Westminster Politics

[711]

indeed - the point he was making was that debt would rise by £x per 1% increase.

it’s clearly going to take a lot longer than a decade to pay off. It will be refinanced.

Yeah, it's continually refinanced I know, but at the new current rates. A lot of the debt was necessary of course, but I have heard people saying debt doesn't matter because interest rates are so low at the moment. Very naive for me, they won't always be. Which we agree, I think

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Yeah, it's continually refinanced I know, but at the new current rates. A lot of the debt was necessary of course, but I have heard people saying debt doesn't matter because interest rates are so low at the moment. Very naive for me, they won't always be. Which we agree, I think

yeah I agree. I think, the ethos of the budget is right - support now, try to get the economony moving, support small businesses (who have suffered more than most the last 1and then set about tackling the debt in 2 years time.

That was the key decision. What do we start tacking the debt, and I don’t believe we are in a position to do so at the moment.

budgets can never satisfy everyone. Generally positive about it.

 

[TheGame]

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[TheGame]

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[Buster15]

To all those who are taken in by Sunak and thought his budget was good, interesting that the Office for Budget Responsibility don't agree with you. They report that his budget forward forecasting is highly unlikely to be realistic, quoting less than 10% likely to be correct.

 

[Buster15]

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Now that is a real surprise...

 

[Fluctuation0161]

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Robert Jenrick mk 2.

 

[starman]

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Money is the lube for Tory votes as Identity Politics is to Labour.

 

[Drifter]

Nurses' union anger over 'pitiful' 1% NHS pay rise

The government can expect a "backlash" if it goes ahead with a proposed 1% pay rise for NHS staff in England next year, a nursing union has warned.

The health department has made the recommendation in a submission to the independent panel that advises on NHS salaries.
The Royal College of Nursing called the suggested rise "pitiful" and said nurses should be getting 12.5% more.
NHS staff have been excluded from a pay freeze for most public sector workers.
The NHS Pay Review Body is due to recommend salary levels for health service staff before early May, before ministers then make a final decision.
In its submission, the health department said awarding NHS staff a "headline" pay increase of more than 1% "would require re-prioritisation".

• Budget 2021: Key points at-a-glance
• Low-paid public sector workers to get £250 pay rise
• NHS staff vote for 6.5% pay deal

Health department officials said the Covid pandemic had placed a "huge strain" on NHS finances, whilst the economic outlook "remains uncertain".
They added that this increase was still above the CPI rate of inflation, whilst some staff would see a higher rise under a previously agreed three-year deal.
Some 1.3 million public sector workers will see a pay freeze next year, while those earning less than £24,000 guaranteed a pay rise of at least £250.

People clapped for you. What else do you want.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56285087

 

[Buster15]

Nurses' union anger over 'pitiful' 1% NHS pay rise





People clapped for you. What else do you want.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56285087

All the millions if not billions this government has wasted, and it thinks that NHS workers deserve a miserly 1% pay award.
All the empty words spoken about our wonderful NHS workers, many of which have died due to the government incompetence and 1% is supposed to be their reward.
It is up to each and everyone of us to write to our MPs and express our disgust.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

Nurses' union anger over 'pitiful' 1% NHS pay rise





People clapped for you. What else do you want.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56285087

It's fine. The government are already framing it as "it would be unfair for private sector workers" which is code for "hey private sector workers; you should complain if nurses start complaining. Blame them, not us for this shit!"

 

[TheGame]

Complete lack of any coverage for this. Why isn’t it a main headline. Believe the payout is around £340k of taxpayers money for Patels bullying.

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[TheGame]

Nurses' union anger over 'pitiful' 1% NHS pay rise





People clapped for you. What else do you want.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56285087

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some of the responses to the below post are just pathetic.

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[Mr Pigeon]

Complete lack of any coverage for this. Why isn’t it a main headline. Believe the payout is around £340k of taxpayers money for Patels bullying.

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If only she was part of the SNP.

 

[Buster15]

Complete lack of any coverage for this. Why isn’t it a main headline. Believe the payout is around £340k of taxpayers money for Patels bullying.

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That just goes to show the state of public interest in politics. Two tenths of bugger all.
You get the government you deserve. And the vast majority are just not interested in how their taxes are being spent.

 

[FireballXL5]

Good piece in the Guardian...

How many nurses' salaries does it take to redecorate Downing Street?
Marina Hyde

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...-salaries-redecorate-downing-street-political

 

[starman]

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Is he saying Nurses are only getting paid £3.50 as a total salary Good old Andy Hyperbolic Burnham...
He could be making the same argument for anything, like building a new hospital, well that money could have been spent on wages....

Unless people are willing to give away lots of their liberties and make it compulsory like in some east Asian countries, track and trace will never work. Apple and Google's version isn't really effective either.
When the app might become truly useful is when the vaccine passports are introduced, and the actual app will be your digital passport, thats when the compulsory nature of things start to come into play and trace and trace will work in tandem.

 

[FireballXL5]

Be nice if there was an opposition to nail these feckers...

Court order shows 'Boris Johnson misled parliament over Covid-19 contracts'

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/n...johnson-misled-parliament-covid-19-contracts/

 

[Fluctuation0161]

Is he saying Nurses are only getting paid £3.50 as a total salary Good old Andy Hyperbolic Burnham...
He could be making the same argument for anything, like building a new hospital, well that money could have been spent on wages....

Unless people are willing to give away lots of their liberties and make it compulsory like in some east Asian countries, track and trace will never work. Apple and Google's version isn't really effective either.
When the app might become truly useful is when the vaccine passports are introduced, and the actual app will be your digital passport, thats when the compulsory nature of things start to come into play and trace and trace will work in tandem.

I think the point he is making is clear.

The Tories will waste billions on private sector contracts to incompetent companies owned by Tory donors, but won't even give nurses in the public sector the pay rise they deserve. It is ideological unfairness implemented by the Tories. How hard is that to understand?

Track and trace performed much more efficiently even in other European countries such as Germany, the "liberties" argument does not apply to them.

I genuinely don't understand how people can continue to make excuses for our incompetent and corrupt UK government. Maybe too many are reading tabloids.

 

[starman]

I think the point he is making is clear.

The Tories will waste billions on private sector contracts to incompetent companies owned by Tory donors, but won't even give nurses in the public sector the pay rise they deserve. It is ideological unfairness implemented by the Tories. How hard is that to understand?

Track and trace performed much more efficiently even in other European countries such as Germany, the "liberties" argument does not apply to them.

I genuinely don't understand how people can continue to make excuses for our incompetent and corrupt UK government. Maybe too many are reading tabloids.

Your posts epitomise that of someone that lives their life by what the Guardian wants you to think.
And you clearly haven't bother reading my post fully in addressing it and have just latched to a particular part and ranted on that. I am not defending the implemention of track and trace, if you actually comprehended what i was saying, you would have figured that out, but am questioning the way people go about in their criticism, hence hyperbolic Burnham. And thats a lie about Germany.

 

[esmufc07]

Hyperbolic Burnham is a rubbish nickname

 

[MU655]

Do nurses really deserve a pay rise just because they are doing their job? They chose the route and actually get paid quite well. The average is thought to be 33k. That is hardly a pittance.

They also get overtime payments over 37.5 hrs per week. So, it isn't like they aren't getting compensated.

Surely, those going into nursing etc. understood that long hours is a very real possibility? I mean it is logical considering it is about people's lives.

Whilst they are complaining about not getting a big enough pay rise people are/have lost their jobs. The government can't just go and give a massive pay rise for them doing their jobs, particularly with what is happening.

 

[RedChip]

Unless people are willing to give away lots of their liberties and make it compulsory like in some east Asia

Is this the sort nonsense we are going to have to put up with? That track and trace failed in the UK because Brits are freedom loving? Track and trace worked pretty well in loads of countries with similar freedoms to the UK. It was just incompletely, yet expensively put together.

 

[Sweet Square]

Do nurses really deserve a pay rise just because they are doing their job? They chose the route and actually get paid quite well. The average is thought to be 33k. That is hardly a pittance.

They also get overtime payments over 37.5 hrs per week. So, it isn't like they aren't getting compensated.

Surely, those going into nursing etc. understood that long hours is a very real possibility? I mean it is logical considering it is about people's lives.

Whilst they are complaining about not getting a big enough pay rise people are/have lost their jobs. They can't just go and give a massive pay rise for them doing their jobs, particularly with what is happening.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

Whilst they are complaining about not getting a big enough pay rise people are/have lost their jobs.

Why, whenever someone says this, does it seem like the blame is being put on nurses and doctors for others being out of work? Because I never hear "and the government must be held accountable for wasting billions of pounds" in the same breath.

It's the same every time there's an unforeseeable event that results in an economic downturn. Freeze public sector pay, and have politicians frame it like it's public versus private. It clearly works because you suddenly have endless voices shouting down public sector workers and comparing it to their own shit quality of life. But never once highlighting who's to blame for it being so shit in the first place.

 

[starman]

Is this the sort nonsense we are going to have to put up with? That track and trace failed in the UK because Brits are freedom loving? Track and trace worked pretty well in loads of countries with similar freedoms to the UK. It was just incompletely, yet expensively put together.

How has it failed exactly? Please explain. Is it completely useless for the future?
And what countries, Germany? as mentioned, because thats false. Do these countries have the same level of virus circulating as the U.K? The whole point of Track and trace is when its back to containment phase, the U.k has never got back to that level since the start of the pandemic.

 

[MU655]

Why, whenever someone says this, does it seem like the blame is being put on nurses and doctors for others being out of work? Because I never hear "and the government must be held accountable for wasting billions of pounds" in the same breath.

It's the same every time there's an unforeseeable event that results in an economic downturn. Freeze public sector pay, and have politicians frame it like it's public versus private. It clearly works because you suddenly have endless voices shouting down public sector workers and comparing it to their own shit quality of life. But never once highlighting who's to blame for it being so shit in the first place.

It isn't blaming them for people losing their jobs, but them feeling sorry for themselves that bugs me. Nurses tend to feel like they are hard done by, but you can be in a hell of a lot worse positions. They have a good wage (anyone struggling on 33k per year needs to sort themselves out) and being in the public sector means their jobs are more secure. They are guaranteed to be paid overtime, which isn't the case for private firms. A lot of private firms do not even pay overtime and yet will expect it to be worked. (Whether you do or not is another matter, but the pressure exists).

A lot of private companies are not going to be giving their employees pay rises this year. It is understandable that the government freezes pay rises this year, particularly with the expenditure. I just do not understand the sense of entitlement people have towards a pay rise for doing their job. If they weren't getting paid overtime, it would be understandable. If they want better pay, they have to take things into their own hands as most people do with moving jobs.

Also, this idea of being due a pay rise every year only seems to exist in the public sector. The vast majority of jobs will not provide a pay rise year on year.

Nurses etc. have it much better than they try and make out.

 

[RedChip]

How has it failed exactly? Please explain. Is it completely useless for the future?
And what countries, Germany? as mentioned, because thats false. Do these countries have the same level of virus circulating as the U.K? The whole point of Track and trace is when its back to containment phase, the U.k has never got back to that level since the start of the pandemic.

This what you said:

Unless people are willing to give away lots of their liberties and make it compulsory like in some east Asian countries, track and trace will never work

Which I took to imply a necessary condition for track and trace to work is people giving away their liberties. This is evidently not true since it has worked in lots of countries where people do not have to give away their freedoms. Germany is one of many examples.

Your last paragragh is irrelevant to the original point.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

It isn't blaming them for people losing their jobs, but them feeling sorry for themselves that bugs me. Nurses tend to feel like they are hard done by, but you can be in a hell of a lot worse positions. They have a good wage (anyone struggling on 33k per year needs to sort themselves out) and being in the public sector means their jobs are more secure. They are guaranteed to be paid overtime, which isn't the case for private firms. A lot of private firms do not even pay overtime and yet will expect it to be worked. (Whether you do or not is another matter, but the pressure exists).

A lot of private companies are not going to be giving their employees pay rises this year. It is understandable that the government freezes pay rises this year, particularly with the expenditure. I just do not understand the sense of entitlement people have towards a pay rise for doing their job. If they weren't getting paid overtime, it would be understandable. If they want better pay, they have to take things into their own hands as most people do with moving jobs.

Also, this idea of being due a pay rise every year only seems to exist in the public sector. The vast majority of jobs will not provide a pay rise year on year.

Nurses etc. have it much better than they try and make out.

As I said in the second paragraph;

It's the same every time there's an unforeseeable event that results in an economic downturn. Freeze public sector pay, and have politicians frame it like it's public versus private. It clearly works because you suddenly have endless voices shouting down public sector workers and comparing it to their own shit quality of life. But never once highlighting who's to blame for it being so shit in the first place

Just like the credit crunch we've got people waving their hands in the air saying "there is no alternative" whilst politicians line their mates pockets in the background. And once again there's no outrage because the narrative has become public versus private yet again.

Bah, bumhug.

 

[Sweet Square]

 

[Mr Pigeon]

our department has gone through three restructures in six years. But I don't know many private sector schools in my area so I guess I fecked up wanting to help young people learn shit, huh?!

Should've become an office clerk or something. Or a stunt driver?! I would love to be one of those, actually... Need to go and update my CV...

 

[RedChip]

If they want better pay, they have to take things into their own hands as most people do with moving jobs

If moving jobs is the solution, why can't people who feel insecure in the private sector move into the public sector? It is not as if the NHS is overfilled with applicants for nursing jobs. You can't both say nurses jobs are secure so they cannot complain about relatively poor pay (for the complexity and challenge of the job they do) and yet complain about the insecurity of private sector jobs if both have the freedom to change jobs.

 

[starman]

This what you said:

Which I took to imply a necessary condition for track and trace to work is people giving away their liberties. This is evidently not true since it has worked in lots of countries where people do not have to give away their freedoms. Germany is one of many examples.

Your last paragragh is irrelevant to the original point.

Well Germany is false, the fact they have had one of the biggest increases in case and death rates since the tail end of last year will tell you that.
How exactly does it work in somewhere like the U.K, where the virus is wide spread, the assumption is everyone has it, so its a pretty pointless tool in that setting.
And as for the figures mentioned, that not just for the app, thats for Test and Trace, in which the app comes under, are you saying actual tests are a waste?

 

[Smores]

I see they’ve come out the woodwork tonight. Backing away before any direct words get stated.

 

[Fluctuation0161]

Your posts epitomise that of someone that lives their life by what the Guardian wants you to think.
And you clearly haven't bother reading my post fully in addressing it and have just latched to a particular part and ranted on that. I am not defending the implemention of track and trace, if you actually comprehended what i was saying, you would have figured that out, but am questioning the way people go about in their criticism, hence hyperbolic Burnham. And thats a lie about Germany.

The Guardian is too "Keir Starmer" for me, so you are wrong there, again. As you got so touchy I will assume I hit the nail on the head with the tabloid comment.

You don't seem to have an issue with the billions pounds worth of contracts being given to Tory donors?
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-...close-ppe-contracts-court-rules-idUSKBN2AJ1IA

I understood exactly what you said. Unfortunately your post was full of so many inaccuracies, I'm sorry I didn't have time to correct them all. So I picked out a couple of points.

The German track and trace was working well for months until the high Winter numbers kicked in around October. If you aren't aware of that, you aren't paying attention. So once again, your "liberties" argument for the UK is ridiculous.

 

[RedChip]

Well Germany is false, the fact they have had one of the biggest increases in case and death rates since the tail end of last year will tell you that.

Germany has a larger population than the UK, yet it has had fewer Covid-19 deaths. I daresay that compared to the UK, you can conclude their methods were more effective. Experts think one important difference is test and trace schemes in both countries.

Also just because lots of people died does not mean it had no effect. Who knows how many more people they would have lost without it?

Yes, of course, test and trace works best when you have fewer cases, which is why it should have been implemented much earlier. But I am not sure why you keep mentioning this and totally ignoring your original point about liberties?

 

[Fluctuation0161]

How has it failed exactly? Please explain. Is it completely useless for the future?
And what countries, Germany? as mentioned, because thats false. Do these countries have the same level of virus circulating as the U.K? The whole point of Track and trace is when its back to containment phase, the U.k has never got back to that level since the start of the pandemic.

Why do you think these countries had a lower level of virus circulating?

 

[starman]

The Guardian is too "Keir Starmer" for me, so you are wrong there, again. As you got so touchy I will assume I hit the nail on the head with the tabloid comment.

You don't seem to have an issue with the billions pounds worth of contracts being given to Tory donors?
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-...close-ppe-contracts-court-rules-idUSKBN2AJ1IA

I understood exactly what you said. Unfortunately your post was full of so many inaccuracies, I'm sorry I didn't have time to correct them all. So I picked out a couple of points.

The German track and trace was working well for months until the high Winter numbers kicked in around October. If you aren't aware of that, you aren't paying attention. So once again, your "liberties" argument for the UK is ridiculous.

I am just throwing back the comment at you.

Of course you don't, it helps mask the flakey reply. So basically it got warm, the infection went down just like everywhere then went up due to the winter, but you are attributing it to the app working well, gotcha

 

[starman]

Germany has a larger population than the UK, yet it has had fewer Covid-19 deaths. I daresay that compared to the UK, you can conclude their methods were more effective. Experts think one important difference is test and trace schemes in both countries.

Also just because lots of people died does not mean it had no effect. Who knows how many more people they would have lost without it?

Yes, of course, test and trace works best when you have fewer cases, which is why it should have been implemented much earlier. But I am not sure why you keep mentioning this and totally ignoring your original point about liberties?

I am not ignoring it, you keep using Germany as a success, which iam saying its not. Bar the first lockdown, if the U.K had not botched it so bad, it would be inline with the rest of Europe, also the U.K has a higher population density to Germany.

I am not going to post everything, but just some extracts:

The reasons for the failures are complex and systemic. Antiquated technology and underfunded health-care systems have proved ill-equipped to respond. Wealthy nations have struggled to hire enough contact-tracers, marshal them efficiently or make sure that people do self-isolate when infected or that they quarantine when a close contact has the disease. And overstretched contact-tracers have been met with distrust by people wary both of health authorities and of the technologies being deployed to fight the pandemic. Meanwhile, researchers who are keen to draw lessons from contact-tracing operations are stymied by a dearth of data.

A handful of places stand out as exemplars of successful contact-tracing — including South Korea, Vietnam, Japan and Taiwan. Many of these have cracked down on COVID-19 early, isolated infected people and their contacts and used personal data such as mobile-phone signals to track obedience. Not all of those techniques are transferable to countries now struggling to contain massive outbreaks. But they still provide some lessons.

Measures that work include tracing multiple layers of contacts, investigating outbreak clusters and providing people who are advised to quarantine with safe places to do so and with financial compensation. Technology might help, too: from software that streamlines conventional contact-tracing efforts, to smartphone apps that alert people that they might have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2.

Finding contacts
In South Korea, authorities use data-surveillance techniques to get around the problem of people being unwilling to disclose — or unable to recall — close contacts3. “We need to double-check,” says Daejoong Lee at the South Korean Ministry of Economy and Finance. A law passed in response to an outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2015 allows authorities to use data from credit cards, mobile phones and closed-circuit television to trace a person’s movements and identify others they might have exposed to the virus. Information about cases is published online, an approach that allowed the country to avoid broad lockdowns and “worked very well”, says Lee. Still, in March, the Korea Centers for Disease Control issued guidelines limiting the release of ‘excessive’ information, after regional governments published maps of infected people’s routes in too much detail. In one case, a person was wrongly accused of having an affair with his sister-in-law because their overlapping maps revealed they dined together at a restaurant.

Tracers in Vietnam also use extra data — such as Facebook or Instagram posts and mobile-phone location data — to check a person’s movements against those reported to contact-tracers. But the country’s success was down to “the boots on the ground”, says Todd Pollack, an infectious-disease specialist at the Partnership for Health Advancement in Vietnam, a collaboration that provides training and support for the nation’s health system. Contact-tracers interview people face-to-face and use the extra surveillance data to prod for more details. Other places, including Israel, Armenia, Russia, Ecuador and Taiwan, gather mobile-phone location data to aid contact-tracing efforts. But in Slovakia, a constitutional court suspended the government’s attempt to permit this practice.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03518-4

 

[calodo2003]

Wow. Some beauties today from some who just popped their heads above the parapet.