Rayvin

On a separate point, everyone's favourite moderate Michael Bloomberg has equated the payment of a $10/hr minimum wage, applicable only in NYC, and only to companies who receive certain levels of government support - with communism. God help America, seriously. Some of these democrats really are to the right of the Tories. Not just through pragmatism, but in principle.

It's possible they might just let PSG get away with it because they're about as likely to win the CL as we are. And they're about the only serious team France has. I don't think this will stick anyway, when it goes to independent arbitration, City will come out swinging.

Apparently his relationship with Johnson has soured rapidly. Reports of him slamming the phone down on us over Huawei, along with our concerns over Iran (did we say anything remotely interesting about Iran??). Doesn't bode to well for the amazing trade deal.

The UK will probably be one option.

@Andrew Happy birthday mate

Agree. But ultimately this is the fault of the airline for trying to cram an extra row of seats in at the back.

Still voting Starmer.

You fucking agreed with me anyway

God I can almost believe that I would have said that

it helped in some ways. It did I think, 2 hours is a decent sign for an interview.

And the democratic party will be fearfully doing everything in their power to stop him I think he would have won last time but that it was his Corbyn moment. This time I'm concerned it will be his Corbyn wipeout. At some point AOC will run, and then we'll really see the whites of the Democratic party's eyes..

I've just spent several days being grumpy because of an existential crisis, a presentation I had to give for a job interview at 7.30 in the morning yesterday, and the subsequent lack of sleep that I had in the days before. I fixated on the nurses thing as a distraction. I'm just weird, basically.

Why has it changed already? I thought nothing changed until the end of the year. Also, I agree on some analysis he's being serious, but what the hell did he expect? How can any Brexiter possibly not have seen this shit coming.

I suspect this is actually, unironically, the full truth^

Definitely a Cummings move, agree on that. Also a great opportunity for Javid to save himself from the trainwreck of Brexit.

Aye, fair enough.

All of which, I acknowledge, takes us back to "why wouldn't they just say that". And come to think of it, all they said was 50,000 additional nurses. It's only when people delved into the numbers that all of a sudden this became an issue - not by the design of the Tories, but because some journalist has picked it up, misinterpreted the implications, and suddenly it was everywhere. If you're talking about how you arrived at the number of 50,000 - then explaining that part of the figure comes from retentions is just an explanatory aspect of your justification. I doubt they ever really anticipated that anyone would probe this particular issue tbh because the net result is 50,000 additional nurses. So actually, that's probably your answer as to why they didn't just say what they meant - they thought they did.

The second part of your post I agree with and at no point have I made any claims that anything they've said it remotely achievable. Believe it or not, this whole thing for me at least is based around logical consistency. I know the Tories lie, I'm not trusting them with shit, and I know they'll fail to do any of this. Literally all I'm saying is that their maths seems to have been right, and that the outcry was directed at the wrong things. I don't think the first part works though... if they lose someone and don't replace them for months, they're at a net loss of 1 until they manage it, when they're back to 0 change. What do you think is wrong with my assumption that the NHS gets a yearly influx of nurses from university training courses, some 14,000 or so apparently? Because that's where I think the net gain is - they have 14,000 who are currently all being used to replace departing staff (more or less, as the vacancies filter through the ranks) - and by holding onto people they otherwise expected to lose, some of those 14,000 no longer go straight into a replacement role, they're just a net gain - and to allow for the net gain, the Tories have allocated 18,500 of the 50,000 new posts to be for them. You said yourself that people are always replaced so there's no backfill issue to take care of - and these trainee nurses have been coming through the system for years and will be delivered to the NHS at whatever number they graduate at. So unless you think they're suddenly going to start training the surplus nurses away, they have to be going in as a net positive if the Tories manage to lower turnover to the point where less than 14,000 vacancies come up each year.

Their manifesto, and I just checked it, says that there will be 50,000 more nurses available to the NHS. To my mind, there is no possible interpretation of that other than that 50,000 new posts will be created. I guess the next question is that given that I think that number can be defended reasonably simply based on what I've set out, and that they've stuck to it, why do you think they're adding only 31,000 more nurses - something that they haven't officially conceded at any point. Johnson acknowledged that 31,000 new nurses would be recruited. That's a subcategory of 'additional', in this context. So I would argue that they have indeed unambiguously said so. At least in the manifesto and subsequent explanations. Where they've failed is in the initial announcement, presumably because some halfwit came out and said they would be "new" nurses. The only other thing I can think of is that they expected everyone to understand this point relatively easily and were a bit surprised when all hell broke loose. I'm curious what you mean about practical reasons why keeping someone on will increase the work force available. The word equivalent to me reads as if it is being used to explain what the 2% figure looks like in reality, but I can see you're reading it as some kind of euphemism for... I don't know. Maybe it's within this that the answer lies.

ewerk my friend, you're more than welcome to have digs at me, in part because you actually did make the effort, and in part because I'm aware that me accepting it is less fun for you

I give a fuck because I've spent the last few pages taking fire from half the fucking forum because some of them somehow couldn't understand what I was saying despite my several quite basic attempts to state it, and the others just weighed in with digs which revealed nothing to me other than their lack of confidence in engaging the point. I don't care if I'm right or wrong, I have enough self-respect not to give a shit - I'd prefer to just know what the truth is. But it's taken me about 30 posts to get to the point where anyone actually genuinely tried to understand what I was saying. Quick to wade in, slow to engage. You think it's been a collective waste of your time? It's been a lot fucking worse on my side, let me tell you. In direct answer to your point, I want you to explain something for me. If the NHS has put in their own strategic policy document for the next five years that a 2% increase in retention will mean a net increase in 12,400 nurses - the document specifically says that - what do you think that they're getting at? Because for me, that's exactly the same point that the Tories are making. Exactly the same. So what the fuck am I getting wrong about that? It has to mean, surely, that the yearly intake of new nurses that graduate into the system will remain broadly constant - yes those graduates may then need 4 months of training or whatever, but they were coming into the system either way. That's the only possible way, surely, that the NHS can conclude that a 2% increase in retention leads to an overall numerical increase in nurses. So when the Tories come in and claim the same thing, albeit without understanding what the fuck they're saying, that's what we surely have to conclude. They are creating 50,000 posts, and they're doing it by co-opting and scaling up an existing NHS strategy. I've given several reasons why they might word it this way, the fact that the strategy was already in place is probably a significant one. Also: What do you think that retention does then? Has net zero impact? If so, why is the NHS claiming the opposite?

More than happy for someone to prove me wrong. I note that no one has yet been capable. I assume the NHS does maths poorly too, since I've basically directly quoted their own logic. Behold: Shockingly, it turns out that retaining staff does indeed create a net boost in numbers The thing is, this place is like a hive mind sometimes - I actually applaud ewerk for finally understanding what I was saying. The rest of you have been blindly sticking your fingers in your ears and trying to effectively peer pressure me into conceding It's kinda cute tbh, but not especially worthy of respect. If I'm wrong, bitches, prove it.

Don't worry, it happens

Can I take this deafening silence as confirmation that on this rare occasion, I was right? Despite 'having taken numerous blows to the head' and being a generally laughable figure. This is why it pays to not believe everything you read on Twitter