It would improve my bloody satisfaction if they actually paid me that massive 4% pay rise they made such a big deal about. The rise, and the back pay due since April, have not materialised yet. You can imagine the way this is further improving morale in the NHS workforce. I'm leaving in November, I've just had enough. That will leave 1 (one) full time clinician in the local community mental health team. The rest is covered by agency and bank staff who rarely stay for long as it's increasingly stressful and unrewarding (you get more ₤ for working on the wards). The irony is the cost of paying agency staff is far more than offering decent conditions and pay to retain permanent staff. It's almost like someone wants the NHS to fail.
I don’t blame you at all. Thank you for putting up with it for as long as you have. When I worked in the medical industry I saw first hand how the NHS is and I truly don’t understand how anyone stays. All of you are heroes, but there’s only so much people can put up with
Similar with children's services. Councils becoming more dominated by agency social workers, paid the same or more, and when the case loads get too much, they leave for another council. This lack of continuity does noting to help vulnerable families, and along with camhs who have been decimated, it is a minefield just to get the right support for young people.
The Ukranian successes of a few weeks ago were bound to have a more serious response from Russia. I think that this will ultimately draw the conflict out and you will see conscription. I am not convinced that this will improve the performance of the Russian military as it will not address their logistics issues nor the availability of up to date weapons. What will happen is that Putin will just flatten Ukraine until nothing is left. It something was to be done about Putiin, it should have been addressed years ago. To retain the current status quo, it will just mean that the west will need to increase it's commitment,
Putin has already used his best troops and his best equipment and has failed miserably. Those troops who haven’t retreated or died or been captured are deserting in droves. Civilian men are fleeing Russia over all the land borders to avoid the draft, and flights to Serbia have been overbooked. There are demonstrations happening in cities all over Russia. I think Putin is losing control if the situation, and that any attempt to use WMD’s against Ukraine will be resisted by his military leaders.
They have tried to just flatten Ukraine. There are a couple issues in terms of flattening Ukraine right now: - They are no longer in artillery range of Ukraine's major population centres. - They are not going to be in artillery range of Ukraine's major population centres any time soon. - They can't attempt bombing runs on Ukraine's major population centres because they don't have air superiority and their planes get shot down. - Their long-range missile stores, the only things that can hit Ukraine's major population centres, are getting low. As a consequence, they're using older stockpiles that are not in the best shape. This recently resulted in them hitting the Russian city of Belgorod...with a missile fired from the Russian city of Belgorod.
Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry has been doing some digging into the sudden increase in spending by the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office which started in September 2021. The alert among you will remember that a certain Liz Truss was appointed Foreign Secretary in… September 2021. Unexplained items of expenditure include: £21,000 on new red boxes £1,841 in the Norwich City club shop. (Liz Truss is… yes, a Norwich City fan). Here is the letter Thornberry has written asking for explanations into this jamboree. She’s not holding her breath for any answers.
I recently saw a report claiming that the majority of the big house building companies had lobbied the government to stop a law being introduced to make all new builds include a charging point for electric vehicles. I can’t see any logical reason for this and I am left wondering if these companies install charging points as a secondary business, or have links to companies/people who do this. At a time when we are being asked to look closely at our carbon footprint and at a time when cities are introducing stricter emission controls, you would think that everyone would be willing to do their bit. It will be interesting to see if the government ignores the building companies lobbying (unlikely as many are donors to the Tory party) and does actually introduce legislation to include the chargers in all new builds. Below is a Which report on the shortage of and difficulty to find public charging points. “DRIVERS switching to greener electric vehicles are struggling to find charging points, a watchdog found. Which? is calling for “urgent improvements” to the plug-and-go network after finding almost half of EV owners faced problems trying to find public charging areas in good working order. Three-quarters are fed up with the current system, with half saying there are no points near their homes and six in 10 suffering glitches when trying to pay. The poll of 1,500 EV or plug-in hybrid car owners found a fifth have given up on public chargers and a similar number steer clear as they do not feel confident about finding one in working order. Which? also polled 2,000 petrol car owners about changing to a greener model but four in 10 were put off by lack of public chargers and a third feared a flat battery on the road. Which? is urging the Government to overhaul the infrastructure and payment system so drivers can tap a bank card or use just one app instead of several. EV charge point operators have also urged the Chancellor to cut VAT on public charging. The Department for Transport said: “We are working to ensure drivers can access chargepoints across the country which are reliable, consistent and seamless to use.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-62994747 It seems that the Tories are planning to take less tax from the wealthy so that they can invest in new projects. They won't, they will just cream off more money from their profits. These proposals will bankrupt the Country in my opinion.
Refusing to think about a windfall tax from energy producers and instead borrowing record amounts just as interest rates rise will add to the chaos coming. We are completely ****ed in this country, until we somehow get the criminal gang out of parliament.
Borrowing record amounts to give directly to the energy companies, all of whom are major donors to the Conservative and Unionist Party. The stink of blatant, unfettered corruption is becoming unbearable now.
Banana Republic used to be an insult. We could aspire to that as a country, if we had the climate for bananas.
At this point I think we have to conclude it’s a straight asset strip, intended to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of pretty much the entire working population, in the time left to the discredited confidence tricksters known as the Conservative Party.
Tim, mate, you’re not supposed to say these things out loud where the plebs can hear you! In other words, the country is now being run by secretly-funded organisations like the IEA and the Adam Smith Institute, who have no accountability to the public.
Can someone with a better understanding of economics than me provide some ways in which this budget isn’t a complete bin fire? Because I can’t in anyway grasp how this will deliver anything that it sets out to achieve at the cost of basically bankrupting the country? It just logically doesn’t seem to work to me. I know I will probably get answers along the lines of ‘it isn’t meant to do anything for the country’ and ‘it’s a front for asset stripping’ (my suspicion as well), but just pretending for a second that we take this at face value.
