Brexit slowly becoming a Farce.

[welshbairn]

20 minutes ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

Oh there are some absolute horror stories, I know of evangelical christian GP’s who have tried to prescribe jesus to sick people etc. Then there are ones who earn the 100k but do so by working 5 0800-1900 days mon-fri with out of hours shifts say 1900-0000hrs then work both days at the weekend before repeating, that surely can’t be safe, but the NHS is so stretched that its tolerated.
Some of the more old school gp’s had great tie ins with drug reps and would get the ‘conference in Orlando’ paid for but nowadays (and quite rightly) they aren’t allowed such perks, the most they may get is a free lunch (an M&Ssandwich usually, but given that involves sitting through a business pitch from a drug rep not many bother with it). Unfortunately these people seem to have ruined it for everyone.

I'm old enough to remember when my mum would panic if I had a cough and our GP would visit in the middle of the night. Don't know how they managed. Although maybe I was near death and don't remember. But home visits were normal in the olden days, and not by locums.

Edited December 19, 2018 by welshbairn

[btb]

Amber Rudd launches her leadership bid!

Quote

Amber Rudd has broken ranks with her cabinet colleagues, saying there is a “plausible argument” for a second Brexit referendum if Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement with the EU is rejected by MPs.

The work and pensions secretary insisted she did not want a second referendum, but said the issue should be returned to the British public if MPs are unable to reach an agreement.

 

Edited December 19, 2018 by btb

[itzdrk]

Think the thread title needs an update

[blanco]

3 hours ago, dee_62 said:

Take out the caravan then - how many would move from Glasgow or Edinburgh or other areas of higher unemployment to stay in darkest Perthshire for 8 months a year?

It’s not really seasonal (in the traditional sense) any more either is it? farmers can’t afford to be changing their workforce every 2-3 weeks and training up new people to cover for summer holidays. From March onwards they need a steady reliable workforce right through to October/ November. We’re speaking about contracts with huge suppliers who demand lowest possible costs.

There must be plenty of benefit claimants in Perthshire that could pick fruit in return for their benefits. We should do away with the mandatory job searches and send them to the local farms instead and give them an opportunity to feel like they’re actually giving something in return for their benefits and enable them to regain their self respect.

[Cyclizine]

8 hours ago, Detournement said:

Does the BMA not provide the staff for medical schools?

No, because they're a trade union. No different to UNISON, NASUWT, RMT or whatever. They're not even the only medical trade union, just the one with the most members.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

There must be plenty of benefit claimants in Perthshire that could pick fruit in return for their benefits. We should do away with the mandatory job searches and send them to the local farms instead and give them an opportunity to feel like they’re actually giving something in return for their benefits and enable them to regain their self respect.

Jesus ....that could have been written in 1845, and it smacks heavily of the 'this idea obviously applies to other people and not to myself or my family' school of thought.

Why not go the full hog and return to the days when only the landed gentry had the vote ? And there must be 000's of Perthshire chimneys which would benefit from a wean with a brush, no ?

[Suspect Device]

6 hours ago, blanco said:

There must be plenty of benefit claimants in Perthshire that could pick fruit in return for their benefits. We should do away with the mandatory job searches and send them to the local farms instead and give them an opportunity to feel like they’re actually giving something in return for their benefits and enable them to regain their self respect.

Forced labour for less than minimum wage would certainly boost their self respect.

I have nothing against making all efforts to ensure people who can work, do work but they should receive a fair pay for the job. I don't buy the right wing media narrative that there are a huge number of people living the 'shameless'type life on long term benefits with no attempt to find work.

 

[Detournement]

8 hours ago, NotThePars said:

Detournement/ H_B is just parroting Angela Nagle who badly misread Marx. Marx criticised the cheap importation of labour to undercut local labour but the solution offered, and that adopted by real comrades, is to strengthen incoming labour’s ties to domestic workers and help them to unionise together in solidarity. Not this nativist shite.

There is no practical to way to tie workers together in solidarity when you have tens of thousands of short term workers entering and leaving the country every year. No one has any issue with excluding Nigerians, Congolese, Chinese, Bangladeshis etc to protect living standards so why not Eastern Europeans?  Especially when you consider that for EEs participating in class struggle in their own countries isn't that bad an option (ii) the ones that are absolutely desperate to be exploited in western Europe still have half a dozen other EU countries that will happily do it.

It's funny how this level of utopianism is only applied to a policy that provides cheap labour to capitalism. When it comes to wage levels, benefits, employment law, housing etc pragmatism rules. Liberal policies to drive down the cost of labour have been accepted by people on the left who are overly focused the rights of the individual.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

6 hours ago, blanco said:

There must be plenty of benefit claimants in Perthshire that could pick fruit in return for their benefits. We should do away with the mandatory job searches and send them to the local farms instead and give them an opportunity to feel like they’re actually giving something in return for their benefits and enable them to regain their self respect.

 

18 minutes ago, Suspect Device said:

Forced labour for less than minimum wage would certainly boost their self respect.

I have nothing against making all efforts to ensure people who can work, do work but they should receive a fair pay for the job. I don't buy the right wing media narrative that there are a huge number of people living the 'shameless'type life on long term benefits with no attempt to find work.

 

Unfortunately many do, like the fucking moron you quoted. 

That theory doesn't take any account of the fact that fruit farmers need a committed and motivated workforce for 6-8 months out of the year. Giving someone the choice between forced labour for the equivalent of about £2 per hour or starvation helps no one. The farmer is going to get a large unhappy workforce who will do the absolute minimum necessary. A scheme to get long term unemployed would, like almost every other piece of "welfare reform" be more expensive to run than it would actually save. By the time you've sorted out transport costs, insurance, adapted the UC system to take account of 6-8 months out of the system, systems to monitor attendance etc etc, it becomes hugely counter-productive, especially as the actual percentage spend from the Welfare Budget on working age jobseekers is comparatively miniscule. 

All it does is give absolute no-righters some weird sense of satisfaction that poor folk are getting "what they deserve"

 

[Granny Danger]

Over the years I have spoken to a number of small business owners who have pedalled the line of ‘work for benefits’.  

I always ask them if they would want anyone working for them who wasn’t there by choice and if they thought it would be easy to manage and motivate such ‘employees’.

It has a pretty sobering effect.

 

[Detournement]

9 hours ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

Id argue that those ‘super gp’s’ are likely to be in the south east of England as I know some there who do earn larger sums.

The point of GP reforms in England is to change doctors from people who work providing medical services to people who have a large financial stake in providing medical services.

 

Edited December 20, 2018 by Detournement

[Detournement]

The Tory/Lib Dem governmemt were making people work for benefits from 2011-15. They scrapped it because of the negative public response.

[RedRob72]

Unfortunately many do, like the fucking moron you quoted. 
That theory doesn't take any account of the fact that fruit farmers need a committed and motivated workforce for 6-8 months out of the year. Giving someone the choice between forced labour for the equivalent of about £2 per hour or starvation helps no one. The farmer is going to get a large unhappy workforce who will do the absolute minimum necessary. A scheme to get long term unemployed would, like almost every other piece of "welfare reform" be more expensive to run than it would actually save. By the time you've sorted out transport costs, insurance, adapted the UC system to take account of 6-8 months out of the system, systems to monitor attendance etc etc, it becomes hugely counter-productive, especially as the actual percentage spend from the Welfare Budget on working age jobseekers is comparatively miniscule. 
All it does is give absolute no-righters some weird sense of satisfaction that poor folk are getting "what they deserve"
 

Recall a farmer’s wife from Devon/Cornwall on the radio a couple of months ago bemoaning the lack of casual labour to fulfil the harvest this year. She was pretty much saying ‘what is wrong with these people who don’t want two months solid work’? The reporter then asked, what happens to the workforce once the crop has been picked (or along those lines). The woman seriously responded with, “well they go back to wherever *they have arrived from (*presumably a mixture of other parts of the U.K. and migrant workers) and have the opportunity to come back next year”.
She genuinely seemed baffled that people might not consider; 2 months hard graft on a minimum wage, travelling long distances with no promise of accommodation and no longer term prospects whatsoever as an attractive career option!!

[Cyclizine]

37 minutes ago, Detournement said:

The point of GP reforms in England is to change doctors from people who work providing medical services to people who have a large financial stake in providing medical services.

 

GPs in all of the UK nations alrwady have a large financial stake in the provision of health services. The vast majority are either partners in a practice or are employed as a salaried GP by a practice. Practices are notionally independent and are commissioned to provide primary care services to patients on their lists.

£100,000 was banded around as a GP average salary - I'll point out that in Scotland the entire entire primary care budget is about £900,000,000, which is around £150 per patient per annum. There are about 3,500 FTE GPs in Scotland, which works out about £250,000 per GP. But remember that's to provide all the primary care services to patients, pay rent on the practice buildings, pay utilities, pay the rest of the practice staff (and their pensions)... How much do you reckon's left over from that? They'll be paying their own pension contributions on top of that as well.

[Granny Danger]

Rudd saying second referendum might be only way forward.  Leadsom saying she is wrong.

May and her acolytes must think everyone will change their minds about her proposal after a couple of mincemeat pies.

The DUP will not vote for May’s deal and, I reckon, an absolute minimum of 30 Tories will vote against with at least the same number of abstentions.

She would need dozens of Labour MPs to support her and/or abstain.  Just can’t see it happening,

 

[NotThePars]

There must be plenty of benefit claimants in Perthshire that could pick fruit in return for their benefits. We should do away with the mandatory job searches and send them to the local farms instead and give them an opportunity to feel like they’re actually giving something in return for their benefits and enable them to regain their self respect.

Arbeit macht frei, m9.

[doulikefish]

There must be plenty of benefit claimants in Perthshire that could pick fruit in return for their benefits. We should do away with the mandatory job searches and send them to the local farms instead and give them an opportunity to feel like they’re actually giving something in return for their benefits and enable them to regain their self respect.

Bowl of gruel in the morning and at knocking off time

[Melanius Mullarkey]

11 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

oh, and large quantities of alcohol.

 

This stuff obvs

[Gaz FFC]

2 hours ago, Detournement said:

The Tory/Lib Dem governmemt were making people work for benefits from 2011-15. They scrapped it because of the negative public response.

 

[John Lambies Doos]

There is no practical to way to tie workers together in solidarity when you have tens of thousands of short term workers entering and leaving the country every year. No one has any issue with excluding Nigerians, Congolese, Chinese, Bangladeshis etc to protect living standards so why not Eastern Europeans?  Especially when you consider that for EEs participating in class struggle in their own countries isn't that bad an option (ii) the ones that are absolutely desperate to be exploited in western Europe still have half a dozen other EU countries that will happily do it.
It's funny how this level of utopianism is only applied to a policy that provides cheap labour to capitalism. When it comes to wage levels, benefits, employment law, housing etc pragmatism rules. Liberal policies to drive down the cost of labour have been accepted by people on the left who are overly focused the rights of the individual.

James Connolly had it right