Westministenders: Tell Boris it should be more Stokenders and Copenders

[RedToothBrush]

FINALLY this is the thread of the Copeland and Stoke By-Elections.
In the next few days we will be subjected to a whole pile of analysis from the media most of which will completely miss the point, and will waffle on about Brexit as if it’s the only issue ever and this is what matters to everyone.

Its bollocks.

This is the ‘Westminster Bubble’ that doesn’t report what is on the ground. It includes the media and the politicians who ran into town for the election, never to set foot there ever again. In one case pulling faces at the local children. In another desperately trying to prove how local he is.
Is it any wonder some think that all politicians are all the same?

You can learn far more about what really matters by reading the Stoke Sentinel and The Whitehaven News than reading The Sun or The Mail, those great champions of Leave. (Fancy that local papers being more relevant to a community than a national ones).

The by-election in Stoke has been a particular display of pond life style campaigning. We’ve had Hillsborough, ‘dodgy addresses’, arrest of a candidate, text messages saying you’ll go to hell for voting ‘wrong’, letters that say that MPs voted differently to the way they did, an activist being hunted by the police for trying to enter someone’s house and then pissing on her property, crying candidates, faked photos on twitter, dodgy sexist tweets from candidates dragged up, photographs with known far right activists, egg throwing and vandalism.

The word that keep coming out? Not ‘Brexit’. But ‘Change’.

What have the main parties in either election really added in terms of positive change?

Tomorrow’s weather will not help matters. The chances are that it will keep turnout down, making those postal votes more important. It will drive out the angry to vote whilst the apathetic and hopelessly disillusioned will stay home. The result will not be decided by the 60%+ of the electorate who voted to leave the EU. It will be decided by a fraction of that.

Someone has to lose. There will be political blood shed. Friday will see the political blame and finger pointing I doubt anyone will get it.
The real story is about how few people will vote and how few people think their vote counts for anything.

Immigrants and ‘benefit scroungers’ are not to blame for this. Nor is it even the ‘cultural elite’. Politicians have a duty to the whole country, to do the best for them all. Not to merely do the ‘will of the people’. Popularism does not help people. It merely starts a runaway train of the tyranny of the majority. You don’t give children sweets because they demand them. You educate children, and nurture them. If they are unaware of real issues, you make sure they learn and you explain why you are making unpopular decisions honestly, rather than feeding them a crock of shit. Because that’s your job as a PM, as MP, as a MEP, as an elected mayor, as a county councillor, as a borough councillor, as a parish councillor. To step up.

We need politicians with the back bone to do the right thing for all, rather than just worrying about their electoral strategy and how to con people to vote for you this time. We need politicians to actually take the responsibility of office rather than see it as a career opportunity.

The issues that matter most to people ultimately are not about the EU. They are not about immigration. It’s too easy to blame on immigration rather than tackle the infrastructure problems of the country and admit where you have gone wrong in the past. It’s easier to drive an hysterical fear of terrorism and cultural values being in danger from an enemy far away rather than look at who is really responsible.

If people don’t think that others are unaware of the problem, and don’t care about them and how they are being thrown under the bus, they are wrong. Plenty of people on both sides of the EU referendum debate get it.

Plenty on both sides don’t and are indulging the fantasy land excuses for domestic political failure.

The question is how do you get that message out, in a way that makes a difference and does change things? How do you break the stereotypes of the stupid and the patronising? How do you get people like the Nathan from Stoke to be heard and to believe in politics. Not believe in Brexit. Believe that politics can help them.

Should add that you don't have problems with home grown recruitment in child care- it's a much more attractive job for many school leavers.

That's because it's not as odious to change the nappy of a child as it is an old person.
With a child, you see them flourish & grow, with an old person they just deteriorate further.
It's a job that should definitely pay a lot more - it's not a job I could do tbh (and I would & have happily cleaned and done all manner of other dirty jobs).

Subsidising wages of care homes may be necessary - it's the half way house of not being state-run.
So long as the care home companies don't then become completely reliant on subsidies (which they would, no doubt).

I suppose another solution is to increase cost of care homes to the patient.

Since we are talking supply and demand ... That would logically reduce demand for care homes, and by extension would increase the burden on the NHS.

There is no easy market answer in the social care sector: for the majority of old people requiring care, the costs are always going to be paid, one way or another, by the tax payer.

Not sure why it is a bad thing if there are fewer foreign workers building un-affordable London flats to sell to overseas investors and left to lie empty stifling growth.

That is just at the high end, and even there Khan is going to enhance existing planning regs that require a high proportion of the new flats e.g. In the Power station development to go to London residents.

However the focus of the London Planning framework is on favouring the development of 1 and 2 bedroom flats, for the increasing number of single person households. That forms the bulk of new development across London, and the only way that millennials are accessing the housing ladder.

Foriegn builders are also meeting the needs of the bulk of the domestic market as well. All those extensions and loft conversions that enable families to create the space out of existing properties because they cannot afford to move.

There are a few good high end British building firms but they charge too much to make such projects affordable for most families. Without foriegn workers people will be left with only the option of unscrupulous cowboy builders - who have appalling ethics. it isn't just going sick, it is also shoddy even dangerous work, only actually working half a day between the breaks, and going off to other jobs leaving work unfinished, not to mention having to put up with appalling arrogance and misogyny. Just in our small road three families are currently involved in legal action as a result.

In the past we have actually paid for builders from the north to come down and stay in a B&B to avoid the problem.

Foot was competent and highly talented
As an individual yes, but the wrong person for party leader.

I went to an election address Labour gave in 1992. Foot was there, and he went on and on and on about Labour's win in 1945. I turned to the friend I was with and said that my children would be old enough to vote in the 1997 election and they would no more want to hear about what happened in 1945 as I would have, as a first time voter, wanted to hear someone going on about elections in the 1920s.

The costs at a local care home are £30,000 per annum. This is fine if you have a £300,000 house you can sell, which will keep you going for 10 years. Most residents don't last that long, but if they do and the money is gone, then they have to be moved elsewhere to cheaper homes.

We have just been through the process of finding a care home, thankfully there is the money to pay for it. Anywhere decent, and a few that are not, charge £1500 pounds per week in the South East, and yes 70% of the staff are EU or non EU nationals. If you are not self funded / can't afford that then the standard of care can be dire, I have actually wept after seeing some. I was oblivious to how many locally have made it into the local Press as a result of serious shortcomings in care, sometimes contributing to death, it is an issue we collectively ignore. However there are plenty of providers buying in to that market. I was particularly warned off any home that Care UK have bought up, they consistently deteriorate, and guess who features on the list of investors / directors? A clutch of Conservative politicians ...... The way in which we care for a growing elderly population is going to throw our society into sharp focus.

This is why a sharp fall in immigration risks being so disastrous in the context of an ageing population and a "native" workforce that is both ageing and decreasing in number.

In sectors like farming, you can shut farms and sell the land to build houses, or invest in automation (if it makes financial sense).

But in care work, you can't automate the work, and closing the businesses (care homes) doesn't simply make the demand for labour go away, unless you are prepared to reduce demand for social care by letting people die. Instead, the burden of care is transferred either to the NHS, or to families, who may themselves leave the workforce (and claim benefits) as a result. This not only costs tax-payers money but also reduces the tax-take and increases skill shortages.

I don't know Mother, - there must be some moderately well off Tory voters, who won't have a house to sell at £300,000.

The problem with the argument that wages and skills will just have to rise with decreased migration is that it assumes these jobs will all continue to have to be done by someone. That's not the case. There's no reason why we even have to have a British faming industry. Clearly it's desirable, but if labour costs mean imported is cheaper, that's what people are going to buy instead (although personally I think that sector will end up relying at least partially on desperate illegal immigrant labour, since whether we're in the EU or not we're still just off the coast of Eurasia, and of course those people won't appear in net migration figures). Especially as the economy is likely to worsen post Brexit, leaving less money in people's pockets and a lower ability and inclination to shop 'ethically'.

Care homes are a bit more difficult, you do need someone to staff them. Although I suppose it would be possible to cut numbers even further if we were simply to provide worse care and not be arsed about it. But there's automation.

He says the sickness rate among eastern Europeans is ten times lower than that of their British colleagues, while UK workers also expect higher pay.

I can explain that. I cannot speak for the whole of Eastern Europe, but in Hungary you need a doctor's note even to take just one sick day. My GP always used to ask me "Can you afford to stay at home?" before deciding what to prescribe for me.

I am currently supervising the refurbishment of our new house and yet to meet the proverbial Polish builder.

Waiting to see the consequences of yesterday's by-elections.

I do expect a reduction in the amount of assets that a person needing care is allowed to pass on also. Might not be popular but there's no way around it.

I suppose the best case scenario would be an economic boom fuelled by increased wages at the bottom of the pay heap.

To apply to the NHS Doctors would need a relative reduction in pay to enable this. As well as rises in taxation.

In all honesty those doctors at top of the pay scale are paid too much. That's not to take away from what they do or their value to society but because they disportionately earn more than others in UK society. Wage bill is biggest cost to NHS and of course this also impacts on pensions. Whilst we should pay doctors well for the skill and time spent studying we pay a little too well. If they were paid slightly less at the top end it would redress the balance lower down the pay grades by perhaps allowing more to be hired, more support staff and more nurses. I can't help but think it's a foot shooting relationship with pay and conditions. This is somehow a controversial thing to say but I am aware of a few doctors and what they earn and they generally don't have a concept of how good their pay is relative to the rest of the country. Yes they should be well paid and competitive but equally if this is at the expense of the service and their own working conditions there is a problem. The trouble is the strength of the unions in this area makes it impossible to redress as the country is held hostage by it now. The problem is not with junior doctors either.

We have a socialist style health service with a highly capitalist wage structure at the top end in terms of ideology and therein lies much of the problem. This is a reflection of socialism V capitalism war within British society as a whole.

Of course the NHS has a great many other problems and I'd be naive to ignore them - most of them politically driven rather than evidence based medicine driven. And a generally low percentage of GDP that goes into the NHS in the first place which exacabates every issue the NHS has too.

We don't want to be Cuba but we equally don't want to be the USA. Yet we seem to act like we want to be both at the same time! We don't seem to be able to find a comfortable middle ground that suits British society and mentally.

As I say a controversial opinion that no one really is willing to take on. Perhaps that is part of the problem though.

unless you are prepared to reduce demand for social care by letting people die.

but the problem is the Tories are prepared to reduce demand for social care by letting (poor) people die.

Lurking

I think you are probably right, even if in most cases they do not say or even think this explicitly. But that is what people are voting for. They have a far greater mandate for austerity than they do for brexit. At least it was in the manifesto.

Who knew indeed Semi

About 80% of care home places are either partially or fully funded by the State. BBC did an article this week which I can't find. From memory 10% NHS funded, 60% fully funded as no assets, 12% partially funded. Average stay is 6 months to a year. Cost for a good one near me around £50k. Which is why some sort of insurance product priced about £75k would be a decent alternative to IHT.

Most care workers are so poorly paid they will have wages topped up by HB and or TC, so any increase in wages will largely be met by transfer from one govt budget to another.

Most of the childcare workers (and care workers more generally) I know are also in receipt of help with childcare costs through TC, which is where we get back to my much maligned comment about the authoritarian nature of "free" childcare. Margins in the care sector are small and many where I live would fall into the category of hobby businesses run by MC mothers exploiting WC mothers.

The much feared rise of the robots will hopefully deliver the productivity growth to fund changes - in care homes technology is already starting to reduce the heavy lifting and giving people back some of the dignity of more independence.

More houses for people to live in at affordable prices would release a lot of the capital tied up in the Ponzi scheme of the UK housing market for more productive uses. It would also cut the HB bill which is twice the rate per head for London it is for Scotland.

In all honesty those doctors at top of the pay scale are paid too much. That's not to take away from what they do or their value to society but because they disportionately earn more than others in UK society. Wage bill is biggest cost to NHS and of course this also impacts on pensions. Whilst we should pay doctors well for the skill and time spent studying we pay a little too well.

This is rubbish. Paid well compared to who?

Most doctors are not on amazing wages; those that are, are either working in the private sector as well as doing an NHS consultant's job (should be restricted, but carefully, or you lose skills to the private sector completely) or are profiting from the current skill shortage by doing locum work at a high hourly rate.

Best way to reduce NHS spending on doctors is to fill vacant posts and keep your workforce healthy by not imposing dangerous working hours on them.

The point is that our Care system is already in crisis as far as those who cannot afford the fees of those homes at the high end. The Care Quality Commission was beefed up to deal with the homes that were seriously failing their patients but even so there are a significant number that fail to achieve their good rating and very few that are outstanding. This isn't just the issue of treating vulnerable old people with dignity and respect, that unfortunately seems to be a luxury, it is a matter of safeguarding. The difference between the good homes and the less good are things like cutting costs by using agency labour to cover sickness etc. with insufficient vetting. If the money is not there from social care funding to overcome that issue, it is certainly not going to be there to pay Increased salaries for the permanent staff.

The tories are already doing this- they've stripped funding of social care to the bone.

It's what they always do (they systematically defunded social care in the 80s and 90s).

I know a few doctors at the top of the pay scale. They work insanely hard, and most definitely earn their wage. There's is a position of high responsibility and should be highly paid. Feel the same about head teachers who also get a lot of flack for high wages. If you want decent staff then you need to pay accordingly.

Interesting comments on doctors and the NHS Red. I tend to disagree on doctor pay because my profession with similar levels of study, stress and hours pays considerably more. There are doctors, espec in GP who choose work / life balance by earning about half pay and again this would be true of my profession.

I think the more interesting issue is around what is in the relatively well paid high skill NHS and what is in the low paid care sector. Part of the problem with stripping funding from social care has been a tendency to protect the NHS at the expense of social care to the extent that the poor "bed blockers" are being blamed for being cared for by expensive NHS staff doing the wrong job in the wrong place.