Notices by Emeritus Prof. Christopher May (chrismayla6@mastodon.me.uk), page 2

Andy Burnham on the problem of social care:

'Whatever political capital I have, I will put into fixing broken social care & I would not want to leave office without having brought in the substantial change...

I can’t put a timeline on it right here, right now. If we don’t do it, the NHS will collapse under the weight of trying to care for people who’ve not really needed to end up in the NHS system'!

Its a pretty clear statement & we'll be holding him to it!

#politics
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jul/27/andy-burnham-vows-to-use-his-political-capital-to-fix-social-care-system

On benefits, however, Andy Burnham told the Guardian:

'It’s about changing the nature of the support & making some of the support conditional upon people taking opportunities that are presented in front of them.

So you might increase the conditions required to receive benefits. I think it’s a good thing that the government has given guarantees of opportunities for young people'!

Which is perhaps more worrying, once again implying benefits' recipients are somehow shirkers?

#politics #workers

People puzzled by the divergence between productivity growth & workers' wages (wages no longer follow productivity but are on a lower track) and observe the declining share of labour as opposed to capital in GDP, often downplay the decline of unions but scramble to find other causes, because any decline in unionisation predates the decline in workers' share.

Well, they've forgotten the lag & stickiness in wages... a delayed effect is still a cause.

Less unions, less pay!

#workers #unions

If you spotted the rabid Right claiming that easing pollution has accelerated the effects of global warming, and thus adding to their portfolio of arguments mobilised claiming that we'd better off not trying to ameliorate the impact of climate change.... then Emma Monks is here to tell you, that's not quite what the research says (surprise surprise).

And, if you're not subscribed to Emma Monks Debunks, take this as a recommendation.

#ClimateChange #environment

https://monkdebunks.substack.com/p/heatwaves-caused-by-fall-in-pollution

As hosepipe bans have been imposed (to save water in the heatwave), so Greenpeace have concluded that while banning hosepipe use can save around 4% of water use, this is dwarfed by the approx. 20% *still* lost through leaks in the water infrastructure, which the utilities have been (very) slow to maintain & repair.

So, for customers the inconvenience of a hosepipe ban is a direct result of the money siphoned out of the sector by the privatised water firms.

#water #politics
h/t Guardian

As inflation drops to near the Bank of England's 2% target, already hawks are out warning inflationary pressures are mounting & inflation will quickly rise again, and of course, therefore the BoE should not reduce interest rates, but rather consider raising them in the Autumn.

The problem remains, interest rates target domestic inflationary pressures (highly imperfectly in any case), but the UK's inflation is mostly imported & thus this policy instrument is ineffective!

#inflation #politics

If building is part of the solution to the housing crisis (some here would disagree with that) and construction remains dominated by the private sector, then the decline profitability of housing firms may be a signal of why building of new homes remains well behind Govt. targets (possibly) contributing to a housing shortage.

[Although one might also wonder whether profits have been shifted into land-holding operations?]

This is why public sector building is needed!

#Housing #politics

If you've been wondering about Miatta Fahnbulleh, who has taken over from Ed Miliband as the Dept. of Energy Security & Net Zero, here is a profile from the Guardian stressing her 'radical' economic background, her work with the New Economics Foundation & her unwillingness to bend on things that matter (to her).

In the end, might this be Andy Burnham's most consequential appointment?

#GreenTransition #NetZero #politics

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jul/23/who-is-miatta-fahnbulleh-the-radical-thinking-new-uk-energy-secretary

So, Andy Burnham *is* going to use the flexibility introduced into the Govt.'s fiscal rule(s) by Rachel Reeves to explicitly allow funding of public investment with long-term social benefits...

It will be ironic if the most far-reaching & sensible thing Reeves did hands Burnham the key tool to allow him to deliver some of his agenda.

Its also ironic that his Govt. will make more use of it than that of Keir Starmer for which Reeves developed the approach.

#politics #FiscalRule
h/t FT

Thanks to everyone here who recommended LibreOffice for my MacBookAir (now that Microsoft have disabled my old version of MSWord).

I've downloaded it, used it for a couple of things (very instinctive interface) and have donated to the Document Foundation for the light use I will make of it in the future.

The mastodon community is great at getting things sorted.

#Mastodon #LibreOffice #technology #Microsoft #Apple

The madness of NHS workforce planning continues;

newly qualified nurses (having graduated) are finding it increasingly difficult (or impossible) to get jobs as nurses as the NHS has a recruitment freeze on; it also reflects some good news in that nurse retention (another focus of planning) is rising reducing vacancies in a workforce constrained by budget limitations.

But, to train nurses & not be able to employ them when there's a shortage of nurses is madness!

#NHS #nurses #politics
h/t FT

Bite Size Economics No.37

'Economics is not value free'

with its scientific pretension(s), economists often suggest economics is value free in its analysis, merely describing a world that exists... but, given its focus on optimal outcomes & efficiency (defined in mathematical terms), economics just smuggles in values that are built on the privileging of the capital (and employer) interest.

The first move is to recognise economics' values & then ask if they are appropriate?

#BiteSizeEconomics

So, Thames Water has, despite its current travails, both boosted bonus payments fro is management & increased the pay for its CEO.

If you wanted an example of how the rentier class works this would be it; knowing that the entire house of cards is about to collapse the management of Thames Water are draining (pun intended) as much cash as they can out for the utility before any (likely) forced (possibly temporary) nationalisation!

#ThamesWater #politics #RentierClass

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/15/thames-water-funding-survive-end-of-year

And so the SpaceX share price has now dropped below the IPO price suggesting initial investors may have cashed out, selling on to those taken in by the AI hype.

Did Elon Musk organise a Pump & Dump strategy to monetise his holdings in SpaceX (alongside his familiars), while claiming that 'retail' investors could share in the future profits?;

yes it the classic case of finding the fool(s) to sell to before the price drops.

Elon says: 'ha ha, you've been had'!

#SpaceX #ElonMusk #investment

And in the USA, deaths by ICE agent continue to rise, as the extrajudicial executions on the street continue.

On one level, the African American community will tell you this is nothing knew, but perhaps what is, is the extraordinary brazen way that ICE agents act with impunity.... something that is sparking a growing resistance to ICE presence on the streets at all.

As I've said before, If you think this looks like a fascist state, you'd not be alone

#ICE #USPol #Trump
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/15/remove-ice-us-streets-joan-sebastian-duran-guerrero-lorenzo-salgado-araujo

Today Microsoft finally disabled my old version of Word making it read-only because I refuse to spend money on a new MacBookAir, now that my old one will no longer update its MacOS.

Anyone out there have any recommendations for a (preferably free) simple word processor that would allow me to produce new documents that are readable (happy if that means I have to concert them to PDFs for distribution) & to edit old Word files (less need).

thanks in advance

#technology #WordProcessing #software

The tide is turning on Palantir... good;

Now Andy Burnham needs to use break clauses to withdraw the NHS from its contract with the US technology vampire.

And if the link with the (finally) discredited Peter Mandelson helps with that move, then all to the good.

#Palantir #politics #BigTech #AndyBurnham

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/15/palantir-british-state-political-access-us-tech-firm-nhs

Guardian reporting on a shift in the police's investigation into Anne Widecombe's murder, indicates a focus on whether it was prompted by leftwing, anarchist & single-issue terrorism (LASIT)

This acronym is new to me, but it demonstrates a worrying move to link 'terrorism' in a single term to left-wing or anarchist views.... which is a worryingly broad designation and may signal a new state attempt to label a much wider range of views 'terrorism'!

#politics #terrorism
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/14/ann-widdecombe-killing-police-investigating-possible-leftwing-motivation

No-one should die in the way Anne Widecombe did, and that rightly is an outrage (although to be frank no more an outrage than any number of other women killed in their own homes).... but what I really am getting tired of is the way she is now being presented as a lovable eccentric who made us laugh on Strictly.

No she was an evil, callous and vindictive woman whose politics are part of the poison visited upon us by the Right... not the woman currently being 'celebrated' in death.

#politics

Hannah Spencer (Green Party of England & Wales) has chosen as her first bill to sponsor, a move towards the regulation of maximum temperatures in the workplace.... a deft combination of responses to environmental change & workers' rights - reflecting the new left-green position the GPEW has adopted under Zack Polanski.

If, as expected this gains cross-party support we can see how the GPEW's gameplan of mainstreaming its role in UK politics may play out.

#politics
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jul/12/green-mp-hannah-spencer-aims-to-pass-law-on-maximum-workplace-temperatures