The downfall of the Tory party.

[Chippy_Tea]

I wouldn't call it destroyed he didn't let him get a word in -

 

[foxy]

thatchers 1979 43% of the vote, that is not a landslide. To equate shipbuilding with mines doesn't seem viable, though perhaps in the mind of a Murdoch acolyte. too economic to run, perhaps phrase it as not enough money for those at the top. Investors went where workers were paid less, Far East. The car industry again was poorly managed, the rise of the Far east car, producing more modern models took over from the slow to respond British car makers.

Landslide or not it was a decisive win against the union movement who were dictating to the labour party. Why were the British car makers slow to respond? The money was being paid out to workers on the shop floor which should have been going into development of new plant. Investors won't invest without a return, they take their money elsewhere. UK was plagued by industrial action, 'the British disease'
Strikes never end well for the workers or the general populace. Jobs are lost and prices forced up.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Ferrari might like to reflect that if it's ridiculous for a bloke making oven chips to have a say, then the opinions of a radio phone-in host are probably pretty worthless too...

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I am glad he has told us the independent pay review body is made up of people appointed by the prime minister or secretary of state.

 

[Rodcx500z]

Come on anybody who thinks they are going to get 19% needs to look in the mirror, and yeah i agree they do deserve a decent pay rise for the job they do

 

[clib]

Strikes never end well for the workers or the general populace. Jobs are lost and prices forced up.

That's not true is it? Here's the latest evidence to the contrary...

https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2022-12-09/jacobs-staff-return-to-work-after-winning-new-offer
What are workers supposed to do? Just work in whatever conditions exist and take home whatever pay is offered? We had that before the union's existed. Poverty and exploitation. And now we have food banks everywhere, fuel poverty, homelessness etc in the 5th richest nation in the world and yet striking is considered a crime against humanity. People can't afford to pay their bills so they are deciding to do somethjng about it. It's an inevitable consequence of the situation we are in.

 

[Rodcx500z]

Strike action is a last resort for most people

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Come on anybody who thinks they are going to get 19% needs to look in the mirror

It's all a game the union asks for more than they know the members would accept and the company goes in low and eventually meet in the middle.
Can we also remember it's not all about pay they said this morning the problem is retention there are 100+ thousand vacancies because people are leaving in droves, nurses workloads are horrendous and they regularly work many more hours than they are contracted to at very short notice which they also don't get overtime for.
Imagine what you would do today if your boss said can you do a couple of hours unpaid overtime every day for the next six months because a couple of workers have phoned in sick.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Can't seem to find any evidence that they did commission a report, and if they had then it would only have been to bolster their desire to destroy union activity. And judging from recent behaviour any eco argument would have been ignored in action.

The internet wasn't really a thing then. So I probably saw it on a documentary on one of the 4 tv channels. I agree about using it to bash the NUM. I do wonder if someone ran with it not realising its true purpose.

 

[Bernie]

Wrong button

 

[MickDundee]

It's all a game the union asks for more than they know the members would accept and the company goes in low and eventually meet in the middle.
Can we also remember it's not all about pay they said this morning the problem is retention there are 100+ thousand vacancies because people are leaving in droves, nurses workloads are horrendous and they regularly work many more hours than they are contracted to at very short notice which they also don't get overtime for.
Imagine what you would do today if your boss said can you do a couple of hours unpaid overtime every day for the next six months because a couple of workers have phoned in sick.

I understand there’s a major problem with nurses jumping ship to nursing agencies because they pay is better and in a lot of cases they are able to pick and choose their hours.

NHS boards have no choice but to use them if they want to fully staff the wards but pay a lot more for the privelege. This means there’s less money in the pot to make decent pay rises without additional help from the government.

The government won’t give extra funding if they can help it because 1) the Tories have always been less favourable towards the public sector, 2) the situation with agencies will strengthen any argument for privatising various areas of the NHS (“agencies are outperforming NHS staff” etc)

It also doesn’t tend to be the central government who are vilified when these strikes happen or Council’s have no funding and have to cut services, it’s the NHS and Councils who get the criticism because the public have been led to believe their financial difficulties are through mismanagement rather than a lack of funding.

 

[Bernie]

I understand there’s a major problem with nurses jumping ship to nursing agencies because they pay is better and in a lot of cases they are able to pick and choose their hours.

NHS boards have no choice but to use them if they want to fully staff the wards but pay a lot more for the privelege. This means there’s less money in the pot to make decent pay rises without additional help from the government.

Apparently pay more as the full cost of employing a person is about twice the take-home pay. It's easier to adjust staffing levels based on demand one one uses an external agency.
Would there be enough in the pot if nurse recruitment increased to completely fill all the vacancies?

It also doesn’t tend to be the central government who are vilified when these strikes happen or Council’s have no funding and have to cut services, it’s the NHS and Councils who get the criticism because the public have been led to believe their financial difficulties are through mismanagement rather than a lack of funding.

Councils have their own funding and have the faculty to increase revenue.

 

[MickDundee]

Councils have their own funding and have the faculty to increase revenue.

I work in Council Finance. Increasing revenue is not easy and not a magic fix-all. If you have an easy way to increase our income I’ll happily take it to our budget team and split with you the small bonus I would get for suggesting a successful saving.

 

[Bernie]

I work in Council Finance. Increasing revenue is not easy and not a magic fix-all. If you have an easy way to increase our income I’ll happily take it to our budget team and split with you the small bonus I would get for suggesting a successful saving.

You want funding yet you say that lack of funding will not solve the problem unless the money comes from the national government.
Social services are paid either through publicly or privately. Surely, your council must have a plan on how to do so.

 

[MickDundee]

You want funding yet you say that lack of funding will not solve the problem unless the money comes from the national government.
Social services are paid either through publicly or privately. Surely, your council must have a plan on how to do so.

What exactly do you think we can do to raise revenue? Our 2 main sources of income are the General Revenue Grant (which is effectively a flat cash settlement) and Council Tax. Our other income pretty much insignificant compared to the overall council budget (apart from rents which are Restricted for use within the Housing Revenue Account).

 

[Stan's Brew]

What exactly do you think we can do to raise revenue? Our 2 main sources of income are the General Revenue Grant (which is effectively a flat cash settlement) and Council Tax. Our other income pretty much insignificant compared to the overall council budget (apart from rents which are Restricted for use within the Housing Revenue Account).

Are local authorities still able to make investments or did that all stop when some of them lost £millions in 2009 especially when Icelandic banks collapsed?

 

[Rodcx500z]

I think they still have investments going off Warrington they lost shed loads when some of the small energy companys went bust

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Councils have their own funding and have the faculty to increase revenue.

Councils are a separate matter to the NHS, but they've been really squeezed for the last decade. Mick will know the detail but IIRC it's illegal for them to raise Council Tax by more than 3% or something like that, and typically half their cash comes from central government which they can't control.

Meanwhile that revenue is legally bound to be spent on certain services, which is why all the "nice" non-statutory stuff like libraries and evening buses gets squeezed out of the budget. What's worse, is that services like social care are labour-intensive and have not seen big gains in productivity, and tend to be delivered by people close to minimum wage which has gone up way, way more than inflation - it's something like 60% more than inflation over the last 20 years.

So everything gets squeezed. Which is why not-particularly-expert councils have been involved in all sorts of investment schemes. They have advantages, like controlling the planning system, but they can't go bankrupt in the way that a bad investment company can go bust, you get situations like Thurrock's £469m debt.

I know it's not particularly fashionable to praise local councils, they have all sorts of faults, but they really have borne the brunt of the big pressures in the economy, they've had a really raw deal from government.

 

[MickDundee]

Councils are a separate matter to the NHS, but they've been really squeezed for the last decade. Mick will know the detail but IIRC it's illegal for them to raise Council Tax by more than 3% or something like that, and typically half their cash comes from central government which they can't control.

Meanwhile that revenue is legally bound to be spent on certain services, which is why all the "nice" non-statutory stuff like libraries and evening buses gets squeezed out of the budget. What's worse, is that services like social care are labour-intensive and have not seen big gains in productivity, and tend to be delivered by people close to minimum wage which has gone up way, way more than inflation - it's something like 60% more than inflation over the last 20 years.

So everything gets squeezed. Which is why not-particularly-expert councils have been involved in all sorts of investment schemes. They have advantages, like controlling the planning system, but they can't go bankrupt in the way that a bad investment company can go bust, you get situations like Thurrock's £469m debt.

I know it's not particularly fashionable to praise local councils, they have all sorts of faults, but they really have borne the brunt of the big pressures in the economy, they've had a really raw deal from government.

The 3% has been lifted (in Scotland anyway) for 23/24 but it’s expected that there will be very few, if any, councils raising by significantly more that that due to the cost of living crisis amongst other factors.

Headline figures from the Scottish Government for the 23/24 budget was an extra £550M for local authorities, but COSLA have stated that this is more like £70M when you take out the policy/manifesto stuff that is ring fenced and had already been agreed/announced prior to the budget. £70M works out at less than half a percent increase.