To not understand why Farage needs to be so smug and flippant about people losing their job?

[LegUcler]

Just seen reports of the speech in which Nigel Farage tells council staff who are employed on DEI initiatives and climate change to “find new careers”.

I get Reform view these things as a waste of public money, and if they’ve been democratically elected on that mandate, then those departments will be cut.

However, whatever you think of those departments, the people he’s talking about are about to lose their livelihoods. They’ll have bills and families. I’m not saying that means they’re immune to cuts or they shouldn’t lose their jobs. I just don’t know why he feels the need to be so shitty about it.

But could HR, OH and the persons manager not be doing this? I work for a large organisation and afaik we have no EDI officer or dept. But people who needed that sort of support would still get it. 🤷‍♀️

He’s such a twat, there are only staff employed to meet statutory goals. Local councils are hardly able to do climate science with the million and one other things they are supposed to do.

A None of the Above option maybe. At least it would get them out and forced to think. It works in Australia which is hardly a dictatorship.

In the US they sacked people for jobs that 'didn't need doing' then realised that they did need doing and had to rehire them.

Because people love it. He wouldn’t do it if they didn’t.

I went to a Hustings before the General Election and the Reform candidate didn't even know their own manifesto, sorry, Contract. He had to get one of his followers to Google the answer to one of the questions and the following morning he lied that people had laughed at him because he came straight from work wearing a High Vis vest. He got elected on Thursday. Dan Price.

Elite private sector companies are there to make a profit. That's not what Councils are for.

You lost me when you used the word Deform to describe people you don't like.

Farage is The People’s Toff.🤣

Nigel - like Trump - will say whatever he thinks will serve him best, it's absurd to expect civilised behaviour or empathy from him. He doesn't do any of that and his supporters love him for it as they're the same. Let him concentrate on his ReformATory party. Hubris, Nigel. Nemesis soon follows hopefully.

He poses with a fag and a pint and suddenly he's a man of the people, one of 'us' 🙄. How do people fall for this?

The biggest issue facing many of these councils over the next couple of years is going to be local government reform and devolution, there’s going to be massive changes and councils that have already been through it indicate it takes a huge amount of member and staff time. We’re going to be working with people who have absolutely no experience of running councils, or know what their roles are in it. I work for a district council rather than a county council, but in a couple of years we’ll be combined into a unitary, the pace of change was already worrying, now with inexperienced councillors I dread to think what it’s going to be like.

I don't want anyone to get a kicking, I have no idea where you got that idea from. But if your colleague believes that women shouldn't be allowed to advocate for privacy, safety and dignity in her place of work in case it hurts a man's feelings then I'm glad that person is no longer in post because I would far rather the resource is spent on people who need it rather than spending the time hanging up rainbow flags. I think it's fantastic that blind people are being helped - but securing funding for taxis should not be a full time job for someone.

Durham became unitary several years ago and this election was a reorganisation of the wards so at least they're already through that. There is the complication that the council leader will have to work with the North East combined authority, which will be "interesting".

If they want all council workers to stop working from home, they will have a job here. That has given the council the opportunity to mostly move out of the money pit that is County Hall with the I tention to demolish it and actually make some money from the land. They have other offices to use but not enough space for everyone, all the time.

They're not, but as an incentive structure it stops wasting everyone's money on a cosy gravy train. The "profit" can then go back in. They could operate like Scottish Water which is publicly owned, mostly.

That’s not an argument to pay people to do things that don’t need doing though. Just that you need to check first

Scottish water is entirely a public body. They do have quite a bit of public sector waste but they’re not terrible.

But yeah I agree- public sector waste is effectively taking precious resources away from services that need it

Elite private sector companies make a profit by working efficiently to produce goods and services that people want at a reasonable cost. Councils could definitely be doing that.

They definitely do, I saw an ad on my LA recruitment page, and read their JD . Their jd wasn't asking them to do DEI work in addition to a main job..that was the job and it paid well too. We are not in an Reform area but I'll be glad if/when those jobs go.

I don’t know what may have happened in recent years in the US but over here local government funding has reduced year on year for a long time. Most local authorities have done cost-cutting exercises over and over on people and processes. There’s no ‘low-hanging fruit’ left. What WILL be left are the individual low performers who drive everyone around them mad and take the piss, but can only be managed out through procedures and very firm managers (and time). What WOULD ultimately save money in local government would be more efficient processes but they often require an invest to save approach which isn’t possible in the current climate. Not to mention how much many local government authorities are struggling with large scale IT implementations that cost a fortune but have to be done.

Sadly none of this is soundbite territory.

Yes

but farage was talking about councils

over 90% of our councils money goes on adult and childrens social care…thats what will be cut

we don’t fit in the office so will continue to work from home in one form or another, we have lost many, many members of staff, the remaining staff can’t take on anymore work than they already do

the customers will suffer

uncertain said it better 😀

I described the intention of the party not the people. I have no idea how you took that interpretation.

Deform: Synonyms: misshape. to make ugly, ungraceful, or displeasing; mar the beauty of; spoil.

The party does not want to reform the UK, they want to deform it. A perfectly valid word to use.

There was a hustings I saw on YouTube with Luke Campbell

If ever there was someone woefully unqualified this is it!

You are right to be worried. The support Reform is getting is because people are totally dissatisfied with the other parties. And rightly so.