Fwiw a donor could I suppose pay for the security team, but he really doesn’t ‘have’ to accept a free ticket himself. There are ways of doing this. We all know that. There are some ‘perks of the job’ but this is completely tone deaf. People who’ve been throwing stones shouldn’t then sit in glass football grounds.
Which is exactly the point. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now - whether gold wallpaper or glasses, dresses and Arsenal tickets.
In fact part of me thinks this is more depressing because it’s a flow of things a PM should reasonably be able to afford *rather than* ludicrous ostentation! And it’s flowing towards someone I thought better of rather than someone I already knew was a main-chancing grifter.
If the benchmark is "not as corrupt as ABdPJ" we're not asking for much.
Quite.
I don’t suppose anyone else was listening to LBC yesterday morning but I share James O’Brien’s baffled disappointment at such low stakes, low value hoovering up of trifles.
I don't think it should happen, I am a just a little sceptical at the Tory outrage.
In the diplomatic service the system was you could accept gifts over a set value for the period of the posting (if they were objects) but they were government property to be returned at the end of post and if you wanted to keep them you paid the government the value.
This seemed a reasonable system, I don't see why they couldn't institute it for politicians. I think you could accept small gifts under £50.
This was partly because in some parts of the world it is offensive to refuse - though that does not apply in the current case.
(I remember him being annoyed once when we stayed in a chain hotel in India and when he went to pay the bill they'd written it off - which just meant he then had to write it all up and pay the foreign office.)
Fwiw a donor could I suppose pay for the security team, but he really doesn’t ‘have’ to accept a free ticket himself.
He could always sit in the stands, like Brown, Cameron and even Sunak.
As to your wider point, it's worth bearing in mind that he has only been an MP since 2015, which may explain why he often comes across as bad as politics, but there also seems to be persistent streak of entitlement (recall his comments on the offer of a second job from Mischon de Reya https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1457820419025690632 )
I remember him also explaining at one point - that some leaderships in some countries just wouldn't take you seriously if you didn't have the things they considered normal in someone with senior official status
(I imagine something similar would happen if you turned up for a meeting with Donald Trump in an old Ford Focus.)
I remember him also explaining at one point - that some leaderships in some countries just wouldn't take you seriously if you didn't have the things they considered normal in someone with senior official status
(I imagine something similar would happen if you turned up for a meeting with Donald Trump in an old Ford Focus.)
As an aside - who’s the ‘him’ in this and your previous post? I think an edit to the first post might have muddied the meaning a bit? Obviously I don’t mean ‘name them’!
I remember him also explaining at one point - that some leaderships in some countries just wouldn't take you seriously if you didn't have the things they considered normal in someone with senior official status
(I imagine something similar would happen if you turned up for a meeting with Donald Trump in an old Ford Focus.)
As an aside - who’s the ‘him’ in this and your previous post? I think an edit to the first post might have muddied the meaning a bit? Obviously I don’t mean ‘name them’!
I don't think it should happen, I am a just a little sceptical at the Tory outrage.
Is it coming in for much Tory outrage? My feeling was that they were mostly checked out and this was being run in the press (it was Bloomberg who broke the story).
Besides, why should whether or not the Tories are reacting to it be the gauge for decency ?
This seemed a reasonable system, I don't see why they couldn't institute it for politicians. I think you could accept small gifts under £50.
This was partly because in some parts of the world it is offensive to refuse - though that does not apply in the current case.
When I've worked in companies operating in such regions the rule was that if you couldn't refuse a large gift then you had to hand it into the company. Small gifts - meals and the like - were fine, mid size gifts could be okay if you were in the position to reciprocate and you were in a business relationship where that was accepted, but not okay outside that.
Fwiw a donor could I suppose pay for the security team, but he really doesn’t ‘have’ to accept a free ticket himself.
He could always sit in the stands, like Brown, Cameron and even Sunak.
and our next two kings
There have been some fairly high profile political murders recently - I can understand that there might be a real concern underlying this.
None of them have been in football grounds though.
In any case attending live football is hardly a necessity. If your safety cannot be secured without making yourself beholden to big money donors then maybe you need a subscription to Sky Sports?
Traditionally, there was an argument that junior doctors had to work long hours because they needed to get their education in. I know my college tutors would have laughed at me had I suggested that I should work as little as 40 hours in a week during my student days. I'll happily defer to our colleague Dr. @alienfromzog for a reasonable statement about what is necessary for a junior doctor's education.
Thank you, Sir.
The answer is that it's complicated. There has been and always will be a tension for Junior Doctors between training and service provision. The short version though is that long hours mostly reflect service provision and the majority of training happens within normal hours. (With some important caveats).
I teach with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh on a course called Training the Trainers which is aimed at people just about to become consultants. We have a brilliant faculty team and I've learnt so much from all of them. One of my colleagues argues that all tasks we do are both service provision and training and that the division between the two is slightly false. I agree with this philosophy and there's a lot to be said for treating everything as a training opportunity but that does not change the fact that some things are excellent training experiences and others are necessary and important for the patient but do not help the doctor develop. Most training happens in hours. Most of what happens out of hours is service provision. The most important caveat here is that there are some parts of what we do that only happen doing out-of-hours work and it is a vital part of training. If you asked doctors to talk about percentages, you might get an answer like a 90/10 split. Out of hours work in 90% service provision, 10% training. Something like that. The other caveat is that training needs vary a lot between specialities. It is also true that a lot of hours are needed to get competent at what we do.
I did a list yesterday. Most operating needs two surgeons. Some operations need more but most of the time you need a surgeon and an assistant. In training for any specific operation there is a step-wise process. First we assist - so we can see how the operation is done. Then we do it with the supervisor assisting. Then we do a procedure with the supervisor present but not directly helping (usually with someone else assisting). Then we do the procedure with the supervisor in the coffee room. Then we teach the procedure to someone else. (Roughly, there's a lot of cross over of these as you go up the ladder).
I had a registrar with me who is in the middle of his training. I've done several lists with him and normally he would do most of the cases under my supervision. He is very capable of doing the cases with my guidance. However, for various reasons, we were under significant time pressure so I did the operating with him assisting. Only because I am slightly quicker than he is. As a consequence, the training experience he got was less than it might have been. He still would have got something from it but not as much as he would have done were I able to run the list a different way. This - you'll not be surprised to hear - is a very common occurrence that the pressures of the workload we are dealing with impacts on training opportunities. Teaching procedures is complex process. As a trainer, I need to keep the patient safe and ensure that the operation goes well whilst showing someone else how to do it and letting them do some or all of a procedure. It's a process that builds over time. To a large extent, it's about taking the same surgical skills and applying them to a specific situation. Hence for a lot of the surgery I do, most of the registrars can do the surgery really well under supervision. They have the necessary skills but understanding how to apply them to the particular situation, understanding how to make the right decisions in surgery is actually what much of the training is about. Therefore for many operations, I will actually do few or none of the steps involved, but I will be guiding the trainee through it. Sometimes this is a bit slower than me doing the cases (not always) but it means the patient gets a safe operation and the trainee learns how to do it. The thing is, that's much easier when you know the trainee and work with them regularly. Which is why I mention it. The pressure of out-of-hours work and the number of hours has a knock-on effect to training. If a trainee is working nights then they are not around in the daytime to be with the same consultant every time. The best training (usually) happens when a trainee is with the same consultant for several operating lists.
Out-of-hours work is important training. Learning how to manage emergencies that come in the door or dealing with a patient who becomes suddenly unwell post-operatively or whatever are all vital parts of what we do. However: 1) Most out-of-hours work is service provision and 2) Most training happens in hours and out-of-hours work can compromise that. 3) Part of the reason that so many hours are necessary for training is that training opportunities are not entirely predictable and so you need to be around a lot to get the best training experiences.
There is nothing wrong with service-provision. It's important. All doctors of all grades come to work to look after the patients. That's the job. That's what they are paid for. However, the amount of overtime worked by doctors is primarily a function of the needs of the service. It is not a function of their training needs.
Thank you for taking the time to explain all that so clearly. The voice of expert experience is so important in helping those of us who don't work in hospitals understand the issues involved.
Just seen Starmer’s comments on Arsenal - he has to go in hospitality because he’s not safe in the stands ‘therefore if I don’t accept a gift of hospitality I can’t go to a game’
Are we completely through the looking glass or is he really this bad at politics?
*anyone* is quite at liberty to buy their own hospitality package from Arsenal. It’s the idea of paying for it himself he seems to be struggling with.
I thought he was dull but competent. I’m rapidly coming to the view he’s an idiot with the political antenna of a parsnip.
I am sure Arsenal would give the PM priority over others who want a hospitality package.
If it was just this I think people wouldn’t mind so much. It is this combined with all the other stuff. I wonder if Starmer thinks optics are what they serve whisky from
It seems to me that if you're regularly paying people for overtime you're understaffed.
I find that if you expect people to work significant overtime on an ongoing basis, they burn out and become less efficient. This isn't universally true - and for those of us fortunate enough to be paid to do things we are passionate about, the lines between work and hobbies can be a little blurred - but it's true enough.
It's also the case that if you're running your normal operations on heavy overtime, you don't have any margin left to cope with a problem. And you're very vulnerable to one of your valuable workers quitting, or getting hit by a bus.
Elon Musk appears to have a different opinion, which is perhaps why the young engineers I know who went to work for SpaceX (because it was a cool thing to work on) quit after about 3 years, because they also wanted to do other things.
There’s a lot of this thread I’ve not read, forgive me.
In my view the last few days have shown the ridiculousness of the British system, expecting senior politicians to look smart and then not providing a clothing budget for them.
I’m not defending Starmer, as this does look bad. However do we actually know for certain what other things he’s expected to pay for out of his own pocket? He has a pad in central London and a massive country home in Buckinghamshire, just think of the council tax bill. Oh won’t someone think of the bills.
This was partly because in some parts of the world it is offensive to refuse - though that does not apply in the current case.
My employer's standard is that when gifts cannot be refused, they should to the greatest degree possible be shared by all employees, rather than being reserved to a specific person.
I remember him also explaining at one point - that some leaderships in some countries just wouldn't take you seriously if you didn't have the things they considered normal in someone with senior official status
(I imagine something similar would happen if you turned up for a meeting with Donald Trump in an old Ford Focus.)
I think most of us can distinguish between stuff that our employer owns that we use for official purposes, and stuff that we own privately. The fact that a senior government envoy is expected to show up in an imposing car with minions doesn't mean that that same envoy needs the imposing car and minions to go to the grocery store.
I get to play with some very expensive toys at work, because they are necessary to do the work I do. Many of the toys I play with cost more than I will earn in a lifetime. I don't think that's all that unusual - you don't expect a 747 pilot to be able to buy their own jet.
Does anyone seriously think that Obama bought his own suits whilst in office? I could be wrong but I strongly suspect that the US Presidency includes a clothing allowance.
This was partly because in some parts of the world it is offensive to refuse - though that does not apply in the current case.
My employer's standard is that when gifts cannot be refused, they should to the greatest degree possible be shared by all employees, rather than being reserved to a specific person.
I remember him also explaining at one point - that some leaderships in some countries just wouldn't take you seriously if you didn't have the things they considered normal in someone with senior official status
(I imagine something similar would happen if you turned up for a meeting with Donald Trump in an old Ford Focus.)
I think most of us can distinguish between stuff that our employer owns that we use for official purposes, and stuff that we own privately. The fact that a senior government envoy is expected to show up in an imposing car with minions doesn't mean that that same envoy needs the imposing car and minions to go to the grocery store.
I get to play with some very expensive toys at work, because they are necessary to do the work I do. Many of the toys I play with cost more than I will earn in a lifetime. I don't think that's all that unusual - you don't expect a 747 pilot to be able to buy their own jet.
Quite - and ministers have official cars. (Do you remember the fuss about whether Jeremy Corbyn was smartly dressed enough ?)
But it is also the case that cultural standards vary - and gift giving norms vary between cultures. In some places you have to be careful of what you say because if you complement someone’s possession they will insist on trying to give it to you (this is why embassies have staff employed to keep on to top of local protocol, and etiquette).
These considerations presumably also apply to politicians with diplomatic roles. If we want to insist on politicians (and their family members whom we do not employ) dressing to a certain standard we should either declare that their salaries cover this and what percentage of their salary we’re expecting they might need to spend on that and adjust for inflation accordingly, or allow them to claim a certain value or or number of outfits on expenses.
Or we decide we don’t care, don’t expect it and then make a pact with the press not to be doing a running commentary on their clothing choices.
Sir Keir Starmer is Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. I am told by someone who knows and has worked with him that he was an extreely thoughtful and considerate Head of Chambers and pupil-master. Not a career politician. Can some of us try to get over it?
Sir Keir Starmer is Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. I am told by someone who knows and has worked with him that he was an extreely thoughtful and considerate Head of Chambers and pupil-master. Not a career politician. Can some of us try to get over it?
How about we try and judge him from his actions; not whether he was personally pleasant to a small group of individuals (something which would be said of many politicians from all sides and most people in general).
(Do you remember the fuss about whether Jeremy Corbyn was smartly dressed enough ?)
But it is also the case that cultural standards vary - and gift giving norms vary between cultures. In some places you have to be careful of what you say because if you complement someone’s possession they will insist on trying to give it to you (this is why embassies have staff employed to keep on to top of local protocol, and etiquette).
These considerations presumably also apply to politicians with diplomatic roles. If we want to insist on politicians (and their family members whom we do not employ) dressing to a certain standard we should either declare that their salaries cover this and what percentage of their salary we’re expecting they might need to spend on that and adjust for inflation accordingly, or allow them to claim a certain value or or number of outfits on expenses.
Or we decide we don’t care, don’t expect it and then make a pact with the press not to be doing a running commentary on their clothing choices.
It’s possible to dress smartly and have a decent home without spending thousands of pounds.
Corbin could have tried harder. Starmer and his wife have gone too far imo.
It all screams ‘out of touch’ to me.
Not that I’d ever want a Tory government again. They are off the scale out-of-touch, I think.
Disappointing because it's not what I might have expected.
Annoying because it reinforces the "They're all the same" trope.
And it's all a bit naff and shite.
What I find extraordinary is the unspoken implication that a couple on a combined salary (pre-election too) of over £170k cannot afford to provide a man, who wears them all the time, with spectacles.
Her dresses? She should read the frothy news snippets a bit more - she would discover that the Princess of Wales, for example, isn't above hiring a dress or two.
What I find extraordinary is the unspoken implication that a couple on a combined salary (pre-election too) of over £170k cannot afford to provide a man, who wears them all the time, with spectacles.
Her dresses? She should read the frothy news snippets a bit more - she would discover that the Princess of Wales, for example, isn't above hiring a dress or two.
No, seriously I have believed in banning all corporate donations for decades, regardless of who's in power.
Wealthy individuals donating poses problems for democracy but there is very little philosophical justification for a company making a political donation. Either it helps the company, in which case it is corruption or it doesn't, in which case it is squandering shareholders' money.
I have huge sympathy with Mrs Starmer accepting gifts of clothes. She has suddenly moved into a world where what she wears will be intensely scrutinised at every event she attends. She is technically a private citizen but now it is a de facto representative of the UK. I could not possibly care less whether she gets her clothes from Marks & Sparks or Sainsburys' but that's not the world she moves in now. She has no allowance for clothes from the taxpayer. Seriously, in the world in which we live, what is she supposed to do?
It’s a slippery slope, AFZ. Made even more slippery by media fascination with the behaviour of “the great and the good”.
Influence peddling is a common ambition. How can tainting be avoided?
I suppose one can take the benefits and say “If you must”. Plus “I don’t really care who you tell about it”.
Banning contributions by law seems likely to push the process underground. I remember that the Nixon Presidential Campaign benefitted from a declaration loophole and got lots of money as a result. One of the books about Watergate (not Woodward and Bernstein) observed as follows. “The plain fact of the matter is that the Campaign had far more money than was good for it”. The implication was that the costs of all its dirty tricks (Watergate wasn’t the only one) was met out of funds acquired by clandestine means.
It’s not so much the gift itself but the use to which it is put.
No, seriously I have believed in banning all corporate donations for decades, regardless of who's in power.
Wealthy individuals donating poses problems for democracy but there is very little philosophical justification for a company making a political donation. Either it helps the company, in which case it is corruption or it doesn't, in which case it is squandering shareholders' money.
Shouldn't that also go for unions? or, as a minimum, an absolutely watertight way of union members being able to opt out of the political levy without pressure? I only ask because both times I've been a union member (largely for the workplace representation - we're not counting the NUS, which would be the third) it was made very clear *by the shop steward standing over me as I filled in the membership forms* that I wasn't to opt out.
So I don't think we can safely say that union money is a willing donation in all cases.
It’s not so much the gift itself but the use to which it is put.
It's both at some point, purely because the possibility of the gift can in itself alter people's behaviour.
At this point one individual:
- paid for the PM's suits and glasses, plus £100,000 to his leadership campaign
- gave £5,000 worth of clothes to Victoria Starmer, which the PM initially failed to declare
- paid for Bridget Phillipson's 40th birthday party (to the tune of 14K)
- donated to the campaigns of David Lammy, Wes Streeting and Ed Miliband and Liam Conlon, new MP and Sue Gray's son
- gave a £1.2 million loan to an MP for a house.
No, seriously I have believed in banning all corporate donations for decades, regardless of who's in power.
Wealthy individuals donating poses problems for democracy but there is very little philosophical justification for a company making a political donation. Either it helps the company, in which case it is corruption or it doesn't, in which case it is squandering shareholders' money.
Shouldn't that also go for unions? or, as a minimum, an absolutely watertight way of union members being able to opt out of the political levy without pressure? I only ask because both times I've been a union member (largely for the workplace representation - we're not counting the NUS, which would be the third) it was made very clear *by the shop steward standing over me as I filled in the membership forms* that I wasn't to opt out.
So I don't think we can safely say that union money is a willing donation in all cases.
I was waiting for this comment.
No.
The union donation discussion should be separate from the corporate donations discussions.
There are more than 10x union members that political party members in the UK. Union membership is voluntary, as are the political donations.* Every union member can decide whether to donate or not. That is categorically different to a corporate donation which is decided on by the board or an individual.
Moreover, political donations is 100% in line with the purpose of a union: to improve the lives of its members.
If you want to debate union donations then it belongs in the same category as individual donations not corporations.** For me, I would move to a system of state funding but that's perhaps just me.
AFZ
*I know the opt-in/opt-out part is a problem. As is peer-pressure to join a union.
**It is always worth remembering that the concept of a 'corporation' is the legal fiction that a company is a person. The opposite of the concept of a union: uniting people in a collective effort.
*I know the opt-in/opt-out part is a problem. As is peer-pressure to join a union.
The second part can be true, but there are jobs which aren't de jure closed shops but are de facto. You'd have to be mad to teach and not be a member of a teaching union, for example - just for the workplace representation.
However there are so many teaching unions that you can (usually) choose one that fits your worldview when it comes to 'does it fund the Labour Party? Yes/no' and/or 'will I be pressured not to opt out of the political levy?'
Now try the same approach in an industry with one union. Take it or leave it - if you want to be safe at work, you join us and fund the Labour Party.
In my life I met one CWU member who took me to one side and explained that he had a standing order for double his union political levy to go to the Conservative Party because if Labour were having one pound off him, he wanted someone else to have two pounds. But that's an impressive level of bloody mindedness.
One union (GMB?) is/was against giving its members an opt-out because they reckoned 90% of the membership would use it. Last 10 years(ish) that was - will see if I can find a link.
Other unions make opting out impressively difficult - one, which will remain nameless in case they've changed things but not being on the inside I can't find out - requires/d you to first join the union. Then if you want to opt out you have to write to the regional office, so that they can send the opt-out form to the branch secretary, who gives it to your shop steward to give to you. You may as well have 'troublemaker' tattooed on your head.
I think on paper union donations could be lovely and all above board, the grateful mite of the smiling workers, but that's not how the real world works in the UK in my experience.
Either they need massive reform to compel them all to behave as you would desire, or we need some mixture of state funding and individual donations, with a cap of £1000 per person on the latter - and stop everything else.
Now try the same approach in an industry with one union. Take it or leave it - if you want to be safe at work, you join us and fund the Labour Party.
From another angle this seems very much like you want to pick and choose which bits of collectivity you would like to subscribe to.
well yes, but not really signing up to collectivity to that extent is one of the (many) reasons I'm not a Labour Party member. Personally I'd want all workplaces to have access to the representation facilities provided currently by unions, but not *through* unions. Given we don't live in a perfect world, on the occasions that it made sense to be a union member I joined the union.
However, it strikes me that what worries union hierarchies is that my position on unions is shared by more of their memberships than theirs is.
Here's the link to the comments I mentioned in the last post - it was the GMB:
Comments
In fact part of me thinks this is more depressing because it’s a flow of things a PM should reasonably be able to afford *rather than* ludicrous ostentation! And it’s flowing towards someone I thought better of rather than someone I already knew was a main-chancing grifter.
Quite.
I don’t suppose anyone else was listening to LBC yesterday morning but I share James O’Brien’s baffled disappointment at such low stakes, low value hoovering up of trifles.
In the diplomatic service the system was you could accept gifts over a set value for the period of the posting (if they were objects) but they were government property to be returned at the end of post and if you wanted to keep them you paid the government the value.
This seemed a reasonable system, I don't see why they couldn't institute it for politicians. I think you could accept small gifts under £50.
This was partly because in some parts of the world it is offensive to refuse - though that does not apply in the current case.
(I remember him being annoyed once when we stayed in a chain hotel in India and when he went to pay the bill they'd written it off - which just meant he then had to write it all up and pay the foreign office.)
He could always sit in the stands, like Brown, Cameron and even Sunak.
As to your wider point, it's worth bearing in mind that he has only been an MP since 2015, which may explain why he often comes across as bad as politics, but there also seems to be persistent streak of entitlement (recall his comments on the offer of a second job from Mischon de Reya https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1457820419025690632 )
(I imagine something similar would happen if you turned up for a meeting with Donald Trump in an old Ford Focus.)
As an aside - who’s the ‘him’ in this and your previous post? I think an edit to the first post might have muddied the meaning a bit? Obviously I don’t mean ‘name them’!
Sorry, I was referring to my Dad.
There have been some fairly high profile political murders recently - I can understand that there might be a real concern underlying this.
Is it coming in for much Tory outrage? My feeling was that they were mostly checked out and this was being run in the press (it was Bloomberg who broke the story).
Besides, why should whether or not the Tories are reacting to it be the gauge for decency ?
When I've worked in companies operating in such regions the rule was that if you couldn't refuse a large gift then you had to hand it into the company. Small gifts - meals and the like - were fine, mid size gifts could be okay if you were in the position to reciprocate and you were in a business relationship where that was accepted, but not okay outside that.
None of them have been in football grounds though.
In any case attending live football is hardly a necessity. If your safety cannot be secured without making yourself beholden to big money donors then maybe you need a subscription to Sky Sports?
Especially as he is surrounded by thousands of Villains
Are you questing the character of the population of the House of Commons, or that of the Emirates Stadium?
Thank you, Sir.
The answer is that it's complicated. There has been and always will be a tension for Junior Doctors between training and service provision. The short version though is that long hours mostly reflect service provision and the majority of training happens within normal hours. (With some important caveats).
I teach with the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh on a course called Training the Trainers which is aimed at people just about to become consultants. We have a brilliant faculty team and I've learnt so much from all of them. One of my colleagues argues that all tasks we do are both service provision and training and that the division between the two is slightly false. I agree with this philosophy and there's a lot to be said for treating everything as a training opportunity but that does not change the fact that some things are excellent training experiences and others are necessary and important for the patient but do not help the doctor develop. Most training happens in hours. Most of what happens out of hours is service provision. The most important caveat here is that there are some parts of what we do that only happen doing out-of-hours work and it is a vital part of training. If you asked doctors to talk about percentages, you might get an answer like a 90/10 split. Out of hours work in 90% service provision, 10% training. Something like that. The other caveat is that training needs vary a lot between specialities. It is also true that a lot of hours are needed to get competent at what we do.
I did a list yesterday. Most operating needs two surgeons. Some operations need more but most of the time you need a surgeon and an assistant. In training for any specific operation there is a step-wise process. First we assist - so we can see how the operation is done. Then we do it with the supervisor assisting. Then we do a procedure with the supervisor present but not directly helping (usually with someone else assisting). Then we do the procedure with the supervisor in the coffee room. Then we teach the procedure to someone else. (Roughly, there's a lot of cross over of these as you go up the ladder).
I had a registrar with me who is in the middle of his training. I've done several lists with him and normally he would do most of the cases under my supervision. He is very capable of doing the cases with my guidance. However, for various reasons, we were under significant time pressure so I did the operating with him assisting. Only because I am slightly quicker than he is. As a consequence, the training experience he got was less than it might have been. He still would have got something from it but not as much as he would have done were I able to run the list a different way. This - you'll not be surprised to hear - is a very common occurrence that the pressures of the workload we are dealing with impacts on training opportunities. Teaching procedures is complex process. As a trainer, I need to keep the patient safe and ensure that the operation goes well whilst showing someone else how to do it and letting them do some or all of a procedure. It's a process that builds over time. To a large extent, it's about taking the same surgical skills and applying them to a specific situation. Hence for a lot of the surgery I do, most of the registrars can do the surgery really well under supervision. They have the necessary skills but understanding how to apply them to the particular situation, understanding how to make the right decisions in surgery is actually what much of the training is about. Therefore for many operations, I will actually do few or none of the steps involved, but I will be guiding the trainee through it. Sometimes this is a bit slower than me doing the cases (not always) but it means the patient gets a safe operation and the trainee learns how to do it. The thing is, that's much easier when you know the trainee and work with them regularly. Which is why I mention it. The pressure of out-of-hours work and the number of hours has a knock-on effect to training. If a trainee is working nights then they are not around in the daytime to be with the same consultant every time. The best training (usually) happens when a trainee is with the same consultant for several operating lists.
Out-of-hours work is important training. Learning how to manage emergencies that come in the door or dealing with a patient who becomes suddenly unwell post-operatively or whatever are all vital parts of what we do. However: 1) Most out-of-hours work is service provision and 2) Most training happens in hours and out-of-hours work can compromise that. 3) Part of the reason that so many hours are necessary for training is that training opportunities are not entirely predictable and so you need to be around a lot to get the best training experiences.
There is nothing wrong with service-provision. It's important. All doctors of all grades come to work to look after the patients. That's the job. That's what they are paid for. However, the amount of overtime worked by doctors is primarily a function of the needs of the service. It is not a function of their training needs.
AFZ
I am sure Arsenal would give the PM priority over others who want a hospitality package.
If it was just this I think people wouldn’t mind so much. It is this combined with all the other stuff. I wonder if Starmer thinks optics are what they serve whisky from
Please don't put down root vegetables.
Ok he has the political antenna of a lettuce
Watch Out... Someone will be along in a moment to defend salads... ;-)
I find that if you expect people to work significant overtime on an ongoing basis, they burn out and become less efficient. This isn't universally true - and for those of us fortunate enough to be paid to do things we are passionate about, the lines between work and hobbies can be a little blurred - but it's true enough.
It's also the case that if you're running your normal operations on heavy overtime, you don't have any margin left to cope with a problem. And you're very vulnerable to one of your valuable workers quitting, or getting hit by a bus.
Elon Musk appears to have a different opinion, which is perhaps why the young engineers I know who went to work for SpaceX (because it was a cool thing to work on) quit after about 3 years, because they also wanted to do other things.
In my view the last few days have shown the ridiculousness of the British system, expecting senior politicians to look smart and then not providing a clothing budget for them.
I’m not defending Starmer, as this does look bad. However do we actually know for certain what other things he’s expected to pay for out of his own pocket? He has a pad in central London and a massive country home in Buckinghamshire, just think of the council tax bill. Oh won’t someone think of the bills.
I jest. But really.
My employer's standard is that when gifts cannot be refused, they should to the greatest degree possible be shared by all employees, rather than being reserved to a specific person.
I think most of us can distinguish between stuff that our employer owns that we use for official purposes, and stuff that we own privately. The fact that a senior government envoy is expected to show up in an imposing car with minions doesn't mean that that same envoy needs the imposing car and minions to go to the grocery store.
I get to play with some very expensive toys at work, because they are necessary to do the work I do. Many of the toys I play with cost more than I will earn in a lifetime. I don't think that's all that unusual - you don't expect a 747 pilot to be able to buy their own jet.
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:3%20section:102%20edition:prelim)
Quite - and ministers have official cars. (Do you remember the fuss about whether Jeremy Corbyn was smartly dressed enough ?)
But it is also the case that cultural standards vary - and gift giving norms vary between cultures. In some places you have to be careful of what you say because if you complement someone’s possession they will insist on trying to give it to you (this is why embassies have staff employed to keep on to top of local protocol, and etiquette).
These considerations presumably also apply to politicians with diplomatic roles. If we want to insist on politicians (and their family members whom we do not employ) dressing to a certain standard we should either declare that their salaries cover this and what percentage of their salary we’re expecting they might need to spend on that and adjust for inflation accordingly, or allow them to claim a certain value or or number of outfits on expenses.
Or we decide we don’t care, don’t expect it and then make a pact with the press not to be doing a running commentary on their clothing choices.
I was refering to Aston Villa fans
How about we try and judge him from his actions; not whether he was personally pleasant to a small group of individuals (something which would be said of many politicians from all sides and most people in general).
It’s possible to dress smartly and have a decent home without spending thousands of pounds.
Corbin could have tried harder. Starmer and his wife have gone too far imo.
It all screams ‘out of touch’ to me.
Not that I’d ever want a Tory government again. They are off the scale out-of-touch, I think.
Annoying because it reinforces the "They're all the same" trope.
And it's all a bit naff and shite.
What evidence would you accept short of a signed agreement between the two parties?
https://x.com/Peston/status/1836790972514267607
@Arethosemyfeet I am not amazed - depressed but not amazed.
What I find extraordinary is the unspoken implication that a couple on a combined salary (pre-election too) of over £170k cannot afford to provide a man, who wears them all the time, with spectacles.
Her dresses? She should read the frothy news snippets a bit more - she would discover that the Princess of Wales, for example, isn't above hiring a dress or two.
No, seriously I have believed in banning all corporate donations for decades, regardless of who's in power.
Wealthy individuals donating poses problems for democracy but there is very little philosophical justification for a company making a political donation. Either it helps the company, in which case it is corruption or it doesn't, in which case it is squandering shareholders' money.
I have huge sympathy with Mrs Starmer accepting gifts of clothes. She has suddenly moved into a world where what she wears will be intensely scrutinised at every event she attends. She is technically a private citizen but now it is a de facto representative of the UK. I could not possibly care less whether she gets her clothes from Marks & Sparks or Sainsburys' but that's not the world she moves in now. She has no allowance for clothes from the taxpayer. Seriously, in the world in which we live, what is she supposed to do?
AFZ
Influence peddling is a common ambition. How can tainting be avoided?
I suppose one can take the benefits and say “If you must”. Plus “I don’t really care who you tell about it”.
Banning contributions by law seems likely to push the process underground. I remember that the Nixon Presidential Campaign benefitted from a declaration loophole and got lots of money as a result. One of the books about Watergate (not Woodward and Bernstein) observed as follows. “The plain fact of the matter is that the Campaign had far more money than was good for it”. The implication was that the costs of all its dirty tricks (Watergate wasn’t the only one) was met out of funds acquired by clandestine means.
It’s not so much the gift itself but the use to which it is put.
Shouldn't that also go for unions? or, as a minimum, an absolutely watertight way of union members being able to opt out of the political levy without pressure? I only ask because both times I've been a union member (largely for the workplace representation - we're not counting the NUS, which would be the third) it was made very clear *by the shop steward standing over me as I filled in the membership forms* that I wasn't to opt out.
So I don't think we can safely say that union money is a willing donation in all cases.
It's both at some point, purely because the possibility of the gift can in itself alter people's behaviour.
At this point one individual:
- paid for the PM's suits and glasses, plus £100,000 to his leadership campaign
- gave £5,000 worth of clothes to Victoria Starmer, which the PM initially failed to declare
- paid for Bridget Phillipson's 40th birthday party (to the tune of 14K)
- donated to the campaigns of David Lammy, Wes Streeting and Ed Miliband and Liam Conlon, new MP and Sue Gray's son
- gave a £1.2 million loan to an MP for a house.
(via https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-18/how-labour-donor-waheed-alli-holds-sway-in-keir-starmer-s-party )
I was waiting for this comment.
No.
The union donation discussion should be separate from the corporate donations discussions.
There are more than 10x union members that political party members in the UK. Union membership is voluntary, as are the political donations.* Every union member can decide whether to donate or not. That is categorically different to a corporate donation which is decided on by the board or an individual.
Moreover, political donations is 100% in line with the purpose of a union: to improve the lives of its members.
If you want to debate union donations then it belongs in the same category as individual donations not corporations.** For me, I would move to a system of state funding but that's perhaps just me.
AFZ
*I know the opt-in/opt-out part is a problem. As is peer-pressure to join a union.
**It is always worth remembering that the concept of a 'corporation' is the legal fiction that a company is a person. The opposite of the concept of a union: uniting people in a collective effort.
The second part can be true, but there are jobs which aren't de jure closed shops but are de facto. You'd have to be mad to teach and not be a member of a teaching union, for example - just for the workplace representation.
However there are so many teaching unions that you can (usually) choose one that fits your worldview when it comes to 'does it fund the Labour Party? Yes/no' and/or 'will I be pressured not to opt out of the political levy?'
Now try the same approach in an industry with one union. Take it or leave it - if you want to be safe at work, you join us and fund the Labour Party.
In my life I met one CWU member who took me to one side and explained that he had a standing order for double his union political levy to go to the Conservative Party because if Labour were having one pound off him, he wanted someone else to have two pounds. But that's an impressive level of bloody mindedness.
One union (GMB?) is/was against giving its members an opt-out because they reckoned 90% of the membership would use it. Last 10 years(ish) that was - will see if I can find a link.
Other unions make opting out impressively difficult - one, which will remain nameless in case they've changed things but not being on the inside I can't find out - requires/d you to first join the union. Then if you want to opt out you have to write to the regional office, so that they can send the opt-out form to the branch secretary, who gives it to your shop steward to give to you. You may as well have 'troublemaker' tattooed on your head.
I think on paper union donations could be lovely and all above board, the grateful mite of the smiling workers, but that's not how the real world works in the UK in my experience.
Either they need massive reform to compel them all to behave as you would desire, or we need some mixture of state funding and individual donations, with a cap of £1000 per person on the latter - and stop everything else.
From another angle this seems very much like you want to pick and choose which bits of collectivity you would like to subscribe to.
well yes, but not really signing up to collectivity to that extent is one of the (many) reasons I'm not a Labour Party member. Personally I'd want all workplaces to have access to the representation facilities provided currently by unions, but not *through* unions. Given we don't live in a perfect world, on the occasions that it made sense to be a union member I joined the union.
However, it strikes me that what worries union hierarchies is that my position on unions is shared by more of their memberships than theirs is.
Here's the link to the comments I mentioned in the last post - it was the GMB:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23257182
So, from another angle, it seems very much like some unions get up to stuff that their membership wouldn't support if given an actual choice.
Some 'collectivity'...