Quote of the day 24th November 2019
"When I read the reports that Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party is proposing a four-day working week, I could not believe any supposedly serious politician was contemplating something so fundamentally stupid.
"Yes, I can see it might buy Labour some cheap votes at the ballot box, especially from those won over by the economically illiterate, but electorally compelling, footnote — that a shorter week (32 hours) would involve no loss of pay.
"But this completely ignores the fact that reducing the hours of public-sector employees — doctors, nurses, teachers, firefighters, police officers, etc — would impose an extra cost on the Treasury, because the workforce would have to expand to ensure productivity and service delivery.
"What Corbyn and his Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, are choosing to ignore is that this proposal would spell the end of the NHS as we know it. That's the same NHS the Labour Party is supposed to love and cherish. The same NHS that Mr Corbyn insists — over and over — won't be safe in Tory hands.
"Well, you might — just might — be able to produce enough widgets of the appropriate standard in a four-day week, but you certainly can't produce good doctors or nurses, or deliver first-class healthcare.
"I have worked in the NHS for more than 40 years, and I can tell Mr Corbyn that his radical plan would be a catastrophe."
(Professor Angus Dalgleish, a consultant oncologist at St George's, London, extracts from an article which anyone thinking of voting Labour in the naïve and untrue belief that they will be helping the NHS, and also any Labour politician who is sincere about helping the NHS and wants to understand the downside of their policies, should read in full here.)
He has also said this week,
"I don't think the NHS would survive a Labour government."
"Yes, I can see it might buy Labour some cheap votes at the ballot box, especially from those won over by the economically illiterate, but electorally compelling, footnote — that a shorter week (32 hours) would involve no loss of pay.
"But this completely ignores the fact that reducing the hours of public-sector employees — doctors, nurses, teachers, firefighters, police officers, etc — would impose an extra cost on the Treasury, because the workforce would have to expand to ensure productivity and service delivery.
"What Corbyn and his Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, are choosing to ignore is that this proposal would spell the end of the NHS as we know it. That's the same NHS the Labour Party is supposed to love and cherish. The same NHS that Mr Corbyn insists — over and over — won't be safe in Tory hands.
"Well, you might — just might — be able to produce enough widgets of the appropriate standard in a four-day week, but you certainly can't produce good doctors or nurses, or deliver first-class healthcare.
"I have worked in the NHS for more than 40 years, and I can tell Mr Corbyn that his radical plan would be a catastrophe."
(Professor Angus Dalgleish, a consultant oncologist at St George's, London, extracts from an article which anyone thinking of voting Labour in the naïve and untrue belief that they will be helping the NHS, and also any Labour politician who is sincere about helping the NHS and wants to understand the downside of their policies, should read in full here.)
He has also said this week,
"I don't think the NHS would survive a Labour government."
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