Guardian yesterday:-"Union fury as Rishi Sunak unveils anti-strike laws for ‘minimum service levels’Legislation will allow bosses of key public services to sue unions and sack employees who refuse to work."I don't suppose that failures in ‘minimum service levels' could be used to sue or sack ministers or bosses of key public services?Silly idea, I know.
David Ainsworth ● 1123d5 Comments
St Georgeshttps://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64176450.ampPerhaps we should also have a better bed:population. Other countries in Europe have a higher one.There are some MPs who think we should reduce our standards to those of India here - how far? A friend used to work with Mother Theresa years ago...
Philippa Bond ● 1123d
Jeremy Hunt when he was Health Secretary refused to implement the recommendations of the "independent" pay review board. Our health as a country has been compromised by the restrictions on criteria for referrals and numbers of referrals. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/63970986.ampWith so many shifts understaffed so that nurses are unable to give the amount of care they should like to and need to for safety's sake it seems rather odd that the Govt should now want to legislate about minimum staff levels when there are strikes when for years they should have been ensuring there are always safe staff to patient ratios, good numbers of staff trained and working conditions such that there is a better retention of staff and less loss of valuable and experienced staff which they haven't been!
"key public services" - That is everyone that was working during lockdown - remember how wide that was?Once a state - any state takes power away it is unlikely to give it back freely. Any law passed is highly unlikely to be repealed by any future government.That aside the temptation for the UK governments to abuse such power is already evident.When you have pay review bodies recommending very low pay rises when there are both retention and recruitment issues then clearly something is very wrong.Emigration will increase - which both parties celebrate as their focus is on net migration - as will early retirement or people just leaving certain sectors and move to less demanding jobs.As for HoL - without a protected written constitution any reform will probably just hand more power to the state.Some people may like the idea of a more powerful state, my preference is for a highly transparent democracy. Perhaps some supporters will point us to a state they are trying to emulate? I doubt they will name any with our low average living standards.
Ed Robinson ● 1123d
I second your motion, Michael! Brilliant idea!
Ivonne Holliday ● 1123d
Great sentiment David, but I think MPs, PMs, etc expect to be given a peerage when they mess up. Now, there's an idea, make nurses life peers and pack the HoL with them:-)
Michael Ixer ● 1123d