Dr_Pangloss Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 As clueless a chancellor as this country has had in recent times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 1 hour ago, chrisp65 said: Planned changes to tax credits scrapped. Not tweeked or phased in or explained or cushioned or any of that rubbish. Just not doing it now. Just not doing it for now. It would be churlish of me not to say that I am pleased that this has happened (at least for the meantime - see the comments on the beeb page about the introduction of Universal Credit) but I do question how this fits in with what the PM, the Chancellor and many Tory MPs were saying not many moons ago (and have been saying since the budget until very recently). We should be reminded that the Prime Minister said he was 'delighted' that the tax credit measures had been passed by the House of Commons at PMQs (just 5 weeks ago, I think) and that the tax credit cuts and changes were put forward not necessarily solely as a cost saving measure but also, supposedly, to push the burden back from the government to employers (see comments about subsidies of low wages). My guess would be that we'll get the usual 'no cash losers' stuff when Universal Credit starts to involve those with children and, as usual, that will be phased out very quickly. The point being that, in the end, the same people will end up in the same/similar financial difficulty only that it will be much more difficult to work out how and which change has caused it. It will obviously be much easier for politicians to bat away than people showing them the contents of letters saying that they would be £x pounds worse off per week/month/year as of next April. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 I'm interested in this idea that the welfare savings are just going to be 'delivered'. As far as I've seen the savings from the tax credit cuts which are obviously not going to materialize for another few years (until UC covers everything) are just going to be covered by the economy doing better... Better than when and how? The July budget? The forecasts don't seem to have changed much. I see, too, Martyn Lewis is rather angry at the decision to freeze the student loan repayment threshold until 2021 and said something like: as Osborne didn't have the balls to even put it in his speech, he knew how unpopular it would be. A few other things being pointed out (as usual) in the 'small print' of the Autumn Statement (like there are still amendments to tax credits like reducing the income disregard level from £5k to £2.5k). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted November 25, 2015 Author Moderator Share Posted November 25, 2015 26 minutes ago, snowychap said: The forecasts don't seem to have changed much The Grauniad says they have. It says analysis done by the OBR gave a conclusion .. that more money is going to come rolling in to HMRC over the next few years than previously envisaged. To be precise, an extra £2.5bn this year, £4.1bn next year, £6.3bn in 2017-18 and £5.4bn in the year after that. and then the Gruaniad comments that With all this lovely lolly flowing in, Osborne could get himself off the hook on tax credits. Provided, of course, that the tax really does come in on forecast. Chote [from the OBR] will clearly be top of the chancellor’s Christmas cards list this year, because it has enabled him to execute a U-turn with the minimum of fuss. It has to be said, though, that the OBR’s forecasts have proved wanting in the past. They could easily be wrong again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 1 hour ago, bickster said: Wow U Turn Central! Gideon looks a tit Hunt looks a tit looks like a victory for Labour It would do if they had even a semi-competent leadership. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 1 minute ago, blandy said: The Grauniad says they have. It says analysis done by the OBR gave a conclusion and then the Gruaniad comments that Right. I just saw the overall forecasts for the economy (usual guff: GDP up 2.4%, 2.5%, 2.4%, 2.4% and so on). Where did Chote pull this stuff from? Haven't the numbers from the ONS for October just told us that the public sector net borrowing for the year to date is £54.3bn against a forecast for the year as a whole of £69.5bn? What have the OBR forecast for the net borrowing for the rest of the year? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted November 25, 2015 Author Moderator Share Posted November 25, 2015 9 minutes ago, snowychap said: Where did Chote pull this stuff from? My answer is a rude place. There's a good chance the forecasts are on the "optimistic" side as stuff seems to be not a garden of roses, worldwide. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 14 minutes ago, blandy said: My answer is a rude place. There's a good chance the forecasts are on the "optimistic" side as stuff seems to be not a garden of roses, worldwide. From the looks of the OBR's documents versus those of the ONS, Chote and pals seem to expect the net borrowing over the remaining 5 months of the year to be approximately half what it was in the corresponding period of last year (c£14.5bn against £29.2bn). There'd have to be some fiddling going on to get there, surely? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post darrenm Posted November 25, 2015 Popular Post Share Posted November 25, 2015 £22bn of efficiency savings in the NHS? Are they for real? The NHS is already more than 100% efficient because it's only surviving due to pure selflessness of front line workers. If everyone worked their actual hours, or the hours permissible under health & safety, the NHS would crumble tomorrow. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted November 25, 2015 Moderator Share Posted November 25, 2015 29 minutes ago, darrenm said: £22bn of efficiency savings in the NHS? Are they for real? The NHS is already more than 100% efficient because it's only surviving due to pure selflessness of front line workers. If everyone worked their actual hours, or the hours permissible under health & safety, the NHS would crumble tomorrow. Tomorrow? It needs to crumble today!! United Health haven't got forever you know! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 1 hour ago, darrenm said: £22bn of efficiency savings in the NHS? Are they for real? The NHS is already more than 100% efficient because it's only surviving due to pure selflessness of front line workers. If everyone worked their actual hours, or the hours permissible under health & safety, the NHS would crumble tomorrow. getting rid of the Reike & spiritual healing consultants would be a start I guess .. that's before you start on agency staff Not being funny but is there evidence they are working these hours other than them telling everyone on facebook they are ? I'm just cynical after a lifetime of teachers telling us how they work 18 hour days all the time when they don't Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 5 hours ago, bickster said: Wow U Turn Central! Gideon looks a tit Hunt looks a tit looks like a victory for Labour That's almost up there with it was the Sun wot won it ..it's probably more a victory for Osborne as he's kept his hopes of being PM in 2020 alive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 1 hour ago, darrenm said: £22bn of efficiency savings in the NHS? Are they for real? The NHS is already more than 100% efficient because it's only surviving due to pure selflessness of front line workers. If everyone worked their actual hours, or the hours permissible under health & safety, the NHS would crumble tomorrow. getting rid of the Reike & spiritual healing consultants would be a start I guess .. that's before you start on agency staff Not being funny but is there evidence they are working these hours other than them telling everyone on facebook they are ? I'm just cynical after a lifetime of teachers telling us how they work 18 hour days all the time when they don't Fair question. My wife works more than HSE allows in labs at a hospital, and her co workers also do the same. She's could forcibly reduce the hours she works but it would leave the lab even further understaffed and her days would be numbered. She's in the unfortunate position of being highly qualified to do the specific job she's in and would find it difficult to move out of the NHS to a private job. And I've just come back from 2 days on a children's ward with my daughter, where it seems they are facing the exact same understaffing issues as I saw the same faces night and day, constantly running round and skipping breaks so people and kids get cared for. Social health care is based on altruism but it shouldn't require it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 19 minutes ago, tonyh29 said: getting rid of the Reike & spiritual healing consultants would be a start I guess .. that's before you start on agency staff Not being funny but is there evidence they are working these hours other than them telling everyone on facebook they are ? I'm just cynical after a lifetime of teachers telling us how they work 18 hour days all the time when they don't the hours is an interesting one Does it include 'on call' by any chance? Whereby you can grab sleep or rest periods but might be unlucky and get a busy night? Still destructive of morale and health, still shouldn't happen. But yes, I find it hard to believe that somebody regularly works a 90 hour week, as I heard on the radio recently, with 100 hours reported in several newspapers. I mean, just to state the obvious a 100 hour week is 14 hours per day every day of the week. I've recently clocked up a couple of 60 hour weeks and it physically and mentally smashed me. As for reike and homeopathy and all the other guff, let's see the figures. If it works, maybe keep it. I don't mean 'works' obviously, I just mean 'works'. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Yes it's on call included but on call is far harder work than regular hours. It's 1 person working an overnight shift doing almost as much on their own as the entire lab does during the day. They're not allowed to sleep as on call is now classed as a shift, but they can generally squeeze a break in during the early hours. They do get the day before and after off though to try and mitigate the risk of killing someone, but often people go off sick etc so some people have to work a 24 hour shift. This is at one of the country's more prominent hospitals too, so I imagine big town generals have it worse. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Yep, not trying to down play it, I've worked a 24 hour shift, but if I get something wrong then windows are the wrong size on a building. It wouldn't kill someone. I also didn't then go on to work another 76 hours that same week. I would genuinely have thought that someone regularly doing that, working 24 hour shifts and 100 hour weeks has a very limited period of efficacy and good decision making. But I'm not seeing stories in the news of dozens of NHS staff driving their cars into rivers or falling asleep on their motorbike journey home etc.. But that's a diversion in to detail. Given a choice of siding with junior doctors in the NHS or Jeremy Hunt I'm disinclined to trust Hunt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 (edited) 37 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: the hours is an interesting one Does it include 'on call' by any chance? Whereby you can grab sleep or rest periods but might be unlucky and get a busy night? Still destructive of morale and health, still shouldn't happen. But yes, I find it hard to believe that somebody regularly works a 90 hour week, as I heard on the radio recently, with 100 hours reported in several newspapers. I mean, just to state the obvious a 100 hour week is 14 hours per day every day of the week. I've recently clocked up a couple of 60 hour weeks and it physically and mentally smashed me. 1 hour ago, tonyh29 said: Not being funny but is there evidence they are working these hours other than them telling everyone on facebook they are ? I'm just cynical after a lifetime of teachers telling us how they work 18 hour days all the time when they don't Haven't we done the hours discussion before? Looks like we did something on it - page 8 of this thread: Quote But the BMA (according to this Torygraph article) say that junior doctors are still working 100 hour weeks (well as of May last year): Quote Junior doctors are still working 100-hour weeks despite European laws, the British Medical Association has warned. ... The European Working Time Directive has limited doctors to working 48 hours in a week but this is averaged across 26 weeks. Same time next month? Edited November 25, 2015 by snowychap 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Yep, you're bang on that it's surprising how little you hear about people falling asleep at the wheel from long shifts, or mistakes causing deaths at hospitals. I know for a fact there are plenty of near misses, so it's either: 1. It happens but doesn't get media coverage. 2. There are just plenty of near misses and if people are pushed any harder it'll become more of a regular occurrence. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Humans can actually self regulate pretty well and if unable to function safe enough to drive a car or operate equipment, or interpret results etc, people will just not do it. But, also, I refuse to believe there aren't people killed from mistakes by tired workers. I expect some are able to be swept under the carpet, or don't fit the narrative etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 1 hour ago, tonyh29 said: getting rid of the Reike & spiritual healing consultants would be a start I guess .. that's before you start on agency staff Not being funny but is there evidence they are working these hours other than them telling everyone on facebook they are ? I'm just cynical after a lifetime of teachers telling us how they work 18 hour days all the time when they don't Quite possibly not: It's pretty clear at this point that the placebo effect kicks in even with some (not all) patients who are specifically told they are eating a sugar pill, and that it isn't medicine. Nonsense homeopathy also serves to prevent over-medication in some cases - I've read estimates that between 20 and 50% of 'evidence-based' drug prescription is either excessive or waste. So I doubt there's any saving at all in removing reiki, acupuncture or complementary therapies, no matter how dumb you and I might think they are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 26, 2015 Share Posted November 26, 2015 48 minutes ago, snowychap said: Haven't we done the hours discussion before? Looks like we did something on it - page 8 of this thread: Same time next month? There is a difference between headline grabbing 100 hours per week , which kinda implies they are doing it 52 weeks a year and what the article actually says it's like me still being in the office now and claiming I've worked a 16 hour day when in effect I've been home to spend some time with the kids , been out and played football and didn't come back to the office to do this data for a client until 22:00 ... yeah it's still a long day but it aint a 100 hour week either Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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