FURIOUS NURSES SLAM PITIFUL PAY RISE OFFER
The Daily Mail reports: Nurses reacted with fury after ministers offered them a pay rise of just one percent as a reward for months spent putting their lives on the line to save coronavirus patients. They blasted the ‘pitiful’ recommendation that was made in a document released by the Department of Health and Social Care – which blames the impact of Covid on the public finances. It came a day after health and social care were both notably absent from any increased funding in the Budget. The Royal College of Nursing’s general secretary, Dame Donna Kinnair, said: ‘This is pitiful and bitterly disappointing. The government is dangerously out of touch with nursing staff, NHS workers and the public.
NO INTERNATIONAL LAW BROKEN SAYS FROST
The Guardian reports: The European parliament has postponed setting a date for ratifying the trade and security deal with Britain after Boris Johnson was accused of breaking international law for a second time over Northern Ireland. The chamber’s political groups agreed on Thursday to wait in light of the latest row with Downing Street, with some senior MEPs warning that the Christmas Eve deal will not be passed at all if the UK goes ahead with its plans. The UK was accused by the EU Commision of breaking international law for a second time on Wednesday after ministers said they would unilaterally extend a grace period on a range of checks on trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. The commission responded that under the Brexit withdrawal agreement, the decision should have been agreed with the EU. During discussions with commission officials on Monday night, the claim that international law had been broken was denied by David Frost, who has recently been given a seat in cabinet and responsibility for EU relations.
HOPES RAISED FOR A UK TRADE DEAL WITH THE US
From the Guardian: The White House has agreed to drop retaliatory US tariffs on UK exports including Scotch whisky, raising hopes of a post-Brexit transatlantic trade deal. In 2019, the then US president, Donald Trump, imposed a 25% tariff on a range of European Union exports, as part of a 16 year trade dispute over state support for aerospace rivals Boeing and Airbus. Estimates released last month suggested the duty had led to a £500 million dropoff in sales of Scottish single malt alone. But the Department for International Trade (DIT) said on Thursday the Biden administration had ended the tariff. The move followed the UK scrapping punitive measures against Boeing in January which puts the UK at odds with the EU. The dispute dates back to 2006 when the US complained that Airbus was receiving subsidies that put Boeing at a disadvantage.
STURGEON CLINGS ON TO POWER
The Telegraph reports that Nicola Sturgeon on Thursday suggested she may try to cling on as First Minister even if an independent inquiry finds she broke the ministerial code of conduct in the Alex Salmond scandal. Anas Sarwar, the new Scottish Labour leader, used First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood to challenge Ms Sturgeon on whether she agreed that any minister who is found in breach of the code should resign – the usual sanction for such an offence. But the First Minister refused to provide any guarantee she would honour the convention, instead telling MSPs that ‘we can debate in this chamber what her punishment should be if she is found to have flouted the code’. Despite chastising the Tories for making up their minds that she should quit before two inquiries report back, she made it clear she will be leading the SNP into May’s Holyrood election. If the sanction was put to a Holyrood vote, the First Minister could theoretically stay in post if her minority government wins the backing of the pro-independence Greens to let her stay.
BUDGET A FAILURE FOR WORKING PEOPLE
The Morning Star writes: the chancellor Rishi Sunak’s budget was branded a failure for working people today by unions and opposition leaders. For all the Chancellor’s boasting about his fiscal firepower and doing whatever it takes, he stood accused of doing too little, too late, other than for his big business allies — and made it clear that the long-term pain was to be borne by working people. Mr Sunak announced the short-term extension of the furlough and self-employed support schemes and the £20 universal credit uplift, but there was no public-sector pay rise, no rescue plan for health and social care, no cash for social housing and no recognition of the need for government investment in jobs. His one genuine long-term giveaway was “the biggest business tax cut in modern UK history” — a 130 per cent “super-deduction” from corporation tax as a bribe for businesses to invest.
NOW COME THE COUNCIL TAX RISES
The SUN reports that council tax bills could soar by up to £100 a month per household as local authorities increase rates without consultation, reveals new analysis. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said councils will increase taxes by £1.8 billion next month after the government allowed them to introduce rises of up to of up to five per cent.
CAR SALES PLUMMETED TO WORST LEVELS SINCE 1959
The Times reports: Car sales have plummeted during the third lockdown to their worst February levels since 1959, new figures have revealed. Only two months into the year and the industry body the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has revised down its forecasts for 2021 for a second time. With new registrations last month down 35 percent as only 28,000 vehicles entered the market, demand for electrified cars has come into the spotlight with plug-in low or zero-emission motors making up a best-ever one-in-eight of sales. Show rooms are closed until April which is not helping an already depressed market.
SETTLEMENT REACHED IN PRITI PATEL BULLYING CASE
The Independent reports: The former chief civil servant at the Home Office has dropped a bullying case against Priti Patelafter receiving an undisclosed settlement from the government before it reached an employment tribunal. The move means Ms Patel will not have to face a tribunal hearing in September over allegations that she bullied Sir Philip Rutnam, who quit last February, accusing her of a vicious and orchestrated briefing campaign against him.Labour MP Kevin Brennan told The Independent: At the very least, people are entitled to know how much they are having to pay to allow Boris Johnson to cover up the grim details of Priti Patel’s misbehaviour.
THERE COULD BE PROBLEMS AHEAD
The Independent writes: The number of young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) has shown its biggest quarterly increase in almost a decade, new figures reveal. There were an estimated 797,000 young people aged 16 to 24 classed as Neet in the final quarter of 2020. This was an increase of 39,000 compared with the previous quarter, from July to September, and up by 34,000 on the figure for October to December 2019.The Office for National statistics said the latest quarterly increase was the largest since July to September 2011 and was almost entirely driven by economically inactive males.Of all young people in the UK who were Neet in October to December 2020, an estimated 44.3 per cent were looking for, and available for, work and therefore classified as unemployed, the ONS said. Just over half were classed as economically inactive. The ONS added that 11.6 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds in the UK were classed as Neet in the latest three-month period, up by 0.6 per cent from July to September.
OCTOGENARIAN LOCKDOWN BREAKERS
From the Evening Standard: Downing Street is urging people to continue to respect the lockdown after a survey revealed more than four in 10 over-80s who have received a coronavirus vaccine have since broken the rules. According to the data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), some 43 per cent of elderly people said they had met someone other than a personal care support worker, member of their household of support bubble indoors since being vaccinated. And 41 per cent of over-80s vaccinated in the previous three weeks said they had done so.
DRINKS ON THE CAR PARK
The Independent reports Pubs without beer gardens will be allowed to serve drinks in their car parks from 12 April, the government has said. Licensing rules for pubs bars, cafés and restaurants were simplified last summer to make it easier for businesses to partially reopen in line with Covid regulations These relaxed rules will remain in place when outdoor hospitality are allowed to begin reopening on 12 April. This means that food and drink can be served to customers in makeshift seating areas in pubs and restaurants’ existing car parks and terraces. Two households or up to six people will be allowed to meet outdoors when restaurant and pub gardens reopen on 12 April, according to the government’s roadmap out of lockdown.
AND FINALLY
From the Daily Star: A World War 2 shipwreck in the Thames is still loaded with over 1,500 tons of high explosive – and now the government plans to remove its masts before they collapse and trigger an explosion. The SS Richard Montgomery was carrying a huge cargo of weapons and explosives when she sank near the Nore sandbank off Sheerness, 45 miles east of London, on August 20 1944. Roughly half of the ship’s payload was recovered, but the rest – at least 1,400 tonnes (1,500 short tons) of high explosives remains on board, 50 feet below the surface and perilously close to houses along the coast. The cargo is dangerously unstable and experts have warned that if the wreck were to explode it could cause a tsunami which would threaten people in the nearby port of Sheerness, Kent, as well as Southend in Essex.
Oh I am so-o tired! Tired of all the stupidity in the world. The complete lack of logical thought.
Nurses are furious at the pitiful pay rise. Yes it is pitiful.
It is because they work for the Department of Health and Social Care surely(?). So they get lumped in with all the pen pushing, W.F.H. ‘Public Servants’. The vastly overpaid civil servants.
G.P.s have a similar problem. Many of the older, (usually better), G.P.s are cutting their hours. This is because of a ruling by the Department of Works and Pensions, which ensures that because of their salary scale, they have reached a point, where if they work full time, they have to pay so much more into their pension pot, that, they have less ‘take home pay’!
Pauline…..And ‘oh I am so-o tired of all the stupidity as well, but I am even more tired of our utterly inept political class who think that money grows on trees as far as they are concerned. Absolutely browned off and sick to the back teeth from Boris Johnson and down to the lowliest MP. We need to be rid of the lot of them and start again from scratch.
I believe everyone should be made to read Gibbon and answer questions. Then read Kipling and answer questions. Then read the story of our kings and Queens and answer questions. Having done that. Retire.
All start with good intentions, once they are comfortable.?
I have noticed that in any factory of more then a few hundred employees, an unofficial aristocracy developes, and often continues long after its need. A symptom of this is that it is accepted by all that it will be reflected in pay. However nonsensical and out of date the necessity. In one factory a lunch table of apprentices were listened to seriously. Several of these seperate aristocracies often ( Usually in the case of larger populations ) can develope. Mostly one in paperwork functions, and usually in specialist functions. It is best if these can bemade to coincide with the common or garden Organisation . The one that is always mishandled being the Union intervention. ( Or thuggery depending on your viewpoint. The aristocracy of the Union itself, being often external, has different roots and its aims are often out of control.)
I do have some sympathies with nurses, doctors and everyone else in our emergency services who have been at the sharp end during this pandemic, and a 1% increase in pay is a derisory, especially since the politicians awarded themselves an allowance of £10,000 to enable them to work from home, and that was on top of their huge pay rise last year and their normal office expenses that they get. It just goes to prove that our thoroughly out of touch and inept politicians only one sector at heart when deciding increase in pay and expenses, and that is themselves. It is OK to award themselves pay rises in excess of inflation and supposed one off payments to enable them to work from home, but when it come to anybody else, the same old line ‘the country can’t afford it’ gets trotted out. We need a mass clear out of our so called political elite not just those presently in government who are quite frankly the absolute pits, but also the entire House of Commons. Political elite did I say, yeah only in their own collective minds. Time for change is nigh………
Nurses pay. The bottom line is the NHS is too busy creating staff shortages to justify foreign recruitment. NHS pay rates are just high enough to attract foreign staff and present immigration as a wonderful resource. People like Dame Donna need to start connecting the dots and asking why we have record numbers of young people in university and record NEETs and still don’t train enough people to staff the NHS without stealing Doctors and Nurses from around the world. When the stealthy privatisation of the NHS is reversed there may well be more money for wages rather than profits. The wrong people are charge!
Correct.
What an ungrateful shower, we clapped for them. What more do they want, dance to them as well?
Mike Durrans…..will you be embarking upon a clap-a-thon for Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson in grateful thanks for the way that they have dealt with this Covid 19 farce at the end of your driveway, or more likely will you be jumping up and down like a proverbial jack-in-the-box shouting and screaming and blowing whistles whilst dressed in a Boris Johnson clown outfit. Its all very well Hancock saying today insofar as the 1% pay offer to the nurses ‘its what we think we can afford’ but did he and his cohorts say the same thing when MP’s were paid that £10,500 allowance for working at home. You have to look at the 1% pay offer in the context of what pay rises and allowances and one off payments the MP’s receive at the drop of a hat. Did Hancock and co say then ‘no I don’t think we can afford it’. Of course he didn’t……….
Well said Colin
I believe handless cock is a stranger to reality
It’s truly a wierd person who could stand up as you say knowing that his government often under his guidance had gambled £billions on duff PPE gear and many other things and think that he was actually “rewarding” some people who had pulled him and his government out of the manure so selflessly.
Astonishing, but so indicative of the attitude of the supposed elite and those who now wield absolute power over the peasants ( that’s all those apostates who are not of their ilk)
If confirmation is required this one event demonstrates what life will be like under the heel of the jackboot from now on.
It’s the little things you have to watch!
NOW COME THE COUNCIL TAX RISES
Have WE no say in these rises or are all of us plebs merely grist for the mill?
You will have a say in the musical chair elections in May.
There has been lots of Ritchie Gupta’s budget talk of late.
So we are getting a freeze on pay / salary taxation in a year or so. Hence, after a year or so ‘take home pay’ will reduce by the rate of inflation.
So far, so good BUT
I dont see any figures on the rate of money printing (= more or less govmt inflicted inflation).
THE question I have not seen answered is what is the projected rate / amount of money printing (silence all around)?
Note: I was reading lately that if you go to the uSA, most of their money you have, was printed in the last three years. Apparently a figure of 30 (thirty) percent of uS money has been printed in the last twelve months.
Before long, we will all be spending Reich dollars and Reich Pounds and of course Reich you’rows backed by Jerman Fuhrein you’rows.
Biscotte. It really does not work like that you know. If they are printing more and more money, where is it going then? If it was going into my pocket and your pocket and everything else remained the same, no even that would not cause inflation.
You and I might spend it or even save it. Either way it would not cause a rise in prices. If everyone decided to spend spend spend but there were not enough goods available, then prices would rise – inflation.
The ‘goods’ are there. Even at the moment there are all sorts of silly ‘goods’ available on line. Delivered to your door.
I think the ‘Boom’ part of boom and bust was caused by massive amounts of CREDIT being created and handed out to individuals to spend.
The present situation is different again. The U.K. government has borrowed from the U.K. owned Central bank, the Bank of England. In that sense we owe it to ourselves, no one else. It actually has nothing to do with how much ‘money’ is printed.
What we do need is to get back to producing goods and services.
Get back to people being employed in producing goods and services.
The more of those EXPORTED the better.
The fewer goods and services IMPORTED the better.
Burnt Toast…..by the sounds of it you’ve been raiding Shackleton’s secret stock of Single Malt ion your time travels with TGS………..
Colin. I reckon Biscotte visited Henry VIIIth. I believe he was the first to create inflation by minting too many coins.
Not sure what the common tipple was at the time. Nor, for that matter, who was the ruler’s bedfellow!
Mint tea?
We need to take the unions out of healthcare and teaching. 90% of Nurses have had 12 months and more on furlough, full pay and no expenses. Unlike the key workers in the private sector who have had to work longer hours, pay their tax or the employees that have had to survive on 80% salary during furlough. The government has put the NHS above every sector. Yet the NHS has been closed to those who have spent their lives paying for it. The deaths accumulating over the next few years will no doubt be put down as something very different to the truth of NHS neglect.
For my part I would like to completely disband this ugly monolith, give people a flat rat3 of 10% tax on their earnings and let the population make their own decisions where their health is best catered to and their children best educated.
Pardon Angela ? 90% of nurses on furlough? Where did you get that idea from. I do not believe it.
Teachers are a different matter altogether.
Interesting short video:
“A European country adopts a new approach to refugees and asylum-seekers”
https://youtu.be/4dCnB7dSCgU
Yes, a good question! However I doubt Boris will not have the balls for that move
The difference between the Danes and the British on this issue is that British establishment perceive that mass immigration to Britain is at such an advanced stage that it is easier to let it continue at its present pace than take steps to stop it. MPs feel that, career wise, it is far more dangerous to become outspoken on this issue than remain quite. Yes, there will always be a Pritti Patel allowed to spout off to fool the credulous masses into voting Tory but it will amount to nothing, it never has all my life. As for the professional classes they too are fearful to become politically active and quietly join the white flighters to their verdant retreats rather than politically engage in activism. Those living in Labours Red Wall who returned Tories to Westminster in 2019 as they bought into the Brexit will halt immigration lies of the Tories will be scratching their heads as they read the latest immigration figures.
We should brace ourselves for mass immigration to continue unabated.
The Climate Change Scam, the virus and mass immigration all being used to destroy life as we knew it. I fear only a revolution will save us but who has the stomach for one or the necessary means to mount one?
Jack Thomas………..you could always start the ball rolling yourself…….
Difficult to know, Colin, where to start. I’ve not much time left on this earth so I’d volunteer to do a Guy Fawkes. But he wanted to return us to rule from Rome! So that ain’t right.
We have the ‘Divine Right’ of Prime Minister situation, so that suggests an Oliver Cromwell is needed. With a Model Army of course.
Pauline unconsciously or not I think your term “Model Army” has hit the nail on the head..
That now describes our present army and all the defence policy that goes with all the services.
Policy and strategy is all based on a set of models ( I hasten to add not necessarily involving that awful Ferguson fellow or his tawdry alma mater, but certainly furnished by a host of others of his ilk)
What else are models but toy soldiers, toy ships and toy aeroplanes