Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

..

there are so many major problems across the nhs, that i have sympathy for whoever has been given this poisoned chalice

throwing barrowloads of money at the system will not really solve the inherent problems

as an easy example .....
if you talk to GPs, they will point out that (at least) 25% of GPs will retire within the next 3/5 years (it may be as high as 40%, but that sounds exaggerated)
part of the reason for this mass exit relates to the ever-increasing and increasingly unrealistic targets that are loaded on them year on year
it also seems that a high % of newly qualified doctors are emigrating, many to australia, where it must be assumed that conditions and pay are much better

and the above is just a very small part

My sisters a nurse . never really moans about things or people , but my God she tells me she can't wait to retire from it . Extra work less people to do it .

Extra work for the medics, and more tick box merchants to check it.

It all sounds wonderfull, increase in medical staff all round...so why is it so difficult to see a gp?


http://www.nhsconfed.org/resources/key-statistics-on-the-nhs

inter alia, because there is an ageing population requiring more care, more and more qualifying GPs are women who only want to work 2/3 days a week, there are assuredly fewer doctors per 000 population, fewer qualifying medics want to become GPs ..... and so on and so on and so on

Victim,

Ask teachers, lecturers, social workers, civil servants, "public servants", "law and order", the same question on whether they wish they could retire.

At the moment many of them are demoralised, depressed and becoming disinterested in what they are doing.

Pissed off by the administration and constant changes, "bullying" which has been introduced over recent years.

I wonder why?

Hence the cartoon!

fred would say that wouldn't he, implying that "pissed off by the administration and constant changes, "bullying" which has been introduced over recent years" is nothing whatsoever to do with the previous labour gov't

Well I spend a lot of my time wondering about the future , how many roads do you build how many planes do you build , how fast do you run trains , how many more houses do you build . etc etc . All supposedly to help the human race , which is in as much turmoil as it ever was . Population explosions , no real thought out system just keep on keeping on . It's only going to get worse .

I read last night that there are 1.25 billion more people in the world since 1997 ,if that's correct i'm surprised .

Well stop constantly voting for it if you don't like it, you misarable Tory moaners.

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

Quite scary .

Welcome back Stan.
2517

I don't remember " How to slow down the Human population of Planet Earth " in the Labour manifesto Stan or did I miss it .

Everything in the future is scary , it's unstoppable .

The Labour manifesto wouldn't have contained anything sensible like that as it was full of garbage. Labour can safefully be ignored for at least a generation.

RATS DESERTING A SINKING SHIP!!

OR

IF WE CAN"T BEAT THEM LET"S JOIN THEM?


HYPOCRITICAL LEFT WHINGERS..... LABOUR 2015 LOL!!!!!


Bonfire of the policies as Labour challengers queue up to ditch Ed Miliband's legacy
Europe, mansion tax, tuition fees and Gordon Brown's deficit up for debate as would-be leaders tear up Miliband's platform



By Matthew Holehouse, Political Correspondent7:00AM BST 18 May 2015
Candidates for the Labour leadership have denounced Ed Miliband’s manifesto.
Opposition to the EU referendum, the mansion tax and a defence of Gordon Brown’s deficits were cast aside in what the Tories hailed as a “bonfire of the policies”.
Jon Cruddas, the co-author of the manifesto that led to Labour winning just 232 MPs and 30 per cent of the vote, said it was the worst crisis for the party since 1918. He called for the creation of a separate English Labour Party to win back voters who had deserted for the Tories and Ukip.
Andy Burnham emerged as the front runner after winning support from Rachel Reeves, the shadow welfare secretary regarded as the brightest of the 2010 intake and a friend of Chuka Umunna, who quit the race last week.


He was also backed by figures from across the party: Luciana Berger, another close friend of Mr Umunna; Michael Dugher, a former spokesman to Gordon Brown who has called for more “street fighters” in senior Labour ranks; Lord Falconer, Tony Blair’s former flatmate; and Ian Lavery, a leading socialist.
Combined with the likely union support, he is well-positioned to eclipse Liz Kendall, a Blairite shadow care minister, and Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary.
• Tony Blair's 1997 Cabinet: Where are they now?
Tristram Hunt, the shadow education secretary who is yet to officially declare he is running, and Mary Creagh, the shadow development secretary, are more distant prospects.
Today Harriet Harman, the acting leader, will announce that Labour’s leadership hustings will be held in Tory marginals in an attempt to connect with the voters that will decide the outcome of the 2020 election.



Ed Miliband strongly opposed David Cameron’s proposed EU referendum, saying it would destabilise British business.
But in a major u-turn, Mr Burnham called for the vote to be brought forward a year, and said the renegotiation should be far reaching to address public concern on immigration.
"The country has voted now for a European referendum and under my leadership the Labour party will not be a grudging presence on that stage. We will now embrace it. It should be brought forward to 2016," he said.
"If Cameron doesn't deliver legislative change in terms of abuse of the rules of free movement by agencies and the effect on people with jobs here, it won't be good enough. It really won't be good enough."
Liz Kendall also backed an early vote. “I think we should have the referendum, take on the argument early, strongly and passionately. Cameron is depressingly unambitious in his stance to the negotiations,” she said.
As shadow health secretary, Mr Burnham had repeatedly argued for Mr Miliband’s mansion tax, with the £1.2 billion in proposed revenue earmarked to increase the NHS payroll.


But in an attempt to present himself as a centrist, he yesterday washed his hands of the policy.
“I think we have got to get away from things that look like symbolism. I am going to put the mansion tax in that category. I am not saying it was necessarily completely the wrong thing to do, but in its name I think it spoke to something that the public don’t particularly like, which is the politics of envy,” he told the Observer.
He added that Mr Miliband’s infamous “predators versus producers” speech on business in 2011 was a “failure of communication”.
Ms Creagh said that Labour had “lost the argument with the British people on Europe” and called for a “fast” renegotiation.
She joined Mr Burnham and Mr Hunt in attacking the mansion tax. "It alienated a whole bunch of people who said we were against them getting on and doing well,” she said.
She said that instead of pledging to cut tuition fees by £3,000, Labour should have instead pledged to introduce free bus travel for teenagers, adding the manifesto was comprised of “micro policies”.


With the exception of Ms Cooper, a consensus has emerged among the contenders that Labour should not have run a deficit before the financial crisis.
“The last Labour government was adopting a careful approach, but we did let the deficit get too large,” said Mr Burnham.
“This bonfire of the policies is nothing more than a cynical attempt to distance Labour's wannabe leaders from their tarnished record,” said a Tory source.
Mr Cruddas, whose philosophical approach was regarded by some MPs as part of Mr Miliband’s problem, said Labour's defeat was the worst since 1918, when Labour won 57 seats and 21.5 per cent of the vote.
"Arguably, it's one of the great crises of the Labour Party's history," he told the BBC World At One.
“I argued that the 2010 defeat was actually the worst defeat in Labour history, since 1918. The defeat of 10 days ago was much worse. So this is profound.”
"We have to go on a journey of self discovery and that's not an abstract indulgent thing.
"We have to re-establish what is the purpose of the centre-left political party nowadays in terms of its economic strategy, its social strategy, its approach to questions of democracy, power, citizenship."
How the the candidates changed their tune
Andy Burnham in March
“We will tackle the NHS workforce crisis by recruiting 20,000 more nurses and 8,000 more GPs, paid for by a mansion tax on properties worth over £2 million.”
Andy Burnham now
“I think we have got to get away from things that look like symbolism. I am going to put the mansion tax in that category. I am not saying it was necessarily completely the wrong thing to do, but in its name I think it spoke to something that the public don’t particularly like, which is the politics of envy.”
Mary Creagh in November 2014
“On every issue, from Europe, to green energy, as soon as the Tory right wing raises its head, the Tory leadership folds like a deckchair. David Cameron made meeting the 0.7 per cent aid target a symbol of the change he claimed to bring to the Tory party - a change that lies in tatters as they bang on about Europe and stand up only for a privileged few. "
Mary Creagh now
“It’s clear that we have lost the argument with the British people. They have voted in a Conservative government and we are going to have this referendum.”
Liz Kendall in January
“If, God forbid, the Tories were the biggest party again, what kind of country are we going to be? Cameron will be dragged to the Right by his own backbenchers let alone UKIP. We would be out of Europe."
Liz Kendall now
“I think we should have the referendum, take on the argument early, strongly and passionately. Cameron is depressingly unambitious in his stance to the negotiations.
Tristram Hunt, before the election
“A future Labour Government will have the right priorities for driving up school standards.
“A Labour Government will be relentless in focusing its education reforms on the demands of the future.
Tristram Hunt now
"I was disappointed that education fell below grab rails [for the elderly] in the Labour manifesto".
Yvette Cooper, November 2014
“The next Labour government will finish the job of balancing the books but we will do so in a fairer way by making different choices from the Tories.”
Yvette Cooper now
“We seemed too slow to really face up to the challenge - I think that's true in 2010 and in 2015 - that we needed to balance the books and live within our means. That was the real problem and that was the real reason why people didn't trust us on the economy.”

i'm voting and even contemplating campaigning for len mccluskey who surely has to be one of the best advertisements of why the voting public rejected labour's election manifesto - and that was a soft version of what mccluskey would now like to impose on the next labour puppet leader

i really hope tristram hunt decides to stand because mccluskey must loathe him on sight

Manuel,

Go back to the Thatcher period and the attempt of "privatisation", re-organisation, and change of "financing" of the Universities with their change of contracts etc..

Attempt at restructure of NHS without paying for it, and failing to replace worn out "infrastructure".

That, in a similar way applied to "education" in general. (PFIs introduced initially in that period.)

This is when part of the problems originated from and much of change of mood in universities, education and public services in general.

In any organisation changes of probably always necessary, but they have to be fully thought out and probably tested out on pilot schemes.

Not as rushes of blood to the head by short sighted politicians.