That Starmer fella...

For me its about where the benefits of those efficiencies end up -with shareholders or back into the public purse.
I think providing jobs for people is a government service -eg combining two teams might make some financial sense, but if those savings (which are usually low skilled staff) are just making people unemployed and needing to sign on, is that actually the same level of saving?
Managing to wring 15% more work out of your staff for no extra costs isn't something that should be rewarded.

Anyone who's worked for the NHS knows that it's an incredibly wasteful organisation.

Don't all healthcare systems do this? It's pretty much endemic. If you incentivise waste (by making it chargeable) like in the US healthcare system then waste is increased exponentially.

At a macro level the NHS is in a pretty good place. Cost of healthcare per capita in 2019 of $4.6k vs. the US at $11k with far higher success rates for LfL operative procedures*.

If governments (either side) were better at describing this then maybe we'd not have the NHS used as some sort of political football. Same is probably true for education, transport, energy, etc..

*this is deterministic.

All large bureaucracies (public and private) face issues of inefficiency. There's ample academic literature on this topic which I looked at years ago, and I assume continues to be an area of research. Simply putting something in the hands of a private enterprise does not make it more efficient or cost-effective. It is that belief which is ideology, not pragmatism.

Anyone who's worked for the NHS knows that it's an incredibly wasteful organisation.

I work for the NHS and would argue the complete opposite. Delivering an acceptable service while under-resourced and under-staffed is the norm. I wouldn't call that wasteful, unless you call it a waste of potential.

Procurement is usually cited when talking about waste in the NHS, which is true, it's often arbitrarily exorbitant, and that's what you see in the media along with poorly run Trusts, but the service level cost is very low across the board and still delivers far more comprehensive healthcare than any single private provider ever will.

Although I'm idealogically for quite a lot of things being publicly run, I'm also pragmatically for quite a lot of things being publicly run.

https://www.jlpartners.co.uk/red-wall-wave-2

Worth a read.

This (from the report above) is barmy and worrying.

The perception of economic competence is, rightly or wrongly, something Labour have struggled with since "there's no money left" and Balls conceding to the Conservative narrative.

Surely if we now have a "safe pair of hands" in charge this is the ground they should be scrapping to win back. Austerity is not a vote winner any more, and Labour need to be reminding people that that's the Tories' fallback approach.

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lol of course Starmer does his Easter message from the same homophobic church that Theresa May got criticised for visiting

https://mobile.twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1377977021452668930

For Christ's sake.

FFS. Travellers one day, LGBT+ people the next.
Which minority group will be on the labour hit list tomorrow?

he really is fucking hopeless. does he not have people around him advising him to perhaps not do these things, because, y'know - optics etc. ? or is this another fuckwitted attempt to "regain the red wall" by appealing to rancid jesus freak homophobes?

sure he'll be doing something to reach out to the left any moment now.

aaany moment.

Who was it that was moaning about stupid nicknames? I generally agree but I am childishly amused by ‘Starmtroopers’.

It’s baffling. I clicked through to the Twitter page of the church in question and thought, wow these guys look like evangelical nuts, how do they not have any dodgy views? And oh whooops, they do.

I guess being competent means not having to do even the most rudimentary bit of google research.

He's now deleted and apologised, but you guys are right, he never should've been there.

https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1379164412632793090

At least it was a proper apology rather than a mealy-mouthed "I'm sorry if you were offended". Still a real fuck-up that it happened in the first place.

Agree. I expect better from Starmer's team. I hope they learn from this.

Re-taking the red wall going well for Starmer then

https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1379207704112156677

Long game, he's got four years, appeasing the left etc.

Good on the NIP tho.

I'm not optimistic that they will. Really struggling to convince myself to back Labour in May, even tho I'm a party member. I may abstain. I'm certainly not going out volunteering.

I’m a left wing teacher who’s voted labour my whole life. Finding it very hard to get anything else than depressed about labour under starmer. Wasn’t the point of him that he’d have a chance of winning?

Yeah, I’m so pissed off that Labour might not get as many votes as I would like them to at the local elections that I might not vote for Labour at the local elections either. That’ll show the Tories.

Because sneering brings back lost support, of course.

I’m not a staunch Labour supporter let alone a member, and even I can see that not voting strategically each and every time there’s an election just gives more power to the Tories. I’m in a marginal and I voted Labour in the last election regardless of what I thought of Corbyn.

I don't fully agree with this but it makes some decent points
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/opinion/columnists/chris-deerin/3031942/giving-hysteria-the-elbow-and-offering-a-return-to-simple-grown-up-politics

If anyone was in doubt as to how fucking cunty the Labour right are: Stephen Timms, ladies and gentlemen.

The party would be better off without these people in it. Shame it’s this type that Starmer is trying to coddle.

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