Westministers: Happy New Year?

[RedToothBrush]

And so we enter a New Year full of hope that things might just be about to recover from our national nervous breakdown... or perhaps not.

As we have Damien Green ejected from his role as Deputy PM over allegations of inappropriate conduct towards woman and use of porn at the end of last year, 2018 sees a bright new progressive dawn with the appointment to the role of universities regulator of Toby Young. A man who has deleted 20,000 tweets including many which are inappropriate and offensive to women, is a fan of eugenics and hates the working class and disabled.

Meanwhile the NHS is facing a crisis which is totally unexpected to the government and couldn't possibly have been planned for by a man who has over seen it for over five years. Which naturally bodes really well for Brexit planning.

We are apparently planning to join the TPP. Never mind geopolitics we can move the UK to the Pacific region.

We still are not ready for trade talks because the Cabinet can not agree on anything. Not that it sounds like they have actually discussed anything along these lines yet.

Rumours are that the Cabinet - including arch leavers such as Gove - are leaning towards supporting May and a softer option, despite the disgust of Johnson, who once again is the subject of malicious chatter about his sacking in a forthcoming Cabinet Reshuffle.

There is talk of further Tory Party war with the revelation that membership of the party has dropped to a core of just 70,000 hardline authoritarian men, most of whom are over 60. Tory HQ now wants to (perhaps with some good reason to prevent the loons) rewrite the constitution and limit the power of local associations to select candidates. The Tory party is now lining up to be a power struggle between internal authoritarians, who don't like democracy voices or structure.

Meanwhile the Labour Party membership now apparently overwhelmingly looks upon staying in the customs union and single market favourably and is in favour of a second referendum. In opposition to the leadership who are utterly committed to Hard Brexit. Much to the annoyance of Lord Adonis who is pitching a fit about government corruption and incompetence and being accused of being elite because he going skiing. Unlike of prominent Leavers who are in touch with the working class.

And finally Nigel Farage has got a meeting with Barnier. Farage, unlike Clegg, Clarke and Adonis, will not be accused by the Right Wing Press of undermining the government's negotiating position because...

It appears that we are in for another year of Brexit nonsense then.

We've not even heard mention of Gibraltar yet.

Ian Dunt @iandunt
To those saying Remain could never win a 2nd referendum: Here are quotes from regretful Leavers in a series of Demos focus groups
www.demos.co.uk/project/citizens-voices/

If you want to read the Brexit section in full, you can skip to it with the tabs on the side.

It says there were three groups of Leavers, with a significant Regretful Group.

red my general impression of your view of taxation was largely based on my fading (and possibly therefore faulty) recollection of your critiques of labour’s election manifesto. Apologies if you feel misrepresented.

Higher taxes to fund the NHS were offered by the Lib Dems and polls supported that. But the Great British Public said "no thanks".

Hmm...I'm pretty sure that isn't the only thing they went into the election with and I'm even more sure that wasn't the reason they did so badly.

bigly its like the referendum vote, you had to tick a specific box to get the questions previously in invisible ink

Letter today from doctors pleading for help.
Deaths in corridors.

At least four rough sleepers have been found dead in freezing conditions in the space of a month, but what can you do to help if you spot someone suffering on the street

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-can-you-help-rough-9590396

^What's behind the quiet rise of homelessness in the countryside?
Hidden from view, tents and old caravans are dotting the UK’s landscape this winter, as more and more people are forced to live rough in our woods and fields^

www.theguardian.com/inequality/2018/jan/10/rural-idyll-homelessness-hits-the-countryside

"Rich and poor zones in state schools"
That's disgusting, pain but it shows how the meanness is spreading through UK society that a head teacher thought this was OK

Some people want 1st class and 2nd class in all public services, like in trains

Wait for Hunt to bring in 1st and 2nd class operating lists, waiting rooms etc in NHS hospitals, for people who can pay a "nominal amount"

"Rich and poor zones in state schools"
You wouldn't believe what is being tolerated over here right now, BigChoc

There have been some interesting conversations between stop brexitters on the twitter. It's brought together lots of different people.

But there are some very insistent lib dems. Very insistent that socialism is evil, very insistent that labour will take all 'all our' assets. Very insistent, sadly that Jeremy Corbyn is in fact Nigel Farage because he is an evil brexiter. Very insistent that everyone cancels labour membership and joins liberals. And that to vote labour is a vote for fascism. Not nice.

One exchange between a lib dem and labour voter went like this:
Labour will take all you assets.
I don't have any assets.
Your house.
I don't have a house. I have cancer and rent my home. All I need is a hospital, a primary school for my grandkids.
But your shares, pension.

She had none.
He did.

Lib dems as a party are hardly to be seen on any of the actions we have been working so hard on anyway. I've not heard not a peep from any of the previously 'active' local councillors, except to say he was too scared to do a stall in our tiny town.

Tbh it is almost putting me off helping with remain any more.

Moderation is a luxury which can only exist if a funded middle class exists. Its obliteration is of course the game plan of the current scoundrels.

I also meant to register my disquiet at 'rich and poor zones'. I bet these schools have really rigid uniform policies 'to even out the differences between the children'.

More on that Farage story ....

Brexit architects Nigel Farage and Arron Banks in surprise call for second EU referendum

Both of them ? WTF ?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-nigel-farage-second-referendum-eu-membership-wright-stuff-video-ukip-maybe-leader-a8153106.html

Is this referendum, being called by two men with no constitutional status because the Article 50 Challenge looks like it will succeed?
Does anyone trust NF and AB?

woman After all these long threads, you should know that Nigel Farage is this country’s de facto prime minister - to quote Andrew Adonis. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/11/farage-second-referendum-remainers-britain-eu

The whole UK govt - even supposedly "sensible" Hammond - may be trying to make the UK the laughing stock of the world.
If so, that's their only success.

Nobody in Germany was paying attention to the visiting idiots, but is the Sun really serious in this report, or satirical ?

"Philip Hammond last night told the EU to come up with its own plan for Brexit - instead of obsessing over how to punish British voters for leaving the bloc.

And turning the tables, the Chancellor told European leaders and Eurocrats (!) they must specify what they want from a post-Brexit trade deal instead of sitting back and waiting for Britain to do all the legwork.

He told a key economic summit in Berlin - attended by Angela Merkel and a host of top German business chiefs -
that Britain had been given no sign of what future relationship the 27 EU member states wanted"

I have worked in the NHS for over 20 years and am currently off sick with depression which I consider to be largely caused by work related stress.
I am a CPN in a very deprived London borough and my job has changed immeasurably- when I started, nearly all the people that I saw had social housing tenancies and, if they didn’t, it was relatively easy to get people housed.
Now, I work with pregnant women or who have babies up to a year who have mental health problems.
Probably about a third of the women that I see are in temporary accommodation- it’s not the slightest bit uncommon to have families of 5 living in what is basically a box room and sharing a filthy kitchen and bathroom with 10 other people. And ‘temporary’ can last up to 5 years.
And they now have this policy of moving people 20 miles away away for 4 months and then moving them back. These are women who are heavily pregnant or have young children at school or nursery.
Many of them don’t want to move their midwifery care or change their children’s school for a few months so end up spending literally all their money traveling back to the borough where they were initially housed.
It really has taken its toll on me seeing so many people whose mental health problems are primarily caused by their social situation- and there is nothing I can do to help them. And I know that it didn’t used to be like this, it really didn’t.
Right now, I don’t know if I can go back to work. I used to love my job and I was good at it.
I really do despair of what is happening to this country. These threads really do keep me sane.

“Lib dems as a party are hardly to be seen on any of the actions we have been working so hard on anyway. ”

I think this varies by location. In my town the only people who campaigned for Remain during the referendum were the Lib Dems. Labour, Greens, etc. nowhere to be seen. The local anti-Brexit campaign is almost entirely made up of Lib Dems.

MrsH
I wonder what % of staff in the N and care services we lose because they burn out in despair

NHS

MrsH I used to work with similar group in immensely better circumstances in the Netherlands. This must break your heart, hope you have help to deal with this. Don't let the basterds grind you down!

MrsHoolies. Hope you are doing OK.
Your wrote a post ages ago about the sad death of one of your clients: it's these windows into other worlds that are so revealing about what's going on in this country. And it is women, as usual who are bearing the brunt of the worst treatment. How those poor women are managing in the conditions you describe, I do not know.

We are down 40 000 nurses? It costs children a mortgage to train to be a nurse? The same in teaching. It's untenable. They are haemorrhaging staff.

The mad thing is, it wouldn't take so very much to fix it. No one needs that much really. The constant raising of the lowest rate of tax on which tax was not paid has always worried me. We have been subsidising poverty pay, of mainly women, with 'tax breaks', so less tax is collected, so the services that mainly women and children need are cut. Hence your poor women, MrsHoolies It is highly gendered.

I'd gladly pay much more tax, to have the services which are just necessary.

Brexit architects Nigel Farage and Arron Banks in surprise call for second EU referendum

Hmm. If you wanted to reignite and ramp up the culture war what way would you consider the most effective?

It would be so easy to bring back bursaries for nursing and midwifery. How many potential students have been lost because these are no longer available?

Might have something to do with this

Russian bid to influence Brexit vote detailed in new US Senate report

UK political system vulnerable to anti-democratic meddling via social media and ‘possibly illicit’ campaign funding, report says

amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/10/russian-influence-brexit-vote-detailed-us-senate-report?CMP=share_btn_tw&__twitter_impression=true

Peregrina Not nursing but a friend with 4 A*/A science A levels daughter from a secondary modern in a snobby grammar county, is desperate to be a doctor. She's also fantastic, but the competition is from posh private and grammar schools, and she couldn't get on to a medicine degree. And she is BME. She too is doing an alternative degree, and planning to try to do medicine afterwards. I imagine her 'debt' will approach £100 000.

Second EU referendum would reverse the Brexit vote reveals shock poll for the Mirror

The ComRes survey predicts that if there were a second referendum, 55% would vote to remain - directly contradicting Nigel Farage

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/second-eu-referendum-would-reverse-11837325#ICID=sharebar_twitter

They're just spoiling for a fight aren't they red.

We should be repairing this country. There are plenty enough nice people wanting to do it.

pain isn't it on the cards that NF could be asked to give evidence in US too?

It would be so easy to bring back bursaries for nursing and midwifery. How many potential students have been lost because these are no longer available?

Not as they were though. They need to come back at the same rate as the maintenance grant you get with a student loan. Due to a quirk of how the two systems differ in working out income our household earnings are in this odd middle ground where I get well over twice the amount of money with a student loan than I would with the bursary. The only reason I am doing the degree and not the PgDip (which still gets the bursary) is because I can't pay my bills on the NHS bursary. My case is extreme, but it is true that most students would get more money through the loan (yes, I know it is debt, but it is still what I have to live on) than with the bursary. They are blooming minuscule. I don't know how anyone managed on them with cost of living rises.

Thanks everyone. woman I still feel angry about that girl. She basically died as a result of the work capability assessments which have been absolutely catastrophic for people with mental health problems. And I know she’s not the only one.
I know you’re really active about marches etc and, when I was doing that, I did feel that I was doing something even if probably wasn’t going to make much difference.
I need to get back to actually doing something.
The final straw for me was going to see a woman with new born twins who was also trying to care for a disabled husband who was living in one room on the 5th floor of a house that the council were probably paying an extortionate amount of rent to a private landlord for and there were literally mice just running around and mice droppings everywhere and her husband had just had his PIP claim turned down.
She was in absolute despair but had to keep going. I just remember coming out of there and just wanting to scream, ‘This is just WRONG. For one of the richest countries in the world to treat people like this’.
I would love to bring TM or JRM out for a day with me and see them trying to justify how they expect people to live.
Burnout is a huge problem in mental health nursing.
Are there any protests/marches coming up?