Rayvin

Hang on. Imagine we have idk, 500,000 nurses in the system at the moment. Ever year, another 100,000 are added through standard recruitment. On top of that, based standard departures, 100,000 leave. So as things stand, the number is kept steady at 500,000. And for simplicity let's assume this all happens in just one year. If the Tories add another 31,000 additional over one year, then the number goes up to 531,000 additional nurses. If they improve their working conditions so that the departure number falls to 81,000... then the ultimate result is that we are left with 550,000 nurses, which is indeed 50,000 more. EDIT - 500,000 + 100,000 + 31,000 - 81,000 Why is that not the case?

God help me with this seriously, the pledge makes total sense to me. As I said right from the off, it's badly communicated because they're trying to get around explaining that they've been effectively forcing nurses to leave in the previous ten years - but she is 100% correct that there will be an increase in the overall number of nurses, by 50,000, by 2030 (assuming they manage to do what they said). Do you disagree with this?

Morgan doesn't say "new". She says an overall increase.

I guess no one is explaining how I'm wrong tonight then... I actually genuinely am curious but I'm starting to think that maybe in our desperation to see the Tories as perpetual liars about everything, we assumed they really were doing something as moronic as double counting nurses, instead of being functionally incapable of correctly articulating their policy. Well I'm not starting to think it tbh. Its exactly what i think, until someone actually explains otherwise, anyway. At which point I'll hold my hands up and admit I was wrong of course, not at all scared of doing that...

I didn't say that wasn't happening tbf, I made that clear in my first post. But do you think that they're double counting these 18,000 people?

Because those 18,000 are projected on current rates of departure to have been lost by the service over the next 10 years. So what they are saying is that they will put measures in place to stop those people leaving by improving working conditions. Therefore they have looked at current projections for the number of nurses left in the service by 2030 if they do nothing, and put a package together to ensure that we will actually have 50,000 more than that. This is actually really simple and if the issue is that people don't understand this then I'm at a loss really. Some people seem to think they've just flat out double counted 18,000 people. They haven't. There's a rationale behind their numbers. This is a fairly standard business consideration. If i have workflow throughput of 1000 products, and 900 come out the other end with 100 lost in the process, and then improve that process so that only 50 are lost, I have boosted my projected number of products outputted by 50.

Please explain how I'm actually wrong? https://www.nursinginpractice.com/professional/conservative-pledge-50000-nurses-manifesto The Conservatives have pledged to deliver 50,000 more nurses into the workforce, but have confirmed this will include stopping some existing staff from leaving the health service. Following confusion over the flagship manifesto pledge of 50,000 extra nurses, it has emerged that this includes 18,500 existing and returning nurses - which the party confirmed would be either retained through measures such as ‘enhancing’ continuing professional development (CPD) training or recruited through return-to-practice schemes. This is exactly what I said. Susannah Reid is wrong in her interpretation of it unless at some point someone in the Tory campaign said 50,000 "new" nurses. If they said additional, it's not incorrect. And as for everyone knowing the "nuances" of Tory propaganda, unless what we're saying is that I'm right but stating the obvious, then actually no, it seems they don't. Lowering departures + hiring new nurses both provide "extra" against projected targets.

...What? Am I wrong?

There's plenty to throw at the Tories, but that one item about nurses isn't really it. What they're saying does make sense, they just explain it horrifically - possibly because they don't understand what they're saying themselves, but more probably because to be fully truthful about it, they would need to admit some uncomfortable truths. What they actually mean is that they have projected, based on current trends, that we will have lost a specific number of nurses by 2030 or whenever it is. This will have been down to shit pay, work conditions, morale, whatever. So the plan to 'gain' 50,000 nurses has two parts: 1 - improve working conditions and pay to the level that they manage to hold onto 19,000 nurses who are, based on current projections, expected to leave. 2 - hire an additional 31,000 nurses. Combined together, it means that compared to current projections about the numbers of nurses that will exist in the system by whatever date it was, we will have gained an overall 50,000. So Piers and whatsherface's argument about presenters isn't the same thing. It would only be comparable if we knew that on Tuesday, all three current presenters had no intention of being there - and then at the last minute, someone persuaded them to stay. Then, compared to the time when we thought there would be no presenters, we now have 3 more. And I believe the reason the Tories have failed to articulate this, other than the fact that they're all morons, is that it basically means that they have to admit that they've been forcing nurses to leave the NHS by being really shit about pay up until now. They're fixing a mistake basically, and are trying to gain praise for it while not really acknowledging the original error.

It's Keynesian economics though. Government putting money into infrastructure on the basis that it boosts the economy. Same as HS2. Instead of spending money on genuinely helpful initiatives that could address the bigger issues in British society, the Tories will spend it on nonsense that has the same effect but doesn't threaten them in an ideological sense. It's an admission that we've always been right on the economic front.

Aye, saw that. Doesn't seem to be coping well with his wife's illness or whatever it was that sent him down that path. I think his ship has sailed now anyway, he's not extreme enough for the newly victorious right wing.

Fair comment tbh, since that's the same phenomenon that has played out everywhere. But it's better that the left takes advantage of that than the right.

In more positive news, I see the left did some damage in Ireland. Winning the highest number of votes but failing to get an equivalent number of seats (they didn't run enough candidates it seems). So despite links to a terrorist past, it seems that the left can succeed. Good luck to Sinn Fein in forming some manner of government.

I really think the media are in trouble. By being partisan over important issues they've broken trust with the public who don't have the desire to support them now. The BBC are a good example of this in recent weeks - they pulled punches on Johnson because they believed that impartiality means you can only expose an equal amount of bullshit, irrespective of how much each side is spewing - and they helped cause this crisis by giving Farage such extensive airtime. And so now, there is no one in their corner. Same for the rest of the media although the right wing outlets will of course simply become the Russia Today's of the new right wing order. The internet talking heads will replace them and then we really are fucked.

Your memory is impressive.

Aye, never would have happened while we were still in the EU. There was solidarity then. Everyone pulling in the same direction, nailing their cocks to the mast... now they're spiraling around all over the place.

I keep hearing mixed things about Warren but a few years back I remember writing on here that she'd be the ideal person to run against him next time. But you're right in what you say, she started her political life as a republican I believe. That said, people can change. She's an improvement on Clinton. And tbf I do think she'd give Trump a hammering in debates or general competence.

You would hope so.

Let us indeed hope for someone who can appeal to the swing-state soccer moms then. But if you fuck around with your electoral process and make it non-transparent and disenfranchising... I mean, you also deserve to lose. I'm gonna add that Clinton should have appealed to those swing-state soccer moms last time. What happened there? 55% of white women voted for Trump. Whoops.

Richard Burgon has just proposed that the party put forward a new pledge that Labour members can veto military action by any future Labour government

Fair enough. I've just missed railing about politics for a couple of weeks and am now over-eager Although I have to concede, there's a general world-weariness in me about all these things now. I fully expect Trump to win this no matter who he goes up against, because the world just sucks.

The strong opinion I put forward = the Democrats will lose if they fuck around with the electoral process and disenfranchise large numbers of left wing voters in the process. I actually do feel I know a fair amount about that particular issue Or are you thinking I'm making a strong case for Sanders. If so, you misread. I said I hoped for him. Is that too strong? I have a slight tendency towards him. Still too much? Gun to my head, if really forced to answer, I think that maybe, I could possibly get away with thinking that overall, all things considered to the best of my ability, that Sanders is possibly, at least in the current lay of the land, the right person to go up against Trump. I think that's the best I can do ewerk. Sorry.

I agree with the last bit in theory, haven't seen any evidence to support the first bit myself - plenty of evidence last time out that he would have beaten Trump but I do concede the picture has changed now. And I'm not saying he should win. I'm just not especially impressed by the determination of the establishment democrats to shithouse their way to someone that they "think" can win. Ultimately I'll take anyone who isn't Trump - but a non-Sanders candidate who wins through the non-transparent machinations of the Democrats won't win either. If they want their centrist hero to win, he (or she, not sure where Warren places on the spectrum) has to win it fairly. If they don't, Trump will destroy them - partially because people who think like me will just give them the finger. Partially because it will make them look more corrupt than he is.

That video made me die inside.

As ever, I'm hoping for Bernie Sanders. I assume you prefer the guy who no one seems to care for very much who is only running because he was the second to a greater man, or the other guy who was involved in the development of an app which appears to have obfuscated an electoral process, and who has received fewer votes than Sanders, but who has somehow come out ahead. I think you're safe. The democrats will choose the unthreatening option irrespective of what the membership wants. And then we just have to hope that all the young people that such shithousery deters, aren't refusing to vote in sufficient numbers that Trump wins. I do concede he would be more palatable to the centrists though Well, I think so. I haven't actually seen any data on that.