[Oboogie]

They've scrapped NHS England.

Excellent.

[The Weeping Angel]

Online they're people who think they've abolished the NHS itself.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Chrstine McAnea has a good point , certainly that the announcement could have been handled better, as you’d expect from a TU representative, but I’d expect NHS staff affected to be properly redeployed and/or compensated.

https://labourlist.org/2025/03/labour- ... OTTGKf_MJA


Union backlash as Starmer vows ‘flabby’ state reform and axes NHS England

Of course they will and I'll be surprised and disappointed if there's many compulsory redundancies. Meanwhile, of course, over on Mail Online, readers are baying for blood and would love to see thousands of people made redundant and put on display so they can laugh and hurl abuse at them.

No way can compulsory redundancies be avoided. The trouble with relying on voluntary redundancies is that often people who are good take them because they’re confident of getting another good job. Nor are hiring freezes a great solution because you actually want to get fresh intakes of motivated people.

Early retirements might be more of a plan. Good or bad at your job, the attraction is the same, and probably a few high salaries (if not in the Casemiro league) to be saved.

But it’ll be shit for lots of people because the plan is to lose lots of the headcount taken on for Brexit and Covid.

[Youngian]

The trouble with relying on voluntary redundancies is that often people who are good take them because they’re confident of getting another good job.

Or run a tea shop in the Lake District. Did Thick of It's Teri Covely ever get her redundancy package?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Preliminary shrink in the economy of 0.1% Revisions are often larger than that much, but they can go up as well as down.

Spitting Image had a funny sketch of John Major and Norman Lamont running around in leather jackets, called The Recessionals. I”m still laughing at it.

[The Weeping Angel]

It's a blow for Rachel Reeves.

[Youngian]

'We had high hopes for growth stemming from Starmer and Reeves's Brexit that goes to a different school,' claimed nobody.

Food and drink exports to the European Union have fallen by more than a third since Brexit, new data has showed.

Food & Drink Federation figures out this week showed that British food and drink exports to the bloc slumped by 34.1% in 2024 when compared with 2019 levels – before the UK left the EU. https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/britis ... 92.article

[mattomac]

It's a blow for Rachel Reeves.

Everything is a blow to Reeves, if it was 0.1% up it would be a blow. It's stagnating and Labour have to do something about that, remember when waiting lists were news... 5th month in a row I believe they have dropped and we don't hear a whisper.

We are walking headlong into a facist coalition of Reform and Conservatives and every single person who has enabled it will deserve it.