Winter of discontent.

[button]

6 hours ago, Lloyd90 said:

Absolutely how I see it… for ages they had lost control of their own party in Westminster … now they have lost control of almost everything!! 
 

Their position is no longer tenable … a GE MUST be called! 

And the alternative is?

[TIGHTCHOKE]

13 minutes ago, button said:

And the alternative is?

Absolutely unthinkable!   

[Newbie to this]

 

7 hours ago, Lloyd90 said:

Everyone clapped for the NHS … because clapping was free 🤣

 

Not 'Everyone'

[button]

2 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Absolutely unthinkable!   

👍

[Mice!]

17 hours ago, oowee said:

Lots of strikes are planned across services I thought it would be interesting to compare pay rises in the different services compared to that of MP's. I cant find anything more recent

And it's the services with Unions,  shock and horror, there was a headline in a paper yesterday giving the figures that the Unions have donated to Labour, with Unite being the largest.

The Nurses voted, but included with the membership voting were cleaners! So that may have have been the deciding factor. 

The train services are a joke, if they aren't on strike there's nobody to man the train so things don't run anyway,  they've been offered 8%+ pay rise, but ticket offices will probably go.

Royal mail on strike, but again the service is nothing like it was, competition from everywhere so let's go on strike.

Weren't the barristers on strike? Because obviously their level of pay is far too low as well.

I can't think if we got 6 or 8% rushed through to combat rising costs and inflation,  with an added bonus for excepting it, I've worked at plenty of firms where its 1 or 2%

14 hours ago, Newbie to this said:

What is being asked, is about bringing the Tory government down.

It may not be for the workers, but is for the unions.

Exactly,  Labour have done nothing worthwhile for years, but the Unions are trying to cripple things, when the efforts should be about getting things going forwards. 

4 hours ago, Rim Fire said:

There is to many free hand outs in this country for example Heating allowance apart from this year how many people on here actually use it to heat their homes another is  Buss passes i have one and never used it but it must have cost to provide me with it. Here in Wales free prescriptions if had to pay you wouldn't have so many   in the Doctors with nonsense ailments a lot of it should be means tested  

Wales and Scotland getting free prescriptions?? Why, like it was said in another thread this means people will go to the doctors for ridiculous things that I'd pop the chemist for.

16 hours ago, Dougy said:

Yet we keep giving free hand outs to immigrants each and every day. And these are draining our NHS dry, now someone tell me I'm wrong. 

Your not wrong.

[scouser]

52 minutes ago, button said:

👍

So is working in a sweatshop and living on bread and water, do you think these big employers are going to give you a decent wage out of the goodness of there heart.

[Newbie to this]

7 minutes ago, scouser said:

So is working in a sweatshop and living on bread and water, do you think these big employers are going to give you a decent wage out of the goodness of there heart.

Oh dear

[scolopax]

MP’s are underpaid.  Their various expenses/ benefits bump up the overall package considerably but their underlying salary is very low for the type of job they do.     Most could earn vastly more in the private sector.

17 hours ago, Dougy said:

Yet we keep giving free hand outs to immigrants each and every day. And these are draining our NHS dry, now someone tell me I'm wrong. 

You are wrong. 
 

old people, the infirm and geriatric, are the ones putting such a huge strain on the NHS, and it’s only going to get worse as the immediate post war baby boomers get geneuinely aged. The NHS was put into being when we had a young population, now we have an increasingly aged population.   It’s all about demographics.

 

[derbyduck]

35 minutes ago, scolopax said:

MP’s are underpaid.  Their various expenses/ benefits bump up the overall package considerably but their underlying salary is very low for the type of job they do.     Most could earn vastly more in the private sector.

You are wrong. 
 

old people, the infirm and geriatric, are the ones putting such a huge strain on the NHS, and it’s only going to get worse as the immediate post war baby boomers get geneuinely aged. The NHS was put into being when we had a young population, now we have an increasingly aged population.   It’s all about demographics.

 

How dare dare you come out with such a statement ? its the old people that have paid into the NHS by paying NI contributions throughout there working lives ! 

 

[Rewulf]

1 hour ago, scolopax said:

old people, the infirm and geriatric, are the ones putting such a huge strain on the NHS, and it’s only going to get worse as the immediate post war baby boomers get geneuinely aged. The NHS was put into being when we had a young population, now we have an increasingly aged population.   It’s all about demographics.

I thought thats why they invented covid 19 , and closed all the doctors surgeries for 2 years ?

[Newbie to this]

1 hour ago, scolopax said:

Most could earn vastly more in the private sector.

Most couldn't tie their own shoe laces.

[Cosmicblue]

The NHS staff are the exception and deserve a decent pay rise - on two counts:

1) They genuinely deserve it

2) We need the NHS so it there has to be an attraction to work there - a respectable salary would go a long way to fixing the lack of staff.

For the rest of the striking groups, then that's a case of doing what all of us in the private sector have to do when the rewards aren't there - go and get another job!  The truth is that long-term working in the public sector results in an 'institutionalised mind-set' without the flexibility to get a job where accountability is expected.

I'd sack the strikers, no question because a job that doesn't pay enough is still massively preferable to no job at all - simples. 

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, MP s underpaid 🤔, my local MP made £3,000 for a afternoons work on some TV or phone in from her office in parliament , oh and breaking parliamentary rules, Matt Hancock just made £400,000 as a jungle man ,  🤔

Edited December 8, 2022 by oldypigeonpopper

[Lloyd90]

7 hours ago, button said:

And the alternative is?

Anything’s better than the complete shambles we have at the moment … and there’s a lot of people out there that are saying that. 
 

Just look at the huge scale of the strike across the board. 
 

The writings on the wall. 

[oldypigeonpopper]

1 hour ago, derbyduck said:

How dare dare you come out with such a statement ? its the old people that have paid into the NHS by paying NI contributions throughout there working lives ! 

 

Hello, yes from 16. to 65 , 🤔, 

[Rim Fire]

4 hours ago, Mice! said:

Wales and Scotland getting free prescriptions?? Why, like it was said in another thread this means people will go to the doctors for ridiculous things that I'd pop the chemist for.

Isn't that what i said 🤷‍♀️

[oowee]

3 hours ago, scolopax said:

MP’s are underpaid.  Their various expenses/ benefits bump up the overall package considerably but their underlying salary is very low for the type of job they do.     Most could earn vastly more in the private sector.

You are wrong. 
 

old people, the infirm and geriatric, are the ones putting such a huge strain on the NHS, and it’s only going to get worse as the immediate post war baby boomers get geneuinely aged. The NHS was put into being when we had a young population, now we have an increasingly aged population.   It’s all about demographics.

 

Some would say if they can't pay for care then the we need a more radical alternative to deal with them. Something has to give in the NHS either we pay more and get more nurses or we agree a lower standard and level of service. 

 

2 hours ago, derbyduck said:

How dare dare you come out with such a statement ? its the old people that have paid into the NHS by paying NI contributions throughout there working lives ! 

 

But they have not paid enough and those paying tax don't want to pay anymore. 

8 hours ago, button said:

And the alternative is?

Anything else. 

[Yellow Bear]

39 minutes ago, Lloyd90 said:

Just look at the huge scale of the strike across the board. 

Yes all in monopoly, mainly public service industries, with large left wing trade unions who want a labour government so they can milk it even more from a position of power like they did from '97 to '07.  

I do not deny that the health service workers deserve a substantial increase but not double figures.  The others are just up for political gain where the union leaders want the government changed and don't care who gets thrown under a bus to achieve it.

I saw a picture earlier in the week where a placard compared the wage of a station cleaner with that of the chief exec for effect.  I notice they did not compare it with those of drivers and guards who would benefit most from double figures for no gain to the service and cost a hell of a lot more.  It was posted here a while ago that the starting salary for drivers in London is over £60k and guards not too dis-similar, this is not a poor wage.

All these large public service rises will do is add to the problem for the tax payer.   A labour government would just raise taxes even more, I for one, can remember paying basic rate tax at 32% and then NI on top under Labour government, to pay the bill for the high nationalised service industry that continuously failed to perform. 

 

[ph5172]

Did you know that in 2016 90% of all prescriptions were issued on exemption. 
 

The NHS seems to be the biggest draw on government funding. 
eventually something will have to give. 

we discussed the idea of payment the other day with the general consensus that a majority of the users would be part of the exemption groups anyway thus penalising those who ‘are already paying in’ with another fee.
 

im not keen on a US model of payment or insurance but we need to come up with some way to sort out what most people think of as the best healthcare system but with that the most expensive  

[Gordon R]

Quote

 

Anything’s better than the complete shambles we have at the moment … and there’s a lot of people out there that are saying that. 
 

Just look at the huge scale of the strike across the board. 

 

What would the "anything better" be? Labour? Despite their constant moaning, I honestly haven't a clue what their policies are or how they would pay for anything better than what we have. 

As for the strikers - they seem politically motivated to me. They haven't managed to get Labour in via the ballot box, so they try to ruin the country. Everyone of them claiming to be a special case. They can't seem to grasp that if everyone gets a big pay rise, they would be back where they started.

When people dismiss the effects of illegal immigration on the NHS, I despair. 

[Cosmicblue]

Wasn't Brexit supposed to be the answer to the immigration issue - another Boris fib?

[Rim Fire]

3 hours ago, scolopax said:

You are wrong. 
 

old people, the infirm and geriatric, are the ones putting such a huge strain on the NHS, and it’s only going to get worse as the immediate post war baby boomers get geneuinely aged. The NHS was put into being when we had a young population, now we have an increasingly aged population.   It’s all about

So where do you propose  the cut off point is after all the ones you are  talking about worked all their lives and paid in ( granted not all ) but not like today's population most worked 

[Dave-G]

1 hour ago, Lloyd90 said:

Anything’s better than the complete shambles we have at the moment … and there’s a lot of people out there that are saying that. 
 

Just look at the huge scale of the strike across the board. 
 

The writings on the wall. 

The alternative is... Labour!

[Scully]

9 minutes ago, Dave-G said:

The alternative is... Labour!

And that’s the problem. People are claiming all is bad now, but it’s not like there’s an alternative which will mean a change for the better. 
As far as I know all these unions which are currently calling for strikes, are labour supporters. It’s not like they’re going to stop striking if labour win the the next GE. 
Is everyone claiming the garden would be rosy if the Tories were booted out? 
 

[Mice!]

1 hour ago, Rim Fire said:

Isn't that what i said 🤷‍♀️

You did, I added Wales and said I'd go the chemist,  every I can pop In and not have to wait a week or so for an appointment. 

I've even had the chemist say in the past that something is cheaper to buy than pay the prescription,  but by turn you've been to the doctor slready.