I know this forum is left leaning so no disagreements here, but I really cannot see anyway that the Tories can get anything resembling respectable in a GE for the next few years. Absolute shambles of a government and party.
Hence the brazen attempted theft of state resources at rapid speeds. I think they know it. Or some do. I wouldn’t be surprised if Truss is that much of a zealous ideologue (and well as idiot) that she genuinely believes her plans will work. Despite them being proven to have not done even in much more stable / strong economic times and in times where public spending hasn’t already been cut to the bone. (Recent personal experience - I felt the need to call my friends at 2am earlier in the week to take me to the hospital at the direction of the one out of hours doctor that was covering ALL of Hampshire that evening - rather than wait for however long the ambulance would take) But there will others in the orbit who probably know they are finished and want to hoover up as much gravy from the train as they possible can in the next two years.
I had a small heart attack earlier in the year and about an hour after the 999 call, a paramedic arrived in an ambulance. She was brilliant but couldn't take me to hospital because she was on her own in the ambulance. In the end, on her advice, my wife drove me 20 miles to the nearest hospital rather than wait 4 - 6 hours for another ambulance to come. One reason the paramedic was on her own was because 3 of her colleagues have left the profession and gone into retail where they can earn more money! We need to stop thinking the NHS can generate profits and therefore be a valuable asset to sell and just be realistic about the huge amounts of money that needs to be poured in, and pour it in.
They chose that photo because she looks like she's laughing at us all. Such is the subtle power of the press; remember how every photo of Jeremy Corbyn showed him with his glasses askew? That's how newspaper editors destroy people.
The things is - she actually is laughing at us all. I’m not convinced she cares about ordinary people at all. Which is usually the big argument against monarchy Controversial take but at this moment in time I’d sooner seen King Charles have a stab at solving these issues than any of the current cabinet. He’d have advisors and make the final call. Astoundingly I would he is probably less out of touch than she is due to all his charity work over decades I wonder how long she can last with the times against her? And would The Sun and The Mail ever turn against her? The Sun is most likely to at least be against her but I doubt any of them would fully flip to Labour. Even under Starmer. They still have too many points that the right wing get riled about (mainly culture wars ones I imagine)
Culture wars are just a diversionary tactic. The billionaire oligarchs who own newspapers don’t care about the War on Woke, they care about off-shore tax havens; The anti woke, anti immigrant agenda is a way of gaslighting the public and getting them to vote against their own self interest.
Exactly. Having had a front-row to the culture wars in North America over the past couple decades, none of them actually give a **** about any of this stuff, they just want to use it to get white working class voters to think that [insert inane panic of the day] is more important than the economic well-being of the non-rich. It has worked in the US, much less so in Canada mercifully, and now the right in the UK are singing from the same hymnal. People have to understand why this is happening and reject it. If you want to see proof, it turns out that the arch-anti-abortion candidate (read: has suggested the death penalty for abortion) for Senate in Georgia, Hershel Walker, paid for his mistress (who is also the mother of one of his several secret children) to have an abortion six years ago. And the right wing, which is running in many places on criminalizing abortion is...entirely fine with it. They don't care about any of this stuff. Why should anyone else?
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/l...le-jacob-rees-mogg-energy-advice-plan-1900213 When Rees-Mogg, a man not trusted with a serious cabinet position by any marginally competent conservative, is the sensible voice in the room that also includes the current Prime Minister then you know there is a problem…
Just copied this from a friend’s Facebook account. Over the next few weeks there will be a lot of bad press fired at nurses. Nurses are some of the kindest and most hard-working people I have ever had the privilege of meeting/working with. For those who don’t work in healthcare, I wanted to help give some facts and context in support of my nursing friends/colleagues: - In 2022/23, a newly qualified nurse will leave University with an average student debt of £35k. - Their starting salary in the NHS will be £27,055. - They will pay mandatory £120 for NMC registration to practice - They will pay between £200-500/yr in parking fees (depending on Trust) before even stepping through the front door. - They will pay £15-£20/month for Union membership and professional indemnity. - Their breaks are enforced and unpaid. They have 2x 30 minute breaks per long-day (13 hour shift) - 9% of their gross salary will be taken each month in student loan repayments. It is now estimated most nurses will never pay their student loans off in full under the new loans system, meaning this 9% deduction will continue for the majority of their professional lives until it is written off after 30 years. - After adjustment for inflation, despite the most recent pay deal, nurse’s real wages have dropped by £1583 on average per year since 2011. Nursing pay bands are worth an average 11% less than they were a decade ago. - There are currently thousands of vacancies across the country for nursing jobs, due to years of underinvestment and under recruitment, costing approximately £6 billion/yr in expensive agency staff. - An independent study found a 10% pay rise to nursing staff would pay for itself through greater tax income from higher wages, and by reducing the amount of student loans needing to be written off. - Another study found for every extra patient a nurse is asked to look after beyond a safe amount, the risk of harm increases by 7%. I have often seen nurses looking after patients on a ratio of 12:1. A safe amount would be considered 5:1. Do the maths. Nurses are not greedy. They worked through a grueling pandemic to keep you and your loved ones safe. Over 850 healthcare workers are estimated to have died over the pandemic. Nurses have lost colleagues and family members to COVID-19. Please support nurses in the weeks to come and don’t listen to Government propaganda. The recent pay deal amounted to a pay cut in real terms. It is not right that a nurse (or anyone!) should be afraid to put on the heating, or be forced to go to a food bank to provide food for their families. Support nursing Support fair pay Support patient safety #FairPayForNursing #FairPayForNHS
Those figures don’t include the 9.5% of salary taken as pension contributions, which makes the deductions even worse. There is no way on earth a civilised country should be charging its student nurses (or any other health professionals) tuition fees while they train to save lives. As our wonderful Prime Minister would say, That Is A Disgrace. Oh, and don’t forget she was a member of the government that scrapped the bursaries for student nurses.
And yet she is against the idea of allowing pregnant adult women the freedom of choice over their own bodies. As well as being a smoker, Coffey is of course told what to say by the Institute of Economic Affairs, some of whose funding comes from Big Tobacco.
I can't like this sorry. Not because I don't want to, but because I got my laptop out to look at the forum whilst eating my food that I have been looking forward to all day and this picture has put me off.
If the picture has put you off your food, think what it has done to my head, trying to figure out who spaffed down her shirt.
