UK democracy - the new government policy is announced

Great Debates
1

So, now the election is over, although the polemic and partisan views will keep on going, we are now in that period where the Tory program for the next year has been announced.

Obviously that ties into election manifestos and promises and concerns about the campaign, however we seem to be at a stage where the election itself is over and now is the time to see how this administration delivers, or not.

In another thread the last subject and major plank of election claim and counter claim was that of NHS funding, I have not read the whole of the Queens speech yet but I am aware there are announcements on the Justice system and on other spending plans along with the legislation connected with formally leaving the EU.

So, can I kick off with he NHS numbers?
The offer of 3.4% increase to the NHS budget - is it enough to achieve the aim of increasing the number of nursing staff to some number that is a matter of some dispute.

Having been involved in pay campaigns and contributing views and reports on just my patch of of membership I can see some issues here.

Although pay is not the full package that any employee receives, it is the most significant one for most employees. Medical inflation tends to outstrip general inflation and years of pay restraint right across public services leaves workers feeling they have some catching up to do - so as medical costs cost up the only way to increase wages seems to me to come only from greater efficiency savings, and that tends to mean fewer staff doing more work - I can’t see how 3.4% pay rise of itself is likely to improve recruitment.

Second, if the NHS has become such a priority it seems to me that other parts of the public sector will be less of a priority, could that mean that those services will continue to be squeezed?

Now we will see if this administration can hold it together, because the Justice sector is pretty much falling apart and needs considerable investment just to remain operative.

There are likely to be very large and likely not planned costs due to the recent Fire Brigades Union success in the high court in relation to age discrimination in the high court - when replicated across all the public sector including local authority workers we have the potential for many £billions of initial costs plus large ongoing pension servicing costs.

It will be interesting to see what happens once BREXIT legislation has passed - will there be a spending spree, I think it is likely since Brexit is one of the main reasons why the Tories were re-elected, take that away and what is left? Budgetry responsibility?

2

Tories are always fiscally irresponsible, it’s the brand.

I think every political prediction I’ve ever made has been wrong, but I now predict this: Brexit will never happen. Boris will plunge the knife into the voters’ backs. He’s treacherous, dishonest, has no principles of any sort. Treachery is to be expected.

A bigger problem is the active sabotage of the electoral system with the introduction of voter ID.

3

The problems with the NHS are:

  1. It not only has problems with a shortage of nurses, it has a shortage of everything: beds and doctors for example.
  2. We are in the era of the baby boomer generation getting older and sicker. Since this is a large portion of the population this means the demand for medical services is increasing at a significantly faster rate than the population is growing.

It should be clear that a 3.4% increase means the Tories have decided the NHS should continue permanently in crisis; that their statements about improving the NHS are simply a public relations gimmick.

4

Truth be told, to me it looks like putting Brexit permanently on hold isn’t stabbing the voters in the back, but saving them from themselves.

Granted, it was the Tories who encouraged the voters to eat the Tide Pods in the first place, but there are limits, harrumph.

5

I think that there will be something called Brexit - but the reality is that our current membership of the EU has taken over 40 years to develop and it will take a great deal of time to change for a position that we can meaningfully call Brexit.

Negotiations will go on for years, governments are likely to change their stance both towards and away from the EU, that will depend on how trade deals develop and work with other trading zones.

The 3.4% for the NHS is actually going to be very bad news for the rest of public service because they will not get that amount so expect to see issues elsewhere such as education, defence, justice.

If the economy grows then we might see increases in public spending, but the Labour alternative of spend without a view to national finance is even worse - and would inevitably result in a crunch - Labour seems to be Jam today and tomorrow is someone else’s problem.

6

Why, the same basic platform as right wings everywhere, which follows two key axes :

  1. More money for us
  2. Fuck you