Make your own tory poster

[oafc0000]

Thought of another one

 

[leeslover]

I am sure they are entitled to there opinions...

No doubt, but I regret that some people in the country are able to influence the governement strongly to increase and improve the terms and conditions they work under at the expense of everyone else.

 

 

 

 

And a good thing it is... Paying people a decent wage is the right thing to do. The pay within the NHS pre 97 was shocking.

 

Actually it isn't. A shop wouldn't improve it's service to the customers by giving it's staff big pay increases, it would just lose a load of money (cf £183 billion budget deficit). No sensible organisation increases it's pay other than to attract more or better qualified staff, which is plainly not the case with the NHS. This is not to denigrate the work of people in the NHS, many (although not all) have hard jobs, as do lots of people, but to say that they deserve a big increase when they were doing their preferred job already frankly makes no sense to me. If they would work at a lower rate anyway I would rather have 5 staff in a team looking after an unwell relative rather than 4. I dare say an unemployed person or someone in a job paid way below NHS levels would feel the same.

 

 

 

It is a little simplistic to expect this to just automatically save money.

I worry about your business sense if you can't see a saving in having a job done by someone earning say £100-150k being done by someone on maybe £25-40k. The only way it doesn't save you money or bring benefits is if the doctors carry on earning the same (or much more) whilst not doing any more work in the spare time created. Logically you would change the balance and have either less doctors and more technology, or some other arrangement.

Edited March 17, 2010 by leeslover

[leeslover]

Double entry

Edited March 17, 2010 by leeslover

[oafc0000]

I worry about your business sense

 

Don't you worry yourself at all... My business sense more than pays the bills...

 

Reading a lot of what you said sounds like the rubbish arguments I heard in the late 90's against the NMW. Fact is too many people are still given a terrible wage while the top continue to pay themselves hundreds of thousands. NMW should be increased for a start IMO...

 

The fact people where making do on rubbish pay is not a reason to keep the status quo... Fair wages for everyone should be the aim.

Edited March 17, 2010 by oafc0000

[rudemedic]

I can only comment upon my own experiences in the last 10 years... Three visits to Oldham A&E and seen in less than three hours... Five vists to Warrington A&E and never took more than 1 hour to be seen. Now I remember going when I was younger under the torys and it taking well over 7 hours to be seen.

 

What are you saying ? I should be made to wait seven hours ?

 

NHS Budget under the Torys was something like £35 billion. Currently under Labour it is something like £135 billion.

 

2002-03: £65.4bn

2003-04: £72.1bn

2004-05: £79.3bn

2005-06: £87.2bn

2006-07: £95.9bn

2007-08: £105.6bn

 

Mother in law is a staff nurse at Warrington General... Mum, Dad, Brother and Brother in law all working at the NHS in various capacities. One thing the ALL agree on is the only thing you can hang on Labours door is not getting 100% value for money for all the money that has been spent. aka wastage on managers etc. But that money has made a difference.

 

To make claims that the NHS is no better under Labour is to be frank, :censored:ing absurd and grounded in zero reality.

 

So you are basing how good the targets are by your own experiences- OK fair enough its what you have to go on. Could it be that when you were younger and needed to go to A+E it wasn't the target that made you wait it was the number of doctors. My parents tell me of times when the senior doctor running the A+E was a registrar (the most senior junior doctor- if that makes sense) nowadays most A+E departments have at least 7 consultants- A+E managment changed not because the government told it too but because the medical profession realised it needed to and that was sometime before 1997.

 

NHS spending has improved under Labour, and if you spend more money the service you get is going to be better. If you had said the NHS has gotten better under Labour would you have found an argument from me- no. The NHS has improved under Labour and I never said differently. My point was about NHS targets and the difference it makes- you kind of make my point for me by saying that some of the budget gets wasted on managers. Managers are there often to ensure that government targets that have no real bearing on clinical care, or are measured in a way which is liable for bias, are met in order to stop the trust looking bad. This is my point the 4hr wait in A+E means that some busybody with a clipboard is telling medical staff who needs to be seen just because they've been sat there for too long when in reality they often shouldn't be there.

 

Your point about NHS spending under Labour is very valid but have you considered how they got that money and the consequences we are living up to now? I'm not an economist but if Labour had spent less on the NHS would we have a worse NHS- yes, but if they had done that would we not be in the financial position we are in- perhaps. I'm not saying I would have liked them to have spent less money I'm just unsure what the overall consequences for the country would be now if they had done.

 

Now as I've mentioned before I'm not very good at quoting from more than one post so the next bit is a general reply to some of the points you and LL have made.

 

As nurses are not trained to prescribe those that are get paid more, which seems fair enough to me (that probably says more about nurses training). A nurse who can prescribe gets a wage of about £35k/year (that's an educated guess) for working 37.5 hours a week. I mentioned previously what the lowest junior doctor gets, a big part of an F1's job is to write out prescriptions having been told what to prescribe by someone more senior- that's how it costs more money. Paying nurses to do a doctor's job is fine by me, but it will only save you money if the nurse is getting paid less than the doctor who does that job. Often nurses who prescribe can only prescribe in their area of expertise and aren't very good at prescribing in other fields (and usually aren't allowed to). This means that if patient x comes in with condition A, the relevant specialist nurse, N, for condition A can do all the prescribing for it (often without the input of the consultant), however patient x also has condition B (which is relatively stable under the current treatment) and nurse N doesn't know much about it. This is where junior doctor F comes in, junior doctor F doesn't know as much about condition A as nurse N so would have had to ask someone more senior about what to prescribe, but doctor F can prescribe the drugs needed for both condition A+condition B. The balance in areas like this isn't quite right but it is getting there. (In case you were wondering junior doctor F is eventually going to become consultant F whose area of expertise is condition C but that doesn't mean they forget about how to manage conditions A+B at a moderate level). I know this is a bit simplistic and patients often don't fit into nice neat boxes but it was an examplar issue.

 

As to pay in the NHS, well surprisingly I do feel some doctors get paid too much, and I would be happy to see doctor's wages come down. However, if you bring doctor's wages down you have to bring nurses wages down (the differences between the two are there) or compensate doctors for the differences between the two in a different way. If you bring doctors wages down what about every other graduate job? As we know university is longer free so why shouldn't doctors be compensated for going to univeristy for longer than everyone else? Its about a balance between the professions at the moment the balance is in favour of the doctors but considering doctors haven't had a pay rise above inflation for a while, and quite a lot of doctors are currently arguing to work longer hours I can see the balance becoming more even over time, until the point where some doctors aren't getting paid properly. LL is right though, many doctors are doing what they want to do and would do it for less money, but the problem is ensuring that EVERY doctor feels the same and like with a lot of professions some aren't going to do that. Its a monetary world we live in and unfortunately people are far too willing to sue for what are often honest mistakes.

[oafc0000]

Your point about NHS spending under Labour is very valid but have you considered how they got that money and the consequences we are living up to now? I'm not an economist but if Labour had spent less on the NHS would we have a worse NHS- yes, but if they had done that would we not be in the financial position we are in- perhaps. I'm not saying I would have liked them to have spent less money I'm just unsure what the overall consequences for the country would be now if they had done.

 

In hindsight I think we agree on a lot of factors.

 

I don't actually buy this though... It is a misconception that is being booted around at the moment.

 

The reason why we are in the current financial position actually has very little to do with government spending and everything to do with the world banking marketing collapsing. Like I said above if it wasn't for this world banking collapse then I think Labour would be right on for another term.

 

Government spending and borrowing was high but maintainable until recently, once the banks failed (for x,y and z reason) then we had to effectively start printing money to the tune of £850 billion or something. Which is way beyond how much we have spent on the NHS in the last 13 years in the space of a couple of months.

 

I think Labour can take some blame over the banking collapse. I don't think they can be attacked over improving the NHS, Schools, Police and other public services. I think Labour needlessly funded such things as EMA and other wishy washy things.

 

 

Regarding doctors I totally disagree. Highly educated, Highly Skilled, Highly needed... Pay them and pay them well. There is a also the danger of losing doctors to the private sector and abroad. If you look at basing peoples pay on actually need / pay back instead of greed (as is currently the case) to the community then our doctors should be paying paid five times the amount directors and other top MDs are paid. Followed by our Nurses, Police, carers and such like...

Edited March 17, 2010 by oafc0000

[rudemedic]

In hindsight I think we agree on a lot of factors.

 

I don't actually buy this though... It is a misconception that is being booted around at the moment.

 

The reason why we are in the current financial position actually has very little to do with government spending and everything to do with the world banking marketing collapsing. Like I said above if it wasn't for this world banking collapse then I think Labour would be right on for another term.

 

Government spending and borrowing was high but maintainable until recently, once the banks failed (for x,y and z reason) then we had to effectively start printing money to the tune of £850 billion or something. Which is way beyond how much we have spent on the NHS in the last 13 years in the space of a couple of months.

 

I think Labour can take some blame over the banking collapse. I don't think they can be attacked over improving the NHS, Schools, Police and other public services. I think Labour needlessly funded such things as EMA and other wishy washy things.

 

 

Regarding doctors I totally disagree. Highly educated, Highly Skilled, Highly needed... Pay them and pay them well. There is a also the danger of losing doctors to the private sector and abroad. If you look at basing peoples pay on actually need / pay back instead of greed (as is currently the case) to the community then our doctors should be paying paid five times the amount directors and other top MDs are paid. Followed by our Nurses, Police, carers and such like...

 

I think the reason we are in a worse state than a lot of the world has something to do with the governments decision to sell off our gold at the worst time to finance stuff (I bet a lot of it went to the NHS). I'm a bit biased when it comes to schools as my school year was the guinea pig year- first year to do as levels (which the universities had no idea what to do with), (I would mention other things they tried out in my school year but that was under the Tories), but I can see how schools have improved, universities not so much though (that's still education last time I looked). Police I don't know about I think its gotten better under Labour (I never gave it much thought when I was 13 TBH) but I quite like my civil liberties and I don't like a lot of the stuff that goes on in the name of anti-terrorism (see a post I made about football fans).

 

Doctors are paid well enough- and to reduce the wages of the consultants by a couple of grand a year isn't going to see droves of them leaving for the private sector or aboard (when you are paid £100k/year £2k is not that much). It might mean they can't have all the toys they want in their new car or go on the really fancy holiday but in the long term that's not that a hardship. However, the government is doing this in reality- if inflation is at 2% then not upping the wages by 2% is effectively giving a pay decrease. Drastically reducing the wages of doctors though will see many leave the NHS, (+/- have a negative effect on recruitment)

 

I'm not going to vote for any of the 3 major parties and that's for various reasons, if eligible I might have voted for Labour in 97. Labour has done some good things, but it has also done some bad ones, at the moment the bad things are having a big sway.

[oafc0000]

I think the reason we are in a worse state than a lot of the world has something to do with the governments decision to sell off our gold at the worst time to finance stuff (I bet a lot of it went to the NHS).

 

They reckon we go short changed by about £2 billion on that deal. In the grand scheme £2 billion is nothing. It was dam stupid move of Labour to sell so low but it is not the reason why we are in this mess.

 

I'm not going to vote for any of the 3 major parties and that's for various reasons, if eligible I might have voted for Labour in 97. Labour has done some good things, but it has also done some bad ones, at the moment the bad things are having a big sway.

 

You said yourself...

 

Schools better

Police better

NHS better

 

I will add...

 

NMW

Sure Start

Winter Fuel Payments

Equality rights improved

 

I am not supporting voting Labour this time for many reasons. But when reviewing what has happened there is a lot of bull:censored: and overreaction going on at the moment.

Edited March 17, 2010 by oafc0000

[leeslover]

The reason why we are in the current financial position actually has very little to do with government spending and everything to do with the world banking marketing collapsing. Like I said above if it wasn't for this world banking collapse then I think Labour would be right on for another term.

 

Government spending and borrowing was high but maintainable until recently, once the banks failed (for x,y and z reason) then we had to effectively start printing money to the tune of £850 billion or something. Which is way beyond how much we have spent on the NHS in the last 13 years in the space of a couple of months.

Sorry, but you are mixing up different numbers which aren’t directly linked. The $183 billion deficit is caused precisely because government spending exceeds income by £183 billion. In separate news, they have underwritten mega-zillions of banks assets, but this isn’t actually money out of the door as things stand (if it ever become it, God help us). The Bank of England also bailed out the banks during the liquidity crisis to the tune of many billions, this was from their reserves, not tax/spending and is unconnected to the deficit, and it was in the form of high interest loans. Finally, the Bank has created lots of mickey mouse money to the tune of over £100 billion (“quantative easing”), again this is not spending and doesn’t increase the deficit. The only effect the whole banking crisis has on the deficit is that recession means they get less money in personal and corporate tax and have higher outgoings (social security, wasteful make-work programs etc). None of this changes the fact the we ran large and expanding deficits through the longest boom in history, so it should come as little surprise that we are rather more in debt during the bust.

 

The UK currently spends more on servicing interest Gordon Brown’s debt than it does on the entire military budget.

 

[bigfatjoe1]

This is the best government we've ever had. The 1980s were an absolute nightmare. The north never really recovered. Southerners don't have a clue, stuck in their Home Counties self-centred bubble. The Tories are little Thatcherite clones. If you want to debate balance sheets you should start with the fact that this mess was created by global finance. The process started (in the UK) in the 1980s when the markets were 'freed'. The Tories started it and supported it.

 

'Its all about Brown' - what a load of Tory crap. The government stepped in to save us from the debalce made by Tory bankers. They were the ones who created this mess because of greed and incompetence. Brown took quick and decisive action. If he hadn't, we'd be in a much bigger mess. What would the Tories have done? Nothing. Wonderful. All go to the wall. Genius. Why? Because they simply don't give a toss about ordinary people.

 

As for the NHS - it's better than ever. You have very short memories. It has taken years of investment to start trepairing it. More nurses and doctors than ever. More investment in capital projects than ever. Labour remains the party of the masses and the party of the north. The Tories reamin the party of the south-east, the selfish, the greedy the rich and the plain stupid. They will slash and burn. Why? To balance the books? Are you thick? Yes, short term pay back on the national debt. Then what? Oh, let me see? Tax cuts for the rich by any chance. There is a clue in their proposed changes to inheritance tax - first thing they'll do is to make the richer.

 

Don't be misled by debates about the national debt (we've had one since the seventeenth century). Who cares should win, and that will always be Labour.

[leeslover]

All the talk in the world about bankers, Southerners, the 1980’s, Thatcher cutting school milk, the poll tax, the Falklands War, child labour in Victorian mills and the Black Death can’t make up for the fact that Brown, as Chancellor and PM, has spunked money all over the place when times were good. Whoever wins is going to have to make savage cuts, the Greek socialists are a long way to the left of anything you’ll find in the Labour party and look what they are having to do. The government is borrowing over £12 for every £100 the people of the country are earning to pay for the overspend. Over one pound in three the government spends is borrowed. This cannot go on.

[oafc0000]

All the talk in the world about bankers, Southerners, the 1980’s, Thatcher cutting school milk, the poll tax, the Falklands War, child labour in Victorian mills and the Black Death can’t make up for the fact that Brown, as Chancellor and PM, has spunked money all over the place when times were good. Whoever wins is going to have to make savage cuts, the Greek socialists are a long way to the left of anything you’ll find in the Labour party and look what they are having to do. The government is borrowing over £12 for every £100 the people of the country are earning to pay for the overspend. Over one pound in three the government spends is borrowed. This cannot go on.

 

So you voting Tory ?

[leeslover]

So you voting Tory ?

I don’t vote, it’s an irrational use of my time. If my vote were going to change everything I would probably vote for whoever would take the least of money from me and interfere in my life the least, so long as they didn’t have any particularly nasty quirks like foreign genocide or topping the over 60s.

[oafc0000]

I don’t vote, it’s an irrational use of my time. If my vote were going to change everything I would probably vote for whoever would take the least of money from me and interfere in my life the least, so long as they didn’t have any particularly nasty quirks like foreign genocide or topping the over 60s.

 

So not a fan of the welfare state, nhs, police, military, schools etc etc then...

Edited March 17, 2010 by oafc0000

[jimsleftfoot]

 

The fact is, voting in Oldham or the majority of places in Manchester is a complete waste of time unless you are doing it as a protest vote and then its still a waste of time as Labour will get in.

 

Even though, we should be happy we live in a democratic country where we have the vote, the current system doesn't really work and perhaps proportional representation would be a better alternative.

 

I prefer Labour to Tories but I actually think a bit of change is needed or else we will just get the same old crap that we have over the last few years in the Media (which I think matters more to most than any of the policies). I think the Tories will win, but they will not get a majority which could be interesting.

[oafc0000]

the current system doesn't really work and perhaps proportional representation would be a better alternative.

 

PR brings with its own issues...

 

BNP got a seat at the european elections off the back of a pretty weak (and declining) vote.

Edited March 17, 2010 by oafc0000

[jimsleftfoot]

PR brings with its own issues...

 

BNP got a seat at the european elections off the back of a pretty weak (and declining) vote.

 

I would very much agree that their are issues, but I personally don't see what a vote gets you unless you live in a marginal constituency (or near marginal). On the other hand there is plenty of evidence to show that its not always good to give the general public too much power.

[leeslover]

So not a fan of the welfare state, nhs, police, military, schools etc etc then...

I’m in favour of schools, hospitals, good living standards and law and order, for which reasons I would rather the Government stayed out of these areas of life as far as possible. At the moment £488 billion pounds a year seems to be buying me widespread poverty and welfare dependency, poorly educated and untrained school leavers, a health service that is amongst the worst industries in the country, rising crime... Perhaps more of the same isn’t the answer.

[oafc0000]

I’m in favour of schools, hospitals, good living standards and law and order, for which reasons I would rather the Government stayed out of these areas of life as far as possible. At the moment £488 billion pounds a year seems to be buying me widespread poverty and welfare dependency, poorly educated and untrained school leavers, a health service that is amongst the worst industries in the country, rising crime... Perhaps more of the same isn’t the answer.

 

Well I don't agree... and I don't think we are going to

[oafc0000]

I would very much agree that their are issues, but I personally don't see what a vote gets you unless you live in a marginal constituency (or near marginal). On the other hand there is plenty of evidence to show that its not always good to give the general public too much power.

 

I am not very clued up on all the available options but I understand the Libs and Labour both want some amount of change in this area. I think there is a different system under review.

 

I am for a vote counting... I am just worried about giving minority parties disproportional power which is what happened in the euros.

[rudemedic]

I am not very clued up on all the available options but I understand the Libs and Labour both want some amount of change in this area. I think there is a different system under review.

 

I am for a vote counting... I am just worried about giving minority parties disproportional power which is what happened in the euros.

 

Labour only want to change the current system as it might mean they get more votes. They wanted to change the system in 1997 but they have done nothing- I wonder if this is related to them having a big majority in the commons.

 

As for minority parties- what about the scots/irish/welsh parties. I'm sorry but I think the BNP/Greens/UKIP will get more votes than them in the country but due to the current system the scots and what not get to have a vote. Nevermind the fact that Scottish and Irish MPs get to vote on matters that don't affect them as they have their own MPs/budget for that area.

 

I'm lucky I guess as Durham is a fairly tight seat so my vote might matter. If I was regsitered back where my parents live it wouldn't. I think I would rather the BNP got a say (after all because they have a say they have to change their membership policy) than have the current system where certain seats remain safe seats for one particular party and certain politicans take advantage of it.

[oafc0000]

I think I would rather the BNP got a say

 

Careful what you wish for...

Edited March 17, 2010 by oafc0000

[jimsleftfoot]

Careful what you wish for...

 

Indeed, once upon a time there was a bloke called Adolf Hitler.....

[leeslover]

Indeed, once upon a time there was a bloke called Adolf Hitler.....

Exactly. A tax and spender on a massive scale, intervened in every section of the economy with his grandiose schemes, prone to temper tantrums and unable to delegate, lied about plans for foreign wars, did little to stop European integration into a superstate, liked to be seen being nice to children, lost one half of a vital pair of organs in his youth, ruled Germany even though he was from the poxy little country next door. An all round bad egg.

[oafc0000]

Exactly. A tax and spender on a massive scale, intervened in every section of the economy with his grandiose schemes, prone to temper tantrums and unable to delegate, lied about plans for foreign wars, did little to stop European integration into a superstate, liked to be seen being nice to children, lost one half of a vital pair of organs in his youth, ruled Germany even though he was from the poxy little country next door. An all round bad egg.

 

 

Brown is a but he isn't Adolf