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.

howabout What do you mean by this: in care homes technology is already starting to reduce the heavy lifting and giving people back some of the dignity of more independence.
I am genuinely interested, not trying to be awkward. The only thing I can think of is those pendants, which any self-respecting OAP can break or misuse. And the sinister care robot in Humans that were basically prison guards for pensioners, but they was not real.

I mean they were, not they was.

Don't forget people like my in-laws who are on pensions double our household income who are insistent that they have paid their dues and it's now pay back time from the state and they absolutely should not contribute to the cost of their own care as they have 'already paid for it'.

No you haven't. The pension structure was flawed when you started it, and is a burden heavier than can be sustained by the workforce. Expectations do not match what can be delivered. Successive governments have never resolved this mess.

Of course this is the heart of the conservative vote. In relative terms though pensioners as a whole are far better off than single mothers as, and have their pensions protected whilst benefits to single mothers are being cut at the same time as the cost of living which pensioners are protected from is going up.

Jo Maugham made the observation on Twitter a couple of weeks ago and said he got more abuse for that than for anything he had over a50 court cases.

We have an entitled society but I do wonder whether there are certain respectable group who accuse others of entitlement are also just as entitled, if not more so, than those they accuse.

Again controversial but another bad case of having cake and eating it in political terms.

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.

How much automation is possible? Lifting OK but still needs staff to operate machines, supervise their operation, and skilled people to maintain them and inspect them for safety.

I'm agog that people think automation is possible in a social care context. Do you have any idea of what automation costs? You need a guarantee of good margins and future cashflow to justify the enormous upfront investment in robots. In social care this is Not Happening (or not on any significant scale).

What will happen is that care standards will decline and people's life expectancy will fall (ie people will die unnecessarily). But voters are OK with this, especially those who are closest to needing care home services'

It's not just Stoke - much of the electorate is taking the stupid pills.

The only thing I could think of was hoists for lifting patients, not much else.

in care homes technology is already starting to reduce the heavy lifting and giving people back some of the dignity of more independence. Hoists have been around forever, you cannot however do without the person to operate them. Technology is improving the standard of care where the providers have the money to invest, things like pressure pads that switch on the lights when someone gets out of bed and alerts the staff so they can assist or come and check after a certain amount of time, depending on what has been agreed in the care plan. However that is about improving the quality of life for the patient, it does not reduce the workload for the staff. The way that costs are reduced is by not investing in such technology, not bothering to have a care plan (a common shortcoming in CQC reports) or as I previously mentioned using agency temps of dubious quality.

Automation as a solution to the social care problem is pure bollocks. No other way of putting it.

As a resource/ minerals economist I've spent much of my life looking at the economics of an industry which is (on the face of it) ripe for automation. And automation has increased to an extent, but not nearly as much or as fast as anyone expected. Not all jobs are amenable to automation, and where jobs are amenable to automation, it may not be possible to do this at an acceptable cost. Also, automation is much less reliable and cheap than people think - machines need to be operated without breaking them, they need to be inspected and maintained. They need expensive replacement parts (especially if they are operated by incompetent or inadequately trained people) which in turn need to be made by skilled people ...

I repeat: in social care, it's not happening. It probably won't happen (much) in farming either, unless you give up your British addiction to cheap food.

From my research it is clear that people are already dying prematurely as a result of these shortfalls in care.....

Don't forget people like my in-laws who are on pensions double our household income who are insistent that they have paid their dues and it's now pay back time from the state and they absolutely should not contribute to the cost of their own care as they have 'already paid for it'.

DH and I are probably like your In Laws. However, we do feel that we have an obligation to our children. So we would want our money to go to them rather than be sucked away into care home fees. I think an older generation - like MIL in her 90s, really did pay their dues - war work, high taxation during the war and afterwards, generally going without for many of them for a good number of years. If they argued that it was pay back time, I would agree, but not us baby boom generation. We really are the 'never had it so good generation'.

Of course this is the heart of the conservative vote. In relative terms though pensioners as a whole are far better off than single mothers as, and have their pensions protected whilst benefits to single mothers are being cut at the same time as the cost of living which pensioners are protected from is going up.

Thankfully, neither of us vote Conservative, and are not likely to start.

We have an entitled society but I do wonder whether there are certain respectable group who accuse others of entitlement are also just as entitled, if not more so, than those they accuse.

Unfortunately, I have to agree - Mrs May is the personification of that sort of person.

(makes note to self not to watch Logans Run in future) ...

Ffs.

From my research it is clear that people are already dying prematurely as a result of these shortfalls in care

For sure. But older voters have made a pact with the devil (I mean that metaphorically of course).

Eleana All the Care homes I visited used hoists to get some of their patients in and out of bed. At a basic level they were exactly the same as the hoists we used when I worked in a geriatric ward in the 70s and they similarly did not offer the dignity of an en suite. In the some of the better funded homes eg run Christian / military charities as well as the expensive private homes they have hoists that actually run on a track that transports the patient to the en suite toilet /wet room. I have also seen sophisticated baths equipped with side doors and lifts and hoists to enable old people who want to bath. All of that requires investment though, and does not reduce the staffing

The thing is, increasing 'productivity' by using robots and the like is NOT going to increase the quality of care, quite the opposite.
There is nothing that a human being needs more than human touch and contact.
We know that from infants and premature babies. They do better when they are touched. All the technology in the world cannot replace touch.
We forget the same is true for elderly people.
Trying to find ways to have less staff and therefore lesscat is also working towards decreasing the quality of care of our elderly people. It's increasing isolation.
Who wants to end their life like this?? Probably those who know they will not be in that situation or those who are happy to put elderly people in a home, out of sight so they don't have to think how hard it is to get old and die.
There is a serious ethical issue there. One that we are all avoiding because it starts with talking and thinking about death and getting old and frail and dependant. And in a society that values the young and being independent, it's not a discussion people are willing to have. Easier to just blame other things and wish for a reduction is cost so you can have more money now, forgetting you will also be the one on the receiving end of those cuts one day.

We have an entitled society but I do wonder whether there are certain respectable group who accuse others of entitlement are also just as entitled, if not more so, than those they accuse.
I have found myself wondering this too especially after dealings with my own family. The baby boomers definitely are more entitled than the younger generations. They gasp at the prospect of the triple lock being lifted or them having to contribute as pensioners and expect full fast NHS treatment when the younger generation are looking at possibly not ever having a pension and NHS. They were mainly a Tory voters happy with the 'all in it together' thing, so long as they weren't included in the all part.

Is it rubbish? Do we want a socialist NHS and to pay socialist wages and with low investment? Or we accept we need to pay market rates in a capitalist society and this requires proper investment from taxation (or top up fees) that we don't want to provide?

Politicians are offering us our cake and to eat it on this I feel. There needs to be a compromise of ideology to find a balance between the two.

Red my parents are like this but there is Avery big difference.
Like perigrina they want a lot of their money to go down to their dcs and grand children. And they also planned to pay for their care in old age. They've always have known this and this had a massive impact on the way they have build their pensions pots (clearly not just state pension).

We have an entitled society but I do wonder whether there are certain respectable group who accuse others of entitlement are also just as entitled, if not more so, than those they accuse.
YY. No more to say to that.

I don't think the question is whether we want a socialist or a capitalist place to live.
We should be looking at what makes a society works better.
And in economic terms, a society works better when the inequality isn't as blatant as we have here atm. It works better when people can get proper Heath care. It works better when lerderly are well looked after.
WHY? Because if people have some ones they can carry in buying stuff so it supports the economy. If nearly half of the population earns less than the there is little money left to yu anythingbthan essential and support companies.
If there is proper healthcare, people who get ill can't be productive in their work or take longer to go back to work, which again has a cost.
If the is no system in place to care for elderly, it means someone will have to look after them, and usually that means family staying at home caring for them instead of being working, earning etc...
And that's wo even going into the fact that a society that doesn't for its weakest members is likely to go down the route of instability, socially and politically, all of which is detrimental too.

Taking about taxes or no taxes is very short sighted IMO.

RTB sorry, previous post was a bit abrasive. But in a market like medicine where there are few barriers to labour mobility, the only way to reduce the cost of labour to the NHS is to recruit less skilled people to do the work. Obviously this is being tried, but there is a cost, in terms of patient outcomes.

DH and I are probably like your In Laws.

Are you going on £60,000 holidays which you complain about (and then go on three other luxury holidays abroad in addition to that) and are expecting the state or your kids to pay for or otherwise provide your social care?

Somehow you don't strike me as deluded and less self aware and politically detached from reality as that.

Guess where they live...

Sorry iPad plying up and not always typing the words it's supposed to.
I hope you got the idea....

RedandYellow Absolutely. In the best homes there is a care plan that ensures the the person is treated as an individual with respect for their identity as well as their needs. In a person with dementia respecting that identity can be a key to building their self esteem and unlocking their remaining capacity for happiness. No robot can do that, and sadly quite a few care homes don't do it either.

I don't think the question is whether we want a socialist or a capitalist place to live.
We should be looking at what makes a society works better.

Well precisely. But how ideologically driven are the conservative and how desperate to ignore the reality of providing a service were Labour? They tried to fudge investment and didn't want to increase tax to reflect need in order to please right wing ideologically driven voters.

The UK public has in many respects been too right wing to reflect it's apparent commitment to the NHS. Why I don't know. How you solve that I also don't know.

There is an ideological disconnect here somewhere between politics and provision and the public.