Current Affairs 2025

[Ranchi]

Getting back to more mundane matters eg potholes. I saw a novel occurrence last week in Edinburgh’s new town. A council van drove up to a roundabout, stopped in the middle of the roundabout, put on its yellow flashing lights and the passenger jumped out. Took a shovel full of tar mixture from the back of the truck and shovelled into the pothole. He then bashed down the tarmac with his shovel and put another shovel of tar on top for good measure. He jumped back in the truck & they drove off to their next hole. Two minutes tops. The traffic using the roundabout flattened the tarmac down. Not sure how long it will last for but I guess it’s a quick patch up job - useful for towns with lots of cyclists.

[david63]

Am I missing something (I know that is nothing new)

Tuesday - Trump stops the supply of arms to Ukraine
Wednesday - Trump increases supply of arms to Isreal

Using the logic that Ukraine is Europe's problem then isn't Israel/Gaza the Arab world's problem?

[CaroleF]

Re Potholes, what you saw Ranchi is happening all over. One of the roads in our village, which is used as a rat run for cars wanting to get to the A road as quickly as possible had a large pothole which cyclists in particular found difficult to avoid if cars were on the road as well and they had to keep to the edge of the road. A team of three arrived and did exactly what you saw. After a couple of days when we had a downpour of rain and the tar seemed to break up and the pothole was as bad as ever. Our local council got in touch with Hampshire County Council, they're responsible for roads not the local borough council, and they said it would be sorted. Well the same thing happened again, same repair, same result.

Two nights ago my daughter was taking some boys to a rugby practice driving along a country lane, dark, no cats eyes. She knew there were potholes around so she wasn't going fast but she hit a pothole and her tyre went. She has one of these new fangled buttons in her car that you press in order to be connected with a breakdown service - my car doesn't! This was in a country lane in the Meon Valley. The nearest RAC guy had to come from Bournemouth! This took an hour and a half. The boys entertained themselves in a nearby field with a rugby ball they had with them until one of the other mothers arrived to take them on to the rugby practice. So my daughter was left to wait it out. Luckily she was ok apart from being, as she put it, shell shocked, but obviously it could have been far worse than a damaged tyre and possibly wheel apparently. I hate to think what could have happened. It's certainly a national problem as far as potholes are concerned, yet very little seems to be happening to sort it.

[towny44]

Am I missing something (I know that is nothing new)

Tuesday - Trump stops the supply of arms to Ukraine
Wednesday - Trump increases supply of arms to Isreal

Using the logic that Ukraine is Europe's problem then isn't Israel/Gaza the Arab world's problem?

Presumably the Republican party have a large Jewish membership.

[Ray B]

Donald Trumps message to Ukraine to come to the peace table is not so much as an invite, but more of a message to Putin to bomb the hell out of Ukraine, and we'll (USA) make it easier for you be cutting arms and turning off satellite images to them.
What a nasty piece of £hit he is.
We should have thought through the idea of a Trump state visit and not to have given the invite too early, using it as a sweetener for Starmer.
Would we have given it, the visit, if we had seen what had happened the next day after the PMs visit to Trump.
I think if it does go ahead, then it will be embarrassing for the King and Country unless something truly wonderful happens with Trump.

[Stephen]

Donald Trumps message to Ukraine to come to the peace table is not so much as an invite, but more of a message to Putin to bomb the hell out of Ukraine, and we'll (USA) make it easier for you be cutting arms and turning off satellite images to them.
What a nasty piece of £hit he is.
We should have thought through the idea of a Trump state visit and not to have given the invite too early, using it as a sweetener for Starmer.
Would we have given it, the visit, if we had seen what had happened the next day after the PMs visit to Trump.
I think if it does go ahead, then it will be embarrassing for the King and Country unless something truly wonderful happens with Trump.

Like eliminated.

[david63]

Like eliminated.

The problem then would be that the Musk puppet Vance would be running the country!

[david63]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr52q7l6drdo

[Stephen]

Now where have we heard that before. Mind you it could probably do with a good shake up.

Under-performing civil servants could be incentivised to leave jobs https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9q4nr42z20o

[Mervyn and Trish]

I'd incentivise them. "You've got 3 months to buck up your ideas or you're fired."

[david63]

I think I am loosing the plot yet again.

Somebody is underperforming so we will incentivise to leave. Should it not be we will incentivise to do the job that they are being paid to do? Or I am doing a good job but if I screw up I will be incentivised to leave!

[towny44]

Will they also incentivise their line managers to leave, since they clearly have not been doing their job properly either?

[Onelife]

Will they also incentivise their line managers to leave, since they clearly have not been doing their job properly either?

And it will be those in higher positions of management who decide who is/isn’t performing….jobs for the boys springs to mind.

[Ray B]

Maybe government officers are full of dead wood, just like the old British railways were before the government sold them off.
Clean the dead wood out and make government officers leaner and more efficient for the future.

[david63]

So Starmer is scrapping NHS England so that the non qualified politicians can meddle with something they know nothing about - should prove interesting.

At least we now know why Strarmer went to the White House - obviously to get some ideas from the "puppet master" Musk.

[Onelife]

So Starmer is scrapping NHS England so that the non qualified politicians can meddle with something they know nothing about - should prove interesting.

At least we now know why Strarmer went to the White House - obviously to get some ideas from the "puppet master" Musk.

I think Starmer will turn out to be one of the best Prime Ministers this country has ever had.

Getting rid of NHS England is the best thing that can be done for our NHS…according to my Wife.

[towny44]

So Starmer is scrapping NHS England so that the non qualified politicians can meddle with something they know nothing about - should prove interesting.

At least we now know why Strarmer went to the White House - obviously to get some ideas from the "puppet master" Musk.

I think Starmer will turn out to be one of the best Prime Ministers this country has ever had.

Getting rid of NHS England is the best thing that can be done for our NHS…according to my Wife.

I do worry that increasingly I find myself nodding in agreement with Onelife, I do hope this malady will soon pass!!!

[david63]

I think Starmer will turn out to be one of the best Prime Ministers this country has ever had.

Much of what defines how good or bad a Prime Minister is depends on world events and currently Starmer has the benefit of Ukraine to boost his standing, but that standing could change overnight especially where Trump is involved.

Getting rid of NHS England is the best thing that can be done for our NHS…according to my Wife.

I don't doubt that NHS England creates obstacles that affect those on the "shop floor" and it could be reorganised to provide a better service but let's not forget that not all NHS England is bad. One thing I will agree with Starmer about is the devolution of some decision making to local level as the "one size fits all" approach has been a disaster.

[Onelife]

I’m sure you are right about his stance taken on world affairs but putting Ukraine aside I do think he has introduced polices which on the face of it look sensible. The question I ask myself is, would the Tories do better?

He clearly has the intellect to put across his policies in a manner that are believable and given his previous background one would hope they are better thought out than many of the U-turn policies we had become accustomed to.

As far as NHS England are concerned my wife tends to think their “Think Tank” approach rarely had a grasp of what was actually happening on the shop floor… nevertheless they ploughed ahead with their tick box questioners thinking they could restructure without understanding the impact this would have on staff and patients alike.

My wife also believes s that the reintroduction of community hospitals would take a lot of pressure of main stream hospitals. With proper internal/external auditing they could be essential hubs for many of the ailments that would otherwise require hospital treatment.

P.s this is just my interpretation of what my wife said to me.

[oldbluefox]

England....I didn't enjoy that one bit

[Jan Rosser]

England....I didn't enjoy that one bit

Oh dear if you are referring to the rugby Foxy my son from Luxembourg is over this weekend - not a happy boy. Everytime I left the room flippin England scored . My other son who as you know teaches in an English school is probably dreading Monday too!

[screwy]

I personally enjoyed every minute.

[Jan Rosser]

I personally enjoyed every minute.

I’m so outnumbered

[oldbluefox]

For years I suffered at the hands of my Welsh colleagues when Wales were at their peak so I am enjoying every minute now.
Now c'mon Scotland

[oldbluefox]

For years I suffered at the hands of my Welsh colleagues when Wales were at their peak so I am enjoying every minute now.
Now c'mon Scotland

Useless lot