With respect, BS. Spunking the Medicare operating budget on IT systems and other capital expenditure is inappropriate. The money needs to go to hiring then retaining huge numbers of additional nurses, doctors and ancillary patient staff not looking for small ‘economies and efficiencies’ in systems that are (with some narrow exceptions) at best a third tier contributor to the quality of the health system.
Often but not always. Often younger wealthy have less liquid wealth and for cash flow purposes borrowing is appealing. More broadly, the uber low interest rate environment has also made this more attractive and it can even be easier to secure a large loan against a blue chip property than against a business.
The government claim the changes would generate savings of £30bn+ from spending the £3.5bn (by freeing up nurses and doctors to spend more time with patients and reduce the backlog). If anywhere near accurate that is not a small economy.
That sounds stupidly high even by the normal inflated amounts that governments think efficiency savings are going to give them. It’s pie in the sky thinking. What, exactly, do they think these inefficiencies are?
If I was looking at efficiency savings, I would look at how much is spent on the private sector for providing services that could easily be filled by a government owned agency.
Agency nurses would be a good starting point. You need to have agency nurses to fill short term absences in the work force. For example, if you get a flu outbreak it is possible that you could be 20% down for a couple of weeks. However, what is happening is that there are permanent gaps in the workforce and these chronic shortage are being filled by the agency.
This costs several times what a regular staff nurse would cost. Now, if you controlled your own agency bank, this would be much cheaper and those who simply wanted regular work could be employed directly. It would also give you a much better idea of what you should actually be paying regular nurses to stop those chronic gaps appearing in the first place.
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I thought the figure was unrealistically high too (one would have thought a 10x return would have been funded sooner!) but I don’t know what the finer details of the work involve. I wouldn’t be surprised if the savings they have stated included money that would have been paid out on benefits or other such costs to the government/ society.
Possibly, although they don’t tend to account like that. I remember with the Flu vaccine the cost effectiveness was in terms of reducing hospital admissions rather than reducing lost productivity and sickness benefits. (Having said that, the flu vaccines tend not to be that effective at reducing any illness).
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To be fair, across most of the West, interest rates have been structurally low and stable for more than a generation. The UK bank rate didn’t move at all for seven years. The last time it made a movement like this of greater than 3% was the financial crisis of 2008 - and that was downward. You and I are old enough to remember 10%+ and a range that saw +3% fluctuations repeatedly, but for a generation that grew up in the 90s or later, that is practically the Blitz and other stories from World War 2.
What struck me about the article was the implicit entitlement though, like his life story isn’t supposed to look like this.
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All fine but do you see my point on where the money is going, and at an increasing rate?
@Mascot convince me this crew isn’t the Tories by another name?
What’s the alternative? After Truss’ economic vandalism, the UK lags the rest of the G8 on inflation, which forces nominal interest rates higher. The UK really cannot borrow more heavily without spiking interest rates further and making the fiscal situation even worse. The economy is heavily trade exposed, so while a plummeting pound might help exporters, it will eviscerate the standard of living.
So, if you can’t borrow to run a deficit to fund priority spending, you need to increase government revenues. But UK government revenues are already astronomically high. Incomprehensibly so, the government is taking a larger share of GDP now than at any other non-wartime year, since the data was kept. Debt is now over 100% of GDP, for the first time since 1961. To finish the grim scenario, the UK has spent the better part of two generations ensuring that wealth generation is heavily tied to the finance industry, not manufacturing. That makes it highly mobile, capital will flow out of the UK faster than Labour can present a bill to tax wealth.
It is a genuinely grim situation, it reminds me of the situation that faced Chretien in Canada in 1993. He came into government filled with promises of what the government would do - and as a left-of-centre Liberal, he absolutely meant them. Instead, he and his finance minister Martin were compelled to preside over the most aggressive spending cuts ever. That was a genuinely brutal process, but the economy was able to power out between a very favourable US economy next door and massive growth in the oil and gas industry.
The environmental conditions for Britain are far worse - instead of surging demand from the adjacent trade block, you face ongoing Brexit adjustments. It is hard to see where the new boom industry would come from. I genuinely don’t think most British voters truly understand the scope of the challenge the next British government faces.
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Ok…
But how much can we get for our new-found sovereignty?
A grate Britain?
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Cheese, pork and lettuce…
Seriously, you’re 100% correct. I don’t see where the UK can go easily. There’s nothing to fall back on as a stable foundation from which to build. That has been completely dismantled and we’ve become increasingly isolated.
I can only think of the obvious and I don’t think it bears much fruit but nonetheless look at government spending versus services and look to really move that ratio in the right way. Wastage and so on (private profit)must be sky high. I suspect that will require gard cash to change however.
After that I can only think of building stuff (needs money again) and going after wealth through assets or something of that ilk.
I agree with @Arminius. I don’t think everyone has yet cottoned on how fucked the Tories are going to leave the country. It’s absolutely dire. For Labour the message has felt like expectation management for a while now,
There is no scope for an economic miracle. My go to has always been the Atlee government, who inherited a smashed Post War Britain and created the welfare state, the NHS and legal aid. But debt was something like 30% of GDP in 1945.
I think all Labour can really do is bring some stability to Government, spend revenues a lot more sensibly than the Tories (ie no funnelling billions to their mates), and grow gradually from there.
At some point rejoining the EU has to back on the table, which I think it will have to be at some point.
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My hope with Starmer is that he will actually reinstate the rule of law as far as the government is concerned. Preferably on some sort of permanent basis and not some sort of “honest chaps” agreement.
Probably joining the Customs Union in the first instance would be the least hassle and most gain. It would make EU and global trade much simpler and nicely excuse the UK from all the shite trade deals the Tories have submitted the UK to.
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Sadly I think that ship has sailed. I was always remain, but with the mud that got slung during Brexit, there is absolutely no good will towards Britain from a number of EU members, so they will do all they can to stop UK coming back. Also, the EU itself don’t want to be seen as being used as leverage, so the last thing they want is a member to leave then come back when they realise it was a dumbass move to leave in the first place.
If the UK does manage to rejoin the EU, I personally can see a huge number of barriers being put in to fuck the UK government for being jerks in the first place
Informing this entire discussion is the fact that every single Tory cunt will, as the joke around here goes, blame Labour for EVERYTHING from Day 1, and an entirely complicit army of client journalists will eat it up like a dog feasting on its own vomit.
Hai @Klopptimist!!!
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I think a contrite, economically shattered UK crawling back with its tail between its legs, is manna for the EU.
The UK would have no difficulty rejoining the EU, but it would have to accept much worse terms than it had before. ie no rebate, no influential seat at the high table.
I agree, but the problem is would the UK actually accept it?
My personal opinion is there is still too much of the old British Empire attitude when it comes to Britains standing and level of influence in the world when majority of countries, trading blocks now have no desperate need to work with or deal with the UK unless it is on their own terms, but Britain can’t acknowledge or accept their drop in status
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Anyone else seen the uber-gammon (satirical) AI images kicking around of the way Ol’ Blighty used to be??
https://twitter.com/NotThatHughes/status/1765285451542245781?s=19
The knights at Greggs get me every time.