The disappointing GDP figure for December was dragged down by a fall in output at Health and Education. There were fewer GP appointments, less test and trace and vaccination work. Fewer pupils went to school. It is worrying that after such a large extra recruitment of NHS managers and non medical staff in the last three years output should be falling. More support staff alongside the extra doctors and nurses need organising and motivating by the managers so more is achieved.
Hospitality and leisure was also weaker than the Christmas season deserved. It is true Premier League games were lost to international competition, but also the case that business suffered from train strikes which prevented or deterred many people going to city centres where much of the leisure and hospitality is located.
I have pointed out before that public sector productivity has now failed to grow for 25 years. The covid years have been especially bad. We do need to find managers that can improve all that, and can tailor jobs for talented staff that are worthwhile and well remunerated within the large budgets available.
February 11, 2023
“public sector productivity has now failed to grow for 25 years” indeed but much of what they produce is of little value or even of negative value – doing more harm than good. Things like their war on motorists and the self employed, the net zero agenda, the net harm vaccines (certainly for the young probably for the old too), test and trace. HS2, the appallingly censorship by evil organisations like OFCOM, the government propaganda adverts & lies, much NHS activity is incompetent and misguided too.
There is no reason why staff in the state sector want to serve the public or become more efficient. They do not respond to their customers as they have no incentives to do so unlike a private sector business. To the NHS patients are a nuisance, they have the patients money already and would rather spend this money on things other than patients where possible. They are just as happy blocking the roads, inconveniencing and fining motorists as they are building new road – perhaps not they clearly prefer blocking them as this is cheaper, raises fine revenues and is less hassle.
February 11, 2023
Ashley, perhaps we need to go a step furter: If the Public Sector fails to deliver it should cease to have the opportunity to deliver. Move away from public funded education and health (and a host of other things) and offer people insured or privately paid for alternatives. They exist, they work, they generally outperform the state equivalent.
February 11, 2023
Quite right.
Much of what the public sector does is counter productive so should be culled.
Education and health vouchers would work wonders for productivity.
February 11, 2023
The idea of vouchers for education and health was seriously considered under Margaret Thatcher ( it might even have been our host’s suggestion ). It has always seemed morally wrong that those who are prepared to pay more for either service should have to pay 100% of the cost from net income AND still pay for the same services from the failing areas of the state sector that they don’t use.
The idea of vouchers was rapidly dropped back then, and we can be very sure it wouldn’t get past the first focus groups in our much more wokish society today, more’s the pity.
February 11, 2023
Agree. Spot on.
February 11, 2023
+many
Oh yes!
Utterly spot on!!
Thank you!!!
February 11, 2023
I completely agree. But the same applies – in spades – to the governing class.
In the 1960s (pre EEC) we were governed by:
Parliament
A small number of Quangos
County Councils
Local/District/Town Councils
Now:
Parliament
The EU (until we start scrapping EU laws)
Devolved Parliaments in Scotland, Wales, NI
1000+ Quangos
City-region Mayors
County Councils
Unitary Authorities/District/Local/Town Councils
and we have the added uselessness of Police and Crime Commissioners which no-one wanted and hardly anyone votes for.
No improvement in productivity; but a massive increase in the governing class and their legions of interfering bureaucrats, busybodies and box-tickers. I wonder …… could there possibly be a correlation?
February 11, 2023
Stop on Donna couldn’t agree more
February 11, 2023
@Donna +1
And now we have no one with the ability to take charge. No one owning or responsibility for all the taxpayers cash just given away. All lost now their foreign overlords are not dictating their daily lives
February 11, 2023
Couldn’t have said it better.
February 12, 2023
An example:
Net Zero Programme Manager, London, ÂŁ54,764âÂŁ63,862 a year
“Fullâtime – This is an exciting position in the Greener NHSâs Net Zero Operations function, within the wider Greener NHS central programme team. Itâs a great time to join the programme, following the commitment by the NHS to become the worldâs first Net Zero national health system, alongside the appointment of the NHSâ first Chief Sustainability Officer.
This commitment and multiyear plan (detailed within âDelivering a âNet Zeroâ National Health Serviceâ) reflects growing evidence of the health impacts of climate change and air pollution, alongside recognition that it is not enough for the NHS to treat the problems caused by air pollution and climate change â from asthma to heart attacks and strokes â it needs to play a part in tackling them at source. (a false and unsupportable claim).
The Greener NHS programme works closely with both corporate and regional teams across NHS England and NHS Improvement, with local health systems, Trusts and other stakeholders. We are uniquely placed to understand and reduce the environmental impacts of health and care and save thousands of lives and hospitalisations across the country.”
February 11, 2023
Everyone I speak with has lost confidence with the vaccines, politicians and the bias news. Is it any wonder people have stopped going into cities when politicians make life so difficult with their constant attack on cars. You lot have really lost the plot. Of course output is falling, managers don’t produce anything and just get in the way of those that do. How can you expect doctors to see more patients when they have to spend time going on useless diversity courses dreamt up by the waste of space diversity managers.
You might as well sack all teachers because the less time pupils spend in school the better the exam results seem to be.
Politicians have ruined this country. Stop interfering in people’s lives, cut taxes, cut waste and stop all this net zero nonsense.
February 11, 2023
++++++++ wonderful!
February 11, 2023
We desperately need a true Conservative government.
February 11, 2023
When you have public sector , so -called ‘managements’ concentrating on recruiting ‘Diversity , equality , Inc, failure to take responsibility , lack of leadership lusivity’ and other ersity nonse positions. Period Officers and duplicating roles of the CEO with COOs and deputies for both ,is it any wonder that :
i: outputs fall
ii: nothing gets done
iii: standards fall
Sir Gordon Messenger hit the nail on the head with his observations about NHS ‘management’ . Finger pointing .failure to take responsibility ,Lack of leadership
February 11, 2023
Good morning.
As others have said yesterday, we have a high tax economy that is deterring inward investment. There are, according to others, additional reasons but I am not too sure on all of them.
If our kind host allows.
https://pharmaphorum.com/index.php/news/5-reasons-az-may-be-siting-its-new-plant-ireland-not-uk
Just imagine if health provision is run in the same way and there was no NHS, as was the case BEFORE the Second World War. Would do you think would happen ? Well the private healthcare providers, just like the ones I link to above, would not see the UK as a good place to invest as a large proportion of their profits would be taken.
Since when has the Conservative Party taken on the mantle of the ‘politics of envy ?’ Even the Balirites when in office decided that greed was good !
February 11, 2023
On you link it says :- One other factor in favour of Ireland is its ongoing efforts to provide access to green energy: an increasingly important consideration for pharma groups trying to reduce their environmental impact.
Well not sure they really care about so called “green” energy much other than as green wash. Big pharma clearly did not even care much about the safely or their net harm, ineffective and for the young not even needed Covid vaccines.
Still I suppose the deaths caused reduce human CO2 emissions (from these humans anyway).
The dailysceptic.org is good today.
February 11, 2023
Good morning,
We need two GDP figures, one for the Public Sector and another for the Private Sector. We might also have productivity figures for the two sectors.
Compare, analyse, benchmark; make better spending and investment decisions.
February 11, 2023
School attendance is a real problem.
Have been working as a supply Attendance Officer for the council. The cost of trying to get pupils back into school when you take into account all the people involved, cost of phone calls, letters, disruption to teaching schedules, administrating fines and court costs where some pupils have 35% attendance record. The impact to and on social services, benefit departments when they finally leave school is extracting a very high cost on public services. There is a unhealthy number of children waiting to be seen by the Child Adolescent Medical Services to try and address Anxiety, Attacks, ADHD and many other mental disorders. The strain on the teachers and other departments trying to meet targets for attendance is taking its toll on the children who want to learn and aspire to greater things.
February 11, 2023
And Tory education minsters who caved in to teachers’ unions and closed schools, all because of a cold virus, should have known that they would be making matters worse. The political party that supposed to stand for freedom and individual choice remains disgraced by what it did in office during those years.
February 11, 2023
I read yesterday that a third of 15 year olds werenât regularly attending school, and I thought that canât be right surely. Tes â 2 days ago â A total of 170000 pupils missed more than half of their school sessions last term, new analysis on school absence shows.â You are highlighting a big problem with another major public service.
In your experience, are these children of parents who work full-time and thus arenât aware their child is skipping until you call?
Or children of parents/a parent who doesnât work and doesnât care whether they attend or not?
February 11, 2023
a-tracy
It starts long before 15 years of age.
Primary schools have problems with attendances as low as 60%
A lot of my clients are single parents, some working as best they can but like the one who has had a shift change, she is not there to put her daughter on the school bus. I told her when you get home put her straight in the car and take her to school. Sooner or later the penny drops.
The kids get on the bus and at the next pick up get off. The driver can’t stop them he is on a solo operation. A lot of parents don’t want the grief of FPN but on benefits they struggle to pay the fines. A few rely on us to get them to school because a lot of us have worked in the real world and they can identify what is expected. Too many teachers have done school,college, University, teacher training and nothing else. Since the age of five the school environment is all the know, coupled with all their targets there is not enough hours in their day and the problem ones are taken out of class and put in specialist hubs. Covid hasn’t help in too many children want a school PC and want to work from home. They don’t see they are not learning the social and team skills so important in later life. The problem just gets bigger.
February 12, 2023
Tt – I personally know five teachers that did as you said, school, college, local university, teach. Two that did teaching qualifications one OU and on the job training after having their child. The irony is one of them skipped school all the time and only got a couple of GCSEs and had to take her Maths and English when working as a part-time TA.
It is very sad now that people donât make friendship groups to share out their childcare oversight. I always worked full-time and had several ways of making sure my child got to school and picked up again. Itâs a shame the Councils, HAs canât facilitate housing swaps so that people can vacate homes as their children leave school and move away from the local school so that families with young children can move in, a private home owner usually takes those aspects into consideration when buying a home, how far away from the school is it, right lets sell up and move I donât want all these school runs around me, four of my neighbours moved once their children left school.
February 11, 2023
turbo
I often wonder why so many people and children are now being diagnosed with so many problems, especially mental related problems, compared to 50-60 or more years ago when work was then so much physically harder for many, although in relative terms, life was much more simple and less expensive for the basic needs of life.
The DNA of the Nation seems to have changed for many to a victim type excuse, self help seems absent, work ethic seems to have almost vanished.
Has the nanny State produced more Child like minds, with child like aspirations, where failure is not being able to do what, or be provided, with what you want, rather than what you need.
Yes fully aware it’s tough out there in the real world, but the State cannot provide everything, or solve all of life’s problems, and politicians perhaps should make that absolutely clear, instead of promising the earth at every election.
We need less State intervention not more.
February 11, 2023
Berkshire Alan
Now everything has a name and a treatment. When you sit with them and ask them about future plans and ambitions, there isn’t any. I tell them getting a job is not all about qualifications it’s about Reliability, Punctuality, Honesty and who will their potential employer turn to for answers?
The school, all they need to do is give a score out of ten and a chance is lost.
The nanny state does exercise a lot of control and too many parents have abdicated their responsibility and leave it to the teaching staff.
February 12, 2023
This is so sad, a life of opportunity closed off to them. It doesnât always end up bad. I know a boy so labelled with ADHD that his Mum got a blue badge for her car, his father gave up work to become his full-time carer, he went to an agricultural college and sat his driving test at 17 and passed first time. After college benefits stopped, his father went back to work and the young man got a job as a baggage handler. When covid struck his grandad paid for a HGV course for him, he is now a heavy goods driver earning very good money.
February 11, 2023
Iâve had another thought turbo. Are these registered absent children even still living in the UK? Are we just paying out benefits and housing to families who have moved back to the EU?
I would insist they come in to school the next day or any universal credit, working and child tax credits etc. will be cut.
February 11, 2023
a-tracy
The ones I see are with a parent or family member and some of the parents have been in court twice cannot pay because they are on benefits and still the child refuses to attend, so plan B comes in that it is a mental condition and so it goes on. These children are on a road to nowhere but they see their friends all living a sort of life on benefits and think that all will be fine.
February 12, 2023
I see this, I sadly know people like this. I would be much firmer with their parent/s and if theyâre not working make them come to school with their child as their childâs classroom assistant in order to retain their benefits (fines are no use at all-they just get everything topped up from food banks and elsewhere, one thing they have is time and it is their time that Iâd fine them), theyâd probably start to sort it out if it meant they couldnât stay in bed themselves.
Keep pandering to them and allowing them excuse after excuse is as you say a road to nowhere and their poor children are the ones ultimately with wasted life chances. I wonder if we could ask for local volunteers with DBS checks to could shadow a family to get their children another sensible adult in their life to talk about the future with and make sure they are on their way to school every day.
To be honest though Rishiâs promise of extra Maths from 16 to 18 is going to cause even more absenteeism of this group, theyâd be better putting them in the homeland forces, on wards training and into other State jobs that we canât find the staff for from 16 years of age to get them away from their parents, earning their own honest money.
February 11, 2023
The unionised Left control what happens across all areas of State provisions and the Tory party when in government simply agrees to such an avoidable arrangement for an easy life and to minimise the possibility of conflict to itself. Meanwhile the true cost of the filth Left taking control is poorer services, politicisation of our world, less freedom and ever higher taxes
In conclusion. The Tory party’s refusal to confront Neo-Marxist ideology and collectivism is ripping apart the moral and free world we have all taken for granted for decades
The Tory party is complicit and guilty. Only the passage time will reveal the true scale of the cost of their connivance
Who else on the INSIDE is able to confront the march of the left if not the Tories? We can’t as the main parties have passed laws against speech, debate and conversation. That’s how low the Tory party has fallen that they conspire to criminalise debate to prevent such issues from being discussed.
All of this is designed to insulate the Tory party from Labour and the Left. We will all pay heavily for their behaviour
February 11, 2023
Ok Dom, what would you do immediately next week if you were the Health Minister and what instructions would you give each member of their team.
February 11, 2023
acting as Dom —-The Cabinet (let alone the Health Minister) has to revisit the changes to the GP rules. It must be said at the outset that refusing to see patients has led to the A&E across the land to be overwhelmed, ambulance queues, people dying YES dying as a result of their selfish non-activity. The Partnerships must be under warning, say 2 years, that they will be outlawed, but the pension limited via taxation will must be eased. Junior doctors, and those under training should have something like a 30% increase in pay NOW. Consultants and Doctors responsible for patients in hospital wards must ensure those able to be released are released by 10am, or delegate to that to the next in line.
February 11, 2023
MT – GP contract 2004 – it would be 18 years too late, I predicted this would happen in 2003, wrote about it extensively. It put enormous pressure on ambulances, A&Es. Does every A&E have a minor clinic along side its major emergency clinic, they should. We would need to train a lot more doctors now, they donât do the 48-60 hours of GPs of old, they want their work/life balance so we shouldnât restrict training, at least those degrees would be useful instead of all those we pay for that return no economic success to the Country.
I believe that payment per person on the list must be reviewed. Some GPs have 1000âs of patients per GP and others hundreds the postcode lottery must end.
I agree about Junior doctors after 5 years training, Lifelogic said they were on ÂŁ29k a nurse after 3 years degree training gets ÂŁ27,055 + ÂŁ1400 = ÂŁ28,455 from April 2022. Every year they work in the NHS doing 40 hours per week or more we should not take their 9% graduate tax (although this only affects English students in the Union. If they leave the UK the student loan should be automatically transferred to a debt repayable at what they would earn as a UK Doctor.
I would have thought consultants would prefer to start at 8am and be clear of ward rounds by 10am? Iâm surprised at what youâve said about that. Pharmacies in hospitals also hold up people wanting to leave. The consultant should have a laptop with a printer that prints out the prescription, so the patient a take it to any pharmacy of their choice or sit and wait for hours at the hospital if theyâre in no rush to go home.
February 12, 2023
But the pharmacies are used after discharging – I’ve been there, waiting hours to be released only to sit and wait for prescription to be filled( in presentation order )- so ward needs are more urgent than us wanting to leave.
Yes patients should be advised it might be worth taking the prescription outside the hospital.
February 11, 2023
@DOM Are you suggesting the Government is refusing to do the job we empower and pay them for – Manage?
February 11, 2023
Dr Madsen Pirie of the Adam Smith Institute has a very good article on how to reorganise and structure the NHS on line today.
February 11, 2023
There is no shortage of ideas that could easily improve the performance of the NHS. Patients and others visiting hospital can see many fault with easy remedies within just a few glances. The obstruction is the Govt. They are inert on so many outstanding efficiency issues the NHS faces, although they tend to jump into effect at the prospect of increasing disorganisation which is rife.
February 11, 2023
Let’s hope no-one tries boosting GDP by increasing vaccination activity.
February 11, 2023
+many
My thoughts exactly!!!
February 11, 2023
I was talking yesterday to someone whose doctor friend was supposedly able to buy a Jaguar on the proceeds of vaccinating patients against Covid (ÂŁ30 a jab per adult, on top of his salary). Surely that helped GDP, didn’t it Cuibono?
February 11, 2023
Yes indeed.
But doing it by jab!
And us as the jabbed.
Must be better more honest/less dangerous ways surely?
And NOT by mass immigration.
Whatâs wrong with factories?
February 11, 2023
Why on earth would we want more, indeed any, test and trace or jab âworkâ?
Surely, if there is a smidgeon of joy anywhere it is that the plague is over?
Allegedly that was what caused all the âdownturnsâ and problems.
Worldwide even!
February 11, 2023
I read more and more that an ennui is creeping over many people.
After what has been done to them why should they bother?
Why go to work to earn taxes for the govt. to use in despicable ways?
February 11, 2023
Surely Sir John if increasing the number of managers and non-medical staff lowers medical production/output something is wrong. Likewise inputting more money does no increase output.
Oh! Perhaps we just need more nurses and doctors instead of managers and money to fix the problem ?
February 11, 2023
@John McDonald When you have a ‘none’ job you create an empire as a ring of protection
February 11, 2023
Why do people work? Three reasons: Power, Money and Autonomy.
MPs get a decent amount of the first two, but, nowadays (since Tony Blair and mobile phones) how much of the third? Doctors are a noble profession, trusted, kindly, sometimes, under God, able to cure illness too. They get the same reasonable amount of money and power as MPs, but their autonomy? Nurses? How much autonomy do they get? During a lifetime of teaching, I watched as my autonomy was slowly eroded by exams. Now, I understand, it is a lot worse with things like racism, silly rules about pronouns and not being trusted by the Safeguarding (cp the girls’ fight yesterday’s papers when teachers had to watch the violence without interfering).
If you see NHS as an industry (which it most certainly isn’t) then autonomy will be eroded and doctors will go where they are trusted. As will nurses. As will teachers. As will decent politicians too.
February 11, 2023
Being a doctors is a noble profession well often it is. But the more you study the history of medicine and the very scandals not so much. They were often very wrong indeed and very slow to learn. Worse still much of it was deliberate. Endless scandals often motivated by money, operations done for money that were never needed, look up the different cesarian delivery rates USA and UK. Look up rickets with broken leg straightening operations, scurvy, puerperal fever, the MMR and now the huge Covid Vaccine scandal, the human organ thefts, PIP silicone implants, Thalidomide, contaminated blood…
February 11, 2023
Yes. You can also add the Gardasil and Pandemrix vaccination scandals to that list.
February 11, 2023
Indeed you could fill a book just listing the scandals. Often they were not just accidents but criminal or criminal or gross negligence too. Then followed by lies and coverups. Only now after 40 years is compensation being paid to some for the blood contamination scandal.
February 11, 2023
Smallpox vaccination in 18th = driven by ÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁs
In the 60s nice little gifts to surgeries from drug reps!
The History of Medicine or how to use up all that lovely oil and ban trad remedies.
February 11, 2023
And they hand out statins like sweets and the average GOâs knowledge of cholesterol as the alleged cause of heart issues is both out of date and wrong. The fats they tell you to eat are dangerous.
February 11, 2023
Too many managers. Halve the number of managers and scrap all equality, diversity and inclusion fiefdoms in the public sector.
What now is the point of the failed test and trace and the failed and injurious vaccination program? Apart from spreading cash all along the distribution line, a nice little earner for surgeries.
February 11, 2023
+many
OooerâŠ
They canât do THAT!
It might win them the election.
And that is not the plan at all!!
February 11, 2023
@BOF Without equality, diversity and inclusion, they could not nurture prejudice and discrimination and with out that there would be no âthem and usâ. All Socialist doctrine and manipulation. then were would we be?
February 11, 2023
+1
February 11, 2023
Stop ignoring the Left’s rise to now control all areas of State provision especially education which has become infected with the poison of Maoist ideas seeking to warp and mould the minds and instincts of young people
If your party isn’t prepared to expose woke authoritarianism then step aside
February 11, 2023
The left wing teachers are out of order. Holding up placards saying: âThe only good Tory is a dead Tory. The only good Lib Dem is a dead Lib Dem.â a teacher who is a member of the NEU revealing her true feelings. It was intimated the banner was made for her by a pupil (why would anyone else make you a banner with a disgusting hateful sentence unless they know full well your views and that it will get them brownie points).
If I was a parent with a child in her class knowing her true feelings now I wouldnât want my child taught by her. Has she been put on a diversity, re-education course, we are never told the outcome as a warning to others not to do this hate crime in the future. The problem is the right just turns the other cheek on events like this:
In Manchester a couple of years back before the conference we had to tolerate a banner on a bridge and two dummy corpses were hung up saying: âHang All Toriesâ.
When if this was the left theyâd be blubbering all over about it and wanting people sacked, just look at some of the reports on Raab giving people hard stares, demanding better work with less mistakes in it, throwing tomatoes off his butty into the bin (aggressively). Iâve had enough of it. The fight back has got to begin.
February 11, 2023
Labour would be even worse
February 11, 2023
Harpoon missiles ÂŁ1.2 million each, Storm Shadow ÂŁ2.2 million – really??
I’m used to Rip-off Britain but that’s ‘over the top’.
Now we’ve had Brexit it’s time to get real.
Stop all this nonsense that ‘the State will provide’ it does so expensively and badly.
We need to roll back 70 years of creeping communism; let’s start with OLEZ, & the ECHR.
Bring back the Death Penalty, we don’t have to use it – but there are times when it’s better than a ÂŁ6 million bill for permanent incarceration. I concede the point that there is no evidence that the penalty deters – but there is an overwhelming probability that many deaths of innocents could be avoided if it were an option, especially in a world of ubiquitous video and DNA.
Introduce a Poll Tax for anyone without a National Insurance Number.
Sent from Mail for Windows
February 11, 2023
“Public Sector productivity has failed to grow for 25 years” ….. 13 years of them under supposedly Conservative Governments and despite a technology revolution which has completely transformed and increased productivity in the private sector.
The failure to grow public sector productivity has occurred over the same period that Labour and CONservative Governments have increased the box-ticking over a whole range of policy areas, most obviously social engineering (equality/diversity) and the environment (Net Zero lunacy). But instead of scaling this back, they intend ramping it up still further with their well-advanced plans for a Surveillance State, Digital Currency and Social Credit System ….. monitoring and controlling our every move.
Having worked for over a decade as a Civil Servant, I know that in my Department there were many junior Civil Servants whose jobs basically consisted of data recording – logging data, completing spreadsheets and ticking boxes so that the Management could demonstrate they were achieving their (very undemanding) KPIs ….. essential if you wanted to progress!
Since Cummings was ousted, I see absolutely no reason to believe that “we” (ie the Government) are going to do anything whatsoever to reform the CS and improve productivity across the public sector.
February 11, 2023
This Spectator article from 2009 nailed the problem:
“Dave canât govern unless he destroys the quangos
Dennis Sewell on how the agencies stuffed full of Labour placemen have taken power in Britain. To govern properly, Cameron will have to take immediate, brutal action against them”
He didn’t; he promised “a bonfire of the Quangos” but all those Labour placemen are still in power and the Pretendy-Conservatives have added to them.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/dave-can-t-govern-unless-he-destroys-the-quangos/
It’s too late now for the Not-a-Conservative-Party to complain about the consequences of their own failure.
February 11, 2023
Iâve just read the 21 rather despondent sounding comments that have been moderated. Unfortunately, when you read about the rise of authoritarianism this seems to be another step in its gaining of control of the populace. Thereâs a feeling of helplessness as the steamroller keeps crushing everything we hold dear.
In Scotland, the prisons are saying ânoâ to Nicola Surgeons trans bill – by placing trans criminals according to their indigenous sex. 95% of the Covid boosters have not been taken up, cash usage is at a ten year highâŠwe can collectively stop some of the rise of authoritarianism.
Last night, Lawrence Fox, via GB News stood up to OfCom with the help of Neil Oliver and questioned whether OfCom needs a watchdog.
We all need to collectively stand up to the authoritarianism. Thereâs more of us than there are of them. I can see some green shoots of hope, but the steamroller seems to have a full tank of fuel! I donât use social media, but my husband, who does, tells me thereâs a lot of angry people with some brilliant senses of humour⊠prepared to fight.
One of the first things that needs to be done – Jeremy Hunt is killing off business and thus hope – he needs to be replaced with a conservative chancellor.
February 11, 2023
Can I suggest you check out Richard Vobes on YouTube ….. his monologue entitled “What If ….. disrupting 15 minute cities” of one day ago is most interesting.
February 11, 2023
Compared to 25 years ago, the public sector has had to take an army of people to comply with a library of new regulations contributing nothing to output. Many of the benefits of digital technology were undermined by new requirements for record-keeping, like data protection. Other examples include the need to respond to freedom of information requests, promoting the understanding of protected characteristics, net zero, IR35, paternity leave and prescriptive complaints procedures.
All are very worthy, but parliament (and the EU) have been the productivity-destroying machine.
February 11, 2023
Mainly caused by brexit.
February 12, 2023
NLH, I am trying to figure out how you reach this conclusion. The only change in regulations from Brexit is EU ones for exporting or travelling to their countries, and these activities are generally not undertaken by the government.
Most of the regulation I refer to comes from UK legislation, and Parliament can reform or repeal this. With Brexit, we can change the EU rules as well. We have a massive opportunity to free up the public sector to focus on providing better services.
February 11, 2023
How perverse to see a reduction in GP appointments, less test and trace and vaccination work being given as having a negative effect on GDP when we are always being told that it is very difficult to get a GP appointment, the NHS is overwhelmed and people have woken up to the fact that these vaccines cannot be considered to be safe nor effective. This country is being systematically destroyed by those elected to govern it. It is clear that they are working to an agenda set by others and not by those whom they purport to serve – the sovereign people of the UK. Worse is yet to come with the net zero scam nonsense, 15 minute cities and centralised digital currency. When are MPs going to defend the freedom and liberty of their constituents?
February 11, 2023
Under our Constitution, it isn’t the role of MPs to defend the freedom and liberty of their constituents …. they are simply supposed to represent them in Parliament.
It IS the responsibility of the Monarch to defend the freedoms, liberties and rights of his/her subjects (ie the British people). And he/she swears to do this as part of his/her Coronation Oath. This responsibility pre-dates the creation of Parliament as William Keyte, a Constitutional Expert, explains in some detail on Richard Vobes YouTube channel (two interviews).
February 12, 2023
Do we have a constitution? And if we do, where does it lay down what MPs are supposed to do?
February 12, 2023
Yes, we DO have a Constitution, but it is not written in one place like, for instance, the American one. It has grown and evolved over centuries and some aspects are written in several documents but the basic structure has existed for well over a thousand years and the roots pre-date Parliament.
“The first duty of a member of Parliament is to do what they think in their faithful and disinterested judgement is right and necessary for the honour and safety of Great Britain. The second duty is to their constituents, of whom they are the representative but not the delegate. Burke’s famous declaration on this subject is well known. It is only in the third place that their duty to party organisation or programme takes rank. All these three loyalties should be observed, but there is no doubt of the order in which they stand under any healthy manifestation of democracy.”
ââWinston Churchill, Duties of a Member of Parliament
There is no Job Description for an MP. They aren’t under any obligation to do what a majority of their Constituents want (as demonstrated in many attempting to overturn the Brexit Referendum) and the idea that THEY will protect our freedoms and rights is ridiculous. Arguably, their role is to restrict them since they spend so much time supporting Statute Law which is designed and intended to restrict both.
February 11, 2023
Were I a doctor , surgeon or nurse, the last thing I would want is motivation by a bunch of scribes, foisted on me by a bunch of greater scribes all the way back to the Ministry of Health.
Those with vocation and medical expertise would I imagine want as little input from scribes as possible, just a smoofh running back up system that ensures that there are no delays or screwups that get in the way of them doing their job, dealing with patients problems.
When productivity is poor in the private sector the company looses market share and goes bust. It is self rectifying. In the public sector there is no such constraint. They have a money tree on the front lawn, fertilized by the taxpayer. Tell us clearly who is responsible in the NHS for the fact that 47% of those they employ are none medical. Is it in the power of the Minister or is it down to the head scribe in the MoH to build this empire. Why are there so many none jobs in the political correctness/diversity realm when we already live in one of the most tolerant integrated societies in the World. Are they searching for needles in haystacks or more likely manufacturing those needles.
February 11, 2023
Motivation is becoming the word of the era of this Government. I should write Lack of motivation. Who, what, where and why should people, industries, start-ups and bothering with our future concern us – the ruling government, civil service and judiciary have made most despondent. Our country has a plague – call it ‘why bother’.
February 11, 2023
Every day you’re demonstrating how useless your party is in government.
You have an unelected technocrat leader who is frightened to offend anyone but the Conservatives’ natural constituency. With his Chancellor, he’s destroying the country with his tax and spend approach because it’s convenient for external interests. Deterring investment, chucking money at hopeless projects and so-called pandemics eats into peoples’ motivation to work and pay taxes.
You have layers of useless managers both in government and other public sector institutions like the NHS, literally counter-productive. You have corruption and mates’ jobs right through this system and the spiv interwoven private one. People handed cash for nothing to be paid for ultimately by taxes.
At the lower level, you have council workers snooping and fining people for feeding bread to ducks etc.
In honest-to-goodness socialist societies, these people would all at least be good at their jobs of bureaucracy, record keeping, snooping, reporting, covering their tracks. Here luckily we have an open press so far to expose them.
But unfortunately by maintaining your status quo, you’re a part of maintaining their status quo.
February 11, 2023
As always it is the Governments out and out Refusal to Manage behind the Countries woes. The Government is there along with Parliament to serve the people of this Country, as part of that they get to tax us. Under this crowd it all falls down when they use our tax money to buy services on our behalf but then ârefuseâ to attach a simple responsibility, accountability and return requirement on the spend. This Government just gives our money away.
So what is the purpose of Government and Parliament?
February 11, 2023
Time to start shutting down parts of the public sector by stealth.
Railways, close down entirely for a couple of months. Fire the staff and rehire only those wanting to come back on realistic terms equivalent to bus drivers.
NHS-just fire whole layers. Diversity first. No longer needed for the business, not to be replaced. Admin people, replace letters and phone calls with emails.
Civil service-similar. Fill the empty hospitality jobs with these people.
You just need a Jim Ratcliffe type to spend a year working through it all.
February 11, 2023
Excuse me Sir Joe, the railway staff you’re complaining about are not in the ‘public sector’. They have been employed by privately owned train companies since the 1990s. If perhaps you live abroad, you may need to come back to the UK some time to see what’s going on. There again, as someone still here, I could understand it if you’d prefer not to!
Reply All Network Rail staff and some regional train companies are state controlled.All railway companies depend heavily on state subsidies and centrally controlled timetables
February 11, 2023
Reply to reply: The rail industry employs 115,000 people in the UK, of whom 42,000 are employed by Network Rail (Wikipedia). The majority of rail workers are in private sector companies. The strike is to do with employment issues in both the public and private sectors.
February 11, 2023
State subsidised but have nothing to do with employment, training, pay, efficiency?
February 11, 2023
The workers might nominally be in the private sector, but the government sets the subsidies and therefore maximum pay levels.
The same unions that supposedly represented the workforce are still calling the shots, run by communist leaders like Lynch whose real agenda is to bring down the government.
I would introduce new contracts and wage levels then sack all employees who won’t accept them. It worked for Ronald Reagan with the air traffic controllers and will work here. And it would sort out overmanning at a stroke!
There are not many sympathisers for striking train drivers already on ÂŁ65,000 a year !
February 11, 2023
âless test and trace and vaccination work.â Isnât this a good thing, numbers have dropped sufficiently that we donât need to carry on, the 3 or 4 vaccines weâve all had are sufficient at keeping infections mild.
Iâd rather vaccination teams look at the 80 odd visitors arriving in the UK and allowed to stay by your government to ensure they have the same level of protections we got whilst children so that things like tb, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria doesnât raise its ugly head back in the UK after we eradicated a lot of it. Your government needs to concentrate on sending failed asylum seekers back to their homes countries.
February 11, 2023
From the Telegraph
âI donât think weâll winâ: Tories stepping down at next election on why theyâre quitting
Sir Charles Walker:
Crispin Blunt:
George Eustice:
Chris Skidmore:
Mark Pawsey:
Reading their comments indicates they themselves are certainly part of the problem â so bye, bye.
That said it takes just 5-6% of the electorate to switch for an election to be lost (elections are never won)
This time around I would see it as those not exercising their right to vote for any of the Parties, that swings it. Why vote for a pretend party, which have leaderships embedded committed to destroy the very heart of the responsible within their ranks, those that just want do their duty and serve their Constituents and Country.
The Leaderships of all UK Parties, are all die hard WEF Socialists(World Socialists) that set out to destroy the very thought of a free sovereign democracy anywhere. They are the problem not the solution.
Here in Wokingham the Liberal Democrats this week have already hit the campaign trial, all the usual promise they canât and donât have to deliver on, but they are still expected to grow the control they already have in the area.
February 11, 2023
Chris Skidmore going? Yippee! No more Tories pushing net zero?
February 11, 2023
I wonder if he hopes to take over from Deben. It would be his ideal sinecure.
February 12, 2023
Ian B
Indeed.
Yes interesting that the Wokingham Lib Dems are highlighting points for the next General Election campaign, even before the Local Elections take place in May this year.
Clearly they are trying to build up a head of anti Conservative steam, to perhaps cover up their own management failings now they have held power of the Council for nearly 12 months.
Recent leaflets are all about Conservative National Policies, and Part Time John Redwood MP, rather than their own failed policies.
Worry not JR many of us know the real facts, but many swallow and may be swayed by this sort of nonsense.
Just out of interest are there any rules about running a drip drip campaign over an extended period for election literature and it’s expense, before Candidates I assume are officially recorded as standing.
February 11, 2023
In my exoerience it is the managers that are the main source of the malaise.
Only after there has been a cull of civil service management can progress be made.
February 11, 2023
@Kenneth – Not forgetting it is the Government directly we pay to Manage the Civil Service. Tail wagging Dog
February 11, 2023
Just slash the number of public sector jobs, it has no relation to their output as you say. Cutting by half will reduce output little.
They are needed in the wealth producing 25% of the economy to avoid screams for more immigrants.
February 11, 2023
âThe disappointing GDP figure for December was dragged down by a fall in output at Health and Education.â
Are Health and Education included in the GDP figures? Arenât they classed as expenses? So increasing the budget for Health and Education increases our GDP? What is the meaning of GDP?
This reminds me of an episode of a previous incarnation of the BBCâs Politics Live programme where a well known economist said that the NHS was âself âfinancingâ because the NHS staff paid so much tax it covered the whole of NHS costs. This statement was not challenged by the BBC presenter.
February 11, 2023
Agreed, “We do need to find managers that can improve all that,…” – and, unlike me, you do not find much encouragement from seeing the agile, sharp minded, talent poised for deployment that is the shadow cabinet?
February 11, 2023
There was a revealing illustration of this a couple of daysâ back when the new chairman of HS2 (a former civil servant at the MoD – against stiff competition probably the most wasteful and useless govt dept) responded to an article by Matthew Lynn in the telegraph which had set out why HS2 is such a waste.
Itâs going to employ over 30k people said the chairman. so would any project, digging holes and filling them in again, re-installing asbestos in schools eg. that doesnât make it a good idea. Itâs attracting interest from other countriesâ rail sectors. Again of course if you spend ÂŁ100bn on a project! There was a claim about how low itâs emissions would be compared to a road (doubtless excluding the effects of the construction itself). Itâs only going to use green electricity. Really – how can an educated person write such nonsense? What happens when the wind isnât blowing and the sun isnât shining, or indeed other people are also claiming to be using the green part of the electricity that comes from the grid?
Nowhere was there a hint of the rigorous cost-benefit analysis which should be the only possible basis for such an expenditure of our money. Hunt could give a massive signal of intent to the world by cancelling hs2 in the budget – showing the U.K. is getting real about public sector productivity, the deficit, the debt etc. there would be an immediate boost.
February 11, 2023
Richard1 :
Agreed, except that Net Zero will be even a far bigger waste of money.
Decisions are being made by those who wish our country to become poorer and suffer expensive and intermittent power.
February 11, 2023
Motivation is lacking in all sectors – public and private . Opportunities and ambition are not a feature in our day to day lives ; the sun is not on the horizon . The fault is in our political/ economic leadership and it must be forced to change . Carrots ought to be brought back for the horses and donkeys to bite at .
February 11, 2023
Yesterday, while having my hair cut and later talking to a vaccinated relative, I was presented with two more results of the vaccines causing harm to the brain. The first was a reduction in intelligence, which was not slight, and the second was an inability to get to sleep.
February 11, 2023
O/T: FT, 11/02/2023 âHow would a UK digital pound operate and what would it mean for cash?â
February 11, 2023
As already mentioned by Sir John, nearly every one has digital money, afterall that’s the consept behind direct debit cash.
These other guys, the dim witted not thinking it through brigade are confusing bitcoin with it. Bitcoin is mined and anyone with computing power can obtain it. Would that be the same for what they call BritCoin as a competitor of Bitcoin? I think not. As a competitor if they need a digital pound and just turn your computer on…. The UK Government then looses all control of money. Don’t forget this the Chancellor and the BoE just looking for a headline to deflect from their failings
February 11, 2023
Hello Sir John,
Could it be that too many people are employed in the public sector which is why productivity has not increased for 25 years? As for the managers, why should they make the effort if no one is holding them to account? Why not ask how many managers in the public sector have been sacked for poor performance in the last 25 years? If you tolerate mediocrity, that is what you get! Don’t be surprised if the answer is none!
How incredible the debate about tax reductions never focuses on cutting the cost of government first so you can afford proper tax cuts, not just tinkering at the edges.
February 11, 2023
SJR, I read most of your diary entries and a majority of comments. I pause and observe the three major parties in the HoC. I judge that there are only 50/100 Conservatives left in the HoC, the residual members being social democrats of varying persuation.
I have also read the Reform Party manifesto, with the same caution due anyones manifesto. However even if
it is only intention with my caveats, it is infinitely closer to what you regularly espouse than anything that comes out of Downing Street.
I and many others suggest that your party is a busted flush come the GE, mostly because it ceased being Conservative long ago and it has abandoned its core membership, denying democracy on the way. With the latest Britcoin flyer it seems intent on creating Ociania.
In considering a move to Reform you would not be abandoning conservative thought or philosophy, just a name that has lost its meaning. And so would your 50/100 colleagues.
February 11, 2023
The key point about public sector employment is that the organisations employing the people do not need to make a profit – and the employees know it. Motivation is difficult; certainly the fear factor is absent. The answer is to keep the public sector as small as possible, for example forcing our railways to be profitable, slimming down NHS’s top heavy management, abolishing half of our quangos, releasing unneeded office space, reducing subsidies, getting rid of the council house system etc. etc.
February 11, 2023
Gross Domestic Product. Well the Public Sector has never PRODUCED anything, has it.
You are quite right to criticise the extra management posts of the NHS and the resulting deterioration of ‘output’, i.e. service.
Perhaps you will speak separately about high taxes here, sending more and more actually PRODUCTIVE businesses abroad, e.g. Ireland.
February 11, 2023
You are right. Recently, Astra Zeneca announced the relocation of a planned factory in the north west of England to the Republic of Ireland. This is almost certainly due to the increase in corporation tax that is in the pipeline, contrasting with the Republic’s low rate. The Sunak/Hunt axis are increasing taxes because they refuse to shrink our bloated and inefficient State with its massive accumulated debt. I’m blowed if I’m going to vote for their policy.
February 11, 2023
Perhaps GDP growth is not the right measurement Sir John.
Any measurement that includes outputs using the money taxed from individuals and businesses suggests that those outputs require equivalent activity and determination to occur. That just encourages governments to tax more to generate activity. The last thing we want them to do.
Similarly GDP rises with more people, that has nothing to do with the quality or benefit of those outputs.
Change the measurement please
February 11, 2023
Productivity ? – “Viking statue linked to far-Right & slavery, police warn council” ( D.Telegraph ) Is this police time & council time being spent well ? Utterly bizarre. FGS, please make it stop!
February 11, 2023
There are too many overpaid and incompetent managers in the NHS and the organisation of staff and basic administration is appalling. Too many administrative and medical staff are allowed to work part time. This destroys continuity and essential communication and support for patients. Our local hospital exemplifies these deficiencies, an automated switchboard that doesnât work, medical secretaries working part time, patientâs unable to obtain answers to queries following a poorly written letter from the hospital causing undue stress and anxiety. And if one is fortunate to get through to the relevant department itâs routine to be told the computer system has just gone down! Itâs a huge mess and could not and would not be tolerated in private industry.
February 11, 2023
How can one organise and motivate staff ‘remotely’ but effectively if they are ‘working’ or supposedly (when they get away from distractions at home) working from home?
As for another absurdity we are going to train Ukrainian pilots to fly our planes but apparently it will be five years before they are properly trained. That will not assist Ukraine in the war this year. The way to assist now with this airpower is to second British pilots and British planes into the Ukrainian armed forces now (much as Russia is doing with nationals of some other countries). This should be done now.
This is especially important as we need to get this war ended quickly and thereby get Putin overthrown so that normality can return to Europe.
February 11, 2023
GB _ Turn off your TV and then ask yourself WHY and do your research as to WHY the Globalist UK Establishment, the US Deep State, the EU, the UN, NATO and many others are assisting Ukraine.
I can provide the answer but it is not what you and many others think.
February 11, 2023
No, just turn on your television/internet and see the ruin that was the city of Mariupol. Putin claims Ukraine is really part of Russia – why then is he bombing what he claims to be his own citizens, his own civilians? No, Putin wants to restore the Russian Empire for the greater glory of Putin.
February 12, 2023
“News” is not just what happens, it is what a small group of people DECIDE is news. So many believe the Fake News Media which owned and controlled by the Globalists. The real conspiracy theorists believe their government cares about them, the media would never mislead or lie to them and the pharmaceutical industry that makes billions from sickness wants to cure them.
February 11, 2023
+many
Exactly!
February 11, 2023
@ Geoffrey Berg – seeing British pilots killed in the service of Ukraine would appal many and rightly so, leaving aside the dangerous escalation it would represent. And why do we (the UK) “need to get this war ended quickly”? How is Putin’s overthrow thereby assured and how would it lead to a return to normality in Europe?
February 11, 2023
If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, he will undoubtedly invade Moldova, probably the Baltic states and who knows what else, including maybe even ultimately us?
Dictators who are unsuccessful in wars they cause are usually overthrown.
Normality in Europe is both economic normality without disruption to gas, oil and food supplies and political normality where European states are not using their armies to invade neighbouring countries.
February 11, 2023
Should Putin do all you suggest he very likely will be over-extended long before could invade “even ultimately us” whereas UK military personnel attacking Russia in/or from Ukraine would make war with us now (likely missile exchanges, city for city) a near certainty of which we have no need. Note also Putin’s possible overthrow does not guarantee a cuddly, docile replacement or even a rational being.
February 12, 2023
And if removing Putin results in someone rather worse ….
He has threatened use of nuclear weapons. Many of those will be trained on London. I for one do not support sending any British personnel to fight in Ukraine and I don’t see why WE should pay to provide Ukraine with military equipment.
In WW2 our ally, the USA operated a Lend-Lease Policy. We had to repay them for the equipment they lent us and for the loans post-war. I haven’t yet seen any detail of the Agreement Johnson/Sunak have reached with Zelensky for repayment of the ÂŁbillions of OUR military equipment they have received. Perhaps they’ve been supremely negligent again and not negotiated one.
February 11, 2023
The number of children in school on any given day is a component of GDP?! The mind boggles. Is the amount of lavatory paper used in public sector offices also a component?
February 11, 2023
With all the diversity training, wokeness and adherence to ânotâ offending anybody while meeting the green revolution targets, Iâm surprised thereâs any public sector output at all !
February 11, 2023
Home Office â10th February 2023
Illegal Immigrants 110
Boats 3
More trouble on its way âŠeveryday
February 11, 2023
Do not feel totally negative about life in the UK. I and my partner have just returned from dinner at a Turkish restaurant. The food was excellent, judgement based on business time in Turkey. The cost about ÂŁ87.00 for two including wine and tip. The restaurant was full, a vote for excellence. The positive side of business life is alive and well but under unnecessary pressure. It is incumbent on government to foster such enterprise not to stiffle it to pay for uncosted public sector projects through excessive levels of tax.
February 12, 2023
bizarre…..don’t you have any idea how many families and young people with mortgages cannot consider for a moment paying ÂŁ87 (for 2) ? Let them eat Turkish, not cake, eh?
February 11, 2023
Just read an article on electric wallpaper. What a great idea for all electric flats.
February 12, 2023
“We do need to find [NHS] managers that can improve all that”
Sir John, when are you going to face the fact that it’s been tried and failed since the NHS’s foundation. You could pay twice as many managers twice as much, and they still couldn’t manage such a wasteful system.
A tiered work- and salary-based contributory system linked both to health and to pension is the only possible route. It works very well in the countries where it exists, and their levels of long-term joblessness are also sharply reduced. The NHS does not – it is white elephant, a juggernaut, an unaffordable behemoth. Once health and retirement benefits are reconfigured on contributory lines, there will be a sharp reduction in long-term joblessness and the wilful avoidance of NICs.
February 12, 2023
Maybe if the Minister for Health gave the PS some hard stares or the Health Trust misManagers some sharp prods things might just change but I won’t hold my breath?