Jeremy Hunt Giving The Autumn Budget Statement

Nobody will mention to Hunt that “records numbers of this and record numbers of that means little with a bigger country population wise. Proportions would be more apt but he won’t mention them.
 
How many children has agreed to starve?

How many of the elderly has he promised to freeze?

Which public service will carry the can?

Which disability benefit has he cut?
 
Exactly. Numbers can be spun and all politicians do it. I judge how well they're doing running the country by what I and the people I know are experiencing day to day. For example, astronomical waiting times for medical appointments, A+E and even to get an ambulance to turn up, food banks everywhere, energy bills through the roof, trains ridiculously expensive and then either cancelled at short notice or ridiculously overcrowded, lack of facilities at stations that might make public transport a pleasurable experience, young adults unable to get on the property ladder so trapped renting or living with their parents, town centers deserted, not possible to go to university without saddling yourself with tons of debt, potholes in the winter, grass on not being cut in the summer etc.. Nothing he will announce today will actually improve anything tangible as far as I can see.
 
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Now saying the way to boost productivity in the private sector is to invest more, yet he expects to increase productivity in the public sector by cutting investment.

Absolute cvnt.
 
sherlock1969 said:
He says public sector productivity must rise by 0.5% a year at least.

WFT does that even mean?
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Just a different way of saying spending cut, I reckon. Probably means hard wiring a further 0.5% annual cut in public spending below the rate of inflation.

sherlock1969 said:
NI cut by 2% from January.

Points to a May general election I reckon.
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I also smell a spring election.
 
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sherlock1969 said:
He says public sector productivity must rise by 0.5% a year at least.

WFT does that even mean?
Click to expand...
In fairness, hospitals are seeing fewer patients than they were pre-pandemic in Outpatients and Electives and are spending more money than they were (even adjusted or inflation) to do so. I know for example that we have some consultants that used to see 3 patients on a theatre list that had to change to 2 because of covid that have not gone back to 3 when others have. They have a 4 hour session, each patient takes 80 mins on average and they would rather waste the extra 80 mins every day than risk going over the 4 hours some days. The galling thing is that on their weekend lists that they do as extras they will see 4 patients and do them in 60 mins each because they are being paid per case instead of per session. There has always been a drive for productivity increases and there has always been a lot of waste/inefficiencies but covid has set Trusts back 5 years.

There are a lot of things that could be vastly improved that has been caused by a decade of underfunding but that primarily affects the emergency/non-elective side of things.
 
Billy Horner said:
Just a different way of saying spending cut, I reckon. Probably means hard wiring a further 0.5% annual cut in public spending below the rate of inflation.



I also smell a spring election.
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Potentially, but there was talk this morning of further cuts to come in the Spring, maybe holding something (anything?) of significance back for then?
 
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