Labour won the pre CoViD election.

[boogieeck]

Now this might mean we had PM Corbyn, but for Labour to have won an election, it is more likely to mean that Labour had a rational human being as its leader. Maybe Corbyn fell under a bus and Starmer got elected, maybe Maybot held on and called another of her elections. Either way, Labour is in government, Brexit either is or isn't, that's not really the point. Just as in our Universe, nobody cares during a CoViD pandemic.

Chancellor Annelise Dodds reveals a package of measures identical by the coincidence of inter-dimensional mechanics to those applied by Chancellor Sunak, but less sexily. PM Starmer announces identical lockdown measures to PM Johnson in our Universe

The killer question is this.

Would the loyal opposition support this package and these measures.

[Merseymike]

Yes. In the same way that there is, despite the odd demonstration of superficial difference, a broad consensus now between our political parties.
The Government went down this path as they perceived they didn't want to challenge public fear. As an opposition I see no obvious reason why they should challenge that consensus.

[boogieeck]

You are seriously arguing that Conservatives would have supported Annelsie Dodds paying 80% salaries to staff on furlough

[Deleted]

Apr 19, 2020 11:46:14 GMT boogieeck said:

You are seriously arguing that Conservatives would have supported Annelsie Dodds paying 80% salaries to staff on furlough

if the tories are more likely to vote to pay people 80% of their wages when theyre in government than if they were in opposition I clearly need to start voting tory

[carlton43]

Apr 19, 2020 11:21:01 GMT boogieeck said:

Now this might mean we had PM Corbyn, but for Labour to have won an election, it is more likely to mean that Labour had a rational human being as its leader. Maybe Corbyn fell under a bus and Starmer got elected, maybe Maybot held on and called another of her elections. Either way, Labour is in government, Brexit either is or isn't, that's not really the point. Just as in our Universe, nobody cares during a CoViD pandemic.

Chancellor Annelise Dodds reveals a package of measures identical by the coincidence of inter-dimensional mechanics to those applied by Chancellor Sunak, but less sexily. PM Starmer announces identical lockdown measures to PM Johnson in our Universe

The killer question is this.

Would the loyal opposition support this package and these measures.

Probably not as much they do for their own side.  The Conservatives MPs like me would be a very vocal opposition and causing a lot of opposition whilst the supine top end of the party would be shuffling their feet and wondering how to react as indeed Labour are now.

If this was a Labour Government and I was a Conservative MP I would be all over them 'like a rash' and on the media attempting to undermine their policies, calling into question every error, sowing disquiet, urging people to keeping working TO SAVE JOBS, SAVE THE NATION AND TO SAVE LIVES.

There would be a proper Opposition if Merseymike and I we in parliament instead of the gormless wuss frit pillocks.  We are letting our nation be fucked up and ruined by a bunch of shit-scared school girls.  

Makes one ashamed to be British.  

[Merseymike]

Apr 19, 2020 11:46:14 GMT boogieeck said:

You are seriously arguing that Conservatives would have supported Annelsie Dodds paying 80% salaries to staff on furlough

Yes, because it appears to be What The Public Want.

[alien8ted]

Does this assume Corbyn as PM? If so, no there would not be cross party support there is now. Under a different Labour leader maybe there would be similar cross party support as under the current governement.

[carlton43]

Apr 19, 2020 12:15:26 GMT @priceofdawn said:

Apr 19, 2020 11:46:14 GMT boogieeck said:

You are seriously arguing that Conservatives would have supported Annelsie Dodds paying 80% salaries to staff on furlough

if the tories are more likely to vote to pay people 80% of their wages when theyre in government than if they were in opposition I clearly need to start voting tory

You are behind the curve.  A third of your supporters have already twigged.

[Deleted]

Apr 19, 2020 14:34:34 GMT carlton43 said:

Apr 19, 2020 12:15:26 GMT @priceofdawn said:

if the tories are more likely to vote to pay people 80% of their wages when theyre in government than if they were in opposition I clearly need to start voting tory

You are behind the curve.  A third of your supporters have already twigged.

If people are voting tory because their more left wing in government than in opposition that gives me hope

[boogieeck]

People vote Tory because they do not believe the lies your party tell about them. They know its lies because the Conservatives have been office for a decade and have never cut spending in the NHS.

But it's now gone beyond that. People vote Conservative because they can't vote Labour because they know you tell lies. You have no credibility.

Let's look at what happened with Corbyn from a slightly different angle. It's frustrating to people who consider themselves "sensible Labour" that they keep missing out on government by giving away silly own goals, the most obvious of which is the election of Corbyn. What you don't get is that scoring own goals are not tragic misfortunes. It is inherent in being Labour. You always overplay your hand, its never enough to decry the competence of the Conservatives, you have to malign their intentions, claim they hate the poor, have a secret plan to sell off the NHS, are in the pocket of their rich friends. The validity of any argument about competence gets lost, and you gets exposed on a front you cant win on.

As we now see there is no great ideological difference between moderate Labour and moderate Conservative. The difference is that Conservatives are honest centrist triers, of varying levels of competence, Labour are tribal bigots. You would honestly have rather have had Corbyn in Number 10 than Johnson or May.

[Deleted]

Apr 19, 2020 16:41:39 GMT boogieeck said:

People vote Tory because they do not believe the lies your party tell about them. They know its lies because the Conservatives have been office for a decade and have never cut spending in the NHS.

But it's now gone beyond that. People vote Conservative because they can't vote Labour because they know you tell lies. You have no credibility.

Let's look at what happened with Corbyn from a slightly different angle. It's frustrating to people who consider themselves "sensible Labour" that they keep missing out on government by giving away silly own goals, the most obvious of which is the election of Corbyn. What you don't get is that scoring own goals are not tragic misfortunes. It is inherent in being Labour. You always overplay your hand, its never enough to decry the competence of the Conservatives, you have to malign their intentions, claim they hate the poor, have a secret plan to sell off the NHS, are in the pocket of their rich friends. The validity of any argument about competence gets lost, and you gets exposed on a front you cant win on.

As we now see there is no great ideological difference between moderate Labour and moderate Conservative. The difference is that Conservatives are honest centrist triers, of varying levels of competence, Labour are tribal bigots. You would honestly have rather have had Corbyn in Number 10 than Johnson or May.

it's not a lie though. I've seen first hand the cuts to support hours in nhs services.

I am tribal but I'm not a bigot. I don't support the Tories but not because i hate them. Yes I'd always prefer a Labour government over a Conservative one and you might consider that stupid and tribal. I can live with you thinking that. I dont know you and you dont know me. You dont know the people who i support and how many support hours that they have had cut. I don't expect you to understand why these experiences would drive me to vote Labour so I don't mind if you want to believe these things

[boogieeck]

The fact that some sectors of services in some localities have been cut does not alter the fact that every Conservative government in history has increased spending on health care, in real terms. How can this be?

Because your initial demand was for improvements in pay and conditions, not for more services to be provided to more clients.

[Deleted]

Apr 19, 2020 17:07:06 GMT boogieeck said:

The fact that some sectors of services in some localities have been cut does not alter the fact that every Conservative government in history has increased spending on health care, in real terms. How can this be?

Because your initial demand was for improvements in pay and conditions, not for more services to be provided to more clients.

we invoice for the hours we deliver, if we are commissioned to deliver 1064 hours then we have to deliver that. These hours are determined by the amount of hours a client needs

[boogieeck]

You and I are now involved in a spat. So let me in my usual spirit of seeking to spread calm and peace digress.

100 years ago an elderly spinster or widow of comfortable means might employ a servant, or a companion, to make her twilight years more comfortable. labour costs were low. Live in, plus a pittance. Still a financial burden, two sisters might live together to share the cost of one servant. Of course, the poor got none of this.

100 years later, we all live much longer. There are more of these elderly spinsters, disabled adults, troubled souls and frail pensioners. And the carers now expect minimum wage, paid holidays, sick pay, pensions training, PPE. And everyone who needs care now expects a care package that the octogenarian spinster sister of a shipping magnate or hereditary landowner would have considered beyond her. Paid for by someone. No idea who. And the carer, namely you, wants to know what you don't get paid more, in line with Our NHS, blessed be its name.

Do you see the problem here? We are £2trn in debt and the economy is on its knees. And you are choosing this moment to complain about not getting paid enough.

This, carlton43 is why I feel we need to import decent quality workers with a realistic consideration of its value and worth. To backfill the indigenous labour with unrealistic expectations

[𝐍𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐖𝐞𝐬𝐭]

Apr 19, 2020 11:21:01 GMT boogieeck said:

Would the loyal opposition support this package and these measures.

What a deliciously naughty question. You and I would probably be thoroughly enjoying the antics of Peter Bone, Sir Christopher Chope, Philip Davies, and other such members of the awkward squad. Probably Jacob Rees-Mogg too, if he weren't reclining on a front bench. In a way it's very heartening that once all this is over, our heroes (the bastards!) are the loyalist core of the winning team.

[curiousliberal]

It would depend on how the Conservatives lost and the post-election post-mortems the party was presented with (in addition to how willing it was to accept these).

If the LD vote share was significantly higher (perhaps enough to swing the election according to the 'if you add party X and party Y votes up' narrative), I think the Conservative Party would elect someone less Euroskeptic than BoJo and pivot to oppose socialism. To Tories in opposition, socialism is when the government does stuff, so they'd call for a middle ground by supporting the measures in spirit but asking for cuts to a fair few on the basis that they were particularly wasteful. More international cooperation would be promoted and most criticism would be levied by treating the crisis as a failure of national leadership, assuming that Corbyn pursued the foreign policy he promised with all the diplomatic skill he used within his own party. Emphasis on how more cost-efficient measures could have been deployed would be mostly (but not completely) avoided at first, and leaned into after the crisis' end.

If the LD vote share remained low and the Tories were defeated by a stronger Labour Party (potentially with BxP playing spoiler), they would not pivot much on Brexit but would instead be spooked deeper into moderation on other social and economic issues, and would go on to elect a leader who was believed to have a 'working class' aesthetic (with a decent chance of said leader also being BAME or female; certain columnists would have pushed the inevitable 'She didn't lose to Corbyn!' talking point). The measures would be supported without protest here and now, with limited room for revisionism in the months after the virus itself became less relevant than the economic impact.

The third scenario would involve BxP doing almost as well as the Conservative Party and the LDs doing badly (with very clear water between the LDs and BxP in terms of support levels). I'd guess the Tories would shift towards Trumpian tactics in this case (and follow his lead for the rest of the electoral cycle, for all the good that would do them). They would oppose the majority of measures on the basis that these helped the "undeserving".

I consider the second scenario to be the most likely without significant changes to the parties' positions prior to the dissolution of parliament, and have voted accordingly in the poll.

[alien8ted]

Apr 19, 2020 17:13:34 GMT @priceofdawn said:

Apr 19, 2020 17:07:06 GMT boogieeck said:

The fact that some sectors of services in some localities have been cut does not alter the fact that every Conservative government in history has increased spending on health care, in real terms. How can this be?

Because your initial demand was for improvements in pay and conditions, not for more services to be provided to more clients.

we invoice for the hours we deliver, if we are commissioned to deliver 1064 hours then we have to deliver that. These hours are determined by the amount of hours a client needs

That statement in my opinion is often the biggest lie in any care when people are at home, because the forms used to assess need are rigid and regularly misassess need. Need is usually under assessed rather than overassessed, thats the nature of the forms and the beast. Good carers often struggle to fit in the allocated tasks in the time allocated to them. Hours in reality are often not allocated to people to meet their full care needs; care tasks are actually squeezed into time to fit whatever budgets made available for that person.

[Deleted]

Apr 20, 2020 6:45:34 GMT alien8ted said:

Apr 19, 2020 17:13:34 GMT @priceofdawn said:

we invoice for the hours we deliver, if we are commissioned to deliver 1064 hours then we have to deliver that. These hours are determined by the amount of hours a client needs

That statement in my opinion is often the biggest lie in any care when people are at home, because the forms used to assess need are rigid and regularly misassess need. Need is usually under assessed rather than overassessed, thats the nature of the forms and the beast. Good carers often struggle to fit in the allocated tasks in the time allocated to them. Hours in reality are often not allocated to people to meet their full care needs; care tasks are actually squeezed into time to fit whatever budgets made available for that person.

this is true but what I was trying to explain was what we were paid was based on needs assessment

[alien8ted]

Apr 20, 2020 7:04:51 GMT @priceofdawn said:

Apr 20, 2020 6:45:34 GMT alien8ted said:

That statement in my opinion is often the biggest lie in any care when people are at home, because the forms used to assess need are rigid and regularly misassess need. Need is usually under assessed rather than overassessed, thats the nature of the forms and the beast. Good carers often struggle to fit in the allocated tasks in the time allocated to them. Hours in reality are often not allocated to people to meet their full care needs; care tasks are actually squeezed into time to fit whatever budgets made available for that person.

this is true but what I was trying to explain was what we were paid was based on needs assessment

I understood what you were on about, which is why I made it a general statement rather than saying you were lieing.

[boogieeck]

To contribute to thread drift, how do you propose that society meets the needs of providing everyone with the level of ongoing care that was once only afforded to the Dowager Baroness of Tweedledum? Not only in financial terms but also in Human resources terms? When the number of cared-for exceeds the number of carers in Full Time Equivalent how do you deliver care?