The Labour Government

[inbetween]

To be fair, there's still a huge split between former East and West Germany on most measures of prosperity. Admittedly they've got more of an excuse than us.

Maybe it's just me. I travel to Munich a lot and I find myself constantly jealous at how everything just works. I go there from the worst airport in the world to one of the best, the contrast is just ridiculous. Even the smaller towns are beautiful, clean and everything is just generally pleasant. It's a completely different way of life, it really doesn't surprise me that here we're all ill and generally just hate each other.

Coming back to this government, should somebody in the north really put any energy into voting for any party and expect something to change? It's utterly pointless. I'm pretty sure that Labour and the Tories would rather that the north didn't exist and we wouldn't exist to them had it not been for the fact that we can vote them in or out.

What they really think is that the infrastructure isn't so bad so what are they complaining about. That's because they exist in the London sphere where things do work because that's where all the money goes.

 

[Hertzblue]

I provided facts and figures to you yesterday with the whole London GDP/taxation contribution to the national pie. You were moaning about social housing in London and ‘foreigners’ and what a burden they are etc and I pointed out, slightly tongue in cheek, that them ‘foreigners’ and their fellow Londoners, were pulling their weight in our most diverse city. There is a certain delicious irony to 13% of the population - half of which are foreign born - providing 26% of the tax revenue of the UK that tickled me.

You didn’t reply to that, which is fine. It’s a forum with a lot of back and forth and who cares if someone replies or not - well, it seems you do. So, as you took the trouble to reproduce what you previously said I broke it down to the simple question - what should we do about migration.

First off, we have been importing labour since the year dot and we have been moaning about it since the year dot. I have no idea why we moan about it, but we do and always have. We have been claiming the UK is full since the year dot as well. It isn’t full. It’s just a polite way of saying don’t come here.

We’ve also been providing shelter and asylum since the year dot and moaned about that too. Asylum is an old established religious practice of providing for those in need and modernised after WWII. A world war, genocide and millions dead tends to focus the mind I guess.

Anyway what do we do? Well, I suspect we will do what we have always done. Keep on importing labour and moaning about it. We might I suppose try and stop importing labour. The US is having one of its periodic fits over it and leading Florida to amend its child labour laws to fill in some of the gaps. Nothing says quality of life, like good old fashioned child labour :)

And we did vote to stop having transitory European labour with Brexit and ended up importing non European labour in even higher numbers (it will never not be funny) which along with greater refugee numbers because of climate and political instability and uncertainty is causing major angst. Some we actively welcome - the Hong Kong scheme for example and others we don’t.

As to my solution (drum roll). We do what we have always done. Import labour, moan about it, vote for those who say they have a solution and moan when no solution appears or is left broken on the rocks of reality.

And what is reality? Too many old fuckers like me and not enough young fuckers not fucking, or breeding to be accurate. We and others have a demographic problem. So, to keep the show in the road we import labour, some of which stays and some that doesn’t. And here is your first newsflash. This country will change as a consequence. It already has changed and it will keep on changing. And that is what this is all about. People don’t want it to change. They don’t want a world they can no longer understand. It’s wider than migration. It’s climate change, net zero, electric cars, diversity, woke, tik tok, cashless society, trans, whatever it is there will be lots of people who hate it. Some hate all of it and none of them understand it. Tick, tock, the world around you is changing and will keep on changing and the only constant will be change.

All I have for you is cold comfort. We will, like every other Western developed country, keep importing people to keep the lights on because a constant churn and flow of people back and forth works. Static and aging populations die out. Society needs new blood. It needs new ideas, modes of thinking. This is not revolutionary. This country was formed out of change, upheaval and invasion by foreigners who introduced new customs, ideas and languages. The only difference today is that the invaders come armed with work visas.

My musings for a Sunday morning for what it’s worth.

Thanks for the reply Bob, it was a read and I can't disagree with a good part of it, however..
I recall from one of your recent posts that you weren't up for much in the way of upheaval - I see what you mean.
In essence what you appear to be advocating is there is no solution so " Keep 'em coming , keep complaining " .
At least that's more honest than " Smash the gangs" however as immigration policy its not going to keep Farage and co. at bay. The recent election results should be enough to convince even the most relaxed liberal that the mood has changed. Doing nothing is no longer an option, if Starmer follows your path then he will lose the next election on this issue.
I understand the demographic concern but as I have said previously we can accommodate that where we need to with guest worker provisions.
I would urge you to be less complacent and have more empathy with those in our society who pay the cost of mass migration with their life chances.
It doesn't necessarily have to be a right wing party / politician that champions reduced immigration. For the last 25 years in the UK and most of the Western world, Progressives have set the narrative on immigration - to doubt its benefits must be racist - so there is no debate and nothing gets done. It is not racist to question the benefits of immigration, in the numbers we now see it is first and foremost an economic question - our welfare state, housing and public finances etc simply cannot support it. As I have said previously on here , Mette Frederiksen and her Social Democratic government in Denmark have been honest enough to have this conversation with the electorate and it forms their contract with the Danish people and their understanding of the Welfare provision they receive and provides the permission they need to dramatically reduce immigration. We need to do the same.
I would recommend having a look at the Blue Labour website and Maurice Glasman's work. It doesn't work for me on the economic front but Glasman advocates much more that I would support, the core being that the Labour Party is held captive by Progressives who have taken the party away from its core values . It is perfectly feasible this version of the Labour Party could follow the Danish approach and actually do what's its constituency want.

 

[inbetween]

I think we put it off through inertia. To break the pattern, you need to fundamentally rewire how the economy works, bearing in mind we are still enmeshed in other countries economies it is difficult to just unilaterally change direction and then you have the market reaction, interest rate and borrowing knock on effects which will impact on everyone especially mortgage holders. Politicians run scared of that. We saw how Truss and her fantasy budget went down.

But, I do think it is weird that we are being compelled to work longer when we were sold the idea of a three day week, early retirement and robots doing the heavy lifting - and flying cars - yet a lot of people have retired early, and working for many is more flexible, so perhaps it arrives through stealth and gradual change. A four day week trial would be interesting, universal basic income ditto - but then I would happily break the link with having to work.

I don’t disagree with your sentiment, but I see no issue pointing out that the way the system currently works and with an aging population then importing labour is the only obvious solution. To shift that you need major surgery and not kill the patient in the process.

This Govt will not go near anything radical. Competent management is their goal, and to be fair I was under no illusion they would do any different, and some competent management was at least a step in the right direction.

The problem with this level of competent management is it's glacial and robotic. That's a good thing if you want to stabilise the FTSE and grow the economy by 0.725% and also appease hedge fund managers... not so much if you want to fix problems quickly.

I don't think that they're radical enough to make any real tangible difference and that means their appeal will only continue to linger and stall. Slow and steady is a difficult approach when the perception of things is they're almost broken beyond repair.

They're claiming for example that they've brought down NHS waiting list times but the reality is it started coming down in August last year and it has come down by less than 5% in 9 months. If it followed the current trajectory then we wouldn't reach 2010 equivalent until about 2045. Most of us will be dead by the time we feel any change.

 

[cpa]

Maybe it's just me. I travel to Munich a lot and I find myself constantly jealous at how everything just works. I go there from the worst airport in the world to one of the best, the contrast is just ridiculous. Even the smaller towns are beautiful, clean and everything is just generally pleasant. It's a completely different way of life, it really doesn't surprise me that here we're all ill and generally just hate each other.

Coming back to this government, should somebody in the north really put any energy into voting for any party and expect something to change? It's utterly pointless. I'm pretty sure that Labour and the Tories would rather that the north didn't exist and we wouldn't exist to them had it not been for the fact that we can vote them in or out.

What they really think is that the infrastructure isn't so bad so what are they complaining about. That's because they exist in the London sphere where things do work because that's where all the money goes.

However on the flip side Frankfurt has to be one of the worst airports I have had the misfortune to travel through recently on a few occasions and I have vowed never to transfer through there again ,but maybe this should be in the worst airport or Brexit thread :-)

 

[bluenova]

The problem with this level of competent management is it's glacial and robotic. That's a good thing if you want to stabilise the FTSE and grow the economy by 0.725% and also appease hedge fund managers... not so much if you want to fix problems quickly.

I don't think that they're radical enough to make any real tangible difference and that means their appeal will only continue to linger and stall. Slow and steady is a difficult approach when the perception of things is they're almost broken beyond repair.

They're claiming for example that they've brought down NHS waiting list times but the reality is it started coming down in August last year and it has come down by less than 5% in 9 months. If it followed the current trajectory then we wouldn't reach 2010 equivalent until about 2045. Most of us will be dead by the time we feel any change.

The problem is that with social media dictating the conversation, results have to happen yesterday. Everything else is a "betrayal", or a "lie".

The "quick fix" on waiting lists doesn't exist, but it surely must speed up later on in the Parliament. The announcements today about improving GP surgeries, is still likely to only start making inroads half way through the Parliament. Most of the other big plans appear to be getting people to be about making gradual changes in prevention, and trying to do more simple procedures/investigations in GP/community settings. There's very little that could have dramatically brought down the lists in ten months.

Obviously something could throw this all off, and those kind of plans are the hardest to implement, but they must be aiming for 2-3 million over the course of the Parliament, if they want to fend off Reform.

 

[threespires]

Maybe it's just me. I travel to Munich a lot and I find myself constantly jealous at how everything just works. I go there from the worst airport in the world to one of the best, the contrast is just ridiculous. Even the smaller towns are beautiful, clean and everything is just generally pleasant. It's a completely different way of life, it really doesn't surprise me that here we're all ill and generally just hate each other.

Coming back to this government, should somebody in the north really put any energy into voting for any party and expect something to change? It's utterly pointless. I'm pretty sure that Labour and the Tories would rather that the north didn't exist and we wouldn't exist to them had it not been for the fact that we can vote them in or out.

What they really think is that the infrastructure isn't so bad so what are they complaining about. That's because they exist in the London sphere where things do work because that's where all the money goes.

In fairness if you are spending most of your time in Bavaria it's a little bit atypical, for good and bad, of many other regions. I had a job in NRW that occasionally involved Bavaria too, they were very happy to characterise themselves as being quite different from each other!

That said I would agree that there's still stuff to be envious of our German cousins.

 

[BigJoe#1]

I'd like to ask a serious question. This is not a dig at the Labour Government - (Scouts honour)... but... I know some of you cynical folk won't believe me - but it's true on this occasion.

The welcome money that Wes Streeting is putting into the NHS to "upgrade 6,000 surgeries and create more consulting rooms can only be admired and respected. This Mr Streeting tells us is the way they will create thousands more appointments every year... another great step forward - no complaints from me.

But.... I thought it was the lack of GP's was what was getting in the way of people not being able to see their Doctors?

Our GP surgery is quite literally empty nearly all the time. If I think back pre pandemic the waiting room would be crammed with sick people, now, whenever I go there (for whatever reason) the waiting rooms are empty.

What I am saying is I did not think the problem was the lack of consulting rooms was the issue - and that did cause me to wonder how thee Government were going to solve the problem which I understood to be simply, we don't have enough doctors - which is a long term issue. It's not like you can fast track the Education and training process... is it?

I am not sure creating more consulting rooms and sprucing the surgeries up (all very welcome) is going to address the problems associated with getting appointments and the legendary 8am telephone rush.... which, only if you're lucky, will end up with a call back from a Doctor.

Like I say any investment in the NHS is welcome, but is the money going into the right place?

 

[Rory Bluelow]

Thanks for the reply Bob, it was a read and I can't disagree with a good part of it, however..
I recall from one of your recent posts that you weren't up for much in the way of upheaval - I see what you mean.
In essence what you appear to be advocating is there is no solution so " Keep 'em coming , keep complaining " .
At least that's more honest than " Smash the gangs" however as immigration policy its not going to keep Farage and co. at bay. The recent election results should be enough to convince even the most relaxed liberal that the mood has changed. Doing nothing is no longer an option, if Starmer follows your path then he will lose the next election on this issue.
I understand the demographic concern but as I have said previously we can accommodate that where we need to with guest worker provisions.
I would urge you to be less complacent and have more empathy with those in our society who pay the cost of mass migration with their life chances.
It doesn't necessarily have to be a right wing party / politician that champions reduced immigration. For the last 25 years in the UK and most of the Western world, Progressives have set the narrative on immigration - to doubt its benefits must be racist - so there is no debate and nothing gets done. It is not racist to question the benefits of immigration, in the numbers we now see it is first and foremost an economic question - our welfare state, housing and public finances etc simply cannot support it. As I have said previously on here , Mette Frederiksen and her Social Democratic government in Denmark have been honest enough to have this conversation with the electorate and it forms their contract with the Danish people and their understanding of the Welfare provision they receive and provides the permission they need to dramatically reduce immigration. We need to do the same.
I would recommend having a look at the Blue Labour website and Maurice Glasman's work. It doesn't work for me on the economic front but Glasman advocates much more that I would support, the core being that the Labour Party is held captive by Progressives who have taken the party away from its core values . It is perfectly feasible this version of the Labour Party could follow the Danish approach and actually do what's its constituency want.

Some interesting points there.
The “guest worker” provisions didn’t work very well in Germany where millions of Turks stayed and eventually became permanent. Japan has a worse demographic problem than we do but refuses to accept immigration and asylum etc as a solution and looks to technology instead. The point you make about Denmark is totally correct but the current Labour Party will find it very difficult to follow !
Immigration and social cohesion versus destruction etc are not about left or right politics.

 

[bluenova]

I'd like to ask a serious question. This is not a dig at the Labour Government - (Scouts honour)... but... I know some of you cynical folk won't believe me - but it's true on this occasion.

The welcome money that Wes Streeting is putting into the NHS to "upgrade 6,000 surgeries and create more consulting rooms can only be admired and respected. This Mr Streeting tells us is the way they will create thousands more appointments every year... another great step forward - no complaints from me.

But.... I thought it was the lack of GP's was what was getting in the way of people not being able to see their Doctors?

Our GP surgery is quite literally empty nearly all the time. If I think back pre pandemic the waiting room would be crammed with sick people, now, whenever I go there (for whatever reason) the waiting rooms are empty.

What I am saying is I did not think the problem was the lack of consulting rooms was the issue - and that did cause me to wonder how thee Government were going to solve the problem which I understood to be simply, we don't have enough doctors - which is a long term issue. It's not like you can fast track the Education and training process... is it?

I am not sure creating more consulting rooms and sprucing the surgeries up (all very welcome) is going to address the problems associated with getting appointments and the legendary 8am telephone rush.... which, only if you're lucky, will end up with a call back from a Doctor.

Like I say any investment in the NHS is welcome, but is the money going into the right place?

Given that it's only £100m, out of something like an extra £41 billion (in real terms increases plus capital expenditure), that they've committed to the NHS, it's really just a small piece of the puzzle.

My surgery is pretty big too, but that 6000 figure is pretty much all the surgeries in England. There must be plenty that do want to expand, but I doubt it's going to need to be divided equally.

 

[threespires]

I'd like to ask a serious question. This is not a dig at the Labour Government - (Scouts honour)... but... I know some of you cynical folk won't believe me - but it's true on this occasion.

The welcome money that Wes Streeting is putting into the NHS to "upgrade 6,000 surgeries and create more consulting rooms can only be admired and respected. This Mr Streeting tells us is the way they will create thousands more appointments every year... another great step forward - no complaints from me.

But.... I thought it was the lack of GP's was what was getting in the way of people not being able to see their Doctors?

Our GP surgery is quite literally empty nearly all the time. If I think back pre pandemic the waiting room would be crammed with sick people, now, whenever I go there (for whatever reason) the waiting rooms are empty.

What I am saying is I did not think the problem was the lack of consulting rooms was the issue - and that did cause me to wonder how thee Government were going to solve the problem which I understood to be simply, we don't have enough doctors - which is a long term issue. It's not like you can fast track the Education and training process... is it?

I am not sure creating more consulting rooms and sprucing the surgeries up (all very welcome) is going to address the problems associated with getting appointments and the legendary 8am telephone rush.... which, only if you're lucky, will end up with a call back from a Doctor.

Like I say any investment in the NHS is welcome, but is the money going into the right place?

You're not wrong re. GP staffing levels but I think this spending comes under the category of fix the stuff you can fix. I think it's aimed at 1000 not 6000 (which is about the total number of surgeries) ?

The spend is predicated on data that, depending on which sources your prioritise, suggests somewhere between 20% - 40% of the GP Surgery estate isn't fit for purpose and is constraining the number of appointments that could be made. The money in question is aimed at about a 1000 surgeries so that's maybe a bit over 15% of the estate, so it's at the low end of the estimate and therefore assuming it's aimed at the correct surgeries it seems like reasonable spend.

It won't make any difference in my surgery as like yours by the sound of it, the infrastructure is decent but we are light on GPs, however it'll hopefully make some difference for other folks. The estimates vary but some sources suggest we have about 3000 underemployed/unemployed GPs in the country, this being the case for multiple reasons but you'd assume that some of those surgeries with physical constraints might be able to utilise some of that capacity. To me it's a sensible thing to do but clearly it isn't going to "end the 8am scramble" on it's own.

There's a load of reasons we are where we are dating from the revised 2004 GP contract, austerity, Lansley's 2012 clusterfuck, demographics, the pandemic etc. There's been about 1500 new GPs come onstream since I think the second half of last year so the total number has gone up by just under 3% but we still have significant flight from the role too which needs addressing. We've been in the shit in comparison to most of our European peers for a long while now and it's going to take time to get out of the hole.

 

[inbetween]

I'd like to ask a serious question. This is not a dig at the Labour Government - (Scouts honour)... but... I know some of you cynical folk won't believe me - but it's true on this occasion.

The welcome money that Wes Streeting is putting into the NHS to "upgrade 6,000 surgeries and create more consulting rooms can only be admired and respected. This Mr Streeting tells us is the way they will create thousands more appointments every year... another great step forward - no complaints from me.

But.... I thought it was the lack of GP's was what was getting in the way of people not being able to see their Doctors?

Our GP surgery is quite literally empty nearly all the time. If I think back pre pandemic the waiting room would be crammed with sick people, now, whenever I go there (for whatever reason) the waiting rooms are empty.

What I am saying is I did not think the problem was the lack of consulting rooms was the issue - and that did cause me to wonder how thee Government were going to solve the problem which I understood to be simply, we don't have enough doctors - which is a long term issue. It's not like you can fast track the Education and training process... is it?

I am not sure creating more consulting rooms and sprucing the surgeries up (all very welcome) is going to address the problems associated with getting appointments and the legendary 8am telephone rush.... which, only if you're lucky, will end up with a call back from a Doctor.

Like I say any investment in the NHS is welcome, but is the money going into the right place?

I still think GP's are the biggest problem in the NHS. From my experience my GP does absolutely nothing other than google a few symptoms and take a stab at treatment. If you have anything more problematic wrong with you then they're really just gatekeepers and getting past that gate is a pain in the arse.

The second problem is GP's don't work full time because they're often working elsewhere or even working as a private GP elsewhere. Only 1 in 3 GP's work full time in their surgery and that's if you're lucky enough to actually see the same GP because I never have.

Bringing them under the NHS might be a start but a GP can earn basically unlimited money doing whatever they want outside of the surgery so are they really going to choose to move to work full time under a rigid NHS band that pays crap? If you went private then there's a good chance that the GP you see will be your local surgery GP moonlighting elsewhere!

It's sort of like NHS dentists. An NHS dentist is equivalent to Kevin De Bruyne choosing to play for Accrington when he/she could play for City instead and earn £300k a week. That's why there are none and NHS appointments are probably a loss maker for many dentists.

 

[bluenova]

I still think GP's are the biggest problem in the NHS. From my experience my GP does absolutely nothing other than google a few symptoms and take a stab at treatment. If you have anything more problematic wrong with you then they're really just gatekeepers and getting past that gate is a pain in the arse.

The second problem is GP's don't work full time because they're often working elsewhere or even working as a private GP elsewhere. Only 1 in 3 GP's work full time in their surgery and that's if you're lucky enough to actually see the same GP because I never have.

Bringing them under the NHS might be a start but a GP can earn basically unlimited money doing whatever they want outside of the surgery so are they really going to choose to move to work full time under a rigid NHS band that pays crap? If you went private then there's a good chance that the GP you see will be your local surgery GP moonlighting elsewhere!

It's sort of like NHS dentists. An NHS dentist is equivalent to Kevin De Bruyne choosing to play for Accrington when he/she could play for City instead and earn £300k a week. That's why there are none and NHS appointments are probably a loss maker for many dentists.

After working at a legal advice agency, I began to worry when the GPs didn't look things up :)

I remember working in the same building as a Law Centre, and one of the more senior solicitors told me he would be petrified to do my job, where he had no idea what issue would walk through the door. He said he didn't even like his own helpline, despite it having a pretty narrow focus, and him being able to signpost anyone outside his immediate knowledge. Of course, the big difference is that I learnt the basics, but most of the skills you needed were just listening and analysing to work out what someone's problem was. Then you looked up the answer. There were some issues that you "knew", but then if you saw how much of the information changed month to month, you'd be wary of trusting that you "knew" anything for definite.

While a GP clearly needs a lot more training (after all, people don't know what's wrong with them, so working out what *might* be the issue is a large part of the work), there is still no way that they they could know all the answers. Add in that the 'solutions' change constantly, it would be almost impossible to keep track of all the latest guidelines, or the potential side effects of a treatment when it's taken alongside something else. For example, just think how many people are now taking weight loss drugs, which have a significant effect on people's bodies. A GP told me that they now have to double check for any potential issues that have been flagged up, anytime a patient on those drugs comes in with some other issue.

Hopefully giving them a bit more power to do, rather than refer, will make a difference. But that's another area where we'll find out if Labour are being overly optimistic.

 

[bluethrunthru]

Two announcements today that will do good for the country - but Labour did them so the 3 main news channels report them as "men - no biggie" Thats what Labour are up against

 

[Don Karleone]

Two announcements today that will do good for the country - but Labour did them so the 3 main news channels report them as "men - no biggie" Thats what Labour are up against

 

[Cheadle_hulmeBlue]

Two announcements today that will do good for the country - but Labour did them so the 3 main news channels report them as "men - no biggie" Thats what Labour are up against

Unless I’ve read it wrong. The trade deal with India means that Indian workers can come to the uk without having to pay national insurance for three years?

How is that a good thing? It’ll encourage employers to employ people from abroad first and puts other business’s at a disadvantage.

If your working as a developer or similar, it could make it a lot harder to get a job.

Surely this needs to be put to a vote, as it could have a huge impact.

 

[blueinsa]

Two announcements today that will do good for the country - but Labour did them so the 3 main news channels report them as "men - no biggie" Thats what Labour are up against

Yeah, some fucking deal this is when we have this as part of it!

Does Starmer really not give a fuck about struggling British workers?

As part of the agreement, the UK and India will strike a double contribution convention under which Indian workers temporarily living in the UK will not have to pay national insurance contributions for three years. The same applies to British workers in India, and meets a key demand by Delhi.

 

[Quad]

Two announcements today that will do good for the country - but Labour did them so the 3 main news channels report them as "men - no biggie" Thats what Labour are up against

Yes great hike national insurance then let Indians in who don’t pay it and wonder why reform are doing well

 

[bluethrunthru]

I don't usually go to Robert Jenrick to get my analysis of Labour policy - normally because of this divisive racist slant he puts on everything as seen here. Its because of his poisonous views that he misses his point but makes my point admirably -. he was a member of a failed govt who in its last term allowed legal migration to sky rocket by handing out visa's for fun because they were aware of the need to replace the EU workers that were not coming back or the plain truth of the failure of the Brexit project would be there to see. In this case if people from India are coming here to work on visa's for up to 3 years that means they are going back home in 3 years and not adding to the numbers here. Not entirely sure that this was quite the zinger Nazi Bob thinks it was

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Yeah, some fucking deal this is when we have this as part of it!

Does Starmer really not give a fuck about struggling British workers?

As part of the agreement, the UK and India will strike a double contribution convention under which Indian workers temporarily living in the UK will not have to pay national insurance contributions for three years. The same applies to British workers in India, and meets a key demand by Delhi.

Having witnessed the lack of social safety net for the poor in India, I'm not sure that paying NI there is really a thing.

 

[Cheadle_hulmeBlue]

In this case if people from India are coming here to work on visa's for up to 3 years that means they are going back home in 3 years and not adding to the numbers here. Not entirely sure that this was quite the zinger Nazi Bob thinks it was

Huge numbers of people have stayed after there visas though. You say they’re not adding to the numbers - I don’t know how you’ve come to that conclusion?

I’m fairly certain this trade deal will mean a huge spike in Indians coming to work in the UK.

I’m interested to know if you think not paying national insurance for 3 years is a good thing. It completely undercuts uk workers and encourages employers to export cheap labour in my view.

You could have an Indian owned company’s staff not paying NI and the pub next door having to pay it. How is that fair?