General Election 2024

It is looking highly likely that the election will be called on for a vote in October, and although it looks like it will be a Landslide victory for Labour, some experts are saying that it may be more of a close run thing than that, with some experts predicting that we may end up with Labour winning, but with a no overall majority of MP's in Parliament, leading to a 'Hung Parliament' like there was after the General Election of 2017, and if that happens it will be terrible, because nothing will get done in the country, it will just be nothing only squabbling in Parliament, worse squabbling than what there is here on Wigan World

I think a lot of it will depend on what will be in the Labour Party, Election Manifesto

Your probably right TTS another factor will be how this inept government try to buy votes

As Paul Daniels would say, "Not a lot"

as been predicted a while ago 1stroke by me .

It will be an absolute landslide for Labour. This bunch who are in now must be the biggest load of liars ever to govern!

I always remember the General Election of 1992, the polls said that it was an easy win for Labour led by Neil Kinnock, after the Tories got rid of Margaret Thatcher and the supposed unpopularity of John Major, but the polls were wrong, and John Major won, albeit with a small majority which he lost as he lost byelection after byelection, and that was a dreary 5 years until Tony Blair won in the 1997 General Election.

then came 97 & a landslide , just like this time .

Some of those calling the present Tory government have forgot that because of the election of Jeremy Corbyn as party leader, what was predicted to be a Labour victory ended up with a further five years of the Tories nd Boris Johnson.

If ever there was a case of election suricide, that was it

Owd Codger

What was predicted to be a Labour Victory ?

and

Whupsy

Did you read all of me post ?

Tommy Two Stroke

The last general election AND a result which led to another extra five years for some on Wigan World to moan about the Tories.

Nothing will change. Tories, Labour, any of 'em. They're all weak against the Government (which is run by 'them men'!)

The Tories should be worried even Captain Google and Corpral Codger have stopped trying to defend them

You can predict the speech too,

I cannot undo the damage the tories did in a day, we have hard times ahead so. we will have to make unpopular chances Bla,,Bla Bla, then he'll give himself a raise before he increases tax and cuts services, same old same old bull muck but, At least Whupsie will be happy..

(Comment removed because it broke the rules)

Handsomeminer

I have never in my life defended the Tories or their Governments, only pointing out that as a result of the Labour Party making a wrong decision in electing Jeremy Corbyn as its leader to fight the last general election, Labour voters like yourself have spent a extra five years moaning about them!

Yes, tomplum, and a book and then a Hollywood movie.
Riches galore.  And in later life, maybe a damehood.
Some will say that this is justice,

yes todger & you moan ALL the time .

Whups

You do enough yourself with the constant moaning about the NHS becoming privatised.

OC you probably don't know your doing it

which is a fact todger . so do YOU want a privitised NHS ? .

Whupsy

I couldn't care less if any NHS treatment I have done, is done by the private sector or the NHS, has long as I don't have to pay for it

Tommy Two Stroke

Exactly what I asked him a short while ago, would he reject any neccessary medical treatment offered by the NHS at a private facility, but never got a reply.

The same question also applies to the other side of the double act!

"Exactly what I asked him......................... but never got a reply"


I know exactly what you mean Todge!

S D..

So what would you posters like to see in the Labour Party manifesto ?

Refused read owt about pòlstics

which you will under a tory regime who,s sole intention is to privitise it & everything else along with it . just wait until you need treatment & have to pay for it .

Whupsy

What would yoo like to see in the Labour Party manifesto ?

The NHS is free at the point of use. However, somebody has to pay for it and that’s the taxpayer. It works out at approximately £3,000 per person per year in England.
Before a general election each political party produces a manifesto to state what they intend to do or not to do if elected. If a manifesto stated that they are intended to privatise the NHS it would effectively consign them to oblivion.
It looks like Wes Streeting, the likely Labour Secretary of State for health, will look at alternative methods of funding the NHS and, if Labour secure a second term, will probably bring in a model similar to the Australian system.

I suppose that will mean that Whupsy will be going around looking for Kangaroo's, so he can give them a good kicking

plenty of kangaroos in this tory party & the kangaroo court they use such as atos who dance to their tune . i would like to see the kicking out of private companies & the use of agency nurses in the NHS . also i would like then to right a terrible wrong & kick out the private companies like atos & the rest who do these terrible medical assessments & take it back to the NHS .

Whups

That would mean kicking out the GPs and their staff including your surgery. You would have to pay an admin fee to get a prescription to take to the chemist or go for a blood test. It would probably cost you £50 or more for a doctors appointment. Those in work would get a rebate on the NI contribution, no such luck for the pensioners .

If a ward manager is short of nurses, because of staff off sick, to run the ward(s) safely what do they do if they can’t use agency nurses?

Whupsy

I agree about Atos and the medical assessments, which were designed in such a way that just about everyone failed to meet the criteria to be judged not fit to work, but I thought that they had terminated Atos's contract to do assessments years ago, but as regards stopping the use of private companies and agency nurses in the NHS then if they did that, no one would end up being treated.

So if Labour bring in the Australian system of NHS, will yoo be going fighting Kangaroo's LINK

we cant get a doctors appointment now so there,s no difference to me . hire more nurses instead of getting rid of them & trying to run the nhs as a business instead of looking after people . all this admin fee is coming under a tory government anyway it,s all part of their privitisation plan . there you go gaffer "ward manager" there shud be no such thing as it was always run by the matron . and why would it mean kicking out gps as they work for the nhs . woe betide if the tories get their way we are already back to a victorian age & we will go back even further with this lot running the country .

And here's me thinking that they are taking on 'more' nurses, and to stop losing doctors to the USA and Australia, then just pay them more.

Nowadays, GPs only give prescriptions and refer patients to specialists. A nurse can do that, so they replace general practitioners as they cost less.
Three 'advanced nursing practitioners' and one Dr. makes a cheaper team than 4 Drs. and they do the same job.
I've had two appointments in the last six months, never seen a Dr., just an advanced nursing practitioner.
I have just as much confidence in the St John's Ambulance Brigade now, after being prescribed the wrong drugs twice by staff at both Leigh and Wigan hospitals. First one made me really ill and secong one 'could' have killed me, had I taken them before discovering they were not to be taken together as they can cause heart failure!
Sometimes, a pharmacist (chemist to the not so breet) is a better option.

Whups

GPs are not employed by the NHS. They have a contract to provide GP services just as Branson does. When they had matrons on the wards nurses didn’t have to have a university degree. Work on the wards is scientifically more complex these days. The title matron still exists but it’s used more for business managers these days.
One GP who has a practice in Ashton owns 40 surgeries across the north west with over 150,000 patients.He also owns a large diagnostics centre which undertakes NHS and private work.I’ve known him for a long time, was a guest at his wedding, it was obvious that from a young age he was going to build a substantial business within the NHS.

It must be very frustrating being a nobody with all those high flying friends

"GPs are not employed by the NHS. They have a contract to provide GP services ...."

".... it was obvious that from a young age he was going to build a substantial business within the NHS."

Gaffer, if they are not employed by the NHS, surely, their business is outside of the NHS ?

he,ll do anything to try & prove he,s right & twist it in his favour .

GP's are contracted into the NHS to provide free NHS treatment, but if a person wants private treatment they can request it and pay the GP like it was before the NHS was founded in 1948.

The only GP'S at a Practice who are paid a salary by the NHS are those who are not a partner of a Practice and Locum Doctors who stand in for GP'S when they are on holiday etc.

Dental Practicies are Private and contracted out of NHS, but most give NHS treatment for which you have to fill in a form and pay one of three charges which the Dentist reclaims from the NHS, but like the GP's can on request be given private treatment and pay the charges of the Dentist.

Another difference of the contacting in or out are shownd by most GP Practices being in modern buildings like Health Centres, Clinics etc which are accessible by the disabled while most Dental Practices are in older properties which are not very accessible for the disabled.

Tonker,

It goes back to the period of negotiations that led up to the creation of the NHS in 1948.
Aneurin Bevan wanted general practitioners to be part of the soon to be NHS. However, the GPs wouldn’t accept themselves being salaried employees of the state. After months of negotiations a compromise was agreed. They would work for the NHS but as Independent Contractors rather than employees.
In the same vein the hospital doctors wouldn’t sign up for the NHS unless they could carry out private work. Hence Bevan’s famous quotation ‘I stuffed the doctor’s mouths with gold in order to create the NHS’

gaffer

Thank you for confirming more or less what I said about the difference between GP and Dental Practices!

so if they are contracted out it means they work for the NHS . and since 1948 the torys have been trying to get rid of the NHS & thats a fact to .

This is just playing around with words, if a man gets all of his work from the NHS, you can call it what you like, but it is what it is.

Owd Codger

Gaffer used to be the CEO of the Wigan Hospitals Trust, there again I am not sure what it is called now, Wigan, Wrightington and Leigh Trust or something, and I am not sure of what his job title was, but he was head honcho, boss, main mon, gaffer, that is why he is called Gaffer, so I would imagine he knows more about the NHS than all of the rest of us put together

Now calm down Tonker

Tommy Two Stoke


It is called the Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh NHS Foundation Trust on its website, but the Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh NHS Leaning Hospitals Trust on the Hospital signs.

Wish they would make their minds up!

Well aye, but to most it's t'Hosspital

......

OC

Since becoming a Foundation Trust it has acquired Teaching Hospital status. It’s official title is Wrightington,Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Gaffer,

Why then are there two websites, one just saying WWL NHS Foundation Trust and the the other WWL NHS Teaching Hospitals NHS FoundationTrust.

Why not have just simply named it Wigan Hospitals NHS Trust in the first place and stop the nonsense of changing names and wasting taxpayers money on changing websites and printing new paper letter headings every time the name is changed.

No wonder the NHS is losing money!

Had too many of the old grumpy pills again today eh Todge?

As for the NHS losing money, all I can say is I had no idea its purpose WAS to generate money.

I thought Gaffer was a non executive director, not CEO. (not that it matters to me, laaaaike, I'm just correcting TTS)

It couldn't be named 'Wigan Hospitals NHS Trust' because it covers hospitals which aren't in Wigan.
Simple!
On top of that, it's swapped and changed for different reasons, some of which are to benefit those who run the show. For instance, the board of directors of the Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh NHS Foundation Trust reputedly awarded themselves nearly £2 million in fees recently.
Gaffer will know a bit about that one.
Also, a while ago, the story goes that they tried to open a Vat-registered sub-company in order to enable them to claim paid Vat back, something which they can't do as a Vat exempt company.
I read they got themselves into a bit of bother with that one. (a muslim trick, if ever I saw one) (but the difference is, the muslims seem to be allowed to do it!)

PS: before you start, I'm not having a sly go at Gaffer!

PPS: This is off Wikipedia (not a reliable source, but there we go..)

In the financial year 2017–18, the Trust had fifteen remunerated directors, at a total cost ranging from £1.56 million to £1.63 million.

Director Position-Total Remuneration (£)
Robert Armstrong - Chairman - 45,000 - 50,000
Andrew Foster - Chief Executive - 235,000 - 240,000
Sanjay Arya - Medical Director - 310,000 - 315,000
Alison Balson - Director of Workforce - 145,000 - 150,000
Neil Campbell - Non-Executive Director - 10,000 - 15,000
Mary Fleming - Director of Operations and Performance - 170,000 - 175,000
Robert Forster- Director of Finance and Informatics - 240,000 - 245,000
Mick Guymer - Non-Executive Director - 10,000 - 15,000
Carole Hudson - Non-Executive Director - 15,000 - 20,000
Pauline Law - Director of Nursing - 175,000 - 180,000
Jon Lloyd Non-Executive Director 10,000 - 15,000
Richard Mundon - Director of Strategy and Planning - 150,000 - 155,000
Christine Parker-Stubbs - Non-Executive Director - 15,000 - 20,000
Neil Turner - Non-Executive Director - 15,000 - 20,000
Tony Warne - Non-Executive Director - 10,000 - 15,000
Whups - Non-Executive Shouter - 1/6d - 2/6d

Neil Turner, eh.. Them MPs'll get where water can't!

tonker

Good point about hospitals not being in Wigan like Wrightington!

As for the figures quoted, multiply it by all the other trusts and there you have a national scandal.

Generating money my backside, more like robbing the public!

And Leigh!

OC

There’s an employer contribution to pension of 21% to add to the above executive salaries. That’s an extra £65,000 for the medical director.

tonker

Perhaps then, Wigan & District Hospitals NHS Trust to keep you happy!

What keeps me happy is folk saying the correct thing.

Wrightington Hospital is not in the Wigan "district".

The 'correct' title is "Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust" (as already stated by Gaffer).

It's called that because it's to do with the management of the three stated hospitals. One in Wrightington, one in Wigan and one in Leigh.
Nothing to do with Wrightington, Wigan or Leigh (the places or the council or the postcode), only the hospitals. See!

Owd Codger, there are said to be 215 nhs/hospital trusts in the UK. That's about £400 million, at least, paid to the management alone, not including those who actually do any work treating the sick and injured!

But Wrightington Hospital used to be in the Wigan Rural District.

Wigan "used to be" in Newton le Willows and both "used to be" in Lancashire, but they're not anymore. Wigan is "still" in Liverpool diocese.

AND Wigan used to be European Parliamentary Constituency of 'Merseyside East' they turned us into scousers, so it's no wonder that in the referendum, Wigan voted 'heavily' in favour of us leaving the EU

Wigan council were desperate to be included in the Liverpool City Region!

i,m sure he,s been prime minister too as being everything else . wot a fantasist .

Whupsy

Would Arthur Scargill make a good Prime Minister ?

And Whupsy, why did yoo not like Joe Gormley ?

Far better than the rubbish that's been in charge over the last 14 years ,mind you the bars set very low just look at the mess this inept bunch of Tory spiv s have made of this country

who says i dont like gormley ? . it,s yoo who dont like miners , isnt it .

Whupsy

No, No, No and I have said this before, and that is that I have nothing against miners, I have known a few of them in my time, but I don't like Arthur Scargill, because he used the miners for political reasons to try and oust Margaret Thatcher from power, emulating what had happened after the miners strike in 1974 which had led to the downfall of the Heath government.

1stroke HE DID,NT USE MINERS FOR POLITICAL REASONS as we knew years before that it was her intention to shut every mine down irrespective if they had years of coal left in them purely on a bigoted opinion on her part & a grudge held from 1974. it,s in here memoirs that on the very 1st day of her office she wanted to shut the pits down & was talked out of it by willie whitelaw & dont forget that it was HER & HER GOVERNMENT that instigated that strike in the 1st place . so get that into your stupid head .

Whups, it wasn't Thatcher's government, it was her parliament. The government is the Monarch's.

Parliament is not Government and vice-versa.

wotever tonker we know wots wot .

Whups,

It was the impression that the Tory Government got over to the general public by their cronies in the national media that Scargill and his leadership were more interested in bringing down the government as what were in preventing pit closures and also not holding a democratic national ballot that did the damage in lack of support from the general public and even the leadership of the Labour Party.

The latter being one of the many reason's why my Wife and I no longer vote Labour as it is no longer the party it used to be in the past and now as bad as the Tories in looking after number one!

Being from mining families ourselves, my Wife and I who fully supported the strike with donations, toys etc but had enough sense to realised that the moment the Tories got it across to the general public that it was a political strike to bring down the elected government, the miners were fighting a losing battle!

p.s. And before you say it, neither of us have ever voted Tory, be it in the past, present and the future.

Alf Robens a former Labour minister, tipped to become Labour PM had he stayed in politics chronicled his ten years as NCB chairman. He explains in the extract below how the 1967 Labour Fuel Policy White Paper would entail the number miners falling from 360,000 in 1967 to 65,000 in 1980. This was 12 years before Mrs. Thatcher became PM.

yet more claptrap from the usual suspects browbeating miners on behalf of their beloved tory party . tell us gaffer how much coal is there now under tory rule ? .

Whups, I was not browbeating the miners on behalf of the Tory Party as you seemed to think, only the person who led them into hardship and acheived nothing as the mines still closed while he retired to his luxary residence near Barnsley on his big pension.

Only glad that he never led me into a battle!

listen todger every miner knew wot was coming as soon as thatcher got in & it was just a matter of time when she implemented it . you would have run a mile if you had to put up a fight & nobody achieves anything if they lose do they . how much did thatcher get of a pension for wrecking the manufacturing , steel & coal industries . how come you never mention them ? .

whups

I have never defended Thatcher who did a lot of harm to working class families in the industries you have mentiond, but it's time that you faced up the fact that Scargill was hardly a Momtgomery where tactics were concerned in fighting a battle against the Tories.

Oh, and for the record, during the postal strike of 1971, my wife and I who had only just got married were living for seven weeks on the bread line and I was also on the picket lines at night after work at Winnick Quay during the Eddie Shah Printing dispute as well as many other disputes, so never accuse me of never having the will to fight the Tories!

so how long did it last ? . you always seem to side with the torys or are you just doing it to have a go at me .

More Tory propaganda from captain Google I notice he never says anything positive about the Tories inept performance over the last 14years ,I wonder why