Fred_Quimby
Well-Known Member
Not forgetting the utter right wing bias of, just about, every newspaper. It is unrelenting from these media barons. Tories good, everyone else bad.
Alexandole Boris de Pfeffel Johnson
- Thread starter hilts
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Not forgetting the utter right wing bias of, just about, every newspaper. It is unrelenting from these media barons. Tories good, everyone else bad.
Might I just clarify a couple of points from my original post?
“Covid has been a shitshow from start to finish”
“I’m no fan of a lot of what this government has done”
“Self serving greedy cunts”
These are not the comments of a Boris fan, my point was that it’s somewhat one-eyed to blame him for brexit when it was democratically voted for. Yes we can argue that we ended up with a shit deal but we could only ever end up with the deal that the eu was willing to grant. I accept what you say about fishing but again I didn’t hear anyone say we don’t want control of our own waters. In fact I wondered why it was such a sticking point at trade talks when it accounts for so little of our trade and we could never consume so much fish anyway.
Len, you’re absolutely right that it wouldn’t take much to improve on this government, the inhabitants of twycross zoo I’m sure could manage it. Kier Starmer, not so much.
west didsblue
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It's not particularly one eyed to blame him for the Brexit shit show. Even if we overlook the campaign lies that reassured many that Brexit would not have negative consequences, when you look at how it's been implemented, that is down largely to choices that Johnson has made. He deliberately went for the most basic of trade deals that he must (or most certainly should) have known would cause major difficulties for many sectors of the economy because he was in thrall to the rabidly Eurosceptic right of the party who stood to profit from this choice at the expense of the vast majority of the population. He also opted to do something that he said that no British PM would ever do by agreeing an internal border, which almost guaranteed trouble in NI, all because he refused to consider a softer version of Brexit that would have delivered the mandate without screwing the economy, just because there would need to be regulatory alignment in some areas and a customs union. As it has turned out we will need to have this regulatory alignment anyway but implemented in a much more cumbersome expensive manner. He owns the shit show and he shouldn't be allowed to forget it.
bluethrunthru
Well-Known Member
I suspect a bit like Al Capone it will be the financial scam that does for him and his sorry bunch
www.bbc.co.uk
Greensill: Top civil servant 'joined firm before quitting'
Bill Crothers's position was "agreed" to by the Cabinet Office, a letter from a lobbying watchdog reveals.
www.bbc.co.uk
Ifwecouldjust.......
Well-Known Member
I suspect a bit like Al Capone it will be the financial scam that does for him and his sorry bunch
Greensill: Top civil servant 'joined firm before quitting'
Bill Crothers's position was "agreed" to by the Cabinet Office, a letter from a lobbying watchdog reveals.
No it wont sadly .... they are dropping the dead cat on the table with the ''leak'' about Crothers ...... lets see if Hancock can stay out of it as well as both Dodgy Dave and him worked for Greensills company years ago. (how does someone who worked for an investment company end up running the Health Service of a country I have NO f@cking idea)
Rascal
El Presidente
I am in favour of Brexit, yet Johnson and his cronies have totally fucked it up because they had no vision at all for the national renewal that BREXIT should have enabled. They have proven to be so out of their depth it is embarrassing. Watch Pascal Lamy school IDS whose own stupidity lead the people of the UK to believe in Unicorns.
Johnson has lied, obfuscated, blustered and absolved himself of blame instead he blames the EU for his own startling inadequicies as a man and as a PM.
His only saving grace is his predecessor was equally inept and the banal brexit means brexit statement hung around the nations neck like a noose.
BREXIT is the correct thing to do, BREXIT happening under Johnson and his collection of clowns and cronies is proving to be nothing short of a clusterfuck with a fucking huge disastrous hat on.
Fred_Quimby
Well-Known Member
Let us not forget that the people who will be most affected by this clusterf-ck will be the poor at the bottom not the rich Tories.
Rascal
El Presidente
Whatever the Tories do its always those with least that suffer. They are currently running the country like a personal Fiefdom from the 14th century where us the serfs get balls all and they get castles, mansions, servants and holiday Chateau's in France.
west didsblue
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Brexit really wasn't the correct thing to do. In a world with three economic superpowers, it makes no sense at all to be outside all three of them when we had the opportunity of having a major say in the policies and running of one of them. We're now a bitch to all of them whilst we pretend we do what we want.
Didsbury Dave
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"Brexit was the correct thing to do but..." reminds me of Basil Fawlty who believed that being a hotelier would be great if it wasn't for the annoying guests.
bluethrunthru
Well-Known Member
PMQ's - "I cannot recall when I last spoke to Dave......." - needed a friendly slow full toss follow up from a Tory MP so he could heap praise on the vaccinations to regain his equilibrium.
bluethrunthru
Well-Known Member
Not even the name he uses. He goes by Alexander - close friends call him Al - Boris is a character he plays - his Borat. Multiple personalities probably explains how he can lie, cheat and be immoral and not care - " It wasn't me who did/said that - it was Alexander"
bluethrunthru
Well-Known Member
Not aged well has it? Lets compare the cost and success rate of the ( privately run ) Track and Trace system and the success rate of the ( NHS run ) vaccination programme. Not even a contest TBH.
Chippy_boy
Well-Known Member
What hasn't aged well?
I'll repeat what I wrote: "People should imo stop worrying about who provides services and concentrate instead on the quality of the services that are being provided." That's a valid a statement today as it was when I wrote it.
Unless you'd prefer shit services, irrespective of who provides them?
bluethrunthru
Well-Known Member
all the shit services come from privatised entities - its not just Track and Trace there are water co's that made such obscene profits whilst providing poor services that Ofwat is making them reduce bills - the privatised British Gas having milked the cash cow that is its customer base so hard that the way they see of ever increasing profits now is shafting their workforce by sacking gas engineers who won't sign contracts that make them worse off and that jewel in the Crown railways - they have had to admit defeat there and accept franchising is unfit for purpose. You want a shit service give it to your private sector buddies.
Chippy_boy
Well-Known Member
Off to a good start, not.
Do you think Marks & Spencers offer shit service? What about John Lewis? or Amazon perhaps?
And when you've pondered on that one, have a little think on what these - and the countless other organisations that serve us *incredibly* well - have in common.
And maybe have a ponder why the likes of G4S or whichever other outsource provider is providing crap services to the public sector.
But we digress. I stand by my statement that what is important is the quality of service (and price of course) and NOT who is providing it. You've diverted the discussion in a different direction.
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bluethrunthru
Well-Known Member
I am on about service that were publicly owned - M&S and John Lewis were never in public ownership and in fact I shop in neither - the latter because its northernmost outlet is in York I believe and its under threat of closure I think.
As for the other stuff you quote it is service and price - G4S are a poor example as they are shite - remember the Olympics security fiasco and tagging non-existent prisoners?
Its not about price really -G4S like as not probably always submit the lowest tender - it should be about a guarantee about how the payment from the taxpayer will be spent - ie how much will be skimmed off for board room salaries and shareholder dividends and the affect of that on the fulfilment of the contract. Secondly value for money. M&S will provide you with food but its expensive. Aldi can supply you with some cheap food but is it that good? Sainsburys/ASDA/Tesco/Morrisons can provide you with the middle ground so maybe not the cheapest but the meal components you can get from them maybe give best VFM?
Chippy_boy
Well-Known Member
No, G4S are a great example because they are shite. That's why I mentioned them.
Absolutely agree. Well, kindof agree. I mainly agree. Let me ask you this, if you were a government body awarding a contract to run a national lottery, and you had 2 bidders: Bidder A contractually commits to pay you £1bn in revenues to be ploughed back into good causes, and Bidder B contracts for 2 billion (all other things being equal), who do you go with? Now what if it is revealed that Bidder B is going to pay its CEO £2m and bidder A only £1m. Are you going to throw £1bn down the pan because you don't agree with a CEO creaming off an extra million? My point is that what matters is not how an outsourced provide chooses to run itself, that is none of the governments' business. You only go with bidder A if you are twisted and bitter. What matters is the quality of service being offered and how much you are going to be charged for it (or get paid for it, in my example).
Sure. Agree with all of that.
Look, I'll throw you a bone. Much of the outsource contracts the NHS has been involved with are shit. I agree with you. Where I disagree is that this does not HAVE to be the case. It's a function of shit awful procurement and lousy monitoring. Private companies outsource things all the time and it works perfectly. If they get shit service they kick out the service provider. They may even get money back in the way of penalties. What they do not do (typically) is award multi-year contracts with no out-clause and no penalties and no monitoring. it's a recipe for getting ripped off. I don't really blame the service providers for ripping the government off with the Track and Trace debacle (although I am furious about it). What they have done is immoral, but that's business. Businesses exist to do as little as possible and charge as much as possible for it. The APPALLING thing is that the government - notwithstanding the huge pressures to get this up and going "at any cost" - allowed itself to get fleeced like that. The amount of money squandered is an absolute total disgrace. But you cannot blame the provider for charging as much as they can get away with! You blame the idiots who signed it off. (And yes I know it's a Tory government. I keep reminding people that I support Conservative principles, not the Tory party. And I am often very critical of our government.)
But that does not mean we should outsource everything and just do it better. Of course not. We should always try to get the best service for the best price. Not the cheapest price or the dearest service. The best overall. And if that's NHS provided, then great, fine with me. If it's company X doing the work, fine with me also. But make sure we hold their feet to the fire to deliver what they promised, at the price the promised it, and fine the hell out of them if they do not.
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100% agree with your comment about national renewal. Sadly I can’t see many politicians (ie none) from any party having the foresight, intelligence or conviction to deliver it.
bluethrunthru
Well-Known Member
all the points you raise are valid - but it should be about morals and fairness. Be it your lottery or NHS examples contracts need to be drawn up where we the tax payer know where the money goes and to whom. If its a lottery you want to know for example what remuneration the CEO gets in your examples and why. What does one person do to get double what the other would?
I know the argument would be that if we did that there would be no national lottery. Really? What would those folk at Camelot have done instead if their proposal was rejected? Signed on? If the govt is offering the contracts and associated cash there will always be a taker.
In the pandemic I understand the need for speed. I also understand the greed that was hidden in the need for speed. Remedies? All that stuff that was supplied and failed to meet standards. The supplier refunds the tax payer the money if not we dump the stuff outside each of the board members fucking houses.
Next? Name and shame companies and individuals and apply future restrictions on what certain individuals are allowed to do - eg a fourth wave? They are barred from being involved in any way.
Of course none of that would happen because the people I am on about are massive party donors, mates and/or wore the same school tie to the ministers. Thats all being exposed now with Greensill.
Again the idea that if needed nobody would step in. Of course they would. Sure they might not make £10m but "only" £2m instead but if you can do that without fear of any legal sanctions down the line you can sleep easy on your bed of millions.