Current Affairs Rail strikes

[roydo]

It's up from last November the feul subsidy is the reason given ....

Thats one reason mate. The interest the Govt pay on their variable rate gilts has sky rocketed.

Like, my variable rate mortgage has gone up about 300% in the last few months. So has the govts interest payments, kinda.

 

[Joey66]

A good air source heat pump (I ordered a Mitsubishi Zubadan 11,2kwh in November) realistically costs around 15k installion included. Some brands are even more expensive (NIBE), others a bit cheaper (Daikin, I would avoid them).
Ground source isn't worth the extra bother. You'll easily pay more than 8000 for drilling the holes alone. And if you have a cold winter, your heatsource might have cooled. Your coefficient of performance is also, at best, one point better.

Don't buy if you don't have floor heating.

At worst we'll be better off 1200 a year. At best 2100. Lifetime estimate of the system is 20 years. You get a (very japanese) 5 year garantuee... Long live the green madness

Long live coal & log fires - they could run the trains on time .....

 

[Joey66]

Thats one reason mate. The interest the Govt pay on their variable rate gilts has sky rocketed.

Like, my variable rate mortgage has gone up about 300% in the last few months. So has the govts interest payments, kinda.

Good old idiot Liz Truss hey ho a nice PMs pension for life for tanking the economy.....

 

[roydo]

Good old idiot Liz Truss hey ho a nice PMs pension for life for tanking the economy.....

We wont start paying the interest/yield on that asset purchase for a while mate. And unless the BoE have seconded their purchase to the markets, (they probably have), we would pay it to ourselves anyrate.

Then, in 25 years time, we will in effect, pay for them again. Like we did this month, and do every single month since God was a kid.

 

[Joey66]

We wont start paying the interest/yield on that asset purchase for a while mate. And unless the BoE have seconded their purchase to the markets, (they probably have), we would pay it to ourselves anyrate.

Then, in 25 years time, we will in effect, pay for them again. Like we did this month, and do every single month since God was a kid.

Exactly only Osborne tried to put the UK in the black picking on the poor & sick austerity train fares are just astronomicaly too high - privatisation is not the b all of the solution - Japan's railway network is under government nationalisation top service ...

 

[roydo]

Exactly only Osborne tried to put the UK in the black picking on the poor & sick austerity train fares are just astronomicaly too high - privatisation is not the b all of the solution - Japan's railway network is under government nationalisation top service ...

Not sure the point you are making. Like I said, I hardly ever use the rail. Last time I did I got from Bristol to North Wales, and back, for £15.00. But our network, is, by and large, Victorian. Brunel built the London to South West/Wales line and as far as I know, its not really changed.

 

[Joey66]

Not sure the point you are making. Like I said, I hardly ever use the rail. Last time I did I got from Bristol to North Wales, and back, for £15.00. But our network, is, by and large, Victorian. Brunel built the London to South West/Wales line and as far as I know, its not really changed.

240 quid return for a week return to Edinburgh I paid for my son to go and see her as she has been suffering with long Covid for the last 9 months he went up in September .....before the rail strikes started..,.

 

[Jebus_lives]

I suspect it's a bit of everything. The thing is, demographically, we need to get better at healthcare because the population is ageing and health spending is taking up an ever greater share of the budget. The thing is, the current approach seems to be more like that of an Amazon warehouse, with attempts to pluck every last bit out of the workforce while also pretending you care about them. I really don't think that will work and we need a complete rethink of a system that was largely designed a couple of generations ago when circumstances were very different. You can't make such fundamental changes though because you're on a constant treadmill trying to keep up with what's expected of you here and now. So we bumble from crisis to crisis.

I think you've said quote sensibly before that the current healthcare system in the UK focusses on treating causes and emergency rather than prevention.

There really should be much greater emphasis on improving health and reducing health inequalities.

Commissioning changes every other year so the demands of the contracts is constantly shifting and the emphasis of newer commissioning focusses on addressing issues related to current problems rather than addressing underlying cause.

It's going to take years to sort this mess out.

 

[Jebus_lives]

Yeah the union donsnt care about staff wellbeing. It's all about money. Yes more money.in your pocket is always better but.
I would love to see them really take on the real issues.
Where are the fully kitted out gyms for staff to blow off steam and look after their health.
On site councillors to speak to or even group support?
I tried to get a support group set up. Was told there was no available space. I mean, no space. In an evening??
Mandatory break? I have known ward managers who won't sit on a ward for an hour so the nurse can take a break.
Subsidised meals, why do trusts have to make profit on staff food, why can't it be cost?
Mandatory time off for those who are assaulted?
I got concussion once and was fielding calls every day to get back. Ended up taking 2 weeks, just to prove a point.
Parking costs. Simply you shouldn't be charged to park onsite at your workplace.
Staffing levels? You can employ more HCAs/support workers/assistants.
Trusts just choose not to

That is just a few.
If the unions really cared they would be going into these negotiations with the government saying, right you don't want to talk pay and claim you want to make the workplace better now how about we start with some of the above?
We discuss this at work and there isn't a person who wouldn't take less money in there pocket, if it meant conditions improved.

Unions need to get there arse into gear and really look at what matters. It's not all about pay. Pay is just the headline grabber. The real work is not sexy, but somebody needs to do it.

?

 

[edge]

No Patrice , but rail ticket prices forecast to rise again - re nationalisation is needed greedy share holders are taking the P.....

Think it's broke on the radio now @Joey66
I put it on here the other day the fares I had seen were on average 6% up.
In cost of living thread on Tuesday not here getting mixed up

 

[Ivo]

Not to do with rail fairs per se, but the govt paid Avanti about £7m in bonuses last year even though their performance was dreadful.

Same government who couldn't find a single penny for its own staff who never missed a day's work during the pandemic, even though they found £2500 a month for the self employed as a gift even if they could continue working.

Same staff who've suffered massively every single year because of the greedy banks over a decade ago.

WE'RE ALL IN IT TOGETHER...

 

[roydo]

even though they found £2500 a month for the self employed as a gift even if they could continue working.

We got taxed on that, and it wasnt any where near that.

Oh. And we couldnt keep working.

 

[Ivo]

We got taxed on that, and it wasnt any where near that.

Oh. And we couldnt keep working.

Of course you got taxed on it. Does that mean you didn't get it? If I get a pay rise (whatever one of those is) does it not count because I pay tax on it?

And it was £2500 paid in blocks of £7500. Am I wrong? I'm not, I know 100 percent I'm right. And every person I know who claimed it carried on working as normal apart from literally maybe a week when things were up in the air.

They literally said they had never had so much money. I known this isn't every single person because it was based on previous years profit, but the vast majority got it.

 

[Ivo]

We got taxed on that, and it wasnt any where near that.

Oh. And we couldnt keep working.

Ffs imagine getting £7500 extra for nothing every three months and mentioning you had to pay tax on it!

 

[Bruce Wayne]

We got taxed on that, and it wasnt any where near that.

Oh. And we couldnt keep working.

It might also be worth appreciating why this was brought in. It was designed to offset drops in income

Coronavirus: Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) | Low Incomes Tax Reform Group

What was the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS)? The scheme was set up by the government to provide support during the coronavirus pandemic for the self-employed, for example sole traders or a partner in a partnership. A series of five grant payments were made available provided...

www.litrg.org.uk

LSE analysed the self-employed during Covid (https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_NEW/PUBLICATIONS/abstract.asp?index=8650) and half of those surveyed had income lower than £1,000 a month, with 40% saying they had less work than normal. Those folk would not be entitled to furlough or any kind of unemployment support, so are uniquely vulnerable in that sense, which is precisely why the income support scheme was introduced.