UK Politics Thread

A practical example of politicians making decisions and buggering off before they can be held accountable.

A decision taken by the coalition government in 2011 is the reason that your smart meter has a bigger chance of being faulty if you live in the North or Scotland.

And lurking at the heart of the system is that single name the spells quality: Crapita

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0024yyc

I'm still legitimately confused as to how this guy continually gets column inches. I mean I know why, but it still amazes me that he does fuck all for anyone but himself and his supporters would fellate him if they could but then I look at America and I say "yeah, of course".

I genuinely barely kept up with the news in the last 7 days. Way too depressing after last week's result.

It has felt very strange. I think the leading headlines have broadly wormed their way through to me, but on the occasion I caught a bit of an evening news programme, I felt uncomfortable at how uninformed I was. Yet, during the day, I definitely forgot about What Is Happening for 9 or 10 hours at a time. It didn't even enter my consciousness. As I describe that, it hundred percent sounds like an addiction urgh, and familiar sensations when you try to cut it out.

Not being a home owner I'm annoyed at the lower interest rates, fucking over my LISA.

You should have married her when you had the chance.

Labour manage to do what the Tories couldn't and stop the boats.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74lw8j38k5o.amp

That bloody two teir Keer going after honest hard working white people again!

What the pooling of local government schemes? Wtf is about that they can possibly object to?

I've read that three times and have no fucking idea what it's about. What? Where?

They got one for killing more?

www.gov.uk/government/news/zero-tolerance-for-failure-under-package-of-tough-nhs-reforms

They were saying on Radio 4 (don’t judge me) that Senior Executives drew bonuses.

But, yes, the Tory press were reporting on it from a ‘this will ruin the NHS’ angle.

Oh *that*.

The specific organisation that is called NHS England (rather than the NHS in England, as a general...thing) is going to be taking over the performance management of NHS Trusts, which currently rests with ICBs.

This is sort of ironic because NHS England are, in the opinion of most other parts of the NHS in England, the most incompetent bit of the whole shebang and they could really do with getting their house in order before telling trusts on how to run their shops. So much of the inefficiencies that exist within the NHS is driven by NHSE thinking it knows better, micromanages and demands a level of bureauocracy that would bring an organisation in the private sector to it's knees.

Every govt and most new health secs think they know what large scale, pointless and usually circular reform is needed. Wes is no different

This will be a waste of time and resources that will achieve nothing. Again

This is my interpretation of it as well. The government obviously has to do something to begin sorting out the NHS, but this is just given the appearance of doing something rather than actually meaningful change. I can't help but see it as yet another layer of bureaucracy. Now hospitals have to be rated. How will they be rated? Who is going to rate them? Are inspectors going to go in or is it purely based on hospital statistics (presumably). How often are they going to be rated? What's the complaints procedure if a Trust disputes their league rating. Etc etc. I can see this taking absolutely ages to implement and it will definitely hit the already underperforming/under resourced hospitals in the short term. And presumably lead to staff turnover because Labour have pledged to sack managers in underperforming Trusts. Who will want to fill the dead man's shoes after that?

It's more meddling for appearances frankly.

Reading between the lines from hearing the radio interviews yesterday, it sounds like they’re gunning for the bad chief execs who always seem to fall upwards