Stop voting for fucking Tories

[Insane_Homer]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... bn-deficit

14 years of Con, 1.2 Bn debt

The council said it faced the “extremely serious” financial shortfall owing to its “historic investment strategy” that had resulted in unaffordable levels of borrowing racked up during 14 years of Conservative control.

The programme of investments designed to transform the home counties town included a complex of sky-high towers, standing as the tallest buildings outside a major city in England, including a new four-star Hilton hotel, public plazas, parking facilities and shops.

Woking Borough Council has £1.9 billion of borrowing and a further capital financing requirement to 2025/26 which extends the debt to £2.4 billion. The associated capital financing costs are £62m per year. It is the most indebted council relative to its size in the UK. The two largest commercial schemes in the council’s portfolio are the regeneration of Victoria Place through the company Victoria Square Woking Limited (VSWL) in the town centre, and the regeneration of Sheerwater housing stock and public realm facilities, through the Thameswey Group. These two schemes alone have accounted for the majority of the current debt level.

My council.

People need to jail for this!

[Rhubarb & Custard]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... bn-deficit

14 years of Con, 1.2 Bn debt

The council said it faced the “extremely serious” financial shortfall owing to its “historic investment strategy” that had resulted in unaffordable levels of borrowing racked up during 14 years of Conservative control.

The programme of investments designed to transform the home counties town included a complex of sky-high towers, standing as the tallest buildings outside a major city in England, including a new four-star Hilton hotel, public plazas, parking facilities and shops.

Woking Borough Council has £1.9 billion of borrowing and a further capital financing requirement to 2025/26 which extends the debt to £2.4 billion. The associated capital financing costs are £62m per year. It is the most indebted council relative to its size in the UK. The two largest commercial schemes in the council’s portfolio are the regeneration of Victoria Place through the company Victoria Square Woking Limited (VSWL) in the town centre, and the regeneration of Sheerwater housing stock and public realm facilities, through the Thameswey Group. These two schemes alone have accounted for the majority of the current debt level.

My council.

People need to jail for this!

Maybe they could sell of some of the public investments for 10-20p on the pound to private investors who've donated to the Tory party, claiming it'd reduce public debt and promote investment.

[SaintK]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... bn-deficit

14 years of Con, 1.2 Bn debt

The council said it faced the “extremely serious” financial shortfall owing to its “historic investment strategy” that had resulted in unaffordable levels of borrowing racked up during 14 years of Conservative control.

The programme of investments designed to transform the home counties town included a complex of sky-high towers, standing as the tallest buildings outside a major city in England, including a new four-star Hilton hotel, public plazas, parking facilities and shops.

Woking Borough Council has £1.9 billion of borrowing and a further capital financing requirement to 2025/26 which extends the debt to £2.4 billion. The associated capital financing costs are £62m per year. It is the most indebted council relative to its size in the UK. The two largest commercial schemes in the council’s portfolio are the regeneration of Victoria Place through the company Victoria Square Woking Limited (VSWL) in the town centre, and the regeneration of Sheerwater housing stock and public realm facilities, through the Thameswey Group. These two schemes alone have accounted for the majority of the current debt level.

My council.

People need to jail for this!

Along with those who have done similar in Croydon, Thurrock and Warrington

[Insane_Homer]

With the benefit of hindsight perhaps it wasn't such a good idea for the former Conservative council to commit up to £750m of borrowed money to Victoria Square Woking Limited (VSWL) for the building of the new high-rise development Victoria Square in Woking. Especially now that the assets of the company are thought to be only £200 million.

I'm sure it's entirely coincidental that the board of directors for VSWL includes former chief executive of the council, Ray Morgan, and former leader of the council, John Kingsbury. After all, there was a [through investigation and they found themselves to be completely blameless](https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey ... o-14802308).

'Councillor Kingsbury and Mr Morgan did everything that could reasonably be expected of them in dealing with the loan facility, both as directors of Victoria Square Woking Limited and as a councillor and council Officer respectively. [...] and no further action would be taken in respect of them.'

The rigorous investigation was undertaken by Peter Bryant, Director of Legal and Democratic Services at Woking Borough Council and, coincidentally, also a director of Kingfield Community Sports Centre Limited (formerly Woking Football Club) who received a [£250 million unsecured loan from WBC](https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey ... m-19394539), despite allegedly only having assets amounting to £100.

[fishfoodie]

With the benefit of hindsight perhaps it wasn't such a good idea for the former Conservative council to commit up to £750m of borrowed money to Victoria Square Woking Limited (VSWL) for the building of the new high-rise development Victoria Square in Woking. Especially now that the assets of the company are thought to be only £200 million.

I'm sure it's entirely coincidental that the board of directors for VSWL includes former chief executive of the council, Ray Morgan, and former leader of the council, John Kingsbury. After all, there was a [through investigation and they found themselves to be completely blameless](https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey ... o-14802308).

'Councillor Kingsbury and Mr Morgan did everything that could reasonably be expected of them in dealing with the loan facility, both as directors of Victoria Square Woking Limited and as a councillor and council Officer respectively. [...] and no further action would be taken in respect of them.'

The rigorous investigation was undertaken by Peter Bryant, Director of Legal and Democratic Services at Woking Borough Council and, coincidentally, also a director of Kingfield Community Sports Centre Limited (formerly Woking Football Club) who received a [£250 million unsecured loan from WBC](https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey ... m-19394539), despite allegedly only having assets amounting to £100.

The Tories have moved beyond the Banana Monarchy stage, & are now going for the full on Despotic Kleptocracy

[Hal Jordan]

It's the latter days of the dictatorship, where everyone loots as much as they can before fleeing the country.

[fishfoodie]

It's the latter days of the dictatorship, where everyone loots as much as they can before fleeing the country.

Hardly necessary. The Met are utterly corrupt, the Russians own most of London, the Judiciary are fucking useless, the opposition are incompetent, where's the threat to them ?

Much better to spend the rest of their lives snorting lines of coke off hookers in Belgravia, rather than moving to some hot & unpleasant place run by unreliable foreigners.

[Paddington Bear]

It's the latter days of the dictatorship, where everyone loots as much as they can before fleeing the country.

Hardly necessary. The Met are utterly corrupt, the Russians own most of London, the Judiciary are fucking useless, the opposition are incompetent, where's the threat to them ?

Much better to spend the rest of their lives snorting lines of coke off hookers in Belgravia, rather than moving to some hot & unpleasant place run by unreliable foreigners.

In fairness, I'm not 100% sold on the Woking Council to Belgravia hooker pipeline

[Tichtheid]

Nothing to do with the Tories, but it doesn't warrant a thread of its own.

Caroline Lucas, the first, and iirc, only UK Green MP is to stand down at the next election. She won a 20K majority in 2019 and in my view she has been a very good constituency MP, she is very visible - I saw her knocking on doors with local council candidates a couple of months ago and she has a very high profile in the constituency.

The Greens took a bit of a doing at those local elections here, I don't know if that forms part of her reasoning for stepping down, she has said it is so she can focus on environmental and climate change issues as being an MP she has to spend so much time on other things, which is kind of ironic I suppose.

I voted for her but I get the feeling the constituency will revert back to Labour, they've had some decent candidates here in the last dozen or so years, but Lucas proved popular with voters.

[fishfoodie]

Nothing to do with the Tories, but it doesn't warrant a thread of its own.

Caroline Lucas, the first, and iirc, only UK Green MP is to stand down at the next election. She won a 20K majority in 2019 and in my view she has been a very good constituency MP, she is very visible - I saw her knocking on doors with local council candidates a couple of months ago and she has a very high profile in the constituency.

The Greens took a bit of a doing at those local elections here, I don't know if that forms part of her reasoning for stepping down, she has said it is so she can focus on environmental and climate change issues as being an MP she has to spend so much time on other things, which is kind of ironic I suppose.

I voted for her but I get the feeling the constituency will revert back to Labour, they've had some decent candidates here in the last dozen or so years, but Lucas proved popular with voters.

Seems like a real mistake at this moment in time to risk your Parties only seat ?

There's a decent chance of a hung Parliament next time out, & having that seat, or a couple of them, could give the Party real leverage.

[Biffer]

Nothing to do with the Tories, but it doesn't warrant a thread of its own.

Caroline Lucas, the first, and iirc, only UK Green MP is to stand down at the next election. She won a 20K majority in 2019 and in my view she has been a very good constituency MP, she is very visible - I saw her knocking on doors with local council candidates a couple of months ago and she has a very high profile in the constituency.

The Greens took a bit of a doing at those local elections here, I don't know if that forms part of her reasoning for stepping down, she has said it is so she can focus on environmental and climate change issues as being an MP she has to spend so much time on other things, which is kind of ironic I suppose.

I voted for her but I get the feeling the constituency will revert back to Labour, they've had some decent candidates here in the last dozen or so years, but Lucas proved popular with voters.

Seems like a real mistake at this moment in time to risk your Parties only seat ?

There's a decent chance of a hung Parliament next time out, & having that seat, or a couple of them, could give the Party real leverage.

Well find out how much of the Brighton vote is a Caroline Lucas vote. Big electoral implications - if the greens were to hold it, however narrowly, it'd be massive and give the green party more credibility. They can survive a 17% swing to labour.

Also, the Greens might do well in Bristol West. Last two elections labour won by 30k+. So first sight is probably not. But Bristol West had a massive Corbyn effect - they only beat the Greens by 5000 in 2015, and won something like 14/19 council seats just recently. If anywhere is going to lose votes because of Starmer, Bristol West will, because they think they have a genuine alternative.

[fishfoodie]

Nothing to do with the Tories, but it doesn't warrant a thread of its own.

Caroline Lucas, the first, and iirc, only UK Green MP is to stand down at the next election. She won a 20K majority in 2019 and in my view she has been a very good constituency MP, she is very visible - I saw her knocking on doors with local council candidates a couple of months ago and she has a very high profile in the constituency.

The Greens took a bit of a doing at those local elections here, I don't know if that forms part of her reasoning for stepping down, she has said it is so she can focus on environmental and climate change issues as being an MP she has to spend so much time on other things, which is kind of ironic I suppose.

I voted for her but I get the feeling the constituency will revert back to Labour, they've had some decent candidates here in the last dozen or so years, but Lucas proved popular with voters.

Seems like a real mistake at this moment in time to risk your Parties only seat ?

There's a decent chance of a hung Parliament next time out, & having that seat, or a couple of them, could give the Party real leverage.

Well find out how much of the Brighton vote is a Caroline Lucas vote. Big electoral implications - if the greens were to hold it, however narrowly, it'd be massive and give the green party more credibility. They can survive a 17% swing to labour.

Also, the Greens might do well in Bristol West. Last two elections labour won by 30k+. So first sight is probably not. But Bristol West had a massive Corbyn effect - they only beat the Greens by 5000 in 2015, and won something like 14/19 council seats just recently. If anywhere is going to lose votes because of Starmer, Bristol West will, because they think they have a genuine alternative.

If you had PR, the Greens would pick up quite a few seats on transfers just of Climate change & Tory rivers of shit as campaign points

[SaintK]

Government getting a grip and on top of things

Cancer patients face life-threatening hospital delays and the prospect of more gruelling treatment as a result of NHS staff shortages, senior radiologists have warned.
A poll of all 60 directors of the UK’s cancer centres by the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) found staff shortages at 97% of the centres were leading to longer waiting times and delays in treatment.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/20 ... logists

Health leaders have blamed staff shortages for waiting lists reaching another record high, with 7.4 million people in England waiting to start treatment as of the end of April.
One NHS leader said the figures showed that unsustainable “pressure continues to pile on an overstretched NHS”, and urged the government to speed up publication of its long-awaited workforce plan, which has been repeatedly postponed.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/20 ... england

The storm overflows taskforce set up by the government to tackle raw sewage discharges by water companies in England has only met once in the last year, a freedom of information request has revealed.
The group, which was promoted by ministers as evidence that they were taking the issue of raw sewage discharges by water companies seriously, is supposed to meet fortnightly, according to its mission statement.

https://www.theguardian.com/environmen ... verflows

[dpedin]

Government getting a grip and on top of things

Cancer patients face life-threatening hospital delays and the prospect of more gruelling treatment as a result of NHS staff shortages, senior radiologists have warned.
A poll of all 60 directors of the UK’s cancer centres by the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) found staff shortages at 97% of the centres were leading to longer waiting times and delays in treatment.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/20 ... logists

Health leaders have blamed staff shortages for waiting lists reaching another record high, with 7.4 million people in England waiting to start treatment as of the end of April.
One NHS leader said the figures showed that unsustainable “pressure continues to pile on an overstretched NHS”, and urged the government to speed up publication of its long-awaited workforce plan, which has been repeatedly postponed.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/20 ... england

The storm overflows taskforce set up by the government to tackle raw sewage discharges by water companies in England has only met once in the last year, a freedom of information request has revealed.
The group, which was promoted by ministers as evidence that they were taking the issue of raw sewage discharges by water companies seriously, is supposed to meet fortnightly, according to its mission statement.

https://www.theguardian.com/environmen ... verflows

Gov can't publish their NHS Workforce Plan as it will show up how bad they have let things get, demonstrate that the last 10 years of austerity has failed miserably, clearly show that they will not be able to make any sizeable impact on NHS workforce for 5+ years and lastly they can't afford the investment required to deliver the workforce plan! It will be a fudge.

Any workforce plan is basically going to assess workforce demand based on the assessment of wider NHS demands and then try and match workforce supply through all the various pipelines to the workforce demand and a timescale for ensuring some level of equilibrium or balance between workforce demand and supply. The reality is they can't get to any point of balance and certainly will not be willing to fund it to the levels required. So expect a range of cop outs about reducing demand on NHS and on skilled workforce with some vague commitments about AI, new technology, capital investment, etc and that this will result in reducing demand for beds, etc. It will be the usual bollox we have seen since 2010.

If anyone is really interested then look at the workforce papers/reports produced by the royal colleges such as Radiology or the RCN. They are usually very good high quality assessments by experts of where their workforce is at. Of course they come at it from their own angle but the data is usually accurate and persuasive - see this

https://www.rcr.ac.uk/clinical-radiolog ... ensus-2022

This bunch of cunts are just running the NHS into the ground in preparation for selling it off.

[Sandstorm]

Surely the only way to resolve the NHS staffing crisis is to make all medical training for UK citizens 100% free?

[Hal Jordan]

Underfund, demoralise and break it until the public can take no more, then sell it cheap to the chums, making sure the contracts privatise the profit but keep the risk with the public purse if it goes tits up.

Join the board as a non-exec, or charge an average person's yearly wage for a week's "consulting" fees.

[sockwithaticket]

Going by the ads Spotify has bombarded me with for the last couple of days, the NHS staffing plan seems to involve begging any former staff to come back and make vague promises to train them for their dream role

[C69]

Retention is going to be a massive issue over the next couple of years.
Massive amounts of staff can retire under the old pension scheme.
I am looking to partially retire next year but mgt have done feck all regarding succession planning.

[sefton]

Retention is going to be a massive issue over the next couple of years.
Massive amounts of staff can retire under the old pension scheme.
I am looking to partially retire next year but mgt have done feck all regarding succession planning.

[Sandstorm]

[Slick]

[Tichtheid]

Is that something to do with the tv series?
Coz I don't get it.

[Slick]

Is that something to do with the tv series?
Coz I don't get it.

I think he's suggesting our big shot NHS Manager is in fact the tea lady

[Tichtheid]

Is that something to do with the tv series?
Coz I don't get it.

I think he's suggesting our big shot NHS Manager is in fact the tea lady

Ah.

I was probably a bit too needy in terms of "getting it" to tbh.

[C69]

Retention is going to be a massive issue over the next couple of years.
Massive amounts of staff can retire under the old pension scheme.
I am looking to partially retire next year but mgt have done feck all regarding succession planning.

Mother fucker

[I like neeps]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65853872

Labour in watering down policy shock.

[Insane_Homer]

Labour are the new mod Cons.

[Hal Jordan]

Starmer is shit scared of the Tory press and losing any ground in the Red Wall so the silly cunt just steers ever closer to the ground the Tories used to occupy. He's seen the usual grifters pivot from Brexit boosting to Anti Net Zero shitcuntery, and has bent over backwards to avoid being labelled an eco zealot hater of capitalism, bent on impoverishment of the taxpayers with his green mania - see the torrent of shite when it was revealed Dale Vince gave Labour a donation.

Unlike Blair, he lacks the charisma to charm his way out of tricky issues, and lacks the balls to face down the criticism, too.

[Tichtheid]

Starmer is shit scared of the Tory press and losing any ground in the Red Wall so the silly cunt just steers ever closer to the ground the Tories used to occupy. He's seen the usual grifters pivot from Brexit boosting to Anti Net Zero shitcuntery, and has bent over backwards to avoid being labelled an eco zealot hater of capitalism, bent on impoverishment of the taxpayers with his green mania - see the torrent of shite when it was revealed Dale Vince gave Labour a donation.

Unlike Blair, he lacks the charisma to charm his way out of tricky issues, and lacks the balls to face down the criticism, too.

I think you're spot on there on both counts and the real story is the influence these tax dodgers who own the media have on policy in the UK

[Hal Jordan]

Starmer is shit scared of the Tory press and losing any ground in the Red Wall so the silly cunt just steers ever closer to the ground the Tories used to occupy. He's seen the usual grifters pivot from Brexit boosting to Anti Net Zero shitcuntery, and has bent over backwards to avoid being labelled an eco zealot hater of capitalism, bent on impoverishment of the taxpayers with his green mania - see the torrent of shite when it was revealed Dale Vince gave Labour a donation.

Unlike Blair, he lacks the charisma to charm his way out of tricky issues, and lacks the balls to face down the criticism, too.

I think you're spot on there on both counts and the real story is the influence these tax dodgers who own the media have on policy in the UK

He also lacks the optimism; Blair for his many, many faults, told a fairly optimistic story about the future and said his government was going to address the long-standing structural weaknesses in the UK economy etc; he didn't, obviously, but it was a big part of his landslide, I think. The palpable sense that Britain was creaking in 97 after 18 years of the bastards required a strong story.

By contrast, Starmer can't tell any such story because he seems relentlessly focussed in appeasing the usual Press suspects and on appealing to an aging reduction of facebook racists who neither see, nor care to discover, nor care about anyway, the crumbling edifice of the UK. He acts as if everything is pretty much tickety-boo, apart from the damned immigrants and 'fixing' the NHS (but not telling anyone that he prescribes more of the medicine that is breaking it).

[Line6 HXFX]

Jacob Rees Mogg Knighted, Pritti Patel gets a Damehood.


No, you didn't just wake up in Sandshark and Opensides wet dream, this is actually happenning.

[tabascoboy]

Jacob Rees Mogg Knighted, Pritti Patel gets a Damehood.


No, you didn't just wake up in Sandshark and Opensides wet dream, this is actually happenning.

And Fabricant

FFS look at these simpering assholes getting honours - or at least nominated. Hopefully some way to stop this abuse of the system

[fishfoodie]

FFS look at these simpering assholes getting honours - or at least nominated. Hopefully some way to stop this abuse of the system

Yeah, roll a Guillotine into Parliament square, & sit an old dear on the steps knitting a stitch for every head that rolls.

The HoL needs to just be purged, & have a proper process for populating your 2nd house.

[Biffer]

I'm OK with a substantially nominated house but it should be fixed term and there should be a range of people doing the nominating.

[fishfoodie]

I'm OK with a substantially nominated house but it should be fixed term and there should be a range of people doing the nominating.

Yeah, I think the combination of nominated, & elected works well, because it allows you to have people in the House for their knowledge & experience, & some people who hopefully bring different viewpoints. I think you can also make terms, say 8 years, so they're decoupled from the regular cycle, & not beholden to the Government of the day.

I'd also have minimum attendance requirements too.

[tabascoboy]

Dorries goooonnneeee, goodbye useless BB groupie

Former Conservative minister Nadine Dorries has announced she is standing down as an MP.

The former culture secretary and close ally of Boris Johnson said she was standing down "with immediate effect" after "something significant" happened to change her mind.

It means there will be a by-election in her Mid Bedfordshire constituency, where she has a majority of 24,664.

Ms Dorries had already said she would not stand at the next general election.

It came ahead of the publication of Mr Johnson's resignation honours list.

Ms Dorries had been expected to be nominated for an honour, but she was not included on the list.

[Biffer]

I'm OK with a substantially nominated house but it should be fixed term and there should be a range of people doing the nominating.

Yeah, I think the combination of nominated, & elected works well, because it allows you to have people in the House for their knowledge & experience, & some people who hopefully bring different viewpoints. I think you can also make terms, say 8 years, so they're decoupled from the regular cycle, & not beholden to the Government of the day.

I'd also have minimum attendance requirements too.

I'd like to have various societal groups nominating people as well. Trades Union, Business organisations, charities, universities, sporting organisations, many others that might make sense.

[sturginho]

She's finally realised that he doesn't want to shag her and has thrown her toys out of the pram!

[C69]

[geordie_6]

BoJo also steps down with immediate effect.