Labour isn't Working - Thread 36

[Nuthatch26]

A chat thread for those who don't like this Labour government 💙

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

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I worked for the county council our department was bloody awful. I used to get so bored I'd find work in another department, ask the boss could I help out. She was happy to let me go there thankfully. I only stayed to get maternity leave.

@DancingFerret we get hints at what goes on in other areas like the NHS (maternity scandal ) and the BBC. One can only have nightmares about the depth and levels of what goes on there

@Bullandbear

He is boasting of “the fastest fall in NHS waiting lists for 17 years” after hitting an interim target of treating 65 per cent of non-urgent cases within 18 weeks by March. However, waits rose in April and are now back to February levels.**

The usual Labour smoke and mirrors. They only got the waiting lists down by culling them and weeding out long term waiters who no longer needed their appointments. It was an administrative exercise.

My DH is one of the reduced waiting list numbers. He'd apparently been on waiting lists for an ENT review and an orthopaedic review. In reality, neither of those reviews were needed anymore as those matters had been sorted elsewhere within the NHS and he'd assumed he'd have already been removed from the waiting lists, but for some reason he was still on the waiting lists. Over Winter he got different phone calls from different depts on different days, both "asking" him whether he still needed the appointments as he was still down on the lists as "pending". Clearly some admin bod going through the lists and "cleansing" them.

Yet, he's still waiting for a consultation to discuss the results of a "urgent" scan he had last year connected to his cancer! His haematologist has seen the scan and she thinks she knows what it means and is tweaking his treatments accordingly as to what she thinks is the right thing to do, but still needs the consultation to give his professional opinion and confirm the diagnosis and treatment plan.

Funny how they're just "cleansing" the waiting lists for the easy/quick fixes but the more complicated things are still left languishing.

I think some of the treasury is already in Darlington, so I wonder how much more needs to move, and is it helpful to have the Treasury remote from all the other departments? I believe this is Louise Haigh’s brainwave.

Remote working works for lots of other businesses/organisations via teams/skype etc. My DS works for one of the UKs biggest pension/insurance firms and his own small department has people not only from all corners of the UK but a couple of the team members live abroad - they only "meet" in person for annual social events and conferences. They all work "out of" numerous different office buildings with the common 40% working at home time. All day to day "meetings" within the team, wider department, etc are all via internet Teams calls or similar even between people in the same building as they're often on different floors due to hot desking etc and also their "meetings" are recorded for future reference so there's a better "audit trail" that you wouldn't get meeting at the water cooler or in formal meetings where minutes may not always be accurate. The general feeling, he says, from older staff is that teams and skype etc are better and more efficient as there's less wasted time and it's easier to get more people together online than in person. The days are long gone when you actually "need" to meet other workers in person whether individually or in meetings.

Agree
Kemi

We need a ballsy PM 😅 ( oh the irony )

We need a PM who doesn't think the solution to everything is to tax the shit out of people who are just working honestly and getting by. A PM who doesn't think the middle classes are scum and that any aspiration ought to be destroyed. A PM who doesn't think of the South and London as a cow to be milked dry. We don't need a PM who doesn't understand that having equity in your house that you may have saved for over decades does not mean you have disposable income to burn you want to be stolen via insane property taxes that adversely affect the South where property prices are crazily high anyway.

We also need a PM who doesn't punish savers, the people who though cirumstance, hard work and/or good fortune are trying to secure their own futures and to have some cushion that they pay for themselves and who wants to rip that from them to hand out on vanity schemes. A PM who does not resent profoundly that people might want to pass on the assets they have worked for all their lives to their families and who wants to steal it from them.

It would help also if we had a PM and a Government who don't run a country blinded by their own prejudices and ideology. As my father says- when ideology enters the door, fiscal prudence leaves by the window.

Nail on the head. Fully agree on all points.

Great post, agree.

I didn't hear any if that from Burnham today. Just Starmer with a bottle of just for men, minus the suit, and a less annoying voice.
Let's not forget that Burnahm couldn't explain the fiscal rules when asked repeatedly by Victoria Derbyshire. He said he'll stick to them (depending on who is asking), but doesn't know what they are.

Hmmmm I agree with the IFS on the whole - there isn’t sufficient detail here to evaluate whether this will create good growth or not. On the whole, Labour did need a big idea, this looks like a big idea.

Just hoping my family isn’t in the frame for paying more tax to pay for it…

the other concern I’d have is politics is fragmenting as people don’t feel represented/feel their area is different, but devolving power in Scotland has created another round of ‘blame them’ and it certainly hasn’t shored up any sense of a British identity.

Andy Burnham the 'Pied Piper of Culcheth' the revolutionary 1985 look of the teacher called Scruffy Mcgregor at Grange Hill. The one that when my mother came home from school and saw him said get that rubbish off the tv now ! Anyone, trying to represent the teaching community whether in a fictional way or a factual way is bringing teaching in to disrepute ! 40 years later we have the Prime Minister in waiting dressing like a caricature of a student teacher called 'Scruffy Mcgregor' talk about standards of the country going to hell !

Sack half the employees in the public sector who don't do front line jobs

They're already doing this in the NHS. Do you really think doctors and nurses can run the entire NHS?

Not in Wales unfortunately.

No the Grange Hill character was called Scruffy Macguffy

DH just watched emperor Burnham's promises on the news turned to me and said we're all fucked.

He's going to pay for sons car repair this week before Burnham robs it. He's still a student.

Our pension advisor wants to see him. He's thinking he needs to liquidate and distribute or spend asap

It's such a shame we lost rishi ,green shoots where appearing and they came in and chopped and stamped it all down .

The hyper fixation on Kemi’s words is irritating. Labour can’t even keep a PM as he’s too shit, but yeh let’s tear down the successful black woman.

Love that she defies people. But eugh at some of it.

We are also giving with a warm hand, now.

Sir Keir Starmer is considering a future job as the secretary general of Nato, it has been reported.

The Prime Minister is interested in the job, currently held by Mark Rutte, the former prime minister of the Netherlands, according to The Observer.

Hopefully, Trump will nutmeg the hapless plonker.

Our neighbours have each put the maximum limit into ISAs every year. They live very quietly. One with a teachers pension the other with a forces pension. They desperately need a newer car husband has had a stroke so can't drive, wife has to drive this bloody unreliable vehicle which goes into the garage regularly. So she catches buses with two or more changes. She's not allowed taxis says her husband.

Their daughter is pulling her hair out saying mum you're the only driver get a reliable car. Tell daddy to fuck off.

This is how boomers are living. Labour knows and will skim them.

So Starmer wants to be NATO secretary general?

After the disaster with the funds for the Defence plan!

You put it so well

I understand he’s desperate for a job. But really.

Yes. Generally when politicians want a particular job after office they say and do things to ingratiate themselves with the new employer and try to make a mark in the right way.

But Starmer being Starmer, he’s managed to make himself look totally unsuitable!

I know he's pretty unemployable now being logical. But who knows what pressure will be brought to bear.