Mailwatch(ed) Forum

This'll wind a few people up, but may also fuel a narrative:

Green energy magnate to switch support from Just Stop Oil to Labour

“The next general election is the most important of our lifetimes,” [Dale Vince] wrote in the Guardian.

“And what the Tories will do if they get another stretch in power is crystal clear: abandon net zero, open new coalmines and oilfields, and continue presiding over spiralling living costs. And so today I announced a change of direction: I am no longer going to fund Just Stop Oil. Under the current government, protest cannot work. I would go so far as to say that anything that could feed the Tories’ culture-war narrative is counter-productive.

This sounds cheap and useful.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... generation

Under Labour’s plans, the party would prevent developers from “wriggling out” of their affordable housing obligations, known as section 106 rules, by setting up a new expert unit to give councils and housing associations advice to get the best deal during negotiations with property firms.

Provided the council can afford anybody skilled enough to understand what the central unit is telling them.

I sometimes think we over-complicate things.

If planning permission is granted on the basis of 24 affordable dwellings and 72 luxury homes.
And a spivvy developer erects 90 5 bedroom executive homes and nothing affordable.
Then compel them to sell 24 of them within an affordable price bracket.

Bones McCoy wrote: ↑Fri Oct 06, 2023 9:01 pm I sometimes think we over-complicate things.

If planning permission is granted on the basis of 24 affordable dwellings and 72 luxury homes.
And a spivvy developer erects 90 5 bedroom executive homes and nothing affordable.
Then compel them to sell 24 of them within an affordable price bracket.

There's a whole industry that advises developers on working around or avoiding the whole "affordable" thing.

Forty years trying to reinvent the wheel in affordable housing and we get triangle wheels, square wheels, pentagon wheels etc. Just build more bloody council houses. Good ones that anyone who’s not loaded would find attractive.

Boiler wrote: ↑Fri Oct 06, 2023 10:15 pm

Bones McCoy wrote: ↑Fri Oct 06, 2023 9:01 pm I sometimes think we over-complicate things.

If planning permission is granted on the basis of 24 affordable dwellings and 72 luxury homes.
And a spivvy developer erects 90 5 bedroom executive homes and nothing affordable.
Then compel them to sell 24 of them within an affordable price bracket.

There's a whole industry that advises developers on working around or avoiding the whole "affordable" thing.

Simpler regulations, with fewer clauses are generally more difficult to evade.
Fix the prices in advance, and treat the miscreants the same as those farmers who build "footballer homes" behind a screen of haystacks.

Youngian wrote: ↑Sat Oct 07, 2023 9:43 am Forty years trying to reinvent the wheel in affordable housing and we get triangle wheels, square wheels, pentagon wheels etc. Just build more bloody council houses. Good ones that anyone who’s not loaded would find attractive.

I agree, but you won't see Rishi finding the cash for that.

Has anyone got any thoughts on this?

Sounds poorly judged, but it's only somebody speaking. Doesn't mean anybody's going to do anything other than listen politely. That doesn't mean there's "influence". I dimly recall Rory Bremner pointing out that tobacco companies had sponsored something at a Labour Conference in the Blair era. Labour duly phased out tobacco sponsorship. raised the smoking age, and banned smoking in pubs and clubs.

I’ve at least found four companies that sponsored it and they aren’t buy now pay later lenders.

More of this please, no more treating the Tories as a normal centre right party

I don't like Streeting one iota and in his current role, where are he and Starmer going to get the money and staff from for those extra two million NHS appointments from? More overseas pilfering or just working existing NHS staff until they break/resign? Do they not believe that NHS hospital staff already do considerable overtime?

Starner talks of overtime as a means but of my two NHS-employed family members, one is on an 80% contract as it has damaged their mental health whilst the other is not unknown to do 9-5 admin then have a four hour break before doing 9-8 clinical. Both already do Saturdays and Sundays as well as late turns.

It sounds like bollocks/click bait to me, but I'm sure I'll be slated for saying this.

Boiler wrote:I don't like Streeting one iota and in his current role, where are he and Starmer going to get the money and staff from for those extra two million NHS appointments from? More overseas pilfering or just working existing NHS staff until they break/resign?

Starner talks of overtime as a means but of my two NHS-employed family members, one is on an 80% contract as it has damaged their mental health whilst the other is not unknown to do 9-5 admin then have a four hour break before doing 9-8 clinical. Both already do Saturdays and Sundays as well as late turns.

It sounds like bollocks/click bait to me, but I'm sure I'll be slated for saying this.

I once applied for a simple admin role at a local, pretty large GP surgery through the NHS website. From the job description it looked like your bog standard admin role and it only payed minimum wage so I gave it a go. At the interview however, the role was a lot more involved than was made out. The shifts were all over the place, you had to work Saturdays, and even travel to over to other practices at short notice, all for minimum wage. Fuck that.

It looks like Labour are unable to wave a magic wand and fix the tories' 13-year assault on the NHS? Aye, pretty much.

That's pretty much it, yes but I think the assault on the NHS has been going on longer than that. No-one even dares to mention raising direct taxation any more. The myth held for forty years of "you can have low taxation and good public services" is there for all to see as an utter lie, but no-one wants to put their hands into their pocket to pay for the nice things.

Rather like the BBC's funding model has become unsustainable, is it time to look at the NHS too? I can hear the vultures of 55 Tufty Club circling.

My relatives would certainly reject Starmer's proposals.

(As an aside, Rayner's dig at Truss did bring a smile to the old fizzog)

People can do extra hours if they want. Some will. Total wage bill is around £70bn, so doesn't seem impossible that £1.1bn worh of overtime can be added to it in the short term.

1.1bn? Surely, skirting round the raptor agency sector would claw that back, and put the money in the pockets of people who have been denied it.

From the BBC's live feed on conference:

NHS unions have given a cautious welcome to Sir Keir Starmer’s plan for a voluntary overtime scheme to help reduce waiting lists.

Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: "This is fine as a stop-gap measure, but this is all it must be.”

Royal College of Nursing Chief Nurse, Professor Nicola Ranger, said the NHS already "runs on the goodwill of its staff".

"Nursing staff work so much overtime that is never paid - staying behind an hour or two after 12-hour shifts to keep patients safe - so a change in this culture is needed. As part of their shift patterns, weekend work is routine for many.

"Any Labour government would likely take office at a time of record unfilled nurse jobs, in excess of 40,000, and so the long-term answer is of course to have more staff overall."

Labour has said it would train 7,500 more doctors and 10,000 more nurses a year, to be funded by the extra cash in the government's NHS England workforce plan.

The overtime plan would be something an incoming Labour government could do immediately to tackle waiting list, party sources say.

I really can't see this flying, I'm sorry. As I've already pointed out, there are already staff working large amounts of overtime - if the workload hasn't already broken them. It would be interesting to canvass my relatives on this.

Will "they" kick off about this like they did Sue Gray?

Boris Johnson's ex-wife Marina Wheeler is Labour's sex harassment adviser

In a statement, Ms Wheeler said: "Women in the workplace too often suffer sexual harassment and assault and they pay a heavy price for speaking out. Knowing this, and to keep their jobs, they suffer in silence."

She highlighted a recent survey in which female surgeons reported suffering sexual harassment or assault at the hands of colleagues during the five preceding years.

"Having spent over two decades litigating employment disputes, I am delighted to be working with Emily Thornberry to help formulate solutions - including law reform where necessary - to encourage women to come forward," she added.

Sarah, Manda, Jan et al sharpening their pens and dusting off "What's wrong with a wolf whistle, just give back as good as you get, can't modern women take a compliment, hell hath no fury like a divorced woman, what about mistreated men?", as we speak.