Starmer's speach this morning

Grany

Starmer have expelled 60+ Jews from his party those who support Palestine calling them anti Semitic. Starmer doesn’t think Israel is an apartheid state. Starmer has expelled more Jews than any other party leader. Isn’t he anti Semitic.

Of course he isn't Grany. You have to understand these were the wrong sort of Jews. They are Jews who have spoken out about human rights abuses in Palestine and that can't be permitted.

There was an interesting editorial in The Guardian yesterday talking about Keir Starmer mission to grow the economy.

He had made a remark that the UK might be "“overtaken by Poland" Sir Keir imagined British voters would be humiliated by finding themselves being notionally poorer than those in a former Communist state. But the Labour leader exposed a neurosis that grips him perhaps more tightly than the public."

The article concluded with " Poland demonstrates the limits of economic expansion, where everything is valued except that which makes life worthwhile. Labour’s invocation of a race with Poland to justify a nebulous growth mission highlights just how little the party has to say about how to attain the far superior goals of maximising wellbeing and reducing inequalities."

The Guardian supports Starmer but they seemed to have the same worries as I do about this concentration on growth.

I’ve just noticed something. If you take Grany away from Glorianny you are left with lion. Is that significant, are you the same person? Or is it because Jericho the lion was put forward as an alternative Labour leadership candidate by the pro Palestine arm of the party?

DaisyAnne

MaizieD

Germanshepherdsmum

Maizie, my ex mil worked for the NHS for years. I heard plenty of horror stories but of course it’s anecdotal. I also remember a series on tv a few years ago in which the chef James Martin tried to get NHS cooks to use pre-prepared fresh veg to make nutritious meals more cheaply than using the processed stuff they bought. Cheaper and patients enjoyed the food but they fell back into their old ways after he left. It’s what I refer to as ‘local government mentality’ after my years in the public sector; the private sector needs to make a profit and therefore efficiency and lack of waste are high up the list of priorities.

As I feared. Anecdotal.

I also remember a series on tv a few years ago in which the chef James Martin tried to get NHS cooks to use pre-prepared fresh veg

Of course, all NHS catering is outsourced to private providers now, isn't it? This tells me something about private sector 'efficiency and need to make a profit', not about NHS wastefulness.

When I working in NHS in house catering in the 1970s all our meat, fish and vegetables were fresh and purchased from local providers. That was just before Thatcher set about privatising 'hotel services'.

You overlook past academic studies organisational behaviour, Maizie.

It is well known that the bigger an organisation gets, the more "job crafting" happens. This can work to the advantage of the organisation but it can also mean an unwillingness to change from what gives you comfort in your job. I was once told that people stop seeing themselves as working for the organisation once the workforce gets over about 35. This wasn't an academic but someone who built and successfully ran several companies. It isn't the end of the world but they start seeing themselves as working for the Accounts Department, Factory 1, or however they define what they are doing.

Job crafting will make some people's job easier, some of it will be what the organisation needs - but not all. I think we do have to face the need for change and, I would guess, making smaller clinics, specialist hospitals, etc. We do have to respond to the fact that we are humans and that we work better than machines if that is taken into consideration.

This in no way supports GSM's claim that the NHS is wasteful and private companies are not. The studies you refer to were looking at behaviour in organisations. Do they make any judgement on how it affects the effectiveness of those organisations. Do they differentiate be tween state and private sector organisations and draw conclusions about their relative effectiveness?

The NHS is one of the largest organisations in the UK, if not the largest. It would be interesting to see, at the very least, an empirical comparison of 'waste' and inefficiency of the NHS and a large private sector organisation.

^ and, I would guess, making smaller clinics, specialist hospitals, etc.^

In other words, the model that existed 50+ years ago and has been destroyed by governments in the name of efficiency and cost effectiveness ever since?

Perhaps someone could explain how the amount spent on consultancy firms has helped to provide more staff and better treatment for patients www.opendemocracy.net/en/nhs-consultants-spending-millions-2022-covid/

Glorianny

Perhaps someone could explain how the amount spent on consultancy firms has helped to provide more staff and better treatment for patients www.opendemocracy.net/en/nhs-consultants-spending-millions-2022-covid/

I’m not sure what this has to do with Starmer’s speech, but planned spending for the Department of Health and Social Care in England is £180.2 billion in 2022/23. The majority of the Department's spending (£152.6 billion in 2022/23) is passed to NHS England and NHS Improvement for spending on health services. £83 million spent on consultancy services out of a budget of £152.6 billion.
Without knowing specifically what the consultancy services were used for it’s impossible to make a value judgment about whether the money was well spent or not- but it certainly isn’t a huge proportion of the total budget. We’d all prefer it if all possible money in the NHS was used on frontline services, but there are some huge issues which do need external evaluation, and the tighter the financial allocation, the more parts of the system start to fail. It’s chicken and egg.

MaizieD

Germanshepherdsmum

Maizie, my ex mil worked for the NHS for years. I heard plenty of horror stories but of course it’s anecdotal. I also remember a series on tv a few years ago in which the chef James Martin tried to get NHS cooks to use pre-prepared fresh veg to make nutritious meals more cheaply than using the processed stuff they bought. Cheaper and patients enjoyed the food but they fell back into their old ways after he left. It’s what I refer to as ‘local government mentality’ after my years in the public sector; the private sector needs to make a profit and therefore efficiency and lack of waste are high up the list of priorities.

As I feared. Anecdotal.

I also remember a series on tv a few years ago in which the chef James Martin tried to get NHS cooks to use pre-prepared fresh veg

Of course, all NHS catering is outsourced to private providers now, isn't it? This tells me something about private sector 'efficiency and need to make a profit', not about NHS wastefulness.

When I working in NHS in house catering in the 1970s all our meat, fish and vegetables were fresh and purchased from local providers. That was just before Thatcher set about privatising 'hotel services'.

definition anecdotal

"not necessarily true or reliable, because based on personal accounts rather than facts or research."

Is research always fact?

If people see things while working in the NHS, is that never a fact?

It supports the attempt to find changes and new ways to create efficiency in larger organisations Maizie. The NHS is a very large organisation. I didn't realise you had applied strict controls on this discussion.

As I understand it, larger organisations have intrinsic inefficiencies. They are less flexible, and it is more difficult to change the culture. These are important issues, particularly in personnel-heavy organisations such as the NHS.

There are efficiencies of scale in large organisations, but this helps most if you are selling. The NHS isn't. The government cannot close its eyes to the inevitable problems. That does not mean it cannot be run to do better for the population. It will have to be a very eyes-open operation though, that takes into account the 70 years of changes that have happened since the beginning of the NHS.

It was always a brilliant idea. However, you can't make it work from the extremes of either right or left. You need sensible heads to do it. Extreme and sensible rarely, if ever, come together.

Casdon

Glorianny

Perhaps someone could explain how the amount spent on consultancy firms has helped to provide more staff and better treatment for patients www.opendemocracy.net/en/nhs-consultants-spending-millions-2022-covid/

I’m not sure what this has to do with Starmer’s speech, but planned spending for the Department of Health and Social Care in England is £180.2 billion in 2022/23. The majority of the Department's spending (£152.6 billion in 2022/23) is passed to NHS England and NHS Improvement for spending on health services. £83 million spent on consultancy services out of a budget of £152.6 billion.
Without knowing specifically what the consultancy services were used for it’s impossible to make a value judgment about whether the money was well spent or not- but it certainly isn’t a huge proportion of the total budget. We’d all prefer it if all possible money in the NHS was used on frontline services, but there are some huge issues which do need external evaluation, and the tighter the financial allocation, the more parts of the system start to fail. It’s chicken and egg.

That's the most lame justification for pouring pubic money into private firms I've ever read.
It isn't much so it doesn't matter (yet everyone is saying the NHS is wasteful)
You couldn't do much with that much anyway. (well a few more nurses might be a bit more use)

DaisyAnne

It supports the attempt to find changes and new ways to create efficiency in larger organisations Maizie. The NHS is a very large organisation. I didn't realise you had applied strict controls on this discussion.

As I understand it, larger organisations have intrinsic inefficiencies. They are less flexible, and it is more difficult to change the culture. These are important issues, particularly in personnel-heavy organisations such as the NHS.

There are efficiencies of scale in large organisations, but this helps most if you are selling. The NHS isn't. The government cannot close its eyes to the inevitable problems. That does not mean it cannot be run to do better for the population. It will have to be a very eyes-open operation though, that takes into account the 70 years of changes that have happened since the beginning of the NHS.

It was always a brilliant idea. However, you can't make it work from the extremes of either right or left. You need sensible heads to do it. Extreme and sensible rarely, if ever, come together.

Sorry, DaisyAnne, but if you post something in response to a post of mine about a specific point and it doesn't support either the point I was making or the one that the poster I was originally responding to was making, then I think I'm at perfect liberty to point that out.

I'm actually in agreement with you about smaller being better, but that had nothing to do with my challenge to GSM to provide empirical evidence for her assertion.

The NHS might not be selling anything, but it has to meet targets and is expected to do so within its allocated budget. Which seems to me to put as much pressure on it to be efficient as the need to make money does on a private sector organisation.

Is research always fact?

Research, if properly carried out, would, in this instance, be collecting evidence from multiple sources ans making the evidence base as wide as possible.

If people see things while working in the NHS, is that never a fact?

It might be fact in relation to what they see, but it is like a pixel on a computer monitor; it is just part of the over all picture and the picture, when all the pixels are seen together, might not be what their 'fact' leads them to believe.

There is, BTW, a huge amount of waste in many other sectors, too. Unsold food discarded by supermarkets and the reported junking of unsold stock by Amazon are a couple of instances that come to mind...

Glorianny

Casdon

Glorianny

Perhaps someone could explain how the amount spent on consultancy firms has helped to provide more staff and better treatment for patients www.opendemocracy.net/en/nhs-consultants-spending-millions-2022-covid/

I’m not sure what this has to do with Starmer’s speech, but planned spending for the Department of Health and Social Care in England is £180.2 billion in 2022/23. The majority of the Department's spending (£152.6 billion in 2022/23) is passed to NHS England and NHS Improvement for spending on health services. £83 million spent on consultancy services out of a budget of £152.6 billion.
Without knowing specifically what the consultancy services were used for it’s impossible to make a value judgment about whether the money was well spent or not- but it certainly isn’t a huge proportion of the total budget. We’d all prefer it if all possible money in the NHS was used on frontline services, but there are some huge issues which do need external evaluation, and the tighter the financial allocation, the more parts of the system start to fail. It’s chicken and egg.

That's the most lame justification for pouring pubic money into private firms I've ever read.
It isn't much so it doesn't matter (yet everyone is saying the NHS is wasteful)
You couldn't do much with that much anyway. (well a few more nurses might be a bit more use)

Okay then, you tell us under what circumstances you think it’s justifiable for any money whatsoever to be spent on NHS consultancy fees, that will give us a starting point?

I cant say I like clever words being used sometimes.
Truth matters more.

fancythat

I cant say I like clever words being used sometimes.
Truth matters more.

Care to explain what you mean by this?

Not really.
For the sake of yourself as well, if you know you use clever words to try and hide things from others, it is a better idea not to. The end.

fancythat

Not really.
For the sake of yourself as well, if you know you use clever words to try and hide things from others, it is a better idea not to. The end.

Baffled.

MaizieD

DaisyAnne

It supports the attempt to find changes and new ways to create efficiency in larger organisations Maizie. The NHS is a very large organisation. I didn't realise you had applied strict controls on this discussion.

As I understand it, larger organisations have intrinsic inefficiencies. They are less flexible, and it is more difficult to change the culture. These are important issues, particularly in personnel-heavy organisations such as the NHS.

There are efficiencies of scale in large organisations, but this helps most if you are selling. The NHS isn't. The government cannot close its eyes to the inevitable problems. That does not mean it cannot be run to do better for the population. It will have to be a very eyes-open operation though, that takes into account the 70 years of changes that have happened since the beginning of the NHS.

It was always a brilliant idea. However, you can't make it work from the extremes of either right or left. You need sensible heads to do it. Extreme and sensible rarely, if ever, come together.

Sorry, DaisyAnne, but if you post something in response to a post of mine about a specific point and it doesn't support either the point I was making or the one that the poster I was originally responding to was making, then I think I'm at perfect liberty to point that out.

I'm actually in agreement with you about smaller being better, but that had nothing to do with my challenge to GSM to provide empirical evidence for her assertion.

The NHS might not be selling anything, but it has to meet targets and is expected to do so within its allocated budget. Which seems to me to put as much pressure on it to be efficient as the need to make money does on a private sector organisation.

What an insight into Maizie world.

You seem to think you own the conversation where you have contributed to it; that you can set the rules if you are one of the posters. It seems you will only allow people to be for your point of view, or against it. So you have elected yourself as the one who decides that lived experience (such as GSM's) is of no value and that a different perspective must be a flawed argument.

Interesting.

Best not to give you my thoughts about sales and government targets not being, in any way, the same thing or even comparable then. That sales and profits are actual but NHS targets, while working when the Blair government brought them in, are now poorly designed, flawed and distorted by political stance and almost impossible to carry out in inappropriate (if not down-right dangerous) buildings in conditions that include under-funding and, under-staffing.

Or that using private providers is often a Conservative government's way of exploiting yet more workers. After all, what does anyone but you know about these things?

fancythat

I cant say I like clever words being used sometimes.
Truth matters more.

There has always been, as I understand it, an unwritten rule that people don't criticise those on GN who have difficulty with writing. I think criticising people "clever words" probably also comes into that.

people people's

@jeremycorbyn I’d like to apologise for putting my hand around this donkey so he could take advantage of the photo opportunity

— Conor Duignan (@ConorD26) March 3, 2023
I’m the one pictured getting a selfie and Jesus I regret it, your a pretentious dick who laughed in my face when I asked you about jeremy corbyn. You asked us to retake the selfie so ur buddy could take another photo which shows again ur using John humes name as a photo op

If Starmer was confident of winning power he wouldn’t rig selections

Labour: Starmer is paving the way for the triumph of dark politics

www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-labour-starmer-dark-politics-triumph-paving-way

The most active Tory supporter on this forum. Grany

I do wonder what sort of Labour party it is that cannot accommodate any left leaning policies. Even Blair who shifted the party to the right knew that there was a place for the more left wing and those who disagreed with him. There has never before been a Labour leader who has set such restrictive policies and demonised so many. All of course without a single criticism in the press. If Corbyn had banned one Jew from the party there would have been an out cry, but Starmer bans many and then outlaws Jewish Voice for Labour. Support for Palestine and Palestinians is forbidden. I can only think one thing, any organisation which begins banning people for their beliefs never stops at one belief, it always goes on to ban more. It is sad day for freedom of speech.
Read one woman's letter about her dead husband www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/mike-howard-faced-antisemitism-from-starmer-not-party-members/