On 22 Nov 2017 at 9:06pm Nicky wrote:
No pay rise for qualified nurses.
8th consecutive year in a row.
Nurses now earn less than they earnt 8 years ago in real terms due to the rise of inflation/cost of living over those 8 years.
Absolutely scandalous.
On 22 Nov 2017 at 10:03pm Hyena wrote:
Join the club
On 22 Nov 2017 at 10:35pm Closed borders wrote:
Foreign Aid must stop, and when the UK is out of debt and all the UK services are fully funded and properly financed, then and only then should foreign aid be reintroduced. I would not be paying my neighbors bills if I had no money to pay my own.
On 23 Nov 2017 at 7:40am Well... wrote:
Foreign aid is an investment and we actually make a profit from it a lot of the time. We invest in developing economies through aid and they give us resources and trade deals in return. Quite often we sell those resources for a profit. While some on the left would like to think of aid as altruistic and doing a moral duty it is often more dirty than that. To use your analogy it's a bit like you paying bills for your neighbour and them building you a wind turbine so you don't have bills yourself while they also give you food from their allotment and over time buy your surplus electricity as well. Smart move for you to pay your neighbours bills right? It's not just giving money for no return. This kind of deal will be even more important after Brexit. As our growth forecasts are plummeting foreign aid will be an essential way we generate income for government spending. Those are the actual facts, and if they don't change your opinion, which while of course valid to hold might be based on a misunderstanding of foreign aid, I'd be really interested why not.
And debt? National debt is less a problem than our deficit. The debt happens because we buy in more than we sell (creating a deficit in receipts) so the government has to borrow money to pay for things. Part of the problem is the benefits bill. 1 in 8 people in work is in poverty and have low wages subsidised by benefits while shareholders get greater dividends. That's a bit broken. Your taxes subsidise the wealthiest in the country paying people less money. If the government actually did something about pay equality and tax avoidance rather than being scared of businesses it'd be good. Meanwhile not losing what revenue generating industries we have and creating new ones too is essential to clear the deficit and then the debt. It's too Brexit late for steel, medicine regulation and a huge chunk of financial services but maybe we can find something else.
On 23 Nov 2017 at 8:33am Ashamed wrote:
As a society, it speaks volumes about us that we are not prepared to financially reward those people who spend 3 years at university studying to get enough knowledge to know how to look after members of society who are sick, injured and vulnerable. For the wages nurses end up earning, they may as well not bother with 3 years of hard work at uni and just go and work in an office somewhere. But the reason they don't is because that want to do good in this world by looking after others. Yet we cripple them financially and let the tax avoiding self serving multi-millionaires get away with frauding the tax system.
On 23 Nov 2017 at 8:35am Urgh wrote:
Has pedro changed name?...surely there can't be more than one long winded, sanctimonious know it all on here?
On 23 Nov 2017 at 10:29am ClarifiedButler wrote:
I support Nurses earning high salaries, and they do an extremely important job both for the NHS and society as a whole. They should be well rewarded for their service to our country. However, there is more to the issue of stagnant NHS wages than simply "those bloomin' tories won't pay the nurses". There is rampant inefficiencies in the NHS, and most hospitals have become reliant upon agency staff. Is there enough money within the NHS to pay the nurses more? Of course there is. But they would need to manage their resources better and break the reliance on agency staff. If you talk to people who are salaried, contracted nurses in the NHS they almost all will tell you about how inefficient the staffing management is in their hospitals. There needs to be a cultural shift within the organisation away from relying on agencies.
On 23 Nov 2017 at 10:32am Freedom points wrote:
^^Unfortunately this type of stuff is complex and can't really be explained in one sentence. Saying "No foreign aid, keep our money here" is simple but the reasons we don't shut ourselves off aren't
On 23 Nov 2017 at 11:28am Closed borders wrote:
@Well, we give £375 million to Pakistan and £339 million to Ethiopia, please with all your knowledge on this subject tell me how much profit the UK tax payer has made on this investment, or what benefit has the UK tax payer gain from these very large sums of money?
On 23 Nov 2017 at 12:15pm Mark wrote:
As a salaried, contracted nurse I can say that if the owner of a factory discovered that increasing numbers of his/her staff were leaving and then coming back as self-employed sub-contractors doing exactly the same job at a significantly increased wage then he'd be fairly daft to not increase his wages. A false economy not to.
On 23 Nov 2017 at 2:47pm ClarifiedButler wrote:
Precisely my point @Mark
On 23 Nov 2017 at 3:03pm Fairmeadow wrote:
There could hardly be a better example of the ways our NHS has exploited its labour force.
Loads of British kids want to be doctors and have the right qualifications? Medical school is notoriously difficult to get into. The number of places, dictated by NHS top management, is controlled at a fraction of the number of new doctors we need each year. Why? Because the NHS is not only Britain's biggest employer, but it is also one of the most exploitative. They have always been able to get the extra doctors they need from abroad, expensively trained by other, poorer, countries. They can do it, and it has been cheaper to do it, so that is what they have always done. Governments of all persuasions have allowed them to, though credit to Gordon Brown that he put up UK medical school places from 50% of need to 75% ( up 2,500). Under Mrs May another 1,500 places are to be added (the week after the Brexit vote). However, the first of the new doctors are still to enter medical school (15 extra places at Brighton Medical School next year) so it will be a while before they are on the wards.
The result? Britain is unnecessarily dependent on overseas doctors. At the moment Britain is not considered a great place to work, so many mobile doctors, including some British-trained doctors, are going where they can get a better deal, with less of a bullying culture than the NHS.
We do train a lot of nurses, but the NHS can't retain them. Why? The prevalent bullying culture and the insistence of managers on hospital nurses doing 13 hour shifts. This makes life easier for managers, as they only have to allow for two shifts per day. It isn't great for young parents looking to return to work, but why should the NHS worry about that when they can instead import thousands of ready-trained nurses from other, poorer, countries?
The NHS would collapse if all its immigrant staff left. But only because NHS management have deliberately set it up that way, by cutting out training, paying low wages to some staff and demanding unreasonable working conditions. Brexit will make this harder for them, so they will have to do more training and treat their staff a bit better.
When the NHS behaves in this way, it is hardly surprising that other, smaller, poor employers behave likewise. One of the many good reasons 17M people voted for Brexit. NHS top management, and other bad employers like them, are of course amongst the desperate remoaners.
On 23 Nov 2017 at 3:27pm @Fairmeadow wrote:
Do you really expect remainers to be anything but desperate when you see the total shambles that the government are making of it? I try, I really do, to see the positive side of Brexit, but I’m aftaid the outlook gets gloomier by the day.
On 23 Nov 2017 at 3:48pm @closed borders wrote:
Sure! It'd be my pleasure. Ethiopa spends $245 million with us most years (average) and we import $54 million at a preferential rate. Our funding also contributes to regional stability which does things like limit the spread of extremism. Whichever way you look at it £339 million is a great investment. It's not like we pay it every year and over a 2 year period we've got it all back, but of course the deals with them last longer than that so it's a bit profit in return for helping them out. Pakistan? Students from Pakistan contribute a few million every year, see the above point about limiting extremism too. Pakistan also spends $840 million with us each year (aid for trade you see) which is rather a lot more than we pay in foreign aid. We import more than that, but that's mostly cheap clothes for the High Street. So as you can see, giving aid to Pakistan is also great for us. You won't find these facts in the Daily Mail but there's plenty of factual places you can find them instead.
Any other facts you'd like me to find? Hopefully by now you'll be telling everyone how great foreign aid is and admitting you were wrong all along!
On 23 Nov 2017 at 3:54pm Belligerent wrote:
The belligerence of Brexiters has already cost UK jobs. If foreign aid is cut too our manufacturing sector will collapse because it's machinery and tools that countries like Pakistan and Ethiopia buy off us, spending a lot more than we give them in aid. I hope people in power at least use their brains and kneejerk opinions.
On 23 Nov 2017 at 5:36pm Closed borders wrote:
@Well, but are the trade deals linked to foreign aid and would the trade deals end if the foreign aid ends, or is it just a pay back of profits or a bribe? It all sounds like political cash back.
On 23 Nov 2017 at 7:14pm canny wrote:
The process to make us a cheap labour off shore tax haven for Europe is well underway. We are one of the richest countries in the world, being primed to believe that things are 'grim'. Within this seeming chaos there is definite method in the madness. We are witnessing a complete realignment of wealth.
On 23 Nov 2017 at 9:55pm Closed borders wrote:
@@closed borders, " limiting extremism"? you are having a laugh right? Well that was a waste of foreign aid for a start. Ethiopia regional stability? I know a lot of people in Ethiopia and people that go work in Addis, the country is far from stable, ever since the days of Mengistu the country has been polluted by tribal war, and we give them £339 million, and gain £143 in balanced trade, great deal.
Somalia the most corrupt country in the world, and we pour in millions, and how much goes to where it is needed?
The question is, what are we paying for that the country its self could not pay for?
On 23 Nov 2017 at 10:15pm Abbi wrote:
@Canny
How is there a realignment of weaith goi.g on?
We are in times of austerity, no?
Please elaborate, I don't understand your comment and am interested by what you mean as throughout the recent years of 'austerity measures' I have had a hunch that we are being lied to.......
On 23 Nov 2017 at 10:19pm Dhabu wrote:
Why would they lie to you ?
On 23 Nov 2017 at 10:23pm Abbi wrote:
I just don't believe we're as poor a country as the government have been making us believe we are. I think the government have lied to us. I believe there is a hell of a lot more money in our economy than they are letting on.
On 24 Nov 2017 at 8:46am Frak wrote:
@fairmeadow 'One of the many good reasons 17M people voted for Brexit'
Really? I thought it was because the NHS was going to get an extra £350 million a week.
I don't really follow your logic as to how the structure of the NHS made people vote for brexit?