UK Politics

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/26/britons-earlier-deaths-linked-to-nhs-underinvestment-study?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Just incredible. In just thirteen years the Tories have managed to reduce our NHS from one of the best healthcare systems in the world to one of the worst in the developed world.

"People who have a heart attack or stroke are more likely to die as a result than in almost every other country studied, including within 30 days of admission to hospital."

It really has become a matter of life and death to get these incompetent bastards out.

 

100% I can’t believe the BOE and the government don’t understand this.

The people that suffer are mortgage holders, the poor and businesses(mainly small ones)

13 attempts on a row by the BOE to raise interest rates and it’s not worked should tell everyone that this isn’t going to plan.

Honestly, if we don’t get this government out then the UK is in big trouble.

 

Tory Government line Earlier this year.

"Health Secretary Steve Barclay has defended the pay offer made to nurses in England, emphasising it has based it on recommendations by an "independent" pay review body (PRB)."

Tory Government line now.

"The UK prime minister spoke out in the wake of reports in The Times newspaper that millions of workers faced having recommended pay rises of 6 per cent blocked by ministers over concerns they would fuel inflation."

So all over Christmas and the new year, the government were telling it would be wrong to overrule the independent pay review body, and now we have the same shower now telling us that they may have to overrule the independent pay review body.

Sunak is worse than Truss to the extend some people are actually thinking putting Truss back in charge is a viable option for this complete and utter shitshow.

BuT iT WoUlD Be WoRSe UnDEr LaBOuR! the cheerleaders still sing

 

From the King's Fund Health Report. This is utterly damning of the Tories' period in office:

"The UK has below-average health spending per person compared to peer countries. Health spending as a share of GDP (gross domestic product) was just below average in 2019 but rose to just above average in 2020 (the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, which of course had a significant impact on the UK’s economic performance and spending on health services). The UK lags behind other countries in its capital investment, and has substantially fewer key physical resources than many of its peers, including CT and MRI scanners and hospital beds. The UK has strikingly low levels of key clinical staff, including doctors and nurses, and is heavily reliant on foreign-trained staff. Remuneration for some clinical staff groups also appears to be less competitive in the UK than in peer countries …

People in the UK receive relatively good protection from some of the catastrophic costs of falling ill. Relatively few core NHS services are charged for and certain population groups are exempt from charges. But financial protection is weaker for some services, such as dental care, and there is growing concern that people in the UK may be forced to choose between funding their own care or enduring longer waits for treatment.

But the UK performs noticeably less well than its peers – and is more of a laggard than a leader – on many important measures of health status and health care outcomes. These include health outcomes that can be heavily affected by the actions of a health system (such as surviving cancer and treatable mortality), and outcomes such as life expectancy, which are significantly affected by factors beyond the direct control of any health system."

 

Just can’t believe the public are standing by and allowing the BOE and the government to do the dick move in increasing interest rates.

Virtually all major banks are coining in the differential. Also, those wealthy enough to have paid off their mortgage still have the capacity to spend as they're not impacted.

If we want to try and curb inflation you could try increasing VAT/GST on certain non-essential items. The additional funds would naturally go to the government who could use the money to, pay off government debt, increase investment in public services (hospitals/schools/roads) or even give it back to those who need it by increasing benefits (these people usually spend their funds on essentials).

It maddening that Hunt is asking regulators to investigate firms exploiting price rises. Start with the banks who are penalising people with mortgages while not passing on the rate increase to encourage people to save.

In 2007/2008 we all bailed the banks out and now they are not supporting the general public and gains lots of money. Seriously this government is a joke!

 

The government want the Bank of England to raise interest rates because they can claim all the evil on the bank of England then instead of themselves. The Bank of England has 1 lever to pull, the Government has hundreds but is quite happy for the blame to be focused elsewhere.

They are in full cling on to power mode at this point. Everyone knows that they are toast at the next election, in a recent meeting a polling expert told them that anyone with under a 15k majority is in trouble such is public opinion. The Tories were polling at about 27% this weekend in a two party system.

At PMQs this week Starmer should go through each one of the 5 priorities Sunak parrots and he could tear each one to pieces.

1. Halving inflation - no sign in this going down, as it is based year on year having a full year off disaster followed by another year of disaster compared against the first is not success.

2. Economy Growing - Again there is talk of a recession or minimal growth.

3. Debt falling - We are over 100% of GDP in debt again another disaster.

4. Waiting lists - Going up, maybe those 40 new hospitals will help, oh wait they don't exists and half the NHS have taken to strike action.

5. Small boats - This is the biggest joke of them all. He was down in Dover claiming to have slowed the boats down when it tied in with bad weather, now the sun has come out boats are at record levels.

After tearing him apart on the above he should then hit him hard on his "integrity and accountability in politics" after being forced kicking and screaming to get rid of Zahawi when the writing was on the wall weeks before, sitting by and waiting for Raab to resign rather than sacking him as soon as the report was issued and then ducking the vote on Boris Johnson making him look "weak, weak, weak" because he doesn't want to upset some in his own party rather than standing up for this integrity and accountability he claims to restore.

 

Half of me is starting to think this is government move to say shit is hitting the fan then in 2024 and 2025 the rates will come down and the inflation will be cut then they will say look we get things done.

The hold you nerve comment by the rat yesterday highlights this could be the case and people who voted brexit will be like yeah look what they did.

The reason why The Conservatives are looking to bring back Liz as PM highlights The Conservatives currently don’t care about the public and are just interested in themselves and staying in power. However, their team is done. Anyone, who votes conservatives is a mug right now.

 

Part of me thinks that the Tory cabinet knows it's toast and is deliberately making things worse to make life as difficult for an incoming Labour Government.

 

I want to start seeing billboards outlining the multiple massive Tory failures all over the country.

Let nobody forget just how atrocious they have been.

One of the greatest shambles in British political history.

 

I heard a story on the radio last week but now wonder if it has been quashed because I've not heard any mention since. Apparently Lloyds have been buying new build houses and plans to charge rents as a private landlord. Obviously this means that these new houses aren't available to first time buyers, which exacerbates the the current housing problems. The proposal I heard last week was that if people were getting into trouble with their mortgage, Lloyds will buy their house and rent it back to them. They could be the country's biggest landlord by 2025.

 

So another day passes and,

Johnson has been found to have broken rules regarding taking up a new job following his resignation.

People were asking the Queen to block the Peerage for Evgeny Lebedev given by Johnson.

Brendan Clarke-Smith is publicly arguing with someone on twitter who was sharing a story of her mental health issues.

Matt Hancock is confirming to the Covid Enquiry that they were unprepared, and basically made it up as they went along.

And Oh it will cost us £169k to send someone to Rwanda.

What an utter shitshow.

 

As someone who has had to witness the state of the NHS personally in the last year or so, the service (if you can call it that) is utterly broken and i'm not sure how you go about fixing it.
Lets start by saying pumping billions into is not the answer though it would thinly paper over some of the massive cracks that adjourn it like a smashed egg shell. And i also think we need to get away from this wonderful notion of free care. Nothing is free in this life, somebody somewhere always has to pick up the bill.
As the biggest employer in Europe it has turned into a runaway monster that constantly needs feeding, problem is no one is in charge of feeding it.
So now to its present day guise, what exactly does it stand for and what does it do. Its not the problem of the footsoldiers at the bottom although there is a debate as to the state of care given. My personal experiences, whether it be of the care of parents, my brother or my wife, both who have been quite ill over the last few years, has been generally very poor. A lot of those experiences from an outsider looking in born of an organisation flying by the seat of its pants, one hand having no idea what the other is doing. To the point of embarrassment at times. On one hand i can say the paramedics i dealt with were arguably the most professional people i have ever come across in my life, an absolute credit to their profession. On the other the state of the GP surgeries i've had the displeasure of dealing with, the state of dentistry, now looked as a joke by professions of the like in Europe.
I'm only scratching the surface and i'm just an average joe. I talk to staff who work within it, morale isn't low, it's far far worse. Experienced management having to constantly put out fires created by high level incompetency ( i have an example to long for here but would have you shaking your heads in disbelief).
To keep from waffling any longer i sum it up by with points. Yes, the service does need more investment to give it any chance of resembling a professional organisation. But i would not trust either political party to run a bath, never mind give them billions to turn round the pilotless oil tanker that is the NHS. It would be like pissing into the atlantic.

 

No one in politics is ever accountable for anything. Its why jobs in the sector are like gold dust.

 

I note that nobody factors in re NHS that like most public institutions just how many employees at any one time are either on the sick, on holiday or on strike .. !!

 

I'd love to know Tone. Can count on both hands the amount of days i've had off sick. Don't get paid for being sick when you're self employed.

 

Exactly and you should be proud, I was 28 years self employed, needed 6 weeks off with broken hip but still ran business from hospital bed and home and then one day (friday) when I had severe stomach pains but managed to fulfill that days work on the saturday....In my original post i'm just pointing out another reason why this country is broken...

 

"You were lucky...."

 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/28/contingency-plans-reportedly-being-drawn-up-for-thames-water-collapse?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

"Its former owner between 2006 and 2016, the Australian bank Macquarie, was accused of “asset stripping” as it extracted billions in shareholder dividends while Thames’s debt soared."

Another triumph of Tory privatisation. Water, the basis of life, sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed.

 

Our country from top to bottom is stuffed but never mind, Labour are on the horizon, all will be hunky dory .......

 

Cannot possibly do worse than the utter shambles of this lot. In thirteen years the Tories have managed to devastate our NHS and most of our public services; turn the rail network into a bigger joke than it already was since they privatised it; preside over record costs for water and gas while seeing the state of our rivers, sewers, beaches etc get steadily worse; completely mismanage our economy so that we have the lowest growth and highest inflation in the developed world; create the biggest fall in living standards (for everyone but the already rich - ie themselves and their friends) in living memory; preside over a colossal housing crisis featuring massive mortgage and rent rises and total failure to build enough houses. Etc, etc (I could go on).
It's, frankly, incredible that anyone except the very rich still votes for this utter shower, who have created misery for millions and taken incompetence to previously unseen levels in this country.