Next Conservative leader

Why cant they take care of the basics first, tax and regulate the monopolies properly, END non doms and get back 4 billion per annum, just close the loopholes....If these greedy corporations really want to take their jobs abroad to avoid taxes then get lost I say...Theyre NOT contributing to the treasury and the public services anyway so why would we really miss them? All they do is suck all the wealth out f the country and destroy our town centres....

Then tax the energy companies properly or better still start renationalising..Are the likes of shell really going to pull up their oil rigs half a mile beneath the ocean that take years to build and cost billions?

We cant be held to ransom like this...We need a far better balanced economy not one at the mercy of a few greedy billionaires and their shareholders

The economy will readjust and we can go back to sme's who actually pay taxes and employ local people and supply local products and services...They also need to re-establish the monopolies and mergers commission which was dismantled by george gideon osbourne...who left soon after to run a company paying peanuts in tax

I mean this in the nicest possible way TBS but you really crack me up. In a World of passive acceptance of mediocrity in our rugby teams & politics your passion stands out. Keep it up. 

They will need to be given time to take stock of the government purse (the Tories harp on about the Labour Party leaving the treasury empty, it looks like this Tory government may be leaving the next government with just a massive black hole), before deciding on their priorities- which will be dictated by finances at their disposal.  It’s unfair for people to criticise them for a lack of clarity about their plans and their ability to fund these plans, when they have no idea of the state of the treasury coffers, due to the lack of transparency with the current regime and the fact that the finances could be in an even worse position than they currently are.

I do wish that they would clarify their stance on whether they support the unions and whether Labour MPs should be allowed to support picketing, this dilly dallying is playing right into Sunak’s hands (labour paymasters etc).

The unions have been standing up for their workers rights - for fairer terms and conditions, for better safety etc.  nearly every industry that’s currently striking (with the exception of the NHS) are all industries that were nationally owned but privatised by various Tory governments, which made them and the major shareholders of those privatised companies huge dividends - those very companies that are now telling their staff that they do not warrant a reasonable wage increase, should be happy with worsening T&Cs, whilst they give themselves vastly inflated pay rises and share dividends.

It would be interesting to see where the money these companies received (covid payments) from the government was actually spent.  It was probably creamed off, whilst the services were cut back.  That money could and should have been used to modernise services (moving forward).

I've worked in education and industry. You can add those two sectors to the list! I had one manager who was so petty, he'd hide in the dark to watch the night shift. One evening one of the boys went out to fetch chips for the night crew and this manager scuttled off excitedly. Next morning he went straight to the plant manager to proudly tell him of his discovery. The plant manager gave him an utter b*ll*cking in front of the shift supervisor. When the warehouse boys heard about it, one of them jumped in a forklift truck and chased him around the yard. Never laughed so much in my life. I had another manager in Trostre who was the epitome of incompetence. He kept costing BS/Corus a millions wherever he went. He broke the five stand in Ebbw Vale, he broke the coil tracking IT system in Port Talbot and ended up in Trostre with a job from his pal who was the Works Manager. Another who was universally loathed. I managed to land him in it though. He was trying to get the warehouse boys sacked (I don't know what's wrong with these middle managers with a Napoleon syndrome) and sent me off to do an audit. I came back with the raw figures knowing he'd misinterpret them being simultaeously devious, grasping and stupid. I figured I'd let him do his own analysis ... which he didn't. He ran off excitedly to the works manager who called us all to a meeting. I sat there as the works manager threw a tantrum at the warehouse team leaders until he finally ran out of breath. Then I said, erm, I believe [the technical manager] has failed to notice the packing dates on the audit. Every coil was packed corectly at the time they were received. He just stared at me, then stared at the technical manager and asked the rest of us to leave. As I shut the door behind me I could hear him scream the place down. I spent 5 years in Trostre and learned the meaning of the phrase "Lions led by Donkeys" for myself.

Ok, here's my take on it. This is a proposal for changing the way governance works in the UK. It heavily leans on ideas that were in vogue during the days of "New Labour." It attempts to diagnose the problems with the way the UK works and proposes some improvements. The problem is that it is drenched in paternalism, chauvinism, bias and dogma. The so-called solutions are incoherent, weak and contradictory. 

Some of the points made:

I have so many problems with this take. Not once is Brexit addressed despite showing polling by Leave vs Remain. It's simply ignored. In addition, they include umpteen tables and charts in an attempt to give the appearance of having listened. I get the impression that they're suffering from chronic confirmation bias as the report goes on to make statements about "values" and what people really want. They don't listen at all. The report amounts to a series of contradictory proposals - to spread power around and codify constitutional conventions ... yet retain the primacy of the HoC. That the economic focus on London has lead to an unbalanced economy, so let's keep the cash cow going and spread the wealth. In doing so, they've retained the two fundemental constructs of the UK that cause the majority of the structural problems. Agglomeration around the City of London which causes a core-periphery relationship with the rest of the UK. The centralisation of political power at Westminster with power effectively loaned out. Because they retain the primacy of the HoC it means that all it takes to totally tear up any reforms they make, is a Conservative majority. We all know that is inevitable when the (probable) next Labour Government runs out of steam. The reforms are topological, just as the 1997 reforms are. It's because they do not alter the constitution. The only way to genuinely change the UK constitution is to bring to an end the primacy of the HoC and to codify in Constitutional Law that Sovereignty is exercised by the Scottish and Welsh parliaments (and preferably English). From there it can be pooled. These proposals are a very long way away from the "radical federalism" Welsh Labour are proposing. It will be interesting to see how Welsh Labour now respond. I personally think a Federal UK is unworkable because it either requires England's weight of numbers to be counterbalanced by equal representation at a federal level or by splitting England into regions - neither of which are popular options. It would require that sovereignty would lie at a sub-federal level and pooled for state-wide competencies by the Federal Government.

So my take on the UK is this:

So that's my position on it. Yes, Labour have acknowledged the dysfunction at the heart of UK politics. They acknowledge the deep economic inequalities created by decades of policy. Everyone of their solutions leaves the dysfunction and inequality in place whilst topologically treating it. If the structure has failed then we must rebuild it, otherwise we simply waste our energy trying to revive a moribund construct. So rather than going around calling people a bunch of nasty nats and what not, better to focus on a brand new build, fit for purpose.

Excellent thread, and yes.."Lions led by Donkeys ". heard that before. !

And here we have it. A Government-commissioned report concludes that the current state of the NHS is the result of "decade of neglect" and "10 years of managed decline".

I was going to comment further, but it speaks for itself really. I just hope enough people can see what is happening.