Showing posts with label Negotiation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Negotiation. Show all posts

Monday, 26 November 2018

May calls on MPs to get on with Brexit and move on - but it's her government's own doing that it's consumed all political space

This afternoon, Theresa May addressed the Commons to present the terms she has negotiated for Britain's exit from the European Union. As may well have been expected at this point, it did not get a warm reception. All the big hitters were queued up to get in their licks.

After yet another hostile session, the Prime Minister may very well have been feeling like the constituents she has now taken to quoting: ready to just get on with Brexit and move on. But it's the PM's own approach that has brought us to this Parliamentary impasse.

A referendum, a snap election and two years of legislative time have been poured into Brexit - along with billions from the treasury and repeated knocks taken by the economy with the instability caused by each new jarring announcement.

In that time, domestic policy has taken the backseat. That has been a disaster both in terms of scrutiny and delivery.

The government's flagship welfare 'reform' the Universal Credit has rolled from one crisis to another. Supposed to be the consolidation of a number of different welfare programmes into a more efficient and affordable system, it has faced ever mounting problems.

The minister who had been the driving force behind it quit when he was severely undercut on funding. The attached fitness assessments have been derided as cruel. Even a rapporteur for the United Nations has deeply criticised the misery inflicted upon the most vulnerable by a government pursuing ideological ends.

The government has claimed that Universal Credit has driven people into work, but this welfare system - underfunded, misadministered, and leaving vulnerable people at the mercy of growing debts - can only have motivated people in the worst way, with employment statistics covering an explosion in working poverty.

And those are just the headlines. The government has not done enough on housing. It has not done enough to meet environmental and energy targets. It has not done enough to encourage an economic system that can lift ordinary people out of poverty - on welfare or in work.

When Theresa May talks of constituents telling her to get on with Brexit, she may be reframing disgruntlement. It's May's government that has turned politics in Britain into nothing but Brexit - and in the process has managed to deeply divide the country.

With so many domestic issues in need of attention, Brexit needs to be settled. But what Parliamentarians can't do is make a hasty decision under pressure - for which the Prime Minister is pushing.

May's government has put us here and shouldn't be allowed to use it to sneak out from under their own mess.moving towards resolving the deeply important and long term domestic issues that have gone unattended under May's watch.

Monday, 25 April 2016

The Junior Doctors strikes are escalating, largely thanks to Jeremy Hunt's stubborn belligerence as deadlock goes unbroken

At the core of the junior doctors' argument has been that doctor's need to have safe schedules so that they can keep patients safe.
The next round of strikes by the junior doctor's are imminent, set to start Tuesday morning. They will run from 8am through 5pm, rather than the 24 or 48 hours time frame of other strikes, because the strike, in an historic first for the NHS, will withdraw emergency services (Triggle, 2016).

In previous polls, the possibility of the withdrawal of emergency services reduced, substantially, the support for the striking doctors from 59% down to 45% (Broomfield, 2016). Seemingly sensing an opportunity, the government side has been laying the scare factor on thick.

Stories of the apparent dangers posed by the strike have been coming thick and fast. Hunt's spokesperson has said that the strikes are disproportionate, will be damaging and come with huge risks (BBC, 2016), while Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS in England, has said that withdrawing emergency services crosses a line that will damage trust (Keogh, 2016).

This was followed by the General Medical Council warning that hospitals may struggle (Triggle, 2016{2}) and junior Health Minister Ben Gummer saying that patients are being put in harms way and the government is being held hostage (BBC, 2016{2}). Analysis has suggested that there are adequate measures in place, however, to ensure no one is endangered (Triggle, 2016).

The present stand-off is a result of, consistent with Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt's escalatory tactics so far, and despite now admitting no such power in the face of legal action, a threat to impose contracts on junior doctors rather than honour the negotiation process (Campbell, 2016).

Thanks to these clear misjudgements on his part, support for striking junior doctors may be reinforced by the fact that it is Jeremy Hunt who is being seen as obstructive. On Sunday, he rejected a cross-party proposal to introduce his new contract first only as a limited trial, subject to independent review, to determine its affects and suitability (Campbell, 2016{2}) - which will only further antagonise the public.

Hunt is reported to have argued that "further delay just means we will take longer to eliminate the weekend effect" (BBC, 2016{3}). A frankly preposterous position considering the very basis for his 'weekend effect' argument has been demonstrated to be without basis (Cooper, 2015), that he appallingly continues to be allowed use as justification.

Whatever the faults of Jeremy Hunt and the deficiencies in his method, the latest strike will regardless test the limits of public patience. How long can public servants push strike action before public sympathy wanes? Taking with it the essential power behind any strike or protest movement - solidarity.

The NHS has proven itself to be a special case, ensuring broad public support afforded to these public servants that has been more difficult to raise in other parts of the public sector. But this latest escalation is entering new territory. Who will be most affected by the strike and resultant cancellations.

If there is anything that defines British politics it is the resilience of the status quo to anything but meagre and gradual reforms. But right now, the status quo needs to be altered to break to end a stubborn deadlock. It is to be hoped that the impending strike, or the strike itself, restores some sense to the negotiations. Yet the most likely outcome seems to be more deadlock, followed by more escalation, unless the government backs down in the only way it really can - by removing Jeremy Hunt.