Theresa May is a liar ?

At least we're not stuck with Donald Trump! Count your blessings. ?

Ok maybe if we're splitting hairs Baggs, chaos is too strong a word. However, it would be difficult to claim that it's business as usual on the political front in the UK.
I don't believe Theresa May is a liar, so far as what she says about Brexit. I don't envy the woman. She was a Remainer and is imo doing her best to manage the rabble in her own party in working towards the least worst solution for the UK as we stagger towards leaving the EU.
Meanwhile, our public services are becoming chaotic. The prisons, the NHS, education, children and adult services, the list is endless and the austerity approach causing chaos. I'm much more concerned about that than the fact a cabbage is costing £1 in Morrisons.

Good post, iam, and I agree with the spirit of it, especially first para. I don't agree that public services are becoming chaotic and I'm not splitting hairs by saying that.

I agree that things are going wrong on a large scale in public services but I maintain that, in general terms, they are still working pretty well in spite of the austerity approach. This is not ideal, obviously, and I'm as in favour of beneficial and efficient reforms as anyone else.

Chaos, the term chaos, is ridiculously overused. Chaos is what happens after a huge volcanic eruption or a tsunami. And even then chaos doesn't last for long as people help to clear up the chaos.

So yes, I'm saying stop using the wrong terms. It's annoying and it ramps up the ridiculous so that reality is lost.

Saying the country is in a state of chaos is simply not true so it's ironic that it's said on a thread accusing someone else of being a liar.

What’s happening in Venezuela is chaos so I agree with Baggs

Ok - using the correct description is important. How about our public services are being destroyed by the austerity approach? They aren't dead yet, unlike that famous Parrot but they're well on their way to becoming deceased. Talk to most health care workers, teachers, police officers, social workers, employees for the ministry of justice - it's very difficult to find anyone who feels their area isn't going down hill in a handcart. Yes yes, I know we all like a moan but I experienced the decline in my area of work, from which I am relieved to be retired. Talking to colleagues who still love their work convinces me things are not improving. It's grim grim grim and so irritating. I'm all for accountability in public service, including how much is spent and how well finances are used. Closing drug alcohol services = pressure o mental health/police/prisons. Chaos????

I work in an area of public service. When I was a kid the kind of service my workplace gives simply didn't exist. Decline? Not in the long term looking with a long view. Health and education services have increased in my life time and still are doing. It's how they are funded that's at issue and, yes, in particular instances there have been cuts in funding/resources that individuals feel acutely. I have every sympathy for those affected. But the real issue is still how should we fund ever-increasing requirements of modern life?

We seem to have drifted off topic. I've nothing to say about no deal/bad deal, etc. My attitude is wait and see. So I'll leave others to it.

I don't think Theresa May is a liar. I think she is doing her best in a difficult situation with the opposing sides of her party being for Brexit or Remain.
For those concerned about the effect of the dry summer on prices, prices have largely risen because of the fall in the pound caused by sterling. On a personal level, house prices have fallen a lot making it more difficult to move and gain a retirement nest egg and a family member has been made redundant as the company wanted to remain in the EU and moved to mainland Europe. I think this proves that Brexit is bad for the economy. How much worse will things get after Brexit?

Theresa May it unnecessarily difficult, maybe impossible, to arrive at a negotiated deal by laying down these stupid "red lines" at the outset.

A responsible PM would have looked at the referendum result, realised how divided the country was, and gone back to the EU to see if they would offer more than they offered David Cameron, which might have made it more obvious to most that our best option was to Remain in the EU and avoid the colossal expense and damage which leaving would entail.

She then compounded her mistake by triggering Article 50 when she had not been able to get an agreement with her own party, let alone Parliament. That was the height of irresponsibility. I don't hold her as much to blame as that reckless gambler David Cameron, but she is running a close second.

I stand by my opinion that this country is in chaos - not only with the way the Brexit negotiations have been handled (not the easy peasy deal that Liam Fox originally suggested) but also in the decimation of all our public services.

Most people are already aware of the crisis in the NHS. As a consultant writing in the Independent said "The fact that there has been chronic underfunding over the last seven years seems not to have been addressed too widely as a cause for the current problems." and he is one amongst many working on the front line who has expressed this view. Saving money in the short term leads to greater expense in the long term, as most sensible people are aware.

The state of the justice system is perhaps not as visible to people as that of the health system but it too is falling apart at the seams. The government has had to take back control of HMP Birmingham because of the terrible job done by G4S. The government has also acknowledged that privatising substantial parts of the probation service has been a failure.

A 2017 government report showed some 50% of criminal cases are not prepared for hearings after the CPS lost a third of its workforce.

In 2012 legal aid entitlement was removed from family, housing, immigration, debt and employment, so the most vulnerable were left without support. Those trying to represent themselves take up hours of expensive court time and such cases often have to be adjourned, causing knock-on delays in other cases.

Just before leaving for their hols, the government announced that seven more courts are to be shut and sold off. 258 have closed and been sold off in England and Wales since 2010. This is what is happening now with public assets – hospitals, schools, police stations, courts, etc.

Polly Toynbee wrote in the Guardian this week:

"What have they [our MPs] been doing, prattling away about “sovereignty” and the supremacy of our laws over European courts, when gross injustice is done here daily by a legal system in meltdown, as reported by the Public Accounts Committee? Two-thirds of crown court cases are delayed or collapse, leaving 55% of witnesses saying they would never do it again."

Our transport system is also falling apart. There is no other word but "chaos" to describe what happened when train timetables were changed and there appears to be no resolve to improve the totally unsatisfactory local rail networks in the North. As to the roads, a Moneywise article this year stated "The poor state of the UK's roads has led to a more than five-fold increase in pothole insurance claims, the AA reported." This is not a recent problem, the Daily Mail made a similar report back in 2013. Additionally, a Buses in Crisis report found that squeezed local authorities across England and Wales have taken £182m away from supported bus services over the decade, affecting more than 3,000 bus routes.

It is also widely believed that the marketisation of higher education has resulted in the ridiculous situation where universities are making non-conditional placement offers to students. It has been reported that some of these students have then decided there is no need to work hard for their A levels, or indeed to take them at all. This will store up immense problems for the future. The academy programme that has been pushed through by the government is not overseen locally and there have been more and more reports of mismanagement of finances and out and out fraud.

The list is endless - from oversight and regulation of housing standards, catering establishments, care homes, schools, etc, etc, etc.

Eloethan I agree with your comments about the legal system, and having just finished reading ‘Stories of the Law and How it’s Broken’ by the Secret Barrister, I think your choice of the word chaos is apt, at least to describe that area of public life.
It’s beyond worrying when you think about the constraints under which both the CPS and Defence barristers have to work, and the effect this must be having on our justice system.

And further, in relation to education, the I reported yesterday that a new formula that was designed to increase the per-pupil funding for schools in the most deprived areas has been put back to 2021. The head of policy at the National Association of Head Teachers has warned that this will leave schools that are in "an absolute crisis of funding" even worse off.

Crisis is another overused word. To me chaos and crisis imply things that don't work at all. Without denying any of the examples you give, eloethan, my impression is that the UK is working quite well, all things considered. There's a lot wrong, of course, and an awful lot that needs improving, but my feeling is that that has always been the case to a greater or lesser degree.

From Scotland, the issue of unconditional university offers to A level students and the effect we are told they are having, is decidedly odd. It is common practice in Scotland for unconditional university offers to be given to pupils who have done well in school when they apply to university. Offers are given on the strength of a pupil's record to date while they still have a school year to go. I have not heard of this having a detrimental effect on pupil final exam performance here.

I do wonder if the lazy boneses who don't bother to do their A levels properly should be going to university at all. I also wonder what proportion of the whole number of students with unconditional offers they amount to. I bet it's a small proportion. I'd be interested to know if any actual figures of the phenonmenon have been published or whether all we're hearing is hearsay based on a very few examples.

The seventeen and eighteen years olds I've known this last year have self-respect enough not to be idiots about their school work. I reckon they are typical of their peers rather than the non-workers.

baggs I assume you still live in Scotland and are perhaps not so familiar with what is going on in many English towns and cities as Eloethan is.

Most of my family live in England. Their experiences with schools, health services, etc do not seem to suggest outright chaos.

Scotland is not so very different from England. There have been cuts here too, over many years.

What exactly is a school in crisis? What does crisis mean in that context? Is the expression just meant to convey that there have been cuts in the education budget or something worse, such as teachers not turning up because they're so stressed, parents refusing to take their kids to school because conditions are so awful?

Also, how about some actual figures re those A level students? Without evidence I don't believe it's a huge problem. If it's a problem at all, I think it's more because universities have changed into businesses who need more and more students for reasons other than good education.

Most of my news about current affairs comes from England too. Nearly all of it in fact.

Scotland started from a lower base line than England too. I am constantly amazed at the massive differences I see in Scotland from when I lived here (Dundee and Edinburgh) in the seventies and eighties. Positive differences.

I still live in the UK. Stop being Englanderish.

Varian, Corbyn said the day after the referendum results that Article 50 must be triggered immediately

labourlist.org/2016/06/corbyn-article-50-has-to-be-invoked-now/

BTW, several of my English school friends got what were virtually unconditional offers, two Es, back in the 1970s, for courses that normally asked for As & Bs.

My brother got a very low offer for medical school too: 3 Cs.

Unis have always done this for high calibre students they really want. What's different is that now it's for a different purpose: it's a way to make money.

I presume ‘Englanderish’ is intended as some sort of insult.

Public spending per capita in Scotland in 2016-17 was 16% higher than the U.K. average, so unless Scottish councils and Health Authorities are misspending or incompetent, it follows that public services must be better than in England.
researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN04033