UK XI: Please Sir... May I Have Some More?

[Lebowski]

it just keeps going

Rishi Sunak has said it was "utterly wrong" to suggest he oversaw budget cuts which are now affecting the structural integrity of schools.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-66705175

So Sunak despite being in charge of the budget and being told hundreds of schools needed rebuilding still slashed the budget to cover just 50 when he was in charge. But its uttelry wrong to blame him as well..... err well he doesn't give a valid reason just a sound byte for the BBC to regurgitate.

Id say he is to blame, he set the budget while he was chanceler, he was warned what was needed to do, so its firmly at his door.

[Golgo]

He just tried to gaslight/reverse the perception, saying "Twas I what made it possible for the herculean amount of 50 schools a year to be refurbished!"

[Neon Ignition]

They might have the money if they stopped Braverman ****ing it up the wall on cancelled flights and barges. Next thing will be an announcement moving classes onto Bibby Stockholm

[Lebowski]

Floating classrooms FTW, lets trade Asbestosis for legionnaires disease.

What we are seeing now is the Torys short term-ism coming back to bite them. In 2010 they cut the budget for school building and renovation from 10 billion a year to 5-6 billion. so we have had 13 years of under-funding schools all in the name of Austerity.

In the 2010 Spending Review, which set out the government's priorities, 60% cuts to education capital spending were very clearly signalled. Indeed, this planned £4bn fall in education spending was the biggest single departmental contributor to the Coalition's austerity savings in the overall capital budget

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66709376

[Neon Ignition]

Sunak could put some money into infrastructure...






https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/05/birmingham-city-council-financial-distress-budget-section-114
Birmingham Council files Section 114 Notice notifying that it can't balance its budget and has slipped in financial distress

https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2023/sep/05/uk-car-sales-rise-electric-cars-shoppers-hit-by-skimpflation-economy-wilko-business-live?page=with:block-64f705b58f08229294ee2992#block-64f705b58f08229294ee2992

B&M buys up 51 Wilko stores

[Anpanman]

It's official our railways really are ****e;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-66664323

....but apparently the staff aren't being paid enough.

[Asura]

....but apparently the staff aren't being paid enough.

They probably aren't. Plus, even if the staff weren't striking, the railways are still screwed up.

Before anyone suggests "the staff should let people ride for free, like the bus drivers did in Japan that one time" - they literally can't do that in the UK; it's not one of the rights striking unions have. Staff could literally be imprisoned for it.

[Anpanman]

They probably aren't.

I'd disagree;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/61840077

The staff aren't to blame for much of the woes, but I see enough during my travels to confirm that plenty of them are swinging the lead.

[Hirst]

Frankly I can't blame any staff who choose to put less effort in, their employers are attempting to make thousands of them redundant and they are the frontline for the service receiving any complaints from people who are fed up about a service that - being honest - individual staff aren't likely to have much say in. Meanwhile senior execs take their money and their huge bonuses for running a broken mess of ancient trains around a neglected Victorian infrastructure.

[Yakumo]

I'd disagree;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/61840077

The staff aren't to blame for much of the woes, but I see enough during my travels to confirm that plenty of them are swinging the lead.

I disagree too! 59,000 pound a year for a train driver ! That's taking the piss if true. Them asking for more money deserves a kick in the balls.

[Asura]

In a debate about the strikes in Parliament on 15 June, then Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: "The median salary for a train driver is £59,000, compared with £31,000 for a nurse and £21,000 for a care worker."

This just means we need to pay nurses and care workers more, not pay train drivers less. Typical Beeb 2023 though, trying to "clear up confusion", by going along with the government's strategy of comparing their pay to nurses. I'll fix that for them:

The median salary for a train driver is £59,000, compared with £86,000 (plus staff costs and duck house expenses) for an MP, and MP's are a bunch of *****

[Hirst]

They're obsessed with quoting the figures for train drivers, but most rail staff aren't drivers (and drivers aren't the ones who are under threat of being made redundant). The median salary for a doctor is £76300 and I don't see anyone complaining about that.

Look up the figures for ticket office clerks, train guards, conductors, cleaners.

[fishbowlhead]

They probably aren't. Plus, even if the staff weren't striking, the railways are still screwed up.

Before anyone suggests "the staff should let people ride for free, like the bus drivers did in Japan that one time" - they literally can't do that in the UK; it's not one of the rights striking unions have. Staff could literally be imprisoned for it.

All the staff on a whole line? Ha I’d like to see that stick.

[Neon Ignition]

It's become abundantly clear that the Tories, despite the public line and perception for the last several decades, are absolutely **** with finances - staggeringly so. Everyone likes to bag on Labour for the recession but as that was mostly a global issue it was always heavily PR steered by the Tories for political points. The Tories don't have that excuse, even before you get to any other factors there's the core value that was conceptually wrong from the outset - Austerity.

Improving the debt levels of the country was a fair enough objective but rather than take a long, long term outlook that balanced investment with cost efficiencies they absolutely gutted and stripped services to the bones.

The cold reality that I think most still haven't woken up to is that paying staff more money isn't the right way to handle the situation. Don't get me wrong, staff striking for more money isn't wrong in of itself but a deeper wake up call is also needed. Many of the people pushing for higher wages should fully recieve them but some others need to read the room.

Nurses, Teachers, Police etc should be on more money. MP's should be on more money too - but barred from second jobs or holding investments etc. Junior Doctors still holding resolute on wanting a 35% rise need to be slapped and come back when they are ready to take it seriously.

But there's a third line of discussion needed which alligns with reform of services - Roles like Ticket Office Clerks etc, the reality there is those jobs are becoming defunct whether rail bosses support them or not. Technology is going to make a whole swathe of jobs obsolete and this country is making absolutely no preperations for what that society will need to adapt to that reality.

Whether it's Police, Schools, NHS, Army etc we now need... reform isn't even the word for it anymore, we need a reboot. Completely restructure and update so that each of them is in a much better position to spend less time chasing where they should have been a decade ago and instead be heading fast to where they need to be in 10, 20, 30 years time. That, sadly, means a lot of jobs have to go as there is so much slimming that needs to happen organisationally.

[Asura]

All the staff on a whole line? Ha I’d like to see that stick.

Obviously it wouldn't. But it's unfair to ask transport staff to do this when the general public generally lacks the collective will for such action. I just get miffed when I see people suggest it, because I want to ask "would you commit a prison-worthy offense as part of a protest about working conditions?", knowing that regardless of the response, the real answer for most people is "no".