're going to use alternate transport why aren't they investing in roads like in the 80s?

We're going to contract our economy further because you won't reliably be able to travel by train, bus operations will go pop as the new £2 fare will require subsidy they won't get, and road projects are all way off into the future. I am a loud advocate from hybrid working and full WFH. But we can't all do it, and the government have no plan to get people travelling.

In the last month Royal Mail have lost a parcel I have sent.

Still no update on my claim other than we're very busy and the next update will be on the 18th of January.

DPD also lost a package, my claim was processed within a week.

All of the parcel companies have an Achilles heel - the sub-contractors who actually deliver the parcels to customers. Get a good one and the company perception is good. Get a bad one, and...

You mention DPD, where the local delivery guy repeatedly delivers parcels to houses in the wrong village (I have both driven other people's parcels over to them and received mine from someone else). They have an app we've been forced to download to literally pinpoint location and add pictures etc and their guy just ignores is. No customer service team - they only have a 3rd party team where its £6 a call.

Then we have the Scottish problem where they are all a cartel. They set bonkers pricing for Highlands / Islands with arbitrary lines drawn on a map by a chimp. Notoriously the posh Aberdeen satellite suburb of Westhill is in H&I and pays a gentle 2.5x premium for being less than 10 miles from the city centre depots which is much much closer than a stack of places which aren't H&I. Is there any appeal of this cartel behaviour? No! Fuckers.

All UK delivery companies should be regulated to work on the same basis as the Royal Mail used to be run with no differentiation for remote areas. This is yet another area where we differ from Europe to our cost (not in terms of the specific but rather the general principle). In Europe many services are run by private organisations rather than directly by the State. But they are very strictly regulated - whether it is health care, postal services or transport. There is nothing wrong with private companies being involved in these things but the laisse faire attitude pursued by successive UK governments means customers suffer. The key is not state ownership but proper state regulation.

I am in favour of competition with regards to things like parcel delivery - lets have competition and innovation add services and lower prices. The problem is when the private operators decide not to compete and innovate. And with parcels the harsh reality is that we are not the customer - the company sending is.

So lets take a recent example. Order from the Lego store. Lego use DPD whether I like it or not. Lego confirmation states that the package does not need to be signed for. DPD email states the sender requires the package to be signed for. Can I get either Lego or DPD to fix this? No.

So that means staying in - which as I work in the building they are delivering to is fine. Until the app tells you they missed you. And you see the photo taken not of your house. Can you call the depot or customer service as with other operators? No - there is an 0121 automated number which tells you to use the app as you weren't in. There is no online customer service team. The chatbot redirects you to download the app. There isn't even a UK Twitter team. So the only solution is redirect to my closest parcel drop, which is 13 miles away.

Lego don't give a toss - they send a bazillion packages a year. DPD may or may not give a toss - hard to tell as nobody to speak to. The moron last mile subcontractor doesn't care - I did actually speak to him a previous time. So we're all stuck. This is the free market at work...

Which is why we need the state to regulate and ensure minimum standards from the delivery companies.

To be honest I also think that the Royal Mail should be a state owned organisation. It was designed as a Government service rather than a money making enterprise and we should return to that. I am not generally in favour of the state owning businesses but then there are things I don't think should be businesses as such.

I am however in favour of private ownership of railways so clearly I have not gone over to the dark side entirely.

If Royal Mail didn't exist you wouldn't bother to create it. More justification for a state broadband supplier than a state postal service.

I have a lot of affection for the postal service and nostalgia for what it once was. I remember feeling put out when they abandoned the second delivery.

But it's a curiosity now, like horse-drawn carriages.

I disagree.

We don't have horse drawn carriages today because they have been superseded by other forms of transport. Postal/courier deliveries still happen in their billions every year. The delivery of physical items, whether letters or parcels, is by no means extinct or even under threat. All that has changed is which company is doing the delivering. This is not new technology, just new management. And given it is providing us with a poorer service I think there is a case for that management to be changed back to what it was before.

I'm curious how you rate it as a poorer service?Rather than one or two deliveries per day as in the past we can now get parcels delivered many times a day, same or next day, seven days a week, roughly 363 days a year. That's a service better than used to exist in the past.

As for when things go wrong, its important to ensure you deal with a firm that is as put out as you are when things go wrong.

I moved to a new build just before Christmas and for once Amazon provided a far worse service than the Royal Mail over that period. The Royal Mail (and Google Maps) knew and understood our new address and post code already, Amazon did not. Rather than using our postal code to find where we are, they instead sent all our Christmas parcels to a random other street with the same name in a different town.

I chased Amazon for a week for them to resolve this and at first nobody I spoke to seemed to care or be able to resolve it. Our parcels kept getting returned back to the office. Until one day a driver dropped all our parcels at the front door of that other random address in a random other town. Then when I called and demanded a refund, putting them out hundreds of pound as they'd delivered hundreds of pounds of parcels to the wrong person, suddenly they took the problem seriously(!)

Suddenly I was put through to someone who opened Google Maps and saw what was going on and got me to put a pin for where we are, not where they thought we where. Not been an issue since, they learnt their lesson after getting burnt with a few hundred in refunds.

Amazon are the exception. They really are good at what they do most of the time. But DPD, Hermes, DHL and the rest really are very poor much of the time. And the PO is going to get far worse with the new plans they have for it which will basically concentrate on delivering junk mail and leave your cards and letters for later deliveries.

And the big one regarding poorer service is for those living in the more remote (or actually not that remote) parts of the UK who get absolutely terrible service and pay many times more than the rest of us for it. I have no issue with private companies doing deliveries but they should be made to meet standards that mean we all get the same level of service no matter where we live in the UK.

If people choose to live somewhere remote that's their choice. Why should others be put out for their choices?

Being Liberal means making your own choices, but owning the consequences too.

As I said for my in laws there's a single village post office and everyone's post is delivered there, no onward delivery. Row after row of boxes everyone has a key to their own one for letters, and someone behind the counter who handle parcels for that village.

If someone lives remote that's their choice and I respect their right to make that choice. But with choices come consequences. If a consequence is that its not viable to deliver your letter to you, then why shouldn't you take responsibility to collect it from the nearest hub?

That's a compelling and well reasoned argument.

But it is important to realise that such a policy would have costs. It would make the countryside even less attractive than cities and towns, and make it harder for people to move. The gap between urban and rural dwellers (which is already wide) would only get worse.

Better or worse is in the eye of the beholder. Being remote is worse for some, but desirable for others.

If people don't want to be remote, nobody is saying they have to be, but if they make that choice then that's their prerogative. Expecting to have your cake and eat it too, be remote but have the world bring everything to you, isn't reasonable. If you make that choice, own your choices.

On average when I've looked countryside detached homes seem to be going for a lot more than terraces on estates in towns, so I'm not sure on what metric you are independently valuing it as "worse"?

There's a lot of real poverty in rural England. Those people don't live in nice detached houses.

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

rcs1000 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

LostPassword said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

RochdalePioneers said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

On topic.

Yeah, screwing over nurses and NHS employees is never a good look, then you have to remember the pandemic and the money pissed up against a wall with the PPE and it looks horrific.

As Thatcher's go to man, Ken Clarke said the NHS unions were the most militant trade unions he had ever dealt with.

As for the rail strikers, crush the fuckers, make them bankrupt, don't back down Rishi, the more strikes we get the more WFH I get.

As for the Royal Mail, they are signing their own death warrant.

How much of the stuff we receive through the post do we actually need to receive? Letters etc are better sent on email. Takeaway catalogues etc I do not need. Parcels have a choice of bastard companies to screw up deliveries. I like my postie, but his time is short.

On the train strikers, the problem is that they aren't thinking it through. If we don't need the trains because more people will work from home, why have they made such a fuss to get people back into the office? If we're going to use alternate transport why aren't they investing in roads like in the 80s?

We're going to contract our economy further because you won't reliably be able to travel by train, bus operations will go pop as the new £2 fare will require subsidy they won't get, and road projects are all way off into the future. I am a loud advocate from hybrid working and full WFH. But we can't all do it, and the government have no plan to get people travelling.

In the last month Royal Mail have lost a parcel I have sent.

Still no update on my claim other than we're very busy and the next update will be on the 18th of January.

DPD also lost a package, my claim was processed within a week.

All of the parcel companies have an Achilles heel - the sub-contractors who actually deliver the parcels to customers. Get a good one and the company perception is good. Get a bad one, and...

You mention DPD, where the local delivery guy repeatedly delivers parcels to houses in the wrong village (I have both driven other people's parcels over to them and received mine from someone else). They have an app we've been forced to download to literally pinpoint location and add pictures etc and their guy just ignores is. No customer service team - they only have a 3rd party team where its £6 a call.

Then we have the Scottish problem where they are all a cartel. They set bonkers pricing for Highlands / Islands with arbitrary lines drawn on a map by a chimp. Notoriously the posh Aberdeen satellite suburb of Westhill is in H&I and pays a gentle 2.5x premium for being less than 10 miles from the city centre depots which is much much closer than a stack of places which aren't H&I. Is there any appeal of this cartel behaviour? No! Fuckers.

All UK delivery companies should be regulated to work on the same basis as the Royal Mail used to be run with no differentiation for remote areas. This is yet another area where we differ from Europe to our cost (not in terms of the specific but rather the general principle). In Europe many services are run by private organisations rather than directly by the State. But they are very strictly regulated - whether it is health care, postal services or transport. There is nothing wrong with private companies being involved in these things but the laisse faire attitude pursued by successive UK governments means customers suffer. The key is not state ownership but proper state regulation.

I am in favour of competition with regards to things like parcel delivery - lets have competition and innovation add services and lower prices. The problem is when the private operators decide not to compete and innovate. And with parcels the harsh reality is that we are not the customer - the company sending is.

So lets take a recent example. Order from the Lego store. Lego use DPD whether I like it or not. Lego confirmation states that the package does not need to be signed for. DPD email states the sender requires the package to be signed for. Can I get either Lego or DPD to fix this? No.

So that means staying in - which as I work in the building they are delivering to is fine. Until the app tells you they missed you. And you see the photo taken not of your house. Can you call the depot or customer service as with other operators? No - there is an 0121 automated number which tells you to use the app as you weren't in. There is no online customer service team. The chatbot redirects you to download the app. There isn't even a UK Twitter team. So the only solution is redirect to my closest parcel drop, which is 13 miles away.

Lego don't give a toss - they send a bazillion packages a year. DPD may or may not give a toss - hard to tell as nobody to speak to. The moron last mile subcontractor doesn't care - I did actually speak to him a previous time. So we're all stuck. This is the free market at work...

Which is why we need the state to regulate and ensure minimum standards from the delivery companies.

To be honest I also think that the Royal Mail should be a state owned organisation. It was designed as a Government service rather than a money making enterprise and we should return to that. I am not generally in favour of the state owning businesses but then there are things I don't think should be businesses as such.

I am however in favour of private ownership of railways so clearly I have not gone over to the dark side entirely.

If Royal Mail didn't exist you wouldn't bother to create it. More justification for a state broadband supplier than a state postal service.

I have a lot of affection for the postal service and nostalgia for what it once was. I remember feeling put out when they abandoned the second delivery.

But it's a curiosity now, like horse-drawn carriages.

I disagree.

We don't have horse drawn carriages today because they have been superseded by other forms of transport. Postal/courier deliveries still happen in their billions every year. The delivery of physical items, whether letters or parcels, is by no means extinct or even under threat. All that has changed is which company is doing the delivering. This is not new technology, just new management. And given it is providing us with a poorer service I think there is a case for that management to be changed back to what it was before.

I'm curious how you rate it as a poorer service?Rather than one or two deliveries per day as in the past we can now get parcels delivered many times a day, same or next day, seven days a week, roughly 363 days a year. That's a service better than used to exist in the past.

As for when things go wrong, its important to ensure you deal with a firm that is as put out as you are when things go wrong.

I moved to a new build just before Christmas and for once Amazon provided a far worse service than the Royal Mail over that period. The Royal Mail (and Google Maps) knew and understood our new address and post code already, Amazon did not. Rather than using our postal code to find where we are, they instead sent all our Christmas parcels to a random other street with the same name in a different town.

I chased Amazon for a week for them to resolve this and at first nobody I spoke to seemed to care or be able to resolve it. Our parcels kept getting returned back to the office. Until one day a driver dropped all our parcels at the front door of that other random address in a random other town. Then when I called and demanded a refund, putting them out hundreds of pound as they'd delivered hundreds of pounds of parcels to the wrong person, suddenly they took the problem seriously(!)

Suddenly I was put through to someone who opened Google Maps and saw what was going on and got me to put a pin for where we are, not where they thought we where. Not been an issue since, they learnt their lesson after getting burnt with a few hundred in refunds.

Amazon are the exception. They really are good at what they do most of the time. But DPD, Hermes, DHL and the rest really are very poor much of the time. And the PO is going to get far worse with the new plans they have for it which will basically concentrate on delivering junk mail and leave your cards and letters for later deliveries.

And the big one regarding poorer service is for those living in the more remote (or actually not that remote) parts of the UK who get absolutely terrible service and pay many times more than the rest of us for it. I have no issue with private companies doing deliveries but they should be made to meet standards that mean we all get the same level of service no matter where we live in the UK.

If people choose to live somewhere remote that's their choice. Why should others be put out for their choices?

Being Liberal means making your own choices, but owning the consequences too.

As I said for my in laws there's a single village post office and everyone's post is delivered there, no onward delivery. Row after row of boxes everyone has a key to their own one for letters, and someone behind the counter who handle parcels for that village.

If someone lives remote that's their choice and I respect their right to make that choice. But with choices come consequences. If a consequence is that its not viable to deliver your letter to you, then why shouldn't you take responsibility to collect it from the nearest hub?

That's a compelling and well reasoned argument.

But it is important to realise that such a policy would have costs. It would make the countryside even less attractive than cities and towns, and make it harder for people to move. The gap between urban and rural dwellers (which is already wide) would only get worse.

Better or worse is in the eye of the beholder. Being remote is worse for some, but desirable for others.

If people don't want to be remote, nobody is saying they have to be, but if they make that choice then that's their prerogative. Expecting to have your cake and eat it too, be remote but have the world bring everything to you, isn't reasonable. If you make that choice, own your choices.

On average when I've looked countryside detached homes seem to be going for a lot more than terraces on estates in towns, so I'm not sure on what metric you are independently valuing it as "worse"?

There's a lot of real poverty in rural England. Those people don't live in nice detached houses.

I might quibble over the use of the word real, I dispute there's any real poverty in this country. But yes there's definitely relative poverty in this country both rural and urban.

Not every terraced house in a sink estate dive, and not every rural detached home is nice. There's problems everywhere.

But that's a reason to address the problems, not throw everything so that those who do live in a nice, detached countryside home can get their mail chauffeured to them subsidised by those who are in poverty whether in an urban or rural environment.

If someone's service costs more, due to their own choices, and they can afford it, why should they not take responsibility for their own decisions?

And if someone's in poverty let's address that. Not random other things like the price of mail.

No the universal service is one of the few things we still have to support our rural areas. Taxpayers should subsidise it

Stuartinromford said:

EPG said:

Sean_F said:

LostPassword said:

Stuartinromford said:

Sean_F said:

Private sector wages are growing by 6.5% and will outpace inflation before long.

Expecting NHS workers to settle for much less is pointless.

As pointed out upthread, the government ought to welcome increases in real wages.

They did, indeed they celebrated them...

... until the government was at risk of having to pay them.

The greater the gap between private sector pay increases (which increase tax revenues thanks to fiscal drag) and public sector pay increases (which increase public spending) the faster the deficit will be reduced.

Given that even private sector wages are falling by several percent in real terms then the government strategy demands an eye-watering real terms cut in public sector pay.

This is the one thing that this government exists to do. If they back down from this strategy it precipitates a major crisis.

There’s no point picking an unwinnable fight. People will just leave the public sector in search of higher wages.

That's certainly what a lot of people thought in the 70s.

But then you have to look at what Thatcher actually did, rather than the Janet and John Vote Conservative version we're seeing now.

If a fight is unwinnable, you don't fight... not straight away, anyway.

You prepare the ground, then you fight when you can win.

I don't know whether it is ignorance, arrogance or desperation that is making this government act more like Heath than Thatcher, but they are stuffing this up, badly.

Exactly, I'm a bit tired of the fuzzy thinking based upon the popular myths of what Thatcher did rather than what she actually did - which was much more Sun Tzu.

MaxPB said:

Had a longish chat tonight with my cousin who's a fairly senior NHS doctor in a London hospital. His view is that it's the A&E crunch that's the major factor in the ills plus the inability to discharge single older people who's families are refusing to take them in or fund social care.

On the first I told him the solution is fairly simple. A&E records the NHS number of every patient who visits. It is a very easy exercise to see which GP surgeries are not seeing enough patients with their given resources. Give them a month to get their house in order or their contract will be handed to a GP partnership that does meet the standard. It's literally a piece of piss to find out and then just needs some tough action from ministers to actually close those failing GP partnerships. I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the availability of GP appointments would surge if the government did this and suddenly a whole bunch of leeches and hangers on within the partnerships would end up getting sacked to hire more doctors and nurses for appointments.

What was your cousin’s reply to your suggestion?

Roger said:

MoonRabbit said:

EPG said:

MoonRabbit said:

EPG said:

MoonRabbit said:

On topic. Yes. They made the wrong call. Sunak position is a massive vote lower in the long run, but just short poll drops for now, it’s the long term damage being done to Sunak’s government brand that is the problem for the Tory’s here - the struggle on incomes goes on longer than inflation falls, the impact of this on all votes not just GE ones is where Sunak’s awful hard line stance on these popular strikes is letting the Tory down. The voters don’t want a hard line, they want to see talks, they want to see a government who can negotiate well and everyone settle on something fair and reasonable in the middle, and strike pain and crisis come to an end.

Boris would have been better at managing this cost of living crisis and associated strikes than out of touch greenhorn Sunak.

I don't know if they want a society with domestic labour-cost inflation of 10%, though.

The laughters on you if you think settling up on these public sector strikes will break the economy and dramatically increase the domestic labour cost inflation to 10% for a sustainable period whilst energy price and inflation is down. But that’s my point, sadly, just like Sunak and his ministers, you are just not smart enough to get it are you? The Tories SHOULD WANT a period of wage increases, as this will address the real issue that reduces them to the under 100 seat rump at next election, it’s thanks to the thinking of your reply they will get all the blame for the pain of lower incomes.

Inflation and wage inflation is no problem at all to UK in this situation, but the fall in income is the real problem, and is utterly toxic when it comes to retaining voters. And, very much like you and your thinking, the hardline approach to not talking and settling up what is mere peanuts in the bigger picture will ensure the Tories are smeared all over for decades with the stench of lowering living standards.

Mike is right with the header. The mistake here on needlessly suppressing incomes and living standards by Sunak and his government is the biggest political blunder for decades - this is far more toxic to the Tory brand medium long term than anything Boris done.

If inflation settles above 10% due to wage settlements, that won't lead to people being happier.

It’s sounds like you are trying to defend the government position on this hard line on pay deals 🤣 it’s easily the most stupidest political decision of my lifetime.

You are not listening are you, you can’t get your head round why this government have been so utterly stupid to have done this, can you?

Till very recently I thought the parliamentary arithmetic of Labour coming from about 200 seats to a working majority would be pretty immpoissible for them. But then this government has made the most stupidest political position of my lifetime, and has made Tories sub 150 seats pretty much nailed on. By settling with the nurses, ambulance people inflation would be 4% or less at next GE - by not settling with them it will be 4% or less at next GE. The same. However, what will actually cost votes at next GE is the incomes gaps, the incomes falls, the fall in living standards, and rather than trying to dodge the blame for that, the Tory leadership have pulled it all over themselves. In front of our eyes here everyday a political party are stitching themselves up for voters struggle to live. It’s the most stupid political mistake I have ever seen.

It’s just like the effective messaging from the Tory 92 camping being used by a government, on itself.

Don’t you get it? Ignore inflation, it’s headed down quickly in any pay scenario you can come up with - and this is not a militant Union winter of discontent Labour out for eighteen years thing the mail was trying to sell - the truth here is the Tories SHOULD WANT to settle these disputes, it’s in their political interest to be seen negotiating and settling, it’s in their political interest to lower the income pain to save votes.

You weren't alive for Brexit?

I was alive and even old enough to vote in Brexit referendum.

The Tories inviting blame for incomes fall on basis negotiating pay with nurses any compromise will crash the economy is a far bigger political mistake than Brexit - voters backed Brexit, but despise any government so liassez faire with their incomes fall.

EPG said:

Ratters said:

It seems little commented that natural gas prices have been plummeting back down to earth.

That alone has probably saved the government more money and had a bigger impact on future inflation than the difference between the two sides on NHS payrises.

They're shooting themselves in the foot for something that is marginal at an overall economic level. Politically they should be dividing and conquering between the 'worthy' and 'unworthy'.

That's fine, but common-sense morality doesn't determine pay settlements, otherwise nurses would be paid a hundred times more than bankers. For example, train drivers aren't seen as angels, but they clearly enjoy a stronger negotiating position than nurses due to the organisation of their industry. If the government can pay nurses 20%, it can afford 20% for other professions that can negotiate harder. And so on.

Your posts on this are pure fantasy land - which highlites all the weaknesses of your argument. The nurses only asked for 19%, you have government caving in with 20% after negotiation! Wtf 😆

The government have created the health service crisis by eroding pay. So the solution, and fact this government are resisting the solution to the crisis, is so obvious is it not?

MaxPB said:

Had a longish chat tonight with my cousin who's a fairly senior NHS doctor in a London hospital. His view is that it's the A&E crunch that's the major factor in the ills plus the inability to discharge single older people who's families are refusing to take them in or fund social care.

On the first I told him the solution is fairly simple. A&E records the NHS number of every patient who visits. It is a very easy exercise to see which GP surgeries are not seeing enough patients with their given resources. Give them a month to get their house in order or their contract will be handed to a GP partnership that does meet the standard. It's literally a piece of piss to find out and then just needs some tough action from ministers to actually close those failing GP partnerships. I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the availability of GP appointments would surge if the government did this and suddenly a whole bunch of leeches and hangers on within the partnerships would end up getting sacked to hire more doctors and nurses for appointments.

There are large regional variations in A&E attendance. Unless you believe whole regions of GP practices are failing (in which case redirecting patients from London to Yorkshire for primary care presents a bit of a problem) then it's not as simple as you make out.

As with many 'quick fix' incentives used in the NHS, it also becomes a perverse incentive. Deprived areas are already underserved for primary care (and practices in those areas relatively over-subscribed). Reasons are likely complex, but GPs tend to live in not very deprived areas and everyone likes to work close to home - deprived areas are also more challenging, not least because lower provision means higher workload. If those practices are penalised/closed down then there will simply be an even greater imbalance of practices towards less deprived areas and you exacerbate the problem.

What might be useful is a shake up of some primary care. More minor injuries units, for example, which can take the pressure off A&E. Locally we have en excellent minor injuries unit where you can turn up and normally be seen within half an hour, much quicker than a GP or A&E in the city.

ETA: GP practices certainly vary. Ours is excellent, to be fair. On two occasions I've needed an apointment in the past six months (one for me, one for my daughter) we've been seen quickly. Phone back within an hour and (for me) in person appointment that afternoon, about four hours later; (for daughter) in person appointment about half an hour after the phone back. The surgery is actually in a pretty deprived area, but catchment covers probably the most affluent as well as some of the most deprived areas in the borough.

Further edit: Ah, I'm in avery old thread. Nevermind.