should the government be ashamed

MaizieD
I have to point out that the last Labour government didn't leave the country in a mess.
So why were they voted out? We seem to elect a new government when we are unhappy with what the existing government is doing. I thought David Cameron only got in because more voters were unhappy with what Gordon Brown did.

grandtanteJE65

I honestly do not know why anyone would blame the present government: Sunak and his Cabinet have only been in power for a very short time. It is hardly their fault that the UK is in the state it is in, nor could they have been expected to wave a wand upon forming a government and undoing everything that has gone wrong in the previous three or four governments' time.

Nor is it fair, nor right to blame those who are out on strike. They have been forced to this desperate measure because their working conditions are poor and their salaries no longer anything like adequate to provide a decent living.

So who is to blame?

Many people, including all those with legitimate grounds for striking for not having done so years ago, when the problems started.

Executives in the NHS, post office, railways etc. etc. who could and should have either prevent the problems, or solved them long since.

The Unions that have obviously not protected the interests of their members.

The electorate that has put up with incompetent, lying or otherwise dishonest politicians for years.

And no doubt a great many other instances and institutions, but the above will do for a start.

The Conservatives have been in power for 11 years. Sunak and his Cabinet have contributed to the shambles that is our nhs/our public services.
It’s not complicated. They’ve been the government. They messed up. Austerity wrecked public services. We pay less into our nhs than other European countries.

How anyone can excuse Sunak because he’s our latest PM Is beyond me

Too many people posting on this thread have swallowed Tory misinformation hook, line and sinker. They need to read some of the BBC and other fact checking sites. The unions and nurses, railway staff and others are not responsible for the problems of their respective industries - the government has been in power for 12 years and has presided over failing railway companies, water companies dumping sewage into my rivers and a serious deterioration of A&E services not to mention some serious mistakes during the pandemic (discharging infected hospital patients into care homes, blunders in ordering PPE equipment, a grossly ineffective track and trace service, etc.). Most of us will not forget the political opportunism surrounding Brexit which enabled Johnson to become PM not the subsequent debacle of the Truss government. And these are people who regard themselves as the natural Party of government!

Grantanow

Too many people posting on this thread have swallowed Tory misinformation hook, line and sinker. They need to read some of the BBC and other fact checking sites. The unions and nurses, railway staff and others are not responsible for the problems of their respective industries - the government has been in power for 12 years and has presided over failing railway companies, water companies dumping sewage into my rivers and a serious deterioration of A&E services not to mention some serious mistakes during the pandemic (discharging infected hospital patients into care homes, blunders in ordering PPE equipment, a grossly ineffective track and trace service, etc.). Most of us will not forget the political opportunism surrounding Brexit which enabled Johnson to become PM not the subsequent debacle of the Truss government. And these are people who regard themselves as the natural Party of government!

Yes, and thank you.

Its a mess and a worry. We really do need a general election not in two years time but soon.

The NHS has too many managers and too few hands on staff. Until that is reversed there will be no change

THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE ON UC ARE IN WORK.

My DD works (very hard) for the government. Most people in her office are on UC and still struggling.

Sunak’s answer was to say that getting inflation down will lead to higher wages. He harps on about independent pay reviews but I heard today that they are subject to government input. If this is true then there is really something wrong.

Lovetopaint037

Sunak’s answer was to say that getting inflation down will lead to higher wages. He harps on about independent pay reviews but I heard today that they are subject to government input. If this is true then there is really something wrong.

Yes, the government set the "t's and C's" of pay reviews in the public sector Lovetopaint so they set a pre-agenda of what can be discussed and financial limits.

One of the problems of these pay reviews is that they were set up BEFORE before the big leap in inflation which lets all remember was partially triggered by the short Truss Led policy period and panics in the housing sector and financial markets..

Mollygo

MaizieD
I have to point out that the last Labour government didn't leave the country in a mess.
So why were they voted out? We seem to elect a new government when we are unhappy with what the existing government is doing. I thought David Cameron only got in because more voters were unhappy with what Gordon Brown did.

I think they were voted out because Labour had been in government for over a decade and voters don't seem to like long administrations.

And because the tories told a better story; which just happened to be lies. But it chimed nicely with the Thatcher declaration that a nation's economy was like that of a household.

(I also think that Cameron's promise to reduce immigration by a lot was instrumental, too. The British are xenophobes at heart)

By coincidence, I have just been reading a piece in the Guardian about political bullshitting.

We all lie sometimes, and around millions of tables there will be much bullshit spoken over the Christmas turkey. In British politics, the era of bullshit followed on naturally from a long spell of lies. Before Johnson, the most effective Tory of the post-Thatcher era was Osborne.

He blamed Labour and Gordon Brown for the banking crash, only later admitting that was untrue. He declared Labour’s 2008 package to bail out the banks would spark a run on the pound, before confessing: “Broadly speaking, the government did what was necessary.”

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/22/politics-difference-between-lies-bullshit

Interesting article. Worth a read.

We read a lot about how poorly paid they are,but never hear how much they actually get. These people are all graded and dont all earn the same amount. The experienced ambulance drivers and paramedics earn more than the others, which is right. Also a number of nurses work in their spare times for agencies which cost the NHS more.

Gwenisgreat1

The NHS has too many managers and too few hands on staff. Until that is reversed there will be no change

Unfortunately, unless the 'internal market' is reversed the layers of admin and management will not change.

Did you know that the NHS sometimes has to employ people to work out how it should bill itself because the system is so complex? According to my consultant.

No-one actually knows the cost, nor the benefit, of the internal market.

Has any democratic country ever been so broken by its own government than ours?

Today we have learnt that the government will delay improving the quality of our waters to a good standard from 2027 (as mandated by the EU) to, wait for it, 2063.
Another reason to feel shame in the U.K. Vote for Brexit and watch how they turn our rivers into open sewers. They have no conscience.

A resounding Yes. This government is heartless and incompetent unless you're super rich. I think it's part of a deliberate agenda towards privatization or two tiering of the NHS. I can't describe how very low and sad I feel at what the UK ( and more particularly, England ) is becoming. Backward and barbaric, Victorian times minus the philanthropy.

You will probably end up with a system similar to ours. A lot of private hospitals and medical services alongside the public system. The private hospitals seem to do very well, thank you very much and are forever expanding but the public hospitals tend to lag behind. I don’t see that the standard of medical care is any different but there are huge waiting lists for public hospitals whereas you can get into a private hospital quite quickly.

nanna8

You will probably end up with a system similar to ours. A lot of private hospitals and medical services alongside the public system. The private hospitals seem to do very well, thank you very much and are forever expanding but the public hospitals tend to lag behind. I don’t see that the standard of medical care is any different but there are huge waiting lists for public hospitals whereas you can get into a private hospital quite quickly.

I don't think we want a system similar to yours, thank you. We would just like ours to be sorted properly.

Rabbitgran

A resounding Yes. This government is heartless and incompetent unless you're super rich. I think it's part of a deliberate agenda towards privatization or two tiering of the NHS. I can't describe how very low and sad I feel at what the UK ( and more particularly, England ) is becoming. Backward and barbaric, Victorian times minus the philanthropy.

The belief in free-market, libertarian ideology requires a degree of 'heartlessness'. Compassion and concern for the wellbeing of ordinary people are not part of its tenets. Minimal state intervention and spending are.

If you factor in the incompetence - which has been clearly evident (witness the number of hasty u-turns, not to mention the disastrous short reign - of Truss - the Tory favourite for the position of PM at the time), you can see why we are where we are at the moment.

If you then add the party's self-interest, its determination to remain in power at all cost, then none of what is happening should come as a surprise.

There is a report produced by an American university which reckons that the more conservative the government, the worse working class outcomes.

This government is proving that beyond doubt.

Whitewavemark2

There is a report produced by an American university which reckons that the more conservative the government, the worse working class outcomes.

This government is proving that beyond doubt.

This government is proving that beyond doubt.

It certainly is!

I think this government has gone beyond "conservative" though - further north if you like. Though some in the party think it's drifting to a more centrist position and are defecting to Reform UK, the new kid on the block.

For Tories less preoccupied with Brexit but concerned about what they see as their party’s broader centrist drift, Reform UK is also proving attractive, with its deliberately wide policy offerings. One of which is "doing Brexit better". Well it sure couldn't have been "done" any worse. What was promised and what was and is being delivered has left Brexit voters feeling betrayed, because it isn't what they voted for, and when you look at the promises and hype pre-referendum, you can see they have a point. The main beneficiaries of Brexit appear to be lobbying groups chasing the corporate vision of a post-Brexit UK where rights, protections and standards are removed.

Do you have a link to the report?

Do you have a link to the report?

Or even its title, so we can look it up?

No I can’t do links. It was on CNN though.

Whitewavemark2

No I can’t do links. It was on CNN though.

If we know what it's called we can look it up.

That’s the problem, my ears only pricked up with the tail end of the report.

It’s bound to come up again though.

Here is something to consider though.