The UK: The Keir Starmer years

WHATEVER you think of him, HOW THE ACTUAL FUCK did Starmer EVER end up with a worse approval rating than SUNAK MANAGED? :D
The papers. Even if he does something of value, you don't hear about it, it's just the WFA and the economy "tanking" (which it isn't).
 
WHATEVER you think of him, HOW THE ACTUAL FUCK did Starmer EVER end up with a worse approval rating than SUNAK MANAGED? :D
The left are never going to fall in line behind Starmer the way the non-reform right would have fallen in behind Sunak, so his opinion polls are going have a lower ceiling and floor than Tory PMs, Truss excepted.
 
The left are never going to fall in line behind Starmer the way the non-reform right would have fallen in behind Sunak, so his opinion polls are going have a lower ceiling and floor than Tory PMs, Truss excepted.

Whilst I agree entirely with the first point, the right WERE divided in the general election by Reform et al, as well as the general malaise at the ABSOLUTE INCOMPETENCE of the Tory establishment.
 
Reform, Tories AND Labour left ALL hate him.

So he's naturally more unpopular than any Tory leader.
 
I guess so. I just think I’d struggle to quantify it although I’m probably overthinking it somewhat :D
 
I get the issue though because you can answer that question with the affirmative and not really approve of the politician, right?

Like, if asked if Nigel Farage was doing a good job as leader of Reform you might say YES, he's clearly an asset to them and gets lots of media coverage, but also think he's evil.
 
Unfortunately his children's private school had to sell the world's tiniest violin.
 
All four of Armstrong’s boys are at private school; the only time his bonhomie cracks is when Keir Starmer’s VAT policy comes up. “I’m feeling really, really angry about that, and extremely poor,” he says. “In our case, private school is the only place available for our children to learn music. Our 10-year-old has special educational needs, he couldn’t survive in the state system. We have chosen that not because we’re evil, and not because we want to buy a head-start for our children, but we want them to have as good an education as we can get.

“There’s a real anger towards private schools from some quarters and I find that so antithetical to everything I believe about society. There was something really vituperative about [Starmer] bringing it in in the middle of the school year. I loathe tribal politics. I’m allergic to it from the Right and scared of it from the Left. It felt really unpleasant and nasty.”

Then there is Starmer’s reform of inheritance tax on farming. “Another source of anger,” he says, before checking himself. “We’re farmers, of farming stock. We’re very much affected [by the changes]. But I had better not get into that.”

Bloody vituperative Starmer.
 
Why do these smug Tory cunts insist on saying that they just want their kids to get the best education possible? As if the poors who can’t drop £15,000 a term to send Tamara to Bedales don’t want their kids to get the best education possible.
 
Thangam Debbonaire is now Baroness Debbonaire of De Beauvoir Town :disco:

(Fuck you Bristol).
 
IMG_8166.jpeg
 
Thangam Debbonaire is now Baroness Debbonaire of De Beauvoir Town :disco:

(Fuck you Bristol).

Lisa Nandy found clearing her desk at the department of arts, sports, culture, teletext and whatever else is in there these days.
 
This sounds like a win-win to me. Either the NHS will be noticeably improved from its current state or it will be the end of Wes Streeting’s career. Both highly positive outcomes. :disco:
 
That reads like a good thing to me? Won’t that massively reduce (in theory) the amount of privatisation and red tape?
 
Won’t that massively reduce (in theory) the amount of privatisation and red tape?

They would need to fix the red tape before they can tackle the privatisation issue. There'd be a lot of procedural change at a wider level than just NHSE to support it.

I worked for a private provider for some years until quite recently. The NHS bods commissioning us weren't doing so because they were raging capitalists; they were often resentful. It was usually because government / DoH spend policies encourage short term thinking; much, much easier for them to get sign off for outsourcing than for the lump sum investments needed to establish services themselves. There were also some fun VAT quirks (whether deliberate or unintentional) that financially incentivised them.

There definitely is a lot of red tape that is in the NHS' direct hands of course. The number of contract meetings I'd attend where there'd be two of us, and then twelve NHS attendees giving up a day of their time. Most of them were duplicating roles (like four accountants) because the NHS had fragmented themselves into so many individual silos who all wanted to play. It contributed to the ridiculous truth that sometimes a private provider could genuinely run services at a lower cost.
 
I also know people who worked for NHS in various projects and contracts, none of which were actually about directly helping the public, and the amount of wastage on bureaucracy sounds crazy. I get that a company that big is going to need strategic oversight but it always feels so top heavy, and I’m sure with the Tories having their mits on it the last 20 years means not a lot will have changed on that front. God forbid we cull a few executive chains in order to fund a payrise for nurses.

I also imagine the constant threat of the NHS being stripped and mined for parts, and being cash strapped, is a natural fuel for politics in the company as the executives sustain a culture of cut-throat politics to justify their jobs. That cycle is very difficult to undo.

A reboot is what it needs. How effective it can be in weeding out the wastage remains to be seen.
 
Cash will be king as much as red tape

Taking services back in house will often require immediate and upfront cash injections. That's unlikely to be compatible with Labour's economic priorities, no matter what their ideology on privatisation is.

I'd also say a lot of the bureaucracy I saw wasn't actually down to "executive" culture - but because of the push to localise decision making. CCGs being the biggest example; hundreds of small independent groups doing things separately. Hence my meetings involving duplicate accountants, duplicate contract managers, duplicate clinical leads, all for a service that might not have covered even a single county.

I'm sure localisation had many benefits - but finances and efficiencies absolutely not. "Putting power in the hands of local people" is never going to attract negative attention though.
 
What you’re describing there is almost identical to what blights local government as well.

It’s not always the systems that have been created that are the problem. It’s the people who end up running them.
 
Not to sound like a broken record, but they're really not dispelling the accusation that they're just RED TORIES.

Even George Osbourne thinks this is too far!
 

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