What's not to like?

[Swissclaret]

Great post, swiss, which explains the stupid attitude of those who stick rigidly to 'their' parties. I had a lot of contact with government ministers in the early 1980s whilst I was in the RAF and this led to my becoming apolitical in all aspects. Sadly, those people who adhere to their party allegiances are as guilty as the politicians who blindly follow their own party policies without very much question.

I am in total agreement about the Blair era and his 'Education, education' blathering. This has led to a load of people with degrees going into jobs like nursing, becoming paramedics etc. whilst lots of unqualified people would love to be in the jobs because they are carers and want to help people.
My son is a Paramedic of 40 years experience, however, a number of years ago, he was told that, to make real progress, he would need a degree, which he could study for in his own time and at his own expense. He, along with quite a number of his colleagues, decided that they would just get on and do the job. So, while people were getting degrees, he wa first on scene at the Paddington rail crash, worked through the fire at Kings Cross, was in the middle of the London bombings etc., etc.

He has now become so disillusioned with the management's handling of the pandemic and its total disregard for many members of staff that he is in the process of working his notice from a job which was all he ever wanted to do. He had four GCE O levels, including art, when he left school, however, he could do his job and cares about people.

You only need to look at the majority of MPs and they have gone through Uni, got degrees, worked in Law or Politics and then gone on to become politicians and definitely have the blinkers on!
Sorry about the rant.

Thanks Supersub. Not a rant. Sadly you tell it how it is. It is about time that the wasters in Westminster woke up to reality and stopped their ridiculous Panglossian approach that all is for the best in the best of all possible words (with apologies to Voltaire if my translation is inaccurate).

Britain is a sh*tshow, quite frankly. Neither Labour nor the Tories evidence any real ability to solve the problems other than throwing more money at the problem. The British taxpayer deserves better than that, but the system doesn’t allow anything other than one set of idiots run the shop, then the next set of idiots replace them and so on ad infinitum.

It is a classic example of the definition of insanity!

[Supersub6]

Thanks Supersub. Not a rant. Sadly you tell it how it is. It is about time that the wasters in Westminster woke up to reality and stopped their ridiculous Panglossian approach that all is for the best in the best of all possible words (with apologies to Voltaire if my translation is inaccurate).

Britain is a sh*tshow, quite frankly. Neither Labour nor the Tories evidence any real ability to solve the problems other than throwing more money at the problem. The British taxpayer deserves better than that, but the system doesn’t allow anything other than one set of idiots run the shop, then the next set of idiots replace them and so on ad infinitum.

It is a classic example of the definition of insanity!

In the words of our esteemed poster from the Ribble Valley "The lunatics have taken over the asylum!"

[Swissclaret]

As Sunak was Chancellor, I suspect that it will be, in part at least, his budget. I do not know anything about Hunt’s economic credentials to say whether or not it is «*his*» budget.

My understanding is that Civil Servants at the Treasury are involved, as well as the Bank of England in terms of economic impact (ignored by Truss and cya Kwartang). In addition, there is the Office of Budgetry Responsibility that is involved. There are, no doubt, outside advisors as well.

What is never known are the external influencers who have the Government’s ear - otherwise known as «*vested interests*».

Whilst obvious factual matters are there, like tax increases, the devil comes in with the broad statements of allocating another £X billion to the NHS. That disappears in practice into black holes, quangos, vested interests and so on.

To my mind, the most honest Chancellor was Gordon Brown. He got it wrong with the gold reserves and the raid on pension funds, but he seemed genuine and committed. I await to be corrected.

I don’t like how Hunt smirks when he says how bad everything is - like he is enjoying it. I would not be surprised if he is in the pocket of Blackrock for a nice lucrative job once he is sacked or voted out of office.

[sinkov]

Just a bit on Boris, relevant to the above, from what I've heard he had the requisite number of votes to run for the leadership again, but on this news 'the markets' reacted adversely, and Boris was advised he may as well pull out, because if he went ahead, 'the markets' would bring him down the same way they brought down Liz and Kwasi. So Boris, not being quite as daft as he looks, knew the game was up and duly pulled out, defeated not by Tory Party members, or Tory MPs or even Labour MPs, but by a force far more powerful than any British political party.

So who's behind 'the markets' then ?