OneGuyFromBarlick

As usual Ken you put your finger on the heart of the problem with ambulances. What reallyn hacks me off is that all that is perfectly well understood by NHS management, the medical staff and the Health Department and yet Sunak ignores this and can only bang on about staff 'letting down' patients. This is a downright lie and should be universally called out as that. The Tory back benchers are quiet, they are not going to rock the boat.The opposition parties should be incandescent with rage and attacking Sunak but we have the unedifying sight of Starmer refusing to defend the unions in an attempt to be seen as 'reasonable' and therefore electable.
Someone should point out to Sir Kier that anyone who is frightened off Labour by them being radical and telling the truth wasn't going to be a supporter anyway! 'Playing politics' isn't going to cure our woes, good honest governance and sound policies based on principle are what is needed and we are sadly deprived of them by this government.
See THIS BBC report of a small local difficulty Suella Braverman faces. The government's independent adviser on violence against women has said she does not want to serve under Suella Braverman and will not continue. On live radio, Nimco Ali said she was on a "completely different planet" to the home secretary when it came to women's rights and ethnic minorities.
When will Sunak face up to the ERG and sack Braverman. It becomes more and more obvious that she is the wrong person for the job. (That's why she was sacked from the same post before being re-appointed.)

Strikes (withdrawal of labour) still rumble on. The media in full flight in blaming the strikers for ruining Christmas plans while small business that are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy are worried about the reduced footfall. Behind the scenes the government with possibly Grant Shapps's connivence appear to be making settlements more difficult. This could simply be to make the strike more expensive for the workers and to deter others from going down the same road or to swing public opinion against them. A third possibility is that the impending recession will drive up inflation even further making a second wave of strikes more likely and by which time new draconian legislation may be introduced to make full strikes impossible.
These people are so bent that as the saying goes if they swallowed a nail they would xxxx a corkscrew.

As usual I agree entirely Ken. The basic factor behind all the strikes is the same, we have reached the limit to which wages can be forced down by not paying annual cost of living increases. The instigators of this approach are the politicians who embraced austerity and abrogation of responsibility as a core policy for the last twelve years. (It was happening before under Labour but not to the same degree and we have to draw a line somewhere.)
Therefore Sunak lies when he attributes the strikes to anything other than a failure of government management of the public services.
I said some time ago that I didn't trust him and suspected that he wanted a reputation as an 'Iron Chancellor'. You need only listen carefully to his language to see that this becomes more and more obvious. He has openly said that he is seeking powers to be 'tough on the workers' (While at the same time allowing the caps on bankers bonuses to be removed and doing nothing about the eye-watering annual increases that the Captains of Industry are awarding themselves.). Attitudes like this and unbalanced policies only lead to one conclusion. In his book 'Capital' Piketty forecast social unrest if the imbalances in financial policies weren't corrected, he suggested higher taxation and a global wealth tax. If Sunak pursues his present course I fear he will find that Piketty was right. In purely political terms it doesn't do anything to improve the Tory Party's electoral chances. Come to think, in the end this may be what kills his ambitions, realisation by the backbenchers that they are sinking into an abyss and making sure they drag Sunak with them. Problem with this scenario is that in all of this the people who lose out big time are the public. We are the source of the money the government works with but they refuse to share any of it with us. Something wrong there.....

The nurses have a mandate to go on strike. I think this would be a mistake without first putting the ball back where it belongs eg: back to the government. Now we are hearing..

A nurses' strike this month may be called off if the government negotiates "seriously" over pay, says the head of the union representing them.

A failure by the government to negotiate would make it clear that they are not interested in the health of the working class. Austerity has made people think twice about their weekly expenditure in particular the insurance industry is warning about short term gains set against a long term catastrophe. To some degree they are right but the NHS is the most important insurance cover imaginable yet here we are saying sorry there's no money while £billions go untouched into off shore tax havens. Time to put ideological profit motive to one side and do what's best for the country.
Get them paid or lose the trust of the country for ever.

Ken, I think from what I heard reported yesterday that the Health Minister has already put the kibosh on any serious wage negotiations by stating that the government's offer is based on the independent revue that was carried out. He thinks we have forgotten that that revue was conducted before the full impact of inflation was known.
No, I think they are going to crash on hoping the workers will back down. I nsee no signs of any of the disputes in the public sector being resolved. See THIS for the latest position. BTW, can someone tell me why James Cleverly is responding to questions on Nurse's pay? I thought he was Foreign Secretary...... Perhaps his name came up on the roster for respondents run by Downing Street.
See THIS BBC report that ministers are going to take action on the strike threats. Don't get too excited, all they are going to do is hold a Cobra meeting and talk about it. Did you see where they told the police to help with the provision of ambulances and the chief of the police chiefs union said that was not their role and they weren't trained for it. I suspect they are getting similar dusty answers from the army who have a limited number of trained medical personnel
In short, the government is trying to look active but they can do nothing in the face of the strikes and we are definitely going to see disruption of normal services. Cue the government to attempt even more draconian measures against the unions and any workers who withdraw their labour. Sunak has brought us to this, a fight between the electorate and the government when what should be happening is cooperation to resolve the problems fairly. In the end that's what they will have to do but in terms of politics that would be seen as weak and a failure, not fitting the 'Iron Chancellor' image Sunak is projecting.

I just heard a report on the news that the Home Office has come up with another brilliant idea. They propose using holiday camps out of season for housing immigrants.
I wonder if anybody has considered that the accommodation will not be well insulated or heated. It is intended for use in mild weather. Perhaps they know something that we don't.....

The whole rhetoric by the government is about shifting the blame to someone else, the next move is to weave a web of administrative complexity which absolves them of all responsibility as though its nothing to do with them. In its simplest terms the tax payer hands money to the government. They in turn decide how much funding the NHS receives also they decide which how much each area of the NHS, buildings, training, wages will get. the NHS managers have to manage these amounts. The NHS Pay Review Body (NHSPRB), is responsible for making recommendations on the pay of all staff. It is not a negotiating body and does not negotiate wages directly with the NHS managers. The NHS managers are therefore limited to asking the government for extra money if they wish to give pay rises. The government are hiding behind the NHSPRB saying there is no more money and the amount is fixed. The nurses caught in this merry go round have nobody to negotiate with and are left with strikes as the only option to bring some sense to this denial of responsibility. Meanwhile we have COBRA. (read, smoke-filled rooms) seeing what they can do to stoke the flames even higher while appearing to help with the situation.

Dead right Ken. All part of the greater government policy (Never voiced) that started with the Blair government when they outsourced hospital cleaning, that is directed at divesting responsibility for key areas of society. Much of their apparent enthusiasm for devolution sprang from this source, Local authorities were devolved powers to deal with certain matters but in fact the main benefit for Westminster was that these authorities were also given the responsibility. The buck stopped with them. This is the antithesis of Nye Bevan's dictum, to keep control of the commanding heights. We are seeing the outcome of devolving responsibility to foreign owners of vital parts of our infrastructure.
See THIS BBC report on the way Mick Lynch is being portrayed by the Right Wing as the man who stole Xmas.
His response is When he announced a blitz of winter rail strikes last month, Mr Lynch denied being the mean-spirited green monster. "I'm not the Grinch, I'm a trade union official, and I'm determined to get a deal," he said.
Quite right and he is a very good leader and spokesman, Some of his take downs of government members opposing him are classics. He is very intelligent and generally spot on with his defence of his members.
The other main political activity at the moment is to give the impression that things are being done when actually the policy being pursued is one reputedly invented by Lord Lawrence, Viceroy of Afghanistan, 1864-1879 who coined the phrase 'masterly inactivity' to describe how he functioned as Viceroy. The Cobra meetings where problems are talked about are a good example of this ploy. To the public it looks like dramatic intervention when in effect it is nothing of the sort.
At the heart of all these matters is the PM Rishi Sunak who is trying to stitch the Tory Party together again after its public implosion in the Kwarteng/Truss episode. In order to do this he is pandering to the various factions, the biggest of which is the ERG hence his retention of Braverman at the Home Office. See also his U-turns on Housing and on-shore wind farms. This also explains his over dramatic performances at PMQs when he roars defiance at the opposition backed up by his baying back benchers. Pure political spectacle and signifying nothing.
Unfortunately this is how we are being governed and don't expect any change.......
As for who is really 'The Grinch', I leave that to you to decide. The only thing that is certain is that Xmas has definitely been stolen!

Jeremy Hunt has a plan to curb inflation unfortunately he is not prepared to disclose this plan. If we examine his recent statements re,...

"We just have to be really careful not to agree to pay demands that have the opposite of the intended effect, and lock in high inflation," he added.

First, the term 'lock in high inflation' needs a bit of a study.
The current inflation on goods and services is now 11%, ie, what cost £100 now costs £111. If according to his plan that in one years time the inflation drops to 4% This begs the question, does the price increase to £115 or does it fall back to £104. For obvious reasons he doesn't want to go into such detail. There's no doubt that the 11% is already locked in and what he is talking about is that if pay rises all reached 10% then this would add an extra burden to the 11%, As usual the mount is never stated but it is implied that since rises of 10% are being asked then inflation would be 10% taking it above his projected mythical 4%.

Confused?? Well get used to it. This will be trotted out by minister after minister until it becomes fact rather than cunning weasel words.

All this is in Humpty Dumpty land of 'words mean what I want them to mean'. Smoke and mirrors, nothing more nothing less. Would you buy a secondhand car from this man?

A good point Ken. I am always confused by the percentage inflation figures. It can't be 11% a month or we would be in the territory of the old riddle of how much to pay for the horse based on a farthing for the first nail in one of it's shoes and a halfpenny for the next and so on.
Hunt's main tactic at the moment is to keep telling us how awful it's going to be to try to give the gloss of honesty to his dealings. I have news for him, some of us aren't fooled and like you spot the tricks he is up to.
In another part of the government thicket.... See THIS account of Sunak's promise of more staff to help clear the UK's backlog of asylum claims by the end of next year. As is so often the case in these troubled times this initiative is not triggered by the national needs but is his effort to placate internal elements in his own party who are threatening retaliation if their individual cases aren't met. Remember the ERG banging on about sovereignty? What demonstrates our sovereignty more than the ability to decide who comes into the country? I note that Downing Street later said the pledge was not to abolish current backlog of initial decisions - only claims made up to the end of June. Back-pedalling before the policy had even got off the ground. What would really make a difference to the numbers would be if, as was the case before Brexit, we could send them back to their point of entry into Europe but of course that would involve cooperating with the EU and therefore is anathema to the ERG.
The main point is that as PM Sunak ought not to be fire-fighting brush fires in the Tory Party thicket but addressing the current problems we are facing. Start with a Health Minister who refuses point blank to talk about wage levels with the head of the striking nurses. That to me is a wrecking ball policy and a clear sign that the government isd going to stand back and watch the NHS dissolve into chaos. The is wicked beyond belief but all Sunak is doing is wittering about immigrants.

Speculating on the nurses strike The nurses claim is that over the years their pay has lost ground by 19%. and would like to make up this lost amount. The government is saying that 19% would cost £10 billion, a figure that is broadly correct. However without entering discussions on pay the true amount which the nurses would settle for is an unknown. Logic would say that a 9.5% increase would be acceptable, This would reduce the cost to £5 billion. Considering that the current offer of £1400 to each nurse = £1.72 billion. The government would have to find £3.28 billion extra. Still a large number but compared to the amounts of lost trade through Brexit of £12.6 billion which is accepted without comment it appears to be a small price to pay for the upkeep of the nations health.


For those who like to compare basic numbers the data is shown below.

According to NHS Digital data in England there are 1,226,677 FTE (full time equivalent) Hospital & Community Health Service as of March 2022

In 2019/20, the total cost of NHS staff was £56.1 billion which amounted to 46.6 per cent of the NHS budget."

19% rise = £10 billion or (£10.65 Billion of £56.1 Billion.) 9.5% = £5 billion.

Employed numbers x £1400 (current rise offer) = £1.72 Billion. difference 5 - 1.72 = £3.28. billion.

The cost of Brexit: October 2021In October 2021, UK goods trade was 15.7 per cent, or £12.6 billion, lower than it would have been if the UK had stayed in

As usual Ken you are dead right and this morning you are backed up by Keir Starmer. See THIS BBC report of what he said on this subject yesterday.
"The largest strike action taken by nurses in the NHS's history is "a badge of shame", Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told Rishi Sunak at Prime Minister's Questions. The Labour leader said Mr Sunak was in "hibernation" instead of working to call off Thursday's strike. Sir Keir urged the PM to hold talks with nurses to resolve the pay dispute."
As I am sure you will have noticed the same could be said of any of the public service strikes we are looking at at the moment. There is an exercise going on of 'Masterful Inactivity' and the impression of governance is being made by voicing aspirations about curbing immigrants crossing the channel.
Why does THIS BBC report on further charges against Dominic Raab not surprise me?
"Five further complaints about Dominic Raab's behaviour as a minister are being investigated, No 10 has said.
The prime minister's official spokesman said the claims related to Mr Raab's previous tenure as justice secretary.
It means a total of eight complaints are now being investigated by senior lawyer Adam Tolley KC. Mr Raab, who was reappointed by Rishi Sunak as justice secretary and deputy prime minister in October, has denied allegations of bullying. Appearing in front of Parliament's Joint Human Rights Committee on Wednesday, Mr Raab said he had "behaved professionally throughout". "
I suppose it all depends on what your view of 'acting professionally' actually means.....

Sorry to keep banging on about nurses pay but there are so many misleading statements and bending of facts that making smoke seems to be the order of the day.
The Independent Pay Review board. is only independent by working within the guidelines set by the government. 'Here's what I want you to spend tell me how to do it'.
The governments stand is they are carrying out the boards recommendations. EXCEPT, with some pride, last year we ignored it and gave 3%. Then never said, previously the board had recommended a rise which the government vetoed. The recommendations can be ignored or actioned as long as you're the government.

A 10% rise would mean each household paying £1,000 extra in taxes.
Expert economist can find no justification for this figure. The general view is that it would cost around £350 per household which since it would be paid through extra taxes through the existing graduated system it would vary across income levels. Any increase in nurses pay can only be paid through taxation but that's the price of better services.

The pay rise would 'lock in inflation'.
Nurses pay doesn't add any extra cost to the patient client. Nor does it affect profits, transport or energy or the price of goods in general, in fact the extra taxation is de-inflationary austerity by taking money out of peoples pockets. The opposite of what is being said.

This Tory government is following the age old ideology that social welfare is bad and profit is good. The same attitude was taken by the American Republicans trying to dismantle President Franklin D. Roosevelt's social welfare programs.

When will we learn.

All absolutely correct Ken, or at least dead in line with my understanding. The key phrase you used was :
there are so many misleading statements and bending of facts that making smoke seems to be the order of the day.
That's exactly what is going on and at the same time giving the impression of governing by making migration the main subject of debate. The deaths in the Channel have been a godsend, enabling the government to claim urgency.

I am quite disturbed by the tone that was used on Today this morning by Nick Robinson when the leader of the nurses was on the programme. He was trying to portray her as 'raring to go for strike action' and talking over her as she tried to put what was actually the position. We have seen the same tactics used in the last two days on Mick Lynch. The presenters are acting like a branch of government and should be stopped.

No surprise but see THIS BBC report of the result of the Stretford and Urmston by-election.
Mr Western secured 69.65% of the vote, with the Conservative Party's Emily Carter-Kandola trailing second on 15.86%. After thanking his mother for her support, the winning candidate said the result sent out a "strong message" and showed 12 years of Conservative government was "coming to an end".

What a difference a day makes.
Key workers including Nurses, Paramedics, Fire fighters, Train Drivers, Bus Drivers, all those who kept the country going through the pandemic. Clapped as heroes have now become public enemy No1. Why you may ask, because they had the audacity to ask for more money. Suddenly nurses who can't maintain a decent standard of living on their meagre wages having the choice of food bank or leaving the profession are persona non grata because paying extra money would we are told would collapse the economy and cause rampant inflation. Meanwhile the Bank of England has increased the bank rate from 3 to 3.5% to take money out of peoples pockets so that they will spend less on goods which will in turn affect small businesses. By some miraculous alchemy the two year projected recession will benefit from higher prices which will bring inflation down? With the war in Ukraine set to last years and the price of gas and oil affecting the world economies, the UKs GDP heading south towards zero growth, we can all breath a sigh of relief knowing that its the nurses fault that we have got into this mess.

You paint a depressing but accurate picture Ken. What could be more hypocritical than holding down wages in the public sector until hospitals have to have food banks for nurses and people are leaving the professions in droves because they can't live on the wages and then attacking them as greedy left wing agitators because they withdraw their labour. See THIS BBC article detailing the doubts that some in Whitehall are having about Sunak's commitment to helping Ukraine in their fight against Russian aggression. I think they are right to suspect that double standards are being used here, public support for Ukraine but behind the scenes cutting back on expenses.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has asked for an assessment of the progress of the war in Ukraine, BBC Newsnight has learnt...... A Downing Street source added that it was not true that Sunak was being overly cautious and that "the UK government's support for Ukraine is unwavering". But the request has raised alarm bells in some corners of Whitehall as military chiefs say weapons supplies to Ukraine may prove decisive in the winter months ahead.
The Whitehall source said: "Wars aren't won [by dashboards]. Wars are won on instinct. At the start of this it was Boris (Johnson) sitting down and saying: 'Let's just go for this.' So Rishi needs to channel his inner Boris on foreign policy though not of course on anything else."The source said the audit, known as a data-driven assessment, is designed to assess the progress of the war and the significance of the UK's military contributions to Ukraine. The source said: "This is about looking at what we have put in, what we have got out."
As you try to assess what's going on remember that in another part of the Westminster thicket we are looking at a government that has refused to discuss wage levels with striking nurses and key rail workers who cannot survive on the present levels. Can there be any doubt what such a mean spirited government will do about Ukraine? We have a rotten political system that can spend billions on white elephant aircraft carriers but allow the services married quarters to fall into disrepair. I know what my opinion of Sunak is, he will sell Ukraine down the river to support his twisted views of what good economic policy is. Remember, Ukraine is fighting our war for us.....
These policies are shameful and yet are being done in our name. For God's sake let us end this shambles, we need a General Election and should force one by acclamation.

We are all saved. The cavalry is on the horizon. Inflation is in retreat. Well that's what the right-wing media would have us think.

The figures from the Office of National Statistics ONS Have presented a number of charts where they show that the CPI has dipped marginally by 0.4% Slowing the RATE of inflation but still leaving it at 10.7% an historically high figure. The dip is said to be due to a reduction in oil prices do to the global recession. So nothing to to with bank rates or government plans.
The chart also shows the CPIH (the CPI + Housing) where there is a rise (principally from electricity, gas, and other fuels), and food and non-alcoholic beverages. Again the government has no control.
A chart not often seen is the Owner Occupiers' Housing costs (OOH) component which is 17% of the CPIH reflecting the inflation costs of housing occupancy.

. If the movement in the charts have nothing to do with Government or BoE measures why are we increasing interest rates? The usual logic is that if there is too much money chasing too few goods which is clearly not the case in the UK then its the wrong thing to do. On the other hand if the inflation is cause by outside sources like energy prices then increasing interest rates would add to the depression and is wrong again.

One can only assume that Jeremy Hunt's plan is to make everybody poorer while pretending to be doing something.

Lots of strikes on at the moment. The nurses could be satisfied immediately by giving them what they ask for. Why on earth does the PM not see this. We are a wealthy country and can afford it. Imagine the increase in his popularity if he did so. As a bonus - all those spaces at the food banks could be released for more deserving cases.

Good posts and this stood out for me in David's....
"The nurses could be satisfied immediately by giving them what they ask for."
"We are a wealthy country and can afford it. "
And what is even more astonishing is that they would negotiate and go back for less.
Funny how we can always find the money for a vanity project like HS2, Cross Link or Aircraft Carriers that are notoriously hard to maintain and yet can't pay public servants a decent wage or invest in the NHS, the most courageous public health initiative anywhere in the world and initiated at a time when we were bankrupt after fighting WW2.
One single fact demonstrates the desperate need for a new political model. The existence of 'food banks' and the fact that many who are forced to use them are in full time work. QED! (The ultimate obscenity is food banks in hospitals.....)

The right-wing press know that they can't attack the nurses so they have chosen to go for the NHS 'Model'. The logic is simple claim that by comparison with some other countries our NHS is broken therefore there is a need for change. No explanation as to why the NHS is in such dire straits or who is to blame just a bland statement its not working so get rid of it. Currently 27% of NHS funding goes to private companies.

NHS commissioners' spending on private healthcare increased 27 per cent to more than £18bn in 2020-21, with pandemic effects causing it to rise faster than spend on NHS trusts and general practice.


Since a proportion of the £18bn is absorbed in profit its not clear how going down a privatisation route would give a better outcome. Also if qualified nurses resulting from the training spend which the government proudly boasts are handed over to the private sector its another cost which is paid for by the tax payer but passed on to private enterprise.

We are reasonable the nurses are irresponsible don't be kidded by the rhetoric.
But Grandma what big teeth you have got.

Stanley wrote: ↑18 Dec 2022, 04:22 Good posts and this stood out for me in David's....
"The nurses could be satisfied immediately by giving them what they ask for."

The irony awareness of this site isn't high. That post was along the same lines a my solution to cross channel migration - where I suggested that offices should be set up all over the world and air tickets and visas should be handed out free of charge to anyone who asked. Immigration is a totally good thing so why limit it in any way? What could possibly go wrong?
****************************

On strikes - imagine for a moment that Mick Lynch is not at all concerned with his mermbers' pay but that his motivation is in fact to bring down not just this Tory Government, but perhaps the whole of society? How would we know? I assume if we asked him he would deny it.

Tripps wrote: ↑18 Dec 2022, 12:48 The irony awareness of this site isn't high.

I have found that suitable use of the emoji helps in most instances

Unfortunately the irony smilie is not part of the default pack installed in phpBB. I could try finding it and adding from another pack, unless you already know where it lives Kev.

I looked for the emoji but failed to find it.

On second thougts perhaps it's not that ironic. Pay them what they ask and add another ten percent for next year in advance. That will get a contented workforce, and solve all the NHS staffing problems for quite a while. What harm can it possibly do?