Thread 27 - Sunak : the Ship is Sinking, Hold Your Nerve!

[DuncinToffee]

In the voice of Cpl Jones.

"Don't panic Capt Sunak"

"Hold your nerve"

"They don't like it up em".

Previous https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4823678-thread-25-sunak-peerages-privileges-the-covid-inquiry?page=1

We have a choice between extremely bad alternative outcomes

Yes I think it's only going to ramp up. There is a lot of money and influence at stake.

Maybe something they should have been considering the past decade and longer

I can't open this as I don't have an FT account any more - but I think we can work out how the media owners and editors will respond to this...

"Labour is on a collision course with Fleet Street after Britain’s main opposition party signalled it would oppose government plans to scrap one of the key measures to emerge from the 2012 Leveson report into press misconduct"

twitter.com/pickardje/status/1677204951234166785?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

But Mercer did such a great job on QT last night of mansplaining telling everyone what a great job Tories ha e done with education and NHS.

Was Mercer drunk? He was like the pub bore, talking over everyone. He was embarrassing.

Coke, suggests the twitterati.

That would not surprise me. His arrogance was off the scale. His wife is horrible too. They are both so unprofessional. How do people like this get to where they are?

He was the same on Politics Live the other day. An arrogant, obnoxious twat, talking over everyone else.

I think he’s changed. A few years ago he seemed be one of the very few half decent Tories. He’s just as bad as the rest now. I guess we’re back at desperation at having to face that they’re in the end days.

The trouble he has probably is that he hasn't yet realised that everyone is not like those he hung around with in the Officer's Mess.

Has he really changed or did he just hide it all better? Since Johnson (and Trump) they don't see the need to pretend to be seen as decent anymore.

I don’t know. I genuinely used to think he was as OK as a Tory MP could be. I’m hugely disappointed in him, his QT performance was abysmal so were his tone deaf comments about food bank use.

I’ve hung about in officers’ messes a bit in my time and would have happily chatted to him before his recent deterioration.

I think all the parties are very strict on messaging on these things and toeing the party line. He may have been acting weird because he doesn't actually believe what he's been told to say, so it's inauthentic
(That's my charitable version)

I didn't see QT but these comments about Mercer are interesting.

I wonder if he's suffering the effects of the corrosive dishonesty and gaslighting by his party? If one is to some degree honourable and loyal to begin with, but those under whom one serves are corrupt, self-serving chancers, rotten to the core, that's going to put a loyal officer under increasing strain.

Obviously there's always going to be some level of dishonesty in politics. But the last few years of the Tory party have been on another scale entirely.

He may be suffering a degree of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Or it may just be, as PP have suggested, that he's just another person on whom the mask has slipped.

X-post with AdamRyan saying kinda the same thing.

I usually keep away from threads about the NHS but delurking to comment on this.

As someone who has been an NHS manager in various acute trusts, CCGs and now NHS England I can now easily spot the posters on those threads who know fuck all about the NHS and they spout the usual nonsense about nurses and doctors and too many managers.

We do need more nurses and doctors, that is correct. However, we also need more AHPs - allied health professionals like physios and occupational therapists who are invaluable in helping many many people needing rehab.

We also need more social prescribers and patient navigators - either clinical or non clinical to help patients self manage their conditions.

Those professions actually free up the nurses and the doctors to do their own jobs.

As for managers...well, how do you think these services get started? Identify and implement improvements that are needed? How do you think huge acute trusts are managed? Who do you think holds providers to account for how they are using public money? Who do you think gets services up and running at short notice when the govt says here's a few £million quid to set up a service for respiratory infections on 7th Dec ...and we want these services to be ready to see patients tomorrow (I'm not exaggerating).
Yes, that's right. Us managers.

Our NHS is underfunded - I've had multi million £ budgets for the last few years, but because we haven't been able to spend it all because we couldn't recruit....the money disappears at the end of that financial year. You might want to hazard a guess where it goes. Hint - it doesn't stay in the NHS and we are not allowed to carry it over.

The NHS is understaffed in all professionals at all levels.

I have now left the NHS btw, after receiving an offer from a private company for three times the salary I was receiving in the NHS. I moved because I was sick of being treated like shit by the public, by the govt and by my own colleagues who don't seem to understand that they need managers to allow them to do their jobs.....until we are no longer there...

Sorry for derailing. I'll fuck off back to lurking on this thread now.

but because we haven't been able to spend it all because we couldn't recruit....the money disappears at the end of that financial year

This has always baffled me and I dare say contributed to the public scorn of ‘wastage’ when in reality spending that money on anything allowable is the only way to ensure a comparable budget the next year. Apparently it’s beyond the comprehension of government to just top up budgets

It’s part of the perspective that everything is measurable in immediate fiscal returns. There’s zero recognition of the fact that some elements of life just have a cost attached and the returns are far wider then their designated spreadsheet.

It's worth watching QT on iPlayer. Mercer was appalling. Labour MP whose name I just forgot was not bad. Spectator economic editor was sweetness and light hiding some horrendous views (smile let's scrap the NHS simper) but Dale Vince won the night. He was excellent.

@coeurnoir That was not derailing. That was informing and exactly what is needed - although it will be skimmed past by particular posters.

The NHS is so complex. It's a vast web and if you brake a cord in one area it will be felt elsewhere, probably multiple areas.
It's not just training numbers, it's staffing the training.
It's not just recruitment, it's retention.
It's not just pay, it's workload.
It's not just new hospitals it's maintenance of the old.
It's not just IT it's basic equipment.
It's not just switching to an insurance based system, it's who is paying to upgrade existing NHS estates, train doctors and health professionals and build hospitals etc etc.
it's not just hospital beds for the elderly it's district nurses.
it's not just medical care, it's social care.
And on and on.

All the underpinnings that is only seen by a few.

When my child first saw an Ed Psychologist a decade ago it was a struggle to get an appointment. There were 38 serving my county. Now there are 19.

Sorry I meant to add the frigging myth of too many managers- it's been disproved a number of times.

I've seen a lot of public sector getting rid of managers then ends up paying private sector "consultants" to come in and do the management at inflated costs.

Business management is a very underrated skill. Possibly because career politicians have never worked like that

I remember seeing Jonny Mercer on Celebrity The Hunt. He was awful; paired with Kay Burley, was only interested in himself, ignoring being a team player, arranging to meet up with his family. Obviously loved the idea of looking like an action man, lone wolf ex army operator. Quite dim. I don't think he has the mental capacity to care about anyone different from him.

Carol Vorderman tweeted

Johnny Mercer had a meltdown about my tweets in the Green Room before Question Time
He ranted about me highlighting his wife's salary rise of 200% to c£45,000 at our expense
"He couldn't talk about anything else". "Fiona Bruce was amused"

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1788504/mercer-carol-vorderman-bbc-question-time

Feel free to 'derail' any time you like coeurnoir, that was a well thought out and highly relevant post.

I didn’t so thank you!