Saturday 8th & Sunday 9th July 2023

[refitman]

Morning all.

[frog222]

Morning refit

" When I became a consultant in 2001, I had a good work-life balance. I felt respected, I felt empowered, I had a professional contract. I was excited. We were able to have influence, modernise and implement change. Where I identified areas that could be improved, I could make proposals and test pilot schemes that were supported and invested in. When some of these were then rolled out, I felt proud to have successfully contributed to progress in the NHS.

Today, things are different at all levels. For juniors, there are fewer training hours; less team-oriented work; more tick-box competencies. I am concerned about the calibre of medics being trained for the future. Innovation and transformation have been taken away from the people delivering the actual services. Centralised managers and departments do that, and clinicians are only brought in as token endorsements. "

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... nts-strike

The pernicious managerial target culture actually came in before the 2010 Tories, I've finally remembered where I saw this anecdote --

Constituency surgery 23/4/2003
( Following on a woman who couldn't access her Gordon Brown Tax Credit because she couldn't get through on the helpline)

" Oh dear, this is not how it was supposed to be . Once again New Labour is alienating the very people it boasts of helping . "

" Early in 2015, Milburn intervened in the British election campaign to criticise Labour's health plans, which would limit private sector involvement in the NHS. Milburn was criticised for doing so while having a personal financial interest in the private health sector.[36] In 2017, Milburn was touted as a possible leader of a pro-EU movement after Brexit.[37][38] "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Milburn

Politicians with half-baked ideas of increasing the efficiency (that of other people, of course!) and combining it with relatively quite small personal £ incentives from the private sector ,

what could possibly go wrong ?

[AnatolyKasparov]

Ah yes Alan Milburn - one time Trot and best mate of then fellow hard leftist "Steve" Byers.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

The rancid hypocrisy of these alt-right 'free speech' clowns in all its miserable glory.

[frog222]

FT article open for now --

[AnatolyKasparov]

It was always - ALWAYS - about "free speech for me and mine, not you and yours".

[RogerOThornhill]

What with his word salad the other day accompanying his speech to the Nat Cons and this nonsense, Goodwin seems hellbent on trashing any reputation had as a serious academic.

All it needs now is him setting up a new party. Maybe the New Party. has that been used before?

[refitman]

[frog222]

Refit -- another one for the 'Investigators' --

[frog222]

The worldwide fallout from WFH is hitting commercial property values for hundreds of billions and empty office space is not easy at all to be converted to flats , while the owners face reduced rents and rocketing interest rates on their 'cheap' loans ...




----------------------------------------------------------------------



The WFH Wars cont --

" this quiet town with its newly built homes has become the centre of a clash between the local South Cambridgeshire district council and a government minister.

The Liberal Democrat-run council has been trialling a four-day week since January. In practice, this means that employees will complete 100% of their workload in 80% of the time for 100% of their pay.

But last week the local government minister, Lee Rowley, wrote to the council leader, Bridget Smith, to “ask that you end your experiment immediately”, saying he had concerns about “value for money” for local taxpayers. "

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... -cambourne

" It may be only a small rural council, but WFH must be stamped out wherever it establishes another bridgehead ."

[refitman]

Now this is a platform I can get behind

[refitman]

If only there was someone who could have done something about properly funding those services. Ah well, never mind.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Well well, what do we have here?

We need more EU workers, admits leading Tory Brexiter

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... r-shortage

A leading Tory Brexiter has called on ministers to reopen the UK’s borders to tens of thousands of young workers from EU nations in order to tackle acute post-Brexit labour shortages that he says are driving up inflation.

In an extraordinary admission of the failures of immigration policy since the UK left the EU, former Tory environment secretary George Eustice said Rishi Sunak’s government should begin bilateral negotiations with EU nations immediately, with a view to offering young Europeans under 35 the right to two- year visas to work in this country.

[refitman]

Well well, what do we have here?

We need more EU workers, admits leading Tory Brexiter

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... r-shortage

A leading Tory Brexiter has called on ministers to reopen the UK’s borders to tens of thousands of young workers from EU nations in order to tackle acute post-Brexit labour shortages that he says are driving up inflation.

In an extraordinary admission of the failures of immigration policy since the UK left the EU, former Tory environment secretary George Eustice said Rishi Sunak’s government should begin bilateral negotiations with EU nations immediately, with a view to offering young Europeans under 35 the right to two- year visas to work in this country.

This is my shocked face

[Sky'sGoneOut]

It must be noted Eustice is talking bollocks. He wants individual agreements with Eastern European states so clearly remains wilfully ignorant about how the EU works. I'm guessing this is about him struggling to get the locals to work on his Cornish fruit farm.

However the fact remains an ex-Ukip Tory brexiter is talking more sense about immigration and EU cooperation than Starmer's Labour Party.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Could somebody have a word with Thor? This is the third thunderstorm of the day and none of them have been very good. If he doesn't pull his finger out he's going to be getting a 1 star review when I get the email asking me to rate his performance.

[refitman]

Could somebody have a word with Thor? This is the third thunderstorm of the day and none of them have been very good. If he doesn't pull his finger out he's going to be getting a 1 star review when I get the email asking me to rate his performance.

It feels like the rain just keeps getting heavier and heavier. It's the shephard tone of thunderstorms

[gilsey]

[frog222]

Continuing denial govts are conniving together in saying covid is over (Biden July2022 ! ) while ignoring the millions of disabled from covid and the possibility that the numbers will increase as LC works its way through the asymptomatic and ‘mild’ cases.

All very much like climate urgency –

Starmer “I hate treehuggers !” in The Times today .

[gilsey]

[frog222]

‘I hate tree-huggers’ — Keir Starmer explodes over green policy

Labour’s leader and his allies are unhappy their economic focus is being jeopardised by the party’s ‘eco-warriors’

Sir Keir Starmer faces a disconnect between his party’s political and economic objectives

Caroline Wheeler, Political Editor
Saturday July 08 2023, 6.00pm BST, The Sunday Times

Has anyone not yet worked out who wrote this ?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Someone should tell Rachel Reeves to pepper her imbecilic utterances with the word 'woke' and she could have a gig on GB news or a Telegraph opinion column.

[AnatolyKasparov]

The above passage is Chris Mullin, no?

[refitman]

Mmm, delicious, delicious centrism

[refitman]

Someone should tell Rachel Reeves to pepper her imbecilic utterances with the word 'woke' and she could have a gig on GB news or a Telegraph opinion column.

Noooo, you don't understand. Labour don't want people with passion, who care about this. They want some nice technocrats who can draw up so he really 'effective' policies (as long as they don't actually change anything).

[frog222]

The above passage is Chris Mullin, no?

Yep AK !

A very engaging read, bought for €1 in my nearest town* .

Best bargain fora looong time .

*pop 2000, forrins call it a village, but we do have a cattle market and a Fair going back a thousand or so years ...

[AnatolyKasparov]

I find the idea that Labour are totally desperate to win the next election, but then have no intention of changing anything, somewhat hard to credit. Of course, people (including on here) will say "but look at what they are saying!" when literally everything they saying currently is designed towards winning that election - with an embedded hostile right wing media and notoriously risk-averse electorate (even more so since the Truss nonsense)

And people say that Starmer lies about everything - but think that when he says "we won't do so and so" he is telling the unvarnished truth!

He can surely fib to political journalists just as easily as anybody else.

[refitman]

Wait. So when Starmer says he'll do one thing, then later says he won't, he's actually lying about fibbing and it's all 8D chess?

[AnatolyKasparov]

Its the people like you who claim he lies all the time.

Except when he says something "right wing", when he is speaking with 100% iron clad sincerity.

[refitman]

I mean, he's reneged on pretty much all his leadership campaign promises and consistently advocated against public ownership of utilities, worker rights, civil rights, social issues. But go off, I guess.

[gilsey]

an embedded hostile right wing media and notoriously risk-averse electorate (even more so since the Truss nonsense)

Obviously nobody would argue the first point, but imo the electorate are increasingly averse to the risk that everything stays the same. Stressing that risk didn't do JC much good but we're a few years down the road now and the NHS and the economy are in even worse condition. Brexit and covid have happened. Throw climate change in as well and it's no wonder people are frustrated by Labour.

Are you suggesting they're not serious about 'fiscal rectitude', because I'd bet my shirt that Reeves is, and nothing else can be improved without higher public spending. Waiting for higher GDP growth will be a long, long wait. In the long run we're all dead.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Tbh roll on the election, and then we can hopefully see what Starmer's Labour does *in government*.

If he indeed doesn't change much, I will be the first to hold my hand up.

[gilsey]

If he indeed doesn't change much, I will be the first to hold my hand up.

With respect, that's not going to make us feel a whole lot better.

[refitman]

Well, at least they went be accused of being in the pockets of Union barons anymore, so there is a bright side

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Been out on a Pennine rail jaunt to Todmorden (which was lovely). On the way back I was hanging around outside Halifax station having a vape before catching the train when I was approached by a massively drunk racist dickhead with tattooed knuckles asking for a light. He claimed an 'asylum seeker' had been looking at him 'disrespectfully' and he wanted to kill him. There was no sign of the supposed 'asylum seeker' so I asked this bloke what he had done to deserve respect from anybody. Despite repeating myself a number of times in the most obviously mocking voice I'm capable of he failed to understand both the question and my point. He just kept going on about how he didn't take shit from anybody despite taking shit from a stranger right to his stupid face. Then his phone rang and he said, 'Fuck it's my ex-girlfriend' and I wandered off into the station.

Halifax is a strange place. Half gentrified hipsters, half good old fashioned Yorkshire racists.

I'm not sure who I despise more.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

To be honest had I not had 5 pints because my friend and I got tragically trapped by a thunderstorm in a pub beer garden I'd probably have just walked off and thought nothing more of it because as I've said before overt racism is more commonplace in Yorkshire than anywhere else I've ever lived. You just get used to it, unless you happen to be the target of it of course. It's shocking.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Oh yeah, I asked him where he was from and I thought he was saying he lived in a big house which seemed unlikely until it dawned upon me that he was saying Brighouse which is a shithole South of Bradford.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Disappointingly being drunk and stoned completely ruins the illusion. I was hoping for quite the opposite.

Ho hum.