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[Starver]

Labour to merge with the Tories when?

Or: Labour: Not much of an alternative.

The difference is that Labour tends to (caveats apply!) want to solve the issue by getting more people working, not just blocking those 'undesirables' who could work and hoping for the best despite not making up the numbers in any meaningful way. In fact, discouraging the existing workforce and driving them to quit.

Short-termism strikes both (all!) parties, but it seems that we're seeing so much kneejerk populism (and not even carried through properly) from the Tories that while it appears they have enough functional backbone to support L2-4 reflexes, they're clearly missing whole thoracic segments that should have made their higher centres aware of the repeated pattellic concussions going on.


It's slightly unfair, of course, as only the Tories are in a position to do (or not do... "...there is no try!") anything in (undevolved areas of) government. Labour can hope that it can snipe tactically enough to either scare them into going the positive way they want or else to run blindly off a cliff (hopefully without keeping hold of the rope by which they're dragging the rest of us) and then step in. ((Unfortunately, these strategies can be mutually exclusive, or certainly hard to mesh together at the same time, and fans of either see any attempt to do the other to be a cop-out).


Devolved-wise, where the MSPs, AMs and (when they're capabable of playing nice with each other!) MLAs have any say, they are perhaps trying the alternative. Sometimes hamstrung by having one hand being tied behind their back (with a confusingly mixed medical-metaphor!), sometimes not competently enacted... But it's more than Kier can do, currently. Whatever he says must be calculated (correctly or not) only for how it changes other people's minds, whereas if there's any serious thinking in the other quarter(s) with actual hands on the levers of power then you'd hope that it was an actual attempt (however misguided) to operate the machine of state for the better, or at least not an actual attempt to make it shake apart under the strain.

It's a pity that the SNP and Labour have directions of travel that are slightly too divergent to be considered the same direction. Actually, it's a pity that grassroots support/opposition dwells so much on the non-social aspects of their politics (either as part of their raison d'etre or as an uncomfortable counter-factuality to the 'true spirit' of the respective cause, depending upon who is talking about who). But that's part of the problem with lumping sort-of-allies together into parties ("Labour And Co-operative", "Conservative And Unionist") or being effectively formed around a single hot-topic issue. But don't ask me how I'd reliably stop that.

...excuse me, I'm drifting into a flight of fancy (snipped some paragraphs, perhaps should have snipped some of that immediately above). And none of this is intended as apologisim/excoriation, though you can tell I remain unhappy with a certain party and would be interested to see almost anything other than them at the topmost level. I mean, it's not as if we're guaranteed stability as it is, so I'm uncharacteristically a little enamoured of the idea of just flipping the card table over and seeing what cards get dealt when the mess is cleared up and entirely new hands are put in front of us. Even if it's a completely new game that I barely know the rules of.

[Loud Whispers]

Labour to merge with the Tories when?

Or: Labour: Not much of an alternative.

I agree with the statement that Labour is not much of an alternative to the Tories but I also agree with Keir Starner here; at least in the general sense that the UK relying on overseas nurses and doctors instead of being supplemented by overseas nurses and doctors is a situation which screws everyone over and is unsustainable. I disagree with the notion that we are not training enough nurses and doctors in the UK though (it's true but not the full picture), the real problem is just working conditions and money, which is deterring new people from entering and existing people from staying in both UK and overseas categories. What we're seeing currently is not just UK-trained UK citizens moving abroad to work in overseas hospitals rather than the NHS, but even people who have flown in from overseas are leaving the NHS and leaving the UK to work in other popular foreign destinations like Saudi Arabia or the gulf states, where visas for skilled workers are easier to obtain and salaries are considerably higher. The NHS has long persisted in a state where no one can work these long hours whilst also losing money everyday. It has only managed to persist for so long because medical staff tend to be people who only care to work in medicine, but the rate of medic burnout, suicide and industry leaving cannot be ignored

Interesting graph with the numbers showing that the UK is not just struggling to make a convincing case to UK med grads that the NHS is worthwhile. It's struggling to make the case to anyone that a medical career is worthwhile. It's also probably worse than the numbers suggest, since nurses and doctors renewing their contracts tend to get bundled under "recruitment" statistics even though they are clearly not new staff being recruited and the 110,000 unfilled posts did not appear from nothing

[EuchreJack]

Novel Idea: Have you tried giving them more money?
Blasphemy!

It's a common issue these days, in many fields, especially among professionals.  It's just more tragic when it hits the health system.

[Grim Portent]

From the family members (nurses and a lab technician) I have who work for the NHS, I'd say the conditions are way more important than the money. Being understaffed causes so much stress because of the extra workload that isn't getting done. Less time being run ragged would be much better than more money.

Granted I'm Scottish, our NHS wages are a little higher, so it might be more of an issue for English NHS employees, especially in areas with a high cost of living.

[EuchreJack]

Well, giving more money could mean giving more money to the NHS to hire more people, or giving more money to make working for the NHS more attractive.
You are after all complaining about poor staffing.  The solution is mainly going to be money either way.

Then again, Nursing in America has been relatively competitive past the Aide tier (entry minimum wage level), and staffing is chronically short.

It would probably help to treat the health system less like a factory and more like a health system.  But there are more people who have successfully managed factories than hospitals, so...

[Grim Portent]

A lot of the problems do stem from budget cuts, or the failure to expand budgets to meet need, but a big chunk of it is down to the gutting of the civil service under Thatcher and the failure to restore it afterwards, instead chasing stupid ideas related to imitating business practices.

We had the world's best healthcare, no other nation brought such comprehensive care to so many of it's people at such low cost. Then some twats whinged about the cost and ask if we can cut corners somewhere, and rather than doing the right thing, which would have been laughing at them, slapping them with a wet haddock* and throwing them in the nearest river, we gave them political office.

Healthcare is like roads, education, police and fire departments. It's expensive to do it right, but it's an investment in creating a healthy, happy, stable society.


*On a side note, I'd actually like to see some public corporal punishment make a return for things like fraud or corporate level pollution, or MPs claiming fake expenses. Stick a disgraced MP in a pillory or some stocks for 9 hours a day for a week and provide throwable sized rancid fish to the general public and I'd damn well bet you'd see less corruption from them in future. Barbaric? Medieval? Perhaps, but so is prison when you get down to it.

[anewaname]

...

*On a side note, I'd actually like to see some public corporal punishment make a return for things like fraud or corporate level pollution, or MPs claiming fake expenses. Stick a disgraced MP in a pillory or some stocks for 9 hours a day for a week and provide throwable sized rancid fish to the general public and I'd damn well bet you'd see less corruption from them in future. Barbaric? Medieval? Perhaps, but so is prison when you get down to it.

Yes... When I heard what Japanese prisons are like (Carlos Ghosn was that Nissan exec who fled Japan to avoid their prisons), I thought, "we need better prisons for poor people and worse prisons for wealthier people". While I like the rancid fish option, too many people would consider it an opportunity to bring large frozen rancid fish.

[scriver]

What happens when you drain a country country of 40% of their health care workers and and you develop a sudden case of cholera epidemic?

[Loud Whispers]

Novel Idea: Have you tried giving them more money?
Blasphemy!

It's a common issue these days, in many fields, especially among professionals.  It's just more tragic when it hits the health system.

This is literally the cheapest and best solution that the government refuses to acknowledge

From the family members (nurses and a lab technician) I have who work for the NHS, I'd say the conditions are way more important than the money. Being understaffed causes so much stress because of the extra workload that isn't getting done. Less time being run ragged would be much better than more money.

Granted I'm Scottish, our NHS wages are a little higher, so it might be more of an issue for English NHS employees, especially in areas with a high cost of living.

It's apocalyptic in London where some of my nurse colleagues from abroad are struggling because London weighting allowance is already included in their shite salaries, and the cost of living is outpacing their savings, already a third of the Phillipines staff have gone back to the Phillipines because it's economically unviable here. But the two are basically intertwined. No money means staffing shortages which means people are doing multiple jobs whilst their salaries get cut. So you get a positive feedback loop of things get worse for whoever stays, so more people are pushed out, things get worse, more cuts get made ad infinitum. As you say we've gone from world class healthcare to some of the worst access in Europe because the Tories wanted to pursue the American model with results being exactly as you'd expect

[Great Order]

Stepping up the "Protesting is EVIL!" rhetoric, Suella Braverman called blocking the M25 a "Threat to our way of life"

It's like a fucking parody, except the home secretary is actually saying it which is absolutely mental.

Should be noted that the police have arrested journalists trying to cover the protests (An LBC journalist claimed the police, when they realised they'd arrested someone who legally could be there, threw her in jail on trumped up conspiracy to commit a crime grounds), and they've been arresting people nearby on the basis they might be thinking of joining. People on a nearby bridge who were filming it on their phones wound up arrested.

[Loud Whispers]

Our current way of life is in need of improvement, so I don't want the status quo to feel too safe about keeping things flawed :|

[hector13]

How is she still in position anyway? She resigned for Truss because she made a very stupid mistake (did it break the ministerial code? Has Sunak even replaced the standards person?) and is now spouting some proper right-wing nonsense like referring to asylum seekers and probably victims of trafficking as an invasion or all this shite about not allowing people to protest if they get in other people’s way which is already covered by other laws.

Madness!

Also another minister resigned because he’s a big bully.

[Great Order]

Our current way of life is in need of improvement, so I don't want the status quo to feel too safe about keeping things flawed :|

Ha, y'ain't wrong.
What worries me is that successive home secs have been authoritarian in the extreme, and our "policing by consent" method seems to be getting eroded as a result and turning more into an American style "policing by force". I don't remember seeing so many stories about police doing shit like arresting journalists for simply trying to be journalists.

[Starver]

Cruella is also berating the police for not acting against the protests (despite the above, and a police motorcyclist having actually been injured for his part in maintaining public safety) so she's voing down the same lines as other notable Ministers, not making many friends in the blue-light services either...

[EuchreJack]

Cruella is also berating the police for not acting against the protests (despite the above, and a police motorcyclist having actually been injured for his part in maintaining public safety) so she's voing down the same lines as other notable Ministers, not making many friends in the blue-light services either...

That is quite stupid.