UK election 2024

[Nearly Sane]

....

Likewise NHS waiting lists - no-one is going to say we want them to stay at the levels they are or to increase. Everyone will commit to reducing them - the key is whether you believe that labour will do so (well they certainly did when last in power) vs the tories (who have inexorably raised them through 2010-2024, and indeed also did from 1979-1997).

I'd rather see a cohesive plan for health rather than promises about waiting lists but none of your added paragraph is relevant to my point unless you are claiming that the Labour Party is inherently a better managerial party .


You seem to be arguing against some strawman idea that I think the Tories should be voted for, or are in some way better than the Labour Party rather than the simple fact that in terms of policy on a macro economic level there is no real difference.

[ProfessorDavey]

I'd rather see a cohesive plan for health rather than promises about waiting lists ...

Have you actually read their manifesto sections on health NS?

Because if not it is hardly reasonable to critique whether or not there is a coherent plan written in it.

[Nearly Sane]

Have you actually read their manifesto sections on health NS?

Because if not it is hardly reasonable to critique whether or not there is a coherent plan written in it.

Well I've read the ones published. I await the Labour but are you really saying that I should just ignore what has been said up till now because there's been a special secret plan all along? One that's been kept from the Labour Party in govt in Wales?

[Nearly Sane]

Well I've read the ones published. I await the Labour but are you really saying that I should just ignore what has been said up till now because there's been a special secret plan all along? One that's been kept from the Labour Party in govt in Wales?

So now read it, and it's a random set of targets and some motherhood and apple pie rhetoric. It doesn't loom at demand in the long term. It has no strategy. It doesn't question what the problems have been, and how to address them in anything other than a superficial manner, and it bears a remarkable resemblance to the Tory manifesto.

[ProfessorDavey]

Well I've read the ones published. I await the Labour but are you really saying that I should just ignore what has been said up till now because there's been a special secret plan all along?

So you haven't read it then - yet you feel able to critique that there is no coherent plan.

Oh and by the way the manifesto was published this morning, so there is no excuse for you claiming that you weren't able to critique its coherence because it isn't available.

And the point about manifestos is that they put the meat on the bones so to speak - that's their purpose, to go beyond the crude headline and into the detail. Labour's is 133 pages long, so plenty of detail there should you wish to read it.

Come back to me once you have actually read the manifesto sections on health and then we can discuss whether it is coherent or not.

[ProfessorDavey]

So now read it, and it's a random set of targets and some motherhood and apple pie rhetoric. It doesn't loom at demand in the long term. It has no strategy. It doesn't question what the problems have been, and how to address them in anything other than a superficial manner, and it bears a remarkable resemblance to the Tory manifesto.

Hmm - looks a lot like confirmation bias to me.

[Nearly Sane]

Hmm - looks a lot like confirmation bias to me.

Looks like you have no argument to put in disagreement to my points.

[ProfessorDavey]

So now read it,

You are a fast reader then given that the time difference between your post where you hadn't read the manifesto and the one where you had was less than 6 minutes.

So I'm sure you can give me your views on:
The trial of Neighbourhood Health Centres
The proposals for a National Care Service
‘Opt-out’ smoking cessation interventions
Community Pharmacist Prescribing Service
Proposals for digitising the Red Book record

To name but a few of the proposals in the manifesto.

[ProfessorDavey]

You are a fast reader then given that the time difference between your post where you hadn't read the manifesto and the one where you had was less than 6 minutes.

So I'm sure you can give me your views on:
The trial of Neighbourhood Health Centres
The proposals for a National Care Service
‘Opt-out’ smoking cessation interventions
Community Pharmacist Prescribing Service
Proposals for digitising the Red Book record

To name but a few of the proposals in the manifesto.

How about specialist referrals by professionals such as opticians - good idea or not NS?

[Nearly Sane]

You are a fast reader then given that the time difference between your post where you hadn't read the manifesto and the one where you had was less than 6 minutes.

So I'm sure you can give me your views on:
The trial of Neighbourhood Health Centres
The proposals for a National Care Service
‘Opt-out’ smoking cessation interventions
Community Pharmacist Prescribing Service
Proposals for digitising the Red Book record

To name but a few of the proposals in the manifesto.

Yes, I am a fast reader so what?

And stop being disingenuous, I don't have to gave a detailed opinion on every small proposal to see that it isn't a coherent strategy. Indeed that you've picked out small proposals show that it doesn't have a strategy.

And much of those, resemble the Tory Party approach as noted.

[Nearly Sane]

How about specialist referrals by professionals such as opticians - good idea or not NS?

You appear not to know what a strategy is.

[ProfessorDavey]

You appear not to know what a strategy is.

Trust me - I know full well what a strategy is. I've spent many a time devising and then implementing them.

But you are a bit all over the place NS - initially you complained about no cohesive plan, but now you are talking about strategies. Perhaps you don't really understand the difference between an overarching strategy and the enabling plans that sit underneath it to ... err ... enable the strategic goals to be realised.

[ProfessorDavey]

And stop being disingenuous, I don't have to gave a detailed opinion on every small proposal to see that it isn't a coherent strategy. Indeed that you've picked out small proposals show that it doesn't have a strategy.

But the very coherence is based on the small elements meshing together to achieve an overall goal. Otherwise you are either hand waving while crying 'let it be so' or create situations where the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

A coherent plan or strategy (you seem rather confused about which of these you are talking about) requires an overall goal plus individual enabling elements which work coherently to achieve that goal.

Now I'm not necessarily arguing that the labour manifesto does that, but without assessment of the individual elements and their interconnectivity you cannot reasonably critique whether a plan or a strategy (which is it you are talking about NS) is coherent.

[Nearly Sane]

Trust me - I know full well what a strategy is. I've spent many a time devising and then implementing them.

But you are a bit all over the place NS - initially you complained about no cohesive plan, but now you are talking about strategies. Perhaps you don't really understand the difference between an overarching strategy and the enabling plans that sit underneath it to ... err ... enable the strategic goals to be realised.

Yes, and the manifesto doesn't present such a strategy. Rather a set of fire fighting tactical measures, which as noted bear a resemblance to the Tory manifesto.

[Nearly Sane]

But the very coherence is based on the small elements meshing together to achieve an overall goal. Otherwise you are either hand waving while crying 'let it be so' or create situations where the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

A coherent plan or strategy (you seem rather confused about which of these you are talking about) requires an overall goal plus individual enabling elements which work coherently to achieve that goal.

Now I'm not necessarily arguing that the labour manifesto does that, but without assessment of the individual elements and their interconnectivity you cannot reasonably critique whether a plan or a strategy (which is it you are talking about NS) is coherent.

  In order to see whether individual elements add up to achieving the strategy, you need to know what the strategy is. The manifesto doesn't provide one.

[ProfessorDavey]

  In order to see whether individual elements add up to achieving the strategy, you need to know what the strategy is. The manifesto doesn't provide one.

Given that you don't really seem to understand the difference between a plan and a strategy I'm not sure you'd even know a strategy if it came up and hit you on the back of the head.

It is a overarching strategic goal - a bit like 'Build an NHS fit for the future, that is there when people need it; with fewer lives lost to the biggest killers; in a fairer Britain, where everyone lives well for longer.'

You will want some detailed and coherent enabling plans, of course, alongside to be able to meet that strategic goal,

[Nearly Sane]

Given that you don't really seem to understand the difference between a plan and a strategy I'm not sure you'd even know a strategy if it came up and hit you on the back of the head.

It is a overarching strategic goal - a bit like 'Build an NHS fit for the future, that is there when people need it; with fewer lives lost to the biggest killers; in a fairer Britain, where everyone lives well for longer.'

You will want some detailed and coherent enabling plans, of course, alongside to be able to meet that strategic goal,

And still the manifesto has no strategy

[ProfessorDavey]

And still the manifesto has no strategy

What - not even the statement I quoted?

Note to NS - the best strategies are short, concise statements of purpose. The details go in the enabling plans that are required to achieve the strategy.

[Nearly Sane]

What - not even the statement I quoted?

Note to NS - the best strategies are short, concise statements of purpose. The details go in the enabling plans that are required to achieve the strategy.

Note to Prof D, that's a vision statement, which as so often with such things is motherhood and apple pie . There's nothing in the manifesto which amounts to a strategy.

[Aruntraveller]

Begging for someone to meme a one of the pictures from when he ran away from the D Day Commemorations with him shaking a veteran's hand and saying. 'I understand sacrifice. Your friends gave up their lives, I gave up Sky TV'

As predicted by NS:

[Nearly Sane]

As predicted by NS:

We're at the stage where there is not only no prospect of joined up thinking by Sunak and his advisors but that thinking has gone as well.

[ProfessorDavey]

Note to Prof D, that's a vision statement, which as so often with such things is motherhood and apple pie . There's nothing in the manifesto which amounts to a strategy.

Glad to have you back after you've been madly searching in the 133 page document to find where the overarching strategic goals lie - note to NS, not in the individual chapters, but glad you've found it eventually.

They actually describe this as a 'mission', which is current corporate speech for an overarching strategic goal. As pointed out you need a range of enabling plans, which should be coherent one with another and consistent within the overall strategy. Those are set out in the individual chapter, although I'm making no comment on their coherence nor consistency.

On motherhood and apple pies - you seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that overarching strategic goals must be complex and opaque - they don't - they should be a clear and concise statement of the overall goals, with the enabling plans setting out how you will get there. The point is that if you lose sight of what your overall goals are - your mission or strategy - then you'll simply get bogged down in minutiae.

[SteveH]

Just had a skim through parts of the Labour manifesto, mainly the NHS bit. Looks good. nothing any reasonable person could disagree with. Tried looking at the Tory one, but you have to download it - you can't read it directly - and I'm not polluting my download file with it.

[ProfessorDavey]

Just had a skim through parts of the Labour manifesto, mainly the NHS bit. Looks good. nothing any reasonable person could disagree with.

I agree and there isn't a huge amount of difference to what the tories have written on paper. But this is where overall political instincts becomes important. So I have little doubt that Labour are committed to the NHS and if push came to shove they would prioritise funding the NHS over tax cuts. So when Labour talks of efficiencies it reads to me as doing more for the same funding. So the focus in on better outcomes.

The tories politically aren't committed so if push comes to shove they would prioritise tax cuts over more funding, or even the same funding, for the NHS. So when Labour talks of efficiencies it reads to me as doing the same for less funding, which often morphs into simply doing less. That's what we've seen over the past 14 years. So the focus is on cost cutting.

And there is also the issue of competence - why would we trust the tories to do something in the next 5 years that they've failed to do over the past 14 in government.

Tried looking at the Tory one, but you have to download it - you can't read it directly - and I'm not polluting my download file with it.

Tory manifesto is here:

https://public.conservatives.com/static/documents/GE2024/Conservative-Manifesto-GE2024.pdf

[SteveH]

ITory manifesto is here:

https://public.conservatives.com/static/documents/GE2024/Conservative-Manifesto-GE2024.pdf

Thanks.