Do you want to discuss boring politics? (52 Viewers)

SBT

Well-Known Member
Facetious responses.

Teachers running education, or healthcare professions running health makes sense. Running energy, farming, business, economy or the home office, less so.
When do political parties ever run things this way? Tory cabinet members are usually just ex-City workers who get bounced around from department to department.
 

Mucca Mad Boys

Well-Known Member
Who was the last education secretary who had any teaching experience?
It’s irrelevant to the point I was making. The Labour cabinet has very narrow experiences which makes them fundamentally ill-equipped to address certain issues the country has.

Take, for example, the increase in employer’s NI. It’s had v predictable impacts i.e. employers either; freeze hiring, cut hours/jobs or embracing automation. In fact, Reform had a similar policy that was denounced as economically illiterate in 2024 (raising NI on non-UK workers). How Reeves didn’t see this coming is beyond me. It’s had disastrous outcomes because payrolls have declined for 8 months consecutively which reduces tax take, fuels inflation and increases welfare costs.
 

Mucca Mad Boys

Well-Known Member
When do political parties ever run things this way? Tory cabinet members are usually just ex-City workers who get bounced around from department to department.
Interesting comment for you to make. Surely you should understood my point rather than make out I was saying public sector workers do not have ‘real experience’.

If you think a cabinet of ex-city workers who all went to oxbridge, perhaps you’d think similarly of a cabinet made up of ex-union/public workers.
 

Farmer Jim

Well-Known Member
This is a very good analogy about all the stuff going on with the flags and anti immigration stuff going on in the UK at the moment.

If you go into the desert and catch 100 red fire ants, as well as 100 black ants and put them in all a jar, at first nothing happens.

However, if you violently shake the jar and put it back onto the ground, both sets of ants will fight until they eventually all kill each other.

The red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa.

The reality is that the enemy is the person who shook the jar.

The question we should be asking ourselves, who is shaking the jar and why ?
 

Brighton Sky Blue

Well-Known Member
It’s irrelevant to the point I was making. The Labour cabinet has very narrow experiences which makes them fundamentally ill-equipped to address certain issues the country has.

Take, for example, the increase in employer’s NI. It’s had v predictable impacts i.e. employers either; freeze hiring, cut hours/jobs or embracing automation. In fact, Reform had a similar policy that was denounced as economically illiterate in 2024 (raising NI on non-UK workers). How Reeves didn’t see this coming is beyond me. It’s had disastrous outcomes because payrolls have declined for 8 months consecutively which reduces tax take, fuels inflation and increases welfare costs.
Then forgive me if I’ve misunderstood, but it looks like you’re saying it’s fine for people with no experience of education or healthcare to be in charge of those departments, but not when it’s for others because you don’t need ‘real life’ experience to manage education or healthcare.

The reality seems to be that very few ministers have deep knowledge or experience of the policy areas in their portfolios. And they don’t actually need it either, that’s what various civil service and government organisations are tasked with: providing access to expert knowledge and advice.
 

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
Facetious responses.

Teachers running education, or healthcare professions running health makes sense. Running energy, farming, business, economy or the home office, less so.
It doesn't actually in respect of clinicians. They are experts in healthcare but the economics of it they are not (and I've worked with plenty who all admit the same).
 

PVA

Well-Known Member
‘The left are trying to destabilise things’

The left aren’t in charge. Things are being destabilised by weak and pathetic leadership.

The left have been trying to destabilise Starmer since the day he was appointed Labour leader, well before he became PM, so my point was that people like Clive Lewis briefing against him isn't a sign that the government is suddenly in turmoil - it's business as usual.
 

Sick Boy

Super Moderator
This is a very good analogy about all the stuff going on with the flags and anti immigration stuff going on in the UK at the moment.

If you go into the desert and catch 100 red fire ants, as well as 100 black ants and put them in all a jar, at first nothing happens.

However, if you violently shake the jar and put it back onto the ground, both sets of ants will fight until they eventually all kill each other.

The red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa.

The reality is that the enemy is the person who shook the jar.

The question we should be asking ourselves, who is shaking the jar and why ?
A lot of the money behind the campaigns on social media comes from ultra-conservative religious organisations in the USA, IMO.
 

Brighton Sky Blue

Well-Known Member
The left have been trying to destabilise Starmer since the day he was appointed Labour leader, well before he became PM, so my point was that people like Clive Lewis briefing against him isn't a sign that the government is suddenly in turmoil - it's business as usual.
If he wasn’t doing a shit job as PM this would be nothing for him to brush off.
 

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
The left have been trying to destabilise Starmer since the day he was appointed Labour leader, well before he became PM, so my point was that people like Clive Lewis briefing against him isn't a sign that the government is suddenly in turmoil - it's business as usual.
The snakes within the right wing of the party (if there is such a need for distinction) will dispose of him when the time is right, it's got nothing to do with "the left". Starmer practically purged them all. I know you won't like it but watch the Al Jazeera documentary or perhaps look at the Forde Report for some insight.
 

chiefdave

Well-Known Member
When do political parties ever run things this way? Tory cabinet members are usually just ex-City workers who get bounced around from department to department.
Always makes me laugh when there's a reshuffle. Someone hasn't completely fucked up their job so they get 'promoted' to something completely unrelated.

If you're good and experienced with transport, for example, stay with transport. Don't move them somewhere else.

No other workplace does this.
 

Grendel

Well-Known Member
The left have been trying to destabilise Starmer since the day he was appointed Labour leader, well before he became PM, so my point was that people like Clive Lewis briefing against him isn't a sign that the government is suddenly in turmoil - it's business as usual.
s reactions series GIF
 

Grendel

Well-Known Member

wingy

Well-Known Member
This is a very good analogy about all the stuff going on with the flags and anti immigration stuff going on in the UK at the moment.

If you go into the desert and catch 100 red fire ants, as well as 100 black ants and put them in all a jar, at first nothing happens.

However, if you violently shake the jar and put it back onto the ground, both sets of ants will fight until they eventually all kill each other.

The red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa.

The reality is that the enemy is the person who shook the jar.

The question we should be asking ourselves, who is shaking the jar and why ?
Absolutely!
 

Mucca Mad Boys

Well-Known Member
It doesn't actually in respect of clinicians. They are experts in healthcare but the economics of it they are not (and I've worked with plenty who all admit the same).
Which ironically, kind of proves the point I was making.

Then forgive me if I’ve misunderstood, but it looks like you’re saying it’s fine for people with no experience of education or healthcare to be in charge of those departments, but not when it’s for others because you don’t need ‘real life’ experience to manage education or healthcare.

The reality seems to be that very few ministers have deep knowledge or experience of the policy areas in their portfolios. And they don’t actually need it either, that’s what various civil service and government organisations are tasked with: providing access to expert knowledge and advice.
No, to be much more direct, cabinets need to be able to call upon people who have a diverse range of experiences. The Tory cabinets full of oxbridge-educated career politicians/city-boys wasn’t a good mix either. However, the Tories did in fact have people who’s background was in the public sector, the one person with entrepreneurial success (Baroness Gustafsson) has left government.
 

Brighton Sky Blue

Well-Known Member
Which ironically, kind of proves the point I was making.


No, to be much more direct, cabinets need to be able to call upon people who have a diverse range of experiences. The Tory cabinets full of oxbridge-educated career politicians/city-boys wasn’t a good mix either. However, the Tories did in fact have people who’s background was in the public sector, the one person with entrepreneurial success (Baroness Gustafsson) has left government.
Not to give Starmer much credit but didn’t he call on the founder of Timpson’s to assist with prisoner rehabilitation?
 

SBT

Well-Known Member
Interesting comment for you to make. Surely you should understood my point rather than make out I was saying public sector workers do not have ‘real experience’.

If you think a cabinet of ex-city workers who all went to oxbridge, perhaps you’d think similarly of a cabinet made up of ex-union/public workers.
Just curious why you’d draw the distinction between public sector workers and others when deciding who has sufficient “real life experience”. It’s not as if Labour has traditionally been a stronghold of private sector stalwarts anyway!
 

Grendel

Well-Known Member
Just curious why you’d draw the distinction between public sector workers and others when deciding who has sufficient “real life experience”. It’s not as if Labour has traditionally been a stronghold of private sector stalwarts anyway!

Lammy, Cooper, Mahmood and Reeves have all operated in the private sector?
 

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