Old-Dutch I fully accept I am a cunt for supporting Liverpool.

Gets a thumbs up from me, hopefully provokes some soul searching from the rest of the Liverpool fans!

      Mad_Cyril No choice here, whole family were Liverpool on one side, the other side from Altrincham but didn’t care about footy.

        Likewise - Irish father and older brother fans before me. My younger brother too.

        I’ve passed on the hereditary illness to my kids too. Joking aside we’ve had it fucking good for the last few years so can’t complain

        My folks both from Liverpool but neither had any real interest in football so me Man U and my brother Liverpool. They didn’t like the Beatles either.

          Mad_Cyril it was either those 2, Everton or occasionally Chester City in the wilds of West Cheshire…I think it came down to a scratchy handmedown Man U top from one of my mum’s friends in the end.

              alistair You cannot compare the last two years spending when the 60 billion increase was to deal with covid. Click on the link I posted that shows the split between the actual budget and the covid allocation for more realistic figures:

              https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/nhs-budget

              Concerning spending as a percentage of GDP:

              https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/chart/nhs-spending-as-a-percentage-of-gdp-1950-2020

              States that spending as a percentage of GDP has come steadily down since 2010.

              I’d also be dubious of using percentages of anything as a figure too - if GDP comes down 50% (an extreme example to illustrate the point), then an increase of, say, 10% percent is still a gigantic pay cut in real terms. Brexit is going to have a bad effect on GDP and this will feed through to the NHS financing.

              As CJ points out, costs are also going up due to a longer living population so unless the rate of increase matches the rising in costs, it’s again, a pay cut in literal pound value.

              • C_J replied to this.

                  Another area which needs reform is the culture / power within the organsiation wielded by senior consultants. I know of a case where a consultant on a 50% contract was deliberately blocking the appointment of another consultant to help clear the massive backlog of operations piling up because there was insufficient allocation of resource to the area for a number of years. The operation waiting lists were such a disgrace that the trust was having to pay the consultant to do the work as a private consultant on his private rates - all while he continuously blocked the Trust making appointments to cope with the backlog of operations.

                  I would like to think that situations like this are very rare and this example is an exception to the rule, but any system that tolerates shit like this needs to change.

                  alistair Do you think NHS workers, teachers and the police get fair salaries for the jobs they do, Alistair?

                  The spectre of inflation? Fucking LOL

                      Along_the_Wire depends which teachers. We have had first hand experience of great and awful ones during this pandemic where my children are concerned. Talk about throwing light on shade. Some have done live team sessions without fail and have been great, others have sent PDFs of whole new topics, effectively said try teaching yourself and I’ll be on email if you have any questions. Should they have been paid the same?

                          Along_the_Wire do you realise what millions of people in the private sector are going through through no fault of their own? They are certainly not getting paid full salary let alone demanding a pay rise

                              alistair So teachers don’t deserve to be paid a decent salary because you’ve experienced some shit ones? Most teachers are excellent

                                alistair A lot of them will be earning more than teachers for sitting on their arses doing nothing.

                                I am aware of what’s going on in the commercial world, Alistair, I run a huge commercial team and went through a nasty restructure over the summer. All but one of the people we made redundant have got jobs. If someone doesn’t like being on furlough, they can look for other jobs, can’t they? I thought that sort of view of the world would be right up you right-wing strasse.

                                    alistair The people in private employment haven’t been declared ‘essential workers’ and been on the front line treating covid, risking their lives and the lives of their own loved ones under the harshest of conditions (lets not forget the national shortage of PPE fiasco and all the other failures).

                                    The NHS staff deserve every penny they want for what they’ve been put through.

                                        Wally Nurses do. GPs Teachers and Police? Not right now no

                                          I can’t comment on Police pay rises and it brings up memories of IH.

                                          What a woman.