Universal Credit is a disaster. The main problem is that it doesn’t really simplify things at all, all it does is re-label a bunch of different means tested benefits. Each individual benefit retains its complex criteria for entitlement with all of the various allowances, components and premiums that this entails. Plus, as Baron Greenback has noted, the only claims currently being processed are those for single healthy childless unemployed people - typically the very simplest claims to process.
And I’d dispute your contention that the reforms are not focused on “giving people money for nothing” - the WP Providers have indeed received large sums of money for doing precisely fuck all. Assuming you meant the claimants, though, I understand that you are a “good” claimant, deserving every penny you get and working as hard as possible to get off benefits and back into work. I believe you. I hear that very thing every day from claimants, and I believe all of those people too.
No, what people complain about is not that they can’t get “something for nothing” - they don’t want that any more than you do. It’s that the system is being reformed based on the assumption that they do.
Should the rate of MRSA infection in a hospital impact the pay of a nurse, when the cleaning services have been sold to the lowest bidder? Where does the job excellence come into it there? Management?
Actually I was told a few weeks ago rather a number of benefits claimants support the [del]Whigs’[/del] Torys’ Permanent Revolution on Welfare because their benefits are justified. It’s those other people whose benefits are leeching the system. Everyone else, in fact.
Being fair Hinchingbrooke was a disaster under NHS management, too, which is why it was put out to tender in the private sector in the first place (it’s my local hospital).
It’s almost as if the deficit is not the root cause of our economic problems but a symptom of weak growth, poor investment opportunities, low wages and poor productivity.
The excerpt is largely theoretical and will in no way be the realistic situation imo. In a democracy rarely is a government brave enough to borrow as little as 0.6% of GDP in a given year, despite the scare we had after the financial crisis. Policy makers and the public have short memories; parties start promising to spend on the electorate with as little short term pain as possible. This means governments “steal” from future generations.
edit: The budget shorfall of most Western governments is not heading below 2-3% per annum anytime soon.
With Tories offering surplus by 2019 and Labour claiming to be able to balance the books in 2018, even a predicted 0.6% deficit is a bit of a wake-up call.
Managing in the NHS is problematic. Professional staff are incredibly financially and geographically mobile with transferable skills. There are too few such professional staff trained in any year or decade to meet the need. Retention of staff therefore is very difficult. Many of the best staff emigrate or seek education and work opportunities on the international market. If staff are poorly treated by one employer they can move easily to another. There is a consistent drift away from industrial cities to inexpensive housing and quality services in non urban settings. There is a massive level of churning among the most recently qualified staff.
Despite all that the efficiency of the NHS measured by non clinical costs as a proportion of all costs is right at the top of the international league. The system with the greatest inefficiencies in industrial countries is in the USA where they have high wages, ‘right to work’ contracts and invasive skills assessment procedures and financial competition.
It is interesting to ponder the question of Scotland versus England. Scotland has always had poor general health but there has been as great an advance in standards in Scotland as in England despite the Scottish NHS being currently managed as all English and Scottish NHS services were in 1976. One needs to severely question why perpetual reorganisation has not improved either efficiency or outcome in England when Scotland has retained its old fashioned management system.
All that admitted, the two parties are still within margin of error equality after many weeks with no real sign of movement. Given the requirement for the Tories to have a considerable advantage in votes to win enough seats to equal their 2010 performance, and even more to form a majority government, the polls are still suggesting a hung parliament with an advantage to the leftist parties because of the over representation of the SNP and the under representation of UKIP.
At the risk of levering the lid off the worm can, it’s only fair to say that today is the SNP’s manifesto launch.
They seem to be taking a softly-softly approach:
A vote for the SNP is not a vote for a new referendum;
Full fiscal autonomy is not a priority;
Alex Salmond didn’t make an appearance;
Policy:
More homes, higher minimum wage, repeal bedroom tax, 50p tax rate, bankers bonus tax, mansion tax - signing up to a lot of Labour policies.
Keep pension triple lock and winter fuel payment - never antagonise the pensioners.
£9.5Bn real terms increase for NHS - not clear how this is to be paid for.
SNP will vote out Tories if there’s an anti-Tory majority.
No Trident renewal.
The IFS says that the SNP proposals are broadly within the Labour limits over the next parliament.
Boris Johnson continues Project Fear by comparing SNP in government to placing Herod in charge of child care.
I suspect that if people across the UK were asked to choose by referendum between SNP proposals bundled with Labour and Conservative proposals bundled with lib dem and UKIP, the outcome would be close to a tie.
