Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Are they all hiding in a fucking fridge?

627 replies

noblegiraffe · 02/01/2023 22:37

The government? Where is the leadership? The reassurance that the problem is being addressed with urgency? Cobra meetings? Horrendous stories coming out of A&E departments right now.

Steve Barclay, the Health Secretary today announced on twitter that people should download the Couch to 5k app to reduce pressure on the NHS.

twitter.com/stevebarclay/status/1609957311610556416?s=61&t=rHTkCD1w_H9OmH9UB2E4UQ

Do your fucking job, Steve. And Rishi, show some leadership. You bloody wanted this job so badly, where have you gone?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-64142614

OP posts:
justasking111 · 03/01/2023 17:41

Re UK birth rate there's no denying the facts

Are they all hiding in a fucking fridge?
Walkaround · 03/01/2023 17:42

justasking111 · 03/01/2023 17:41

Re UK birth rate there's no denying the facts

I don’t know, this Government is quite good at denying facts.

Keskadale · 03/01/2023 17:46

Clavinova · 03/01/2023 17:30

Keskadale
So you don't have any? i notice in other EU/Brexit topics on here you are very vocal but on Benefits, you have nothing to say

I have posted them a number of times on other threads - you are not very observant.

err no you haven't.

ImnotanumberIAMAFREEMAN · 03/01/2023 17:46

YANBU it's an utter disgrace and there needs to be some accountability.

All fine and dandy for them - they've got private insurance and can see a senior consultant at the drop of a hat!
Mr Barclay should be made to work 12 hour shifts in A&E for a few months, in the worst hit areas...might make him rethink a few things...😤

Clavinova · 03/01/2023 17:58

Keskadale
err no you haven't

err yes I have.

Noonesperfect · 03/01/2023 18:02

roarfeckingroarr · 03/01/2023 10:34

Well good luck with that. I don't trust Labour to do any better.

Well they can't do any worse that's for sure. 🤣 The tories have set the bar very low. In fact I'm not even sure they have a bar. They just couldn't care less!

Clavinova · 03/01/2023 18:04

Walkaround
the Brexit campaign sold fantasy fiction

Take back control of our money, laws and borders, negotiate our own trade deals and design our own agricultural policy?

Alexandra2001 · 03/01/2023 18:12

Clavinova · 03/01/2023 18:04

Walkaround
the Brexit campaign sold fantasy fiction

Take back control of our money, laws and borders, negotiate our own trade deals and design our own agricultural policy?

Thats all hot air - UK, in order to trade with the EU have to follow their regs i.e laws & its still around 40% of our trade.

What trade deals? Even Eustice says the Aussi one is bad for UK.
USA FTA ?
Japan? worse than the EU one, all the others are roll overs for what we already had.

What Agri policy?

Borders? don't make me laugh! working well with France isn't it?

and i'll add - What environmental protection?

Shelefttheweb · 03/01/2023 18:12

Walkaround · 03/01/2023 17:41

What a pity people choose to believe the fantasies they want to hear, rather than wanting to listen to boring reality. There is a difference between exaggeration and fantasy, though, and the Brexit campaign sold fantasy fiction.

Both sides sold fantasy. We were discussing the future. So take ‘£350 million per week for the NHS’ - you weren’t voting for this at Brexit, at best you were voting for this to be a possibility. But Parliament might have decided to spend that money on planting trees, or welfare, or military investment. Equally, we didn’t know what the European Parliament might have done. As it happens Covid happened and £700 million more per week was spent on health and social care. Even Schengen countries closed their borders to each other for a while. A Brexit agreement was negotiated with obstinate EU officials that even member countries said at points were not acting in good faith according to exit agreements. Though it could have been worse and UK negotiators made a mess of it too. But we weren’t voting for any off this and I don’t think either side really admitted what we were actually voting for as it was too ephemeral for campaigning sound bites and ultimately completely uncertain.

romany4 · 03/01/2023 18:14

Problem is, anyone who is eligible for their jabs and who wants it have had it

Not true at all where I live. I have asthma. I'm entitled to a free flu jab and I'm over 50.
Can't get one anywhere! And I've been trying since end November. Gp surgery ran out within a week and apparently can't get anymore and all the local pharmacies say they are out of stock too..and have no idea when more will be available.
I've been ill since Christmas Eve.. With flu...

SirMingeALot · 03/01/2023 18:14

Walkaround · 03/01/2023 17:04

Brexit could have been used for all sorts of things that it was clear it was not going to be used for. The fact is, austerity could have been relieved far sooner if the UK had stayed in the EU, because even Brexiteers acknowledge the first 10 years of Brexit at least were going to come at a cost. And the cost was to the entire EU, not just the UK. Meaning only idiots would embark on it after a long period of pre-existing austerity.

Yes to this. There've always been decent theoretical left wing, anti austerity arguments to be made against the EU. It's just that it was abundantly obvious in 2016 that any Brexit we got at that point wasn't going to look anything like them. Because of the wider circumstances and the people who were at the helm. Anyone who thought Brexit was actually going to be used as a mechanism to relieve austerity was woefully naive.

noblegiraffe · 03/01/2023 18:15

Clavinova · 03/01/2023 18:04

Walkaround
the Brexit campaign sold fantasy fiction

Take back control of our money, laws and borders, negotiate our own trade deals and design our own agricultural policy?

Like this Vote Leave video suggesting that A&E would be overcrowded within the EU and lovely and fast if we left the EU with a scenario of woman and her poorly mother being treated if we stayed in, and if we left.

twitter.com/writesbright/status/1609980791936745472?s=61&t=Rfq0L4p2x2K_iVswLEO-LQ

Even the on on the left is a fantasy right now. At least everyone has a chair.

OP posts:
noblegiraffe · 03/01/2023 18:17

Listening to the radio, the government says that they are doing everything they can to help the situation. This was followed up by someone else saying that if they raised wages in social care, this would mean that carers wouldn't go to work in Tesco instead, and beds could be freed up in hospitals.

Doing everything they can.....like what?

OP posts:
floradora · 03/01/2023 18:31

noblegiraffe · 03/01/2023 18:17

Listening to the radio, the government says that they are doing everything they can to help the situation. This was followed up by someone else saying that if they raised wages in social care, this would mean that carers wouldn't go to work in Tesco instead, and beds could be freed up in hospitals.

Doing everything they can.....like what?

"Doing everything they can" is part of the "working day and night" and "Straining every sinew" to "deliver blah for the country" is all straight from the Tory Cabinet media training manual to try to sound effective. Like the "oven-ready" Brexit and the "ready to go Social Care plan". Lies and obfuscation.

Walkaround · 03/01/2023 18:36

Shelefttheweb · 03/01/2023 18:12

Both sides sold fantasy. We were discussing the future. So take ‘£350 million per week for the NHS’ - you weren’t voting for this at Brexit, at best you were voting for this to be a possibility. But Parliament might have decided to spend that money on planting trees, or welfare, or military investment. Equally, we didn’t know what the European Parliament might have done. As it happens Covid happened and £700 million more per week was spent on health and social care. Even Schengen countries closed their borders to each other for a while. A Brexit agreement was negotiated with obstinate EU officials that even member countries said at points were not acting in good faith according to exit agreements. Though it could have been worse and UK negotiators made a mess of it too. But we weren’t voting for any off this and I don’t think either side really admitted what we were actually voting for as it was too ephemeral for campaigning sound bites and ultimately completely uncertain.

Rubbish. Being in the EU was a reality, there was no fantasy about it, it was the status quo. The fantasy was Brexit campaigners claiming it was the EU that was the problem and they had a wonderful cure. Like Liz Truss has a wonderful cure.

Nat6999 · 03/01/2023 18:45

The government are still on Christmas holidays, get longer off than schools do. They won't speak to any of the unions, just keep on parroting that the pay review bodies are in charge of negotiating, they won't speak to the pay review bodies who they employed & tell how much they are prepared to pay, no wonder the unions refuse to negotiate with them.

Purpleheadgirl · 03/01/2023 18:49

Talking of raising pay to get more staff, I have just seem advert for starting pay at £11.11 an hour in aldi rising to £12 something after 4 years. That £11.11 is exactly the same as starting point for a band 3 HCA or equivalent ....... and generally, unless you have relevant training or experience, you actually start at a band 2 which is only £10.37 - 10.90. Social care is only going to be around the same so why on earth do they think people are going to choose HCA as it will mean they will be relying in extra or unsocial hours to make up their wages enough to live. Any extra beds needs extra staff within the hospital, and then the community, as well as social carers, once they are discharged. Government are absolutely not doing anything, let alone everything and there must be an industrial soze fridge somewhere!

Mimilamore · 03/01/2023 18:49

I think lots of people need to witness how bad it is first hand. As an abstract it doesn't have the impact. Two brushes with A and E in the family recently and it has collapsed... this is in Kent.
Yes where are you Government, get going, it's falling down round your ears. The model does not work across the board, some will "La La" their way to hell...

noblegiraffe · 03/01/2023 18:51

I found something that Rishi at least has been up to over the holidays - tweeting this embarrassingly awful New Year video.

First two points - he wants to increase pride in our leaders, and reassure people that things are going to be ok.

Failed already, Rishi.

OP posts:
noblegiraffe · 03/01/2023 18:52

Rishi video twitter.com/rishisunak/status/1609231710926905345?s=61&t=Rfq0L4p2x2K_iVswLEO-LQ 🤢

OP posts:
Keskadale · 03/01/2023 18:59

I thought Sunak looked slightly deranged in that Video, wide camera angle i guess? or he was pissed but as he doesn't drink....

endlesscraziness · 03/01/2023 19:13

@Libre2 controversially I think we need to look to Germany and Australia and completely overhaul how the NHS works. It's no longer fit for purpose and with an aging, evermore unhealthy population that are living longer than ever before with more and more interventions, it's time for a big reform.

Lonelycrab · 03/01/2023 19:13

“I want people to be proud of their leaders, actually!”

I bet you do. How do you think you’re going to manage that 🙄

Then something about trust in politics 🤯

endlesscraziness · 03/01/2023 19:16

@JenniferBooth it's £12 in Lloyds. Almost the same as a prescription for antibiotics once a chest infection sets in and way cheaper than losing wages. This attitude is exactly why the NHS is fucked

Spect8 · 03/01/2023 19:17

Until good honest journalists begin asking probing questions of Government, and insist on realistic answers and policies, and hold them to account on our behalf well how can things change?

If Labour and the likes are not given a platform on which to oppose and hold to account via the media, they might as well have a gag in their mouths.

The media moguls want disaster capitalism to be successful. Therefore they won't allow it to be questioned. Some exceptions exist of course, but not enough to enable the true picture to emerge, only soundbites with little meaning and pats on the head for the electorate and NHS staff.

That's my view anyway.