Westministenders: Before the Fire Alarm of Rome goes off

[RedToothBrush]

I’m going to keep this one very simple.

THE DEADLINE TO REGISTER TO VOTE IS 22ND MAY.
www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

Postal votes start to go out on 23rd May.

Your challenge is to persuade someone to register to vote or to get someone who is considering not to, to get their arse to the polling station.

Go forth and harass. Especially women and the young.

That’s it. No frills OP.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/shell-busy-changing-nappies-tory-10447953
"She'll be too busy changing nappies": Tory says Labour candidate shouldn't be an MP because she is pregnant

Tory councillor Jon Wright commented on a Facebook profile posted by Catherine Atkinson who is standing for the Erewash seat in the general election

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2932694-Westministenders-Theresas-Common-People?watched=1

New Thread

Tories will move "significant numbers" of civil servants and other public servants out of London

No they wont.

The only way to achieve that is to sack the London ones, and rehire in Manchester. Which is never going to happen.

As one who is a retired Civil Servant, who was involved in two moves out of the South East, I can tell you what happened then. Once the moves were announced, a significant number looked for other jobs immediately. Some would have gone anyway with the cost of living being high, but it definitely accelerated the process. Relocation packages were on offer, which quite a number, who wanted to move to those parts of the country, availed themselves of, and some people managed to get transfers to other departments which weren't relocating. Then there will be local recruitment. So a pretty mixed bag.
What of course they won't have to do is pay a premium for London, and they won't have the constant recruitment costs, because people in the North, West, Wales etc. once they landed a civil service job tended to sit tight.

On the face of it, I would say that it's a reasonable proposal. What they ought to do is move the House of Commons out of London - to say Birmingham. Is there any good reason now, with modern communications, why they need to be in London.

I see the Fixed Term Parliament Act is to be repealed.

Jess Phillips‏*@jessphillips*
In new Tory policy what happens if you live with your parents and have done all your life. When they die. You lose your home?

Interesting question.

I have a close relative is in the above situation. He is currently caring for his elderly mother but I don't know how long that will continue. He has struggled to find work in the past and lost his job several years ago and has been unable to find another. His inheritance is pretty much the only prospect he has to be able to live when his mum is gone.

I see the Fixed Term Parliament Act is to be repealed.
The way it was cynically abused this time, perhaps that's no bad thing. PMs don't however, always get it right when allowed to call elections at times of their own choosing.

Re voter ID - the simplest thing would be to ask everyone to show their poll card at the election. Postal voters could include it with their vote. But weren't the Tories against ID cards?

Faisal Islam*@faisalislam*
Manifesto does not say "we will end the jurisdiction of the ECJ in Britain" - in fact no mention bar one "laws wont be made in Luxembourg"

Ciarán McGonagle‏*@cpmcgonagle*

Are any laws made in Luxembourg?

(Apart from the laws of Luxembourg of course)

Faisal Islam‏*@faisalislam*
case law?

Matthew Holehouse‏*@mattholehouse*
UK govt view appears to be you can cleave EU law into "domestic law" and "trade law". But of course, you can't.

Paul James Cardwell‏*@Cardwell*_PJ
As anyone who knows anything about EU law will say. But putting forward simplistic solutions appears to be the key.

Had a quick look at their manifesto, and I couldn't see any mention of central grants to councils - so am I right in assuming that this means they will be continuing with Osborne's plans to drastically cut them? (To move towards a system in which local sources determine a council's revenue). Because (unless I have got the wrong end of the stick) this a huge issue, that seems to have been barely covered anywhere.

I haven't seen anything about it either, but the expectation where I work is that cuts will continue and possibly get worse as brexit starts to bite and social care needs rise. In my department I don't know of any areas recruiting permanent staff. They are all on 1-2year contracts as the assumption is we will need to continue to cut staff in future and this will reduce redundancy costs later on (lets just think about the situation that leaves those workers in for a minute).

The problem is you get to the point where all the simple savings have been done. Now you only have the large, complex and therefore higher risk and higher cost to implement options, or you sack people. That's it.

Councils can no longer avoid having to make choices between closing libraries or closing care homes. Between having less social workers to investigate possible child abuse, or stopping offering respite care to parents of severely disabled children.

Care providers are already starting to close down because councils can no longer afford to pay an hourly rate that allows them to function. The reported issues with care workers having too little time per patient and not getting paid travel time is a symptom of this. This will get worse. There will be more and more scandals. More and more adults and children left with inadequate care. The continued cuts and rising demands on local councils will cost lives.

Gove describes this as a "brave" manifesto. One can only assume this is meant in the British sense of a brave decision.

Gove describes this as a "brave" manifesto

Referring back to Yes Minister, "brave" was a terrifying word for a minister. One step up from "bold"

I think he means 'brave' in the sense of gimme a job.

A cabinet post I mean.

BiglyBadgers: The council cuts make me particularly furious,because not only will they (from what I can tell) widen the divisions between rich and poor areas, but you just know that it will be the local authorities that are held responsible when the libraries close and the services get worse. I've seen posters on mumsnet before saying things like "well my council is Labour and they've withdrawn all arts funding, so Labour are cultural vandals" etc etc... Makes me want to bang my head against my keyboard.

It gets so little attention in the media though - is it just because council funding is considered too complicated and "boring" to focus on?

And I know that its moving beyond the point of slashing "nice to haves", like arts, and onto really hard decisions about the things councils are legally obliged to provide.

Squishysquirmy - it did help when David Cameron's own local council pointed the finger at the government cute when he tried to pass on the blame for his own policies

However, the electorate has the memory of goldfishes so that little stramash is long forgotten

It gets so little attention in the media though - is it just because council funding is considered too complicated and "boring" to focus on?

I know plenty of people who work at a council who couldn't explain the links between central government funding, county council's, unitary authorities and then your city, boroughs, and whatnot. Just trying to work out who does what is mind boggling, let alone who gets what money and what can be done with it. I think you are spot on that media tend to avoid it simply due to the complexity. Easier to just keep blaming councils rather than actually working out where the money comes from and who is responsible.

Wasn't there a historical Liberal policy of having a local income tax ?

But they are working towards axing the central grant completely, aren't they? I don't understand much about complexities of council funding, but understand enough to realise that moving towards "self sufficiency" for councils will disadvantage poorer areas immensely.

Surely the whole point of central grants is to level out the ability of different local authorities to raise funds?

I only heard about it when i heard it mentioned in passing on a radio 4 program about something else, was so shocked that I thought I had misheard/misunderstood, so googled it.

....given that social care and education tend to be funded via local councils, what a great way to blame poor Labour profligate councils for not "delivering"

There are already complaints and allegations from labour councils that central gov is reducing their funding to engineer exactly what you describe pretty. I am in a strongly conservative council in a wealthy area, so are doing pretty well compared to others. I dread to think what it must be like in some of the poorer labour councils :(

By the way, as we have almost finished hti thread thought I had better link red's new one again for anyone who hasn't found it.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2932694-Westministenders-Theresas-Common-People?watched=1

Wrt Serious Fraud Office and National Crime Agency merger -
Same budget for twice the agency as one or the other currently enjoys?
Will the merged departments end up fighting over meager resources and priorities, while fraudsters, money launderers and criminals frolic away undisturbed?
Do they anticipate halving the admin personnel?

The proposal to move chunks of the civil service out of London is a message to Sadiq Khan that the government giveth and the government taketh away, so best not to get too big for his boots.