RolloTreadway

Autistic Welsh NHS emergency care quality improvement person.
(they/them or he/him - those are familiar enough and will do.)

Most important:
Trans rights are human rights; Black lives matter; Tories always despise you even if they pretend not to.

Enthusiastic about woodland, cricket, silent film, constitutional stuff, birds, gardens, tea, sandwiches, music.

(Profile pic: Buster Keaton sits unhappily in a steamship funnel; header is a glass teapot full of leaves.)

Location: Tynedale, sunny Northumberland, in the northeast of England
having: a nice cup of tea and a sit down
and listening to: all sorts of music that I shall wang on about with great enthusiasm, once, then never mention again.

Public Key

npub15n7gcq8qd5a5gtvth6k57lwrxy7hjvqq78nm2vw30zj6fqg2x4hq9nt9fk

NIP-05 Address

rollotreadway_at_beige.party@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs2flyvqrsx6w6y9k9mat200hpnz0texqq0rea4x8gh3fdysy9r2mszt7xjx

Author Public Key

npub15n7gcq8qd5a5gtvth6k57lwrxy7hjvqq78nm2vw30zj6fqg2x4hq9nt9fk

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Last Notes

2024-09-28 08:31:53

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I may be swimming against the tide here, but I am always going to favour Travelogue. I love the first incarnation of the Human League.

2024-09-19 07:23:44

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You do know what happened with Johnson and subsequently, yes? You have noticed the past three years?

2024-09-19 06:40:12

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I agree. I've said before, I think the biggest advantage those of us opposed to the hard and far right have in the UK right now is that they have no plausible leader. Just clowns and frauds.
This won't last forever, sooner or later they will find an equivalent of Meloni or Le Pen, not just charismatic and plausible, but willing to do the hard work over many years.
We should look to strengthen our position before that happens.

2024-09-16 07:31:13

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There's quite a lot of people here (not just in the UK) who will put their own very precise personal principles ahead of anything realistic and practical.
But there are also a lot of very sensible people who are willing to try and make a difference, willing to try and help others, rather than sitting still and waiting for a revolution that will never come.
Honestly, though, there are ideologically annoying people everywhere, and I'd far rather deal with delusional but well-meaning folk here than fascists on other platforms.

2024-08-22 08:37:53

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I think this is a useful short- to medium-term step. I saw a post about this here a few days ago, and there were a lot of replies along the lines of 'no, get rid of the car parks, have everyone use public transport instead'.
And I'm completely supportive of promoting and investing in public transport as the default means of getting about in urban and suburban areas. And I believe that civic planning should always have major reduction of car use as a central priority.
But all of these things take time. Surely, we can aim to have fewer car parks, whilst also making the best use of them whilst they're still here.

2024-07-09 05:59:11

Morning everyone. I dreamt that I had a friend who bought a cybertruck and then turned out to be a serial killer, which I think is a lesson for us all.

2024-07-08 09:59:52

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You can't simply give those votes to the Tories. MoreInCommon did a post-election poll of Reform voters, on the question of who they'd have voted for if Reform weren't standing. Only 36% would've voted Tory, compared to 25% who wouldn't have voted, 16% Labour and 9% LibDems (also 7% Green which is, um, interesting).
These voters aren't simply wandering Tories.
https://mastodonapp.uk/@ukelections/112739295261516470

2024-07-07 11:27:21

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One story the other day did say that Labour intended to bring in automatic voter registration - I would very much welcome this if it happens, although I'm not going to assume that it will.
But generally, yes, our education system has failed terribly in teaching kids about how democracy, government and legislation work in this country. That needs to be addressed. I resolutely believe that we'd not have left the EU if more people understood basic constitutional matters.

2024-07-07 10:11:20

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I believe they will collect data on rejection, as they did during the local elections.
But what's harder to assess (and will require the traditional research of directly asking people) is how many didn't try to vote at all because of lack of ID.

2024-07-07 09:38:13

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I'm a bit surprised that nobody seems to mention how the Tories introduced a voter suppression scheme specifically aimed at blocking Labour voters, followed by Labour getting a smaller vote share than forecast. Maybe research will show that the two aren't connected, but right now it feels kind of significant to me?

2024-07-07 08:41:26

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Yes, but those offices weren't just for him, they had to be shared with Michael Green, Corinne Stockheath and Sebastian Fox.

2024-07-07 08:34:26

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I think generally, we should hope for fewer reshuffles. One of the many, many awful things about the last Tory government was how ministerial careers came to be measured in months rather than years. It was enormously damaging.

2024-07-07 07:50:15

Something significant and welcome (via Pink News):
Labour’s 46 out LGBTQ+ MPs represent by far the largest party cohort of any parliament, anywhere in the world. They constitute 11.2 per cent of the governing party. Labour made gains unheard of in the history of LGBTQ+ representation anywhere in the world. All 23 incumbent Labour MPs were re-elected alongside 23 new LGBTQ+ Labour MPs.
https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/07/05/lgbtq-mps-general-election/

2024-07-06 12:53:24

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Early would be before six for me. I routinely get up around seven every day, and that's after a bit of time lying in bed and gradually waking (I have never been a 'bounce straight out of bed' kind of person).
Mind you, when I was younger, I would absolutely have sided with your husband!

2024-07-06 08:54:58

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There always seems to be a part of the party that believes there's one weird trick that can guarantee FPTP will work for them all the time, and they just need to figure out what it is.

2024-07-06 06:23:46

Morning everyone. I slept. That was good. I might aim to do some more of that later.
Hope everyone is having a nicely rested day (or is shortly to have a nicely restful night).

2024-07-05 19:26:51

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This made me think of something I've read a few times recently: if you're describing someone as 'the smartest guy in the room', that just means you need a better room.

2024-07-04 18:55:15

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I did a vote, is what I did today.
https://media.beige.party/media_attachments/files/112/729/739/293/026/051/original/e8a9343deeced7d1.jpg

2024-07-03 15:35:28

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I am never going to be one with nature. I am far more likely to be one with my bed.

2024-07-03 06:15:46

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Unfortunately, I think this is a win-win situation for RN.
If they win enough of the runoff contests, they can form the new government with their smaller allies - but if they don't, then RN will spend the next three years complaining about a leftist conspiracy to thwart the 'will of the people'.
It's an ugly situation whichever way you look at it.

2024-07-03 06:13:14

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Of course, Lords reform is itself a Labour manifesto commitment (or two, rather, a short-term patch and a long-term overhaul), so that is one subject on which the Lords are obliged to follow the will of the Commons, should Labour win.

2024-07-01 07:32:24

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Ah, sorry, I misunderstood. Farage as a future leader is more possible, yes. If the Tories do badly, I suspect that whoever becomes leader won't last the full Parliament, and it might be more of an opportunity for him then.

2024-07-01 06:23:58

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I think it's unlikely (though certainly not impossible) that Farage becomes Tory leader at this juncture. There are some pretty big obstacles.
Firstly, he has to win in Clacton and the Tories have to do very badly across the country.
Secondly, the Tory leadership (which would be the current Tory leadership, until a new leadership election takes place) has to be willing to let Farage in. This is far from certain - he's not exactly popular with them.
Thirdly, he'd have to get sufficient backing from remaining Tory MPs to be a competitor in the leadership election. This not only includes the MPs who hate him, of which there are currently many, but also every MP who has ambitions for themselves. This would all depend on which MPs have been elected in such a scenario, but for Farage to be allowed to jump the queue would essentially require there to be no queue left. Possible, but not enormously likely. You'd basically need a small Tory rump which is overwhelmingly ERG but has no ERG leadership contenders.
Fourthly, the people who have bankrolled this whole miserable business would have to actually want Farage to be in such a position, rather than somebody popular who is capable of winning over the country. That would seem a strange choice, but I suppose it's possible they might not be able to find anyone else.
Finally, and this is perhaps the biggest yet most overlooked question: would he actually want to be leader of the opposition for five years? It's an actual job. And, given this scenario presumes a devastated, conflicted, despairing Tory party, a very difficult one. He'll have to give up on the moneyspinning outside jobs and devote himself fully to the day-to-day business of actual leadership. Does that sound like Farage to you? Can't say there's anything in his career to date which makes me think, yes, here's a man who wants to get stuck into the minutiae of party leadership and forego his regular life.

2024-06-29 05:52:31

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I will never understand people who claim to be on the left, yet are wholly unconcerned with anyone other than themselves. The first six letters of 'socialism' are there for a reason.
There's an old trade unionist saying in this country: vote Labour on Thursday, fight Labour on Friday. In other words, you vote for the party/candidate that makes it possible for you to fight for change.
Feels like you could do with having a similar notion there.

2024-06-28 14:23:53

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Nobody gets time off to vote here! Well, not as a mandatory thing, maybe some companies do it voluntary, I don't know.
But the expectation is generally that, if you don't work close to your polling station, you should vote either on your way to work in the morning or in the evening after you've finished. Or vote by post.
The good thing, however, is that unless you live in a very rural area, your polling station will almost always be only a short distance from your home, so it's not too disruptive. And voting is quick.
As I work from home, I'll be popping over on my lunch break next Thursday.

2024-06-27 14:06:16

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I do use the internet to escape reality, and there's nothing wrong with that. I also use books, films, tv shows, and games.
But I can't help thinking that those who say the internet isn't real simply haven't explored the right places. For example: just yesterday, thanks to fedi friends, I learnt about the crisis in Kenya from people who are right there, on the ground, as it was happening. There's no way that could happen without social media.

2024-06-27 14:02:35

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I wonder sometimes if it comes from a position of privilege, from someone who has never had anything go so wrong that there's no way back from it.
I do wonder how many extremely unhappy people with shit lives have been through abuse. I bet it's a very substantial proportion. And for many abuse survivors (myself included), even if the abuse stops in practice it never actually ends.
And that makes it hard to believe that everything will get better, unless they're offering a time machine.

2024-06-27 13:42:43

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I've had very frequent suicidal ideation for so long that I even have a scale for how much the ideation is a genuine risk, or how much it's simply idle or intrusive thoughts, so that I might have a chance of seeking help before reaching the very low points.
And to be honest, the best help that anyone has ever given me for that is a prescription for citalopram. Works way better than any advice.
But the fact remains that, for the foreseeable future, I'm considerably more likely to die by suicide than any other cause. This doesn't mean I'm about to do anything, so nobody worry please (on my 0-5 scale where 5 is an active attempt, I'm between 1 and 2, which is perfectly fine for me). I'm just being realistic.
I don't even *want* to die. As I've tried to explain to various medical professionals, it's not wanting to die that's the problem for me, it's feeling like I will *have to* die because living has become unviable. And that feeling exists because my life is shit.
Nobody ever seems to want to engage with that, although I'm sure it accounts for a substantial proportion of all deaths by suicide: not being able to keep living because life is just shit. There seems to be an assumption that it's always a chemical imbalance, and that someone with suicidal ideation is prevented by biological processes from seeing how great life really is.
I think we need to be more realistic about this, that some people who are extremely unhappy actually have a good reason for being extremely unhappy. And perhaps we can then look more at the practical things which cause extreme unhappiness. Perhaps, crazy idea, perhaps we could as a society aim for people to have better lives.
Honestly, I find it othering and isolating when advice so often tends to be "remember you are loved" or "I promise things will get better" or "life really is beautiful". Don't get me wrong, if those are helpful to some people, great.
But for me, and I'm sure many like me: you're just reminding me that I'm not loved, which is kind of a shitty thing; you have no right to promise that unless you have the means to effect it; and, no, life is shit.
(I would politely invite everyone who knows me even slightly to never, ever promise me that things will get better. That isn't fair. It isn't fair at all.)

2024-06-25 19:44:09

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I have a Tefal. It does a bunch of things other than just bread, but I mostly use it to make a nice sandwich loaf - which it's very good at.
https://www.tefal.co.uk/Cooking-appliances/Breadmakers/Pain-et-delices-PF240E40-breadmaker--yoghurt-pot-accessory--20-programs--gluten-free/p/7211004475

2024-06-25 17:43:16

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Get a bread machine! Mine emits very little heat. And also does all the hard work.

2024-06-25 10:21:44

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So much of British life ultimately derives from rich people being rude to one another.

2024-06-25 09:20:00

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That's fine! It came about in 1721, when there was a major economic crisis due to the collapse of a stock market bubble (the South Sea Company bubble).
At that time, whether or not a King got involved in government was up to the King, but it was generally expected that in times of crisis he'd be there to steady the ship.
Unfortunately, King George was from Hanover and really didn't much like being King of Britain. Last thing he wanted to bother himself with was an economic collapse. So he made Robert Walpole (one of the few MPs whose reputation hadn't been ruined in the crisis) First Lord of the Treasury, which was then the highest job in government. But he also gave Walpole unprecedentedly broad powers to run the whole country as if he were King himself.
Walpole's rivals thought that Walpole was thoroughly up himself (probably accurately), so they made fun of him, saying he wasn't just a Minister but the Prime Minister - like saying, ooh, isn't he special, he's the King's pet, get him, Mr La-De-Da thinks he's all that.
So really, when you say Prime Minister, you should be saying it in a very snide voice, the kind of ooooh-hark-at-you manner in which it was intended.

2024-06-25 09:00:59

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Prime Minister was originally intended as an insult, which explains a lot.

2024-06-25 07:38:58

I decided to put the bread machine on, so I've fresh bread for lunch.
The yeast tin is almost empty, and when I reached in with the spoon, my thumb caught on the edge where the ring pull lid had been.
I say caught on the edge, I mean 'cut deeply by a razor sharp edge'.
Lots of blood, way beyond 'stick a plaster on and keep going'. I've wrapped it tightly in non-adhesive gauze dressing.
Great start to the day.
Still got the bread going, obviously. Got to have priorities.

2024-06-24 13:05:10

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What larks, Pip. What larks!

2024-06-23 10:09:59

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The key point in the coming years will be the 2026 Trade and Cooperation negotiations. Nothing (beyond a hopefully happier relationship) will happen before then. But from those negotiations, we should be able to deduce a clearer idea about what the future could hold.
But I can completely understand Labour trying to avoid the question, because 2026 is still two years away and there's really nothing to gain by getting into arguments now about the post-2026 situation.
(Plus, frankly, it would look very arrogant for a UK Government to act as though it already knows what the outcome of those negotiations will be!)

2024-06-22 07:08:36

Morning everyone. Happy Windrush Day! Here's a video with Lord Kitchener singing on board the Windrush, that had just arrived at Tilbury. https://youtu.be/ygBOb_XddwI
(The video says 21st June; this is because the ship arrived on the 21st but disembarkation wasn't permitted until the 22nd. Consequently, it's the 22nd of June that is used as the anniversary each year.)

2024-06-21 12:25:18

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Eventually yes, they will be better and cheaper in house, but not for many years. We use a lot of private ambulances, far too many and at ludicrous expense, but we can only work with what the Government has let us have.
We need to get to a point where we use few or no private ambulances - certainly none for clinical jobs - but I can't see that being possible before early in the next decade (and that's if everything goes well between now and then).
We could, of course, get rid of private ambulances right now, but with such a shortage of capacity, the consequences for patients would be disastrous. A lot of people would die.
So yes, we need to keep using private capacity until the service is rebuilt. And rebuilding will take such a long time. Nobody wants to do that, but this is the hand we've been dealt.
And if it's a choice between using private services until we can safely replace them, or abandoning patients, then that's no choice at all.

2024-06-21 10:50:10

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You're right to call BS.
I'm not going to defend any corporate donations, because I believe they should be illegal across the board. And giving donations in exchange for public sector contracts is corruption, whoever does it.
But - as I've said here many times - private contracts in NHS provision is *not* privatisation. I'm sitting here right now in front of my HP laptop, using Microsoft Excel, looking at care records made using a system designed by Cleric, which were recorded by paramedics on devices made by a number of specialist hardware companies, where the paramedics record their use of medicines and equipment purchased from all sorts of businesses. All done in the back of a Mercedes ambulance.
Every single company involved in that process is a private business. The only fully public sector exceptions are me and the paramedics, employed directly by the NHS and paid from public funds (and various other Trust employees who make it possible, the mechanics and IT staff and medicines managers etc).
Which is how it should be; the NHS is not and should not be a manufacturer, and it would be intensely damaging - lethal - to stop using privately-produced drugs, equipment and software on a matter of principle.
As I despairingly cry every day: the NHS is not just a doctor and a nurse in front of a bed. Criticise the corruption of corporate donations all you like, but use of specialist private providers in the NHS is *not* privatisation, it's the only way the NHS can possibly function.

2024-06-16 08:52:19

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A quick search tells me that Alex von Tunzelmann's Indian Summer (about the end of British rule in India) and Red Heat (about Cuba, Haiti and Dominican Republic during the cold war) are available on archive.org.
Both very good, especially at dismantling the conventional British/American imperialist interpretations of those times.
Also, Justin Marozzi's Tamerlane (also seems to be on archive) would be a very good follow-up to a book about Genghis Khan.
And Margaret MacMillan's Peacemakers, about Versailles 1919, and Mark Steel's history of the French revolution, Vive La Revolution, both very good.
I haven't checked any of the archive.org links, mind you, so can't guarantee that they work. But those books all appear to be there.

2024-06-07 06:27:03

Morning all. Bit pissed off, because of something I read yesterday - that some stupid percentage of people apparently want fewer non-clinical staff in the NHS, in relation to the usual election bullshit about 'efficiency savings'.
I work for an ambulance service. Our ambulances see all kind of unpleasant things, so it's essential that they're kept clean.
But without non-clinical staff, we have nobody working in Cleaning, so infections spread.
And we can't have a plan to bring these infections under control, as we now have no Infection Control staff. What, you thought Infection Control was a clinical job? You probably thought everything was a clinical job, right? Guess what? Just because a role is in some way connected to medical things, doesn't mean it is classified as 'clinical'.
Also, we don't have anything with which to clean and stop infections, because no non-clinical staff means no Procurement staff out there buying what's needed.
Even if we could procure what we needed, how could we pay for it? We'll have nobody in Finance.
Perhaps, okay, we can have Finance staff, but who's going to do that job if we can't pay them? Because we can't pay anyone, if we have no Payroll staff.
And if we have someone doing Payroll, presumably they'll be using payroll software on the computer. Except, they can't do that, as we won't have any IT staff.
This is a bad idea, right? Let's bring back Cleaning, bring Infection Control, bring back Procurement, bring back Finance, bring back Payroll, bring back, IT. Except... actually we can't do that either, because no non-clinical staff means no Recruitment team.
Non-clinical support staff matter as much in the NHS as any other organisation. Without non-clinical support, there is no NHS.
This has been a public service announcement on behalf of Support Staff Who Are Already Overworked And Underpaid As It Is, And We're Really Fucking Tired.
#NHS #UKPol #politics

2024-06-01 09:54:52

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I'm not saying it's solely because of Rupert Murdoch, things are a lot more complicated than that. But... quite a lot of it is because of Rupert Murdoch.

2024-05-25 08:40:53

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But the rule of law is the rule of Parliament's law. Executive actions are different; if the Government wishes to breach a law, then the Courts' duty is to overrule them.
But if Parliament passes a law, then it is the law, and adhering to the rule of law means imposing that new law.
Only in very limited situations of legislation contradicting previous law without expressly amending/abolishing it can the Courts say that primary legislation contradicts the rule of law. And Parliament is always free to overrule that.
Even with common law, that has not come from Parliament, it is expressly and immutably the case that statute law always takes precedence. There is no law, and no rule of law, other than that Parliament decrees it or acquiesces to it.

2024-05-25 08:09:34

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I've never been sure how significant the precedent actually is, because it's inherent to Parliamentary supremacy that Parliament can always put itself above the Courts. And the Courts can ultimately only do as Parliament instructs (as we've seen with the Rwanda legislation).
Consequently, whether a similar principle is applied in future must depend on having a Parliamentary majority in favour; that has always been the only protection we ever have against a Government preventing its allies from being sentenced. Or, indeed, preventing its opponents from being acquitted.
All said, we don't have a balance of power between legislative, executive and judiciary. I happen to think that we should, but I don't expect any change in my lifetime.
I also think there are a couple of existing precedents which are tangentially related. The plan to not prosecute JR Campbell in 1924 isn't quite the same, as it hadn't reached court, but is still a case of party political interests overruling the exercise of law (albeit an unsuccessful one, because of the lack of majority in Parliament).
And going much further back, the execution of Strafford in 1641 was possible because he was considered to be generally guilty by a majority in Parliament, even though he wasn't guilty of an actual crime. If that seems too long ago to be relevant, Churchill had a plan to use Bills of Attainder to extrajudicially execute leading Nazis during the war, should they fall into British hands.