Rachel Reeves

[westcountryvillain]

Totally agree on a spending review, and the NHS needs forensic work on how the money is spent, there is too much waste & roles which add no clinical value.

[regis80]

Totally agree on a spending review, and the NHS needs forensic work on how the money is spent, there is too much waste & roles which add no clinical value.

I think i’m slowly realising how badly some sections of the nhs are being run. I’ll provide one example and i’m pretty sure this repeats everywhere else in the nhs. It wouldn’t happen in the private sector. This is to do with the non-frontline staff.

So there’s an app being launched called the NHS patient care app, whatever you call it. Any private company would get on with it, by building, testing, launching and testing. Yes okay we’re playing with sensitive details. We’ll How dafuq to banks do it?
Anyway, to launch this app they have a team of facilitators to push this app to the nhs staff and the public. Now i’m talking about people on decent salaries to do this. They’ll hold a series of meetings on how they’ll deploy it, how they’ll train people up. How they’ll field queries.. blah blah blah. All this creates a never ending process - btw this is just for staff. What about launching it to the public.. ffs. Let’s hold more training, queries, calls..
Now someone within it will argue they need to do this to ensure they meet gdpr, can’t launch and fail malarkey - ffs get the right people in in the first place. People are in jobs, just for the sake of it. kin public sector pen pushers. I bet this repeats elsewhere in the nhs. Kin useless!

[regis80]

This guy on question time nails it with Tory and labour https://youtu.be/xVTLmSfduNg?si=Iucn8NPl5kztaZCE

and to think now another useless politician in the name of badenoch to hold labour to account. We’ve all been mugged.

[Lindenbaggie]

This guy on question time nails it with Tory and labour https://youtu.be/xVTLmSfduNg?si=Iucn8NPl5kztaZCE

and to think now another useless politician in the name of badenoch to hold labour to account. We’ve all been mugged.

We get the politicians we deserve. Check their backgrounds before voting for them, at both local and national levels.

[Omegstrat6]

One of the biggest issues in the country today is the growing divide between the have and have nots and in the vastly uneven distribution of wealth. It's a Labour government, so of course they were going to take money from the rich and use it to help the poor. That can hardly be a surprise. Unfortunately, however, it's not just the ultra rich or vast companies like Amazon who are adept at tax avoidance who will be paying.

Ignoring the minority mega wealthy for a moment, there are plenty who are comfortably off, have a nice house and car and can afford several holidays a year and have doubtless worked damned hard for these things, but there are also plenty in low paid jobs who work hard, pay through the nose for sub standard rented accommodation who can only dream of such things.

The problem is that it isn't just the mega rich that the budget impacts on but also swathes of those who might be classed as comfortably off-the very people who likely normally vote Conservative and whom Labour wanted to attract in the last election. Small wonder they feel lied to. Hikes in inheritance tax or Stamp duty won't matter to the mega rich as they have plenty of money for their needs and it won't bother the very many who either live in rented or lower valued properties but it will impact on them and Labour were not open nor honest about this during the election campaign. Reeves's plans to go after benefit fraud are long overdue by any government, but if she thinks this will balance the losses in the minds of those made worse off by the budget she will be sorely disappointed.

I'm pretty sure that the figures banded about by Reeves and Labour regarding the country's financial "black hole" are exaggerated for political gain, but I'm equally sure that Hunt and the Tories are lying with their own estimations of the debt and the fact that they poo-poo not just Reeves's figures but those of the OBR is disingenuous at best. Given the size of the country's debt and lack of money, tax increases were almost inevitable.

Labour have pledged more money for the NHS, housing, education and our armed services. No argument on any of those from me but, regarding the NHS especially, simply throwing money at it won't solve all its problems as the whole way it is managed needs looking at in order to increase productivity and service.

Tbh, at some point very soon one government or another will have to grasp the nettle regarding the NHS and recognise that things have changed massively since it's creation and that a vastly larger (and ageing) population coupled with hugely more expensive but expected medicines, treatments and procedures means that providing a service free for all is now financially unviable. IMHO we need to go back to the original aims of so many of our social benefits which was to help the poorest and most vulnerable. We can no longer afford blanket benefits (e.g. free prescriptions to all over 60 or the winter heating allowance to all pensioners at the same rate). The only alternative is means testing but this cannot be an "all or nothing" scheme but rather a targeted incremental one. We accept different charges for various NHS dental treatments so we may have to get used to similar in other aspects of health care.

As for the rise in the minimum wage I'm all for that. Since it's inception it has been a key factor in helping to prevent employers exploiting staff as well as helping to keep many above the poverty line. Raising employers NI contributions to help fund their other policies is perhaps trickier. The problem is that those big companies that can well afford to pay the extra out of their existing profits will simply not want to and claim that both increases will mean they will have to pass the cost onto customers. Ultimately, this then feeds into increased inflation and begins to negate the increase in minimum wage. I have no sympathy for such businesses who could afford a raise in their costs and still make good profits as their motives are purely avaristic. For smaller businesses who are struggling as it is and who will almost inevitably have to cut staffing levels as a result, I have great sympathy. If the government is to create growth then it needs to financially assist these companies.

Certainly things will get worse before they get better but given all the things going on in the world at the moment that could impact on global markets (the outcome of the US election, the war in Ukraine, the situations in the Middle East and over Taiwan or a possible new coronavirus ) can't blame Reeves for not making too many promises.

[Omegstrat6]

In theory, I can see why Labour have tightened things up around Inheritance Tax in as much that it is a way in which monies can be raised from the wealthier in society to help fund areas such as education, housing and healthcare but, like so many policies implemented by governments of any party, it does not seem to have been thought through properly in terms of appropriate targeting.

I get, for example, that Reeves wants to prevent the rich from avoiding Inheritance tax by purchasing agricultural land but she seems to have ignored the fact that whilst many ordinary farmers may be asset rich in terms of the land they own, they are actually cash poor hence the current strength of feeling against what they have dubbed "the tractor tax" by many farmers.

Gone are the days when many farmers were well off and -as Clarkson's tv show has highlighted-many are under severe stress over their survival. It is only right to question why so much money is given to farmers in government subsidies but farmers have to make a living. People moan about increases in "basics" like eggs, milk and bread for example so supermarkets help suppress prices on these but they are still happy to spend money on things like chocolate (Cadbury pouches have both reduced in size but increased from £1 to £2 post pandemic) and other non essential lines. Yet another example of expectations v priorities I suppose.

No easy answers but our farming and fishing industries surely need re-evaluating in terms of helping them become more self sufficient as current levels of government subsidies cannot be sustainable for ever.

[Albionic68]

Might be deceptively competent but she looks and talks like some kind of s hit AI contraption reading from an autocue to me. Her cover was blown the first time she was asked a question and had to think of an answer for herself. Seems to have a major malfunction whenever it happens. Forget chatbots, she's a s hitbot.

[splinter]

Had to double check thought I had logged into the Guardian website.