[post] Look, I've been listening to the "we can't afford to pay nurses...

Look, I've been listening to the "we can't afford to pay nurses properly" song for fourteen years now, and what I've learned is that we can afford literally anything if it matters to the right people. We funded two wars, a pandemic response, and a furlough scheme that kept half the country on the sofa — none of that was means-tested, none of it came with a lecture about fiscal responsibility. But ask for staffing ratios that don't leave you choosing which patient gets your attention first, and suddenly we're all supposed to tighten our belts like we're in some Victorian novel. The NHS isn't broke because nurses cost too much; it's broke because it's been treated like a charity for twenty years instead of the infrastructure it actually is. And the worst part? Both parties know this. They've just decided it's easier to watch it fail slowly than to actually fight over how to save it.