Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
They are all posturing for when the mouse falls
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Benefit cuts: Monday will be the day that defines this government
Those on low incomes, after all the vicious talk dismissing them as cheats and
idlers, will be hit by an avalanche of cuts
'The Guardian has revealed how jobcentre staff are under orders to find any sanction
to knock people off benefits.
Not many know what is about to happen on Monday: neither those about to be
knocked down nor those sailing too high above them to notice.
But historians will see it as the day that defines the Cameron government.
An avalanche of benefit cuts will hit the same households over and over, with
no official assessment of how far this £18bn reduction will send those who are already
poor into beggary.
In his 2009 Hugo Young lecture, David Cameron spoke with apparent passion
of the damage done by inequality: "We all know, in our hearts, that as long as there
is deep poverty living systematically side by side with great riches, we all remain
the poorer for it." The wise saw the wolf beneath the sheepskin: sure enough, once
in power, the language he and his ministers used to blame the poor for their plight
was cruder and fiercer than in Thatcher's day. You need to go back to Edwardian
times to find ministers and commentators so viciously dismissing all on low incomes
as cheats, idlers and drunks.
On BBC news, Iain Duncan Smith, confronted with irrefutable cases of hardship, said:
"It's about trying to get as many people as possible out of the welfare trap and into
lives they can control themselves."
As the economist JK Galbraith observed: "The modern conservative is engaged in one
of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is, the search for a superior moral
justification for selfishness."
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
love that summing up from galbraith.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
but very true howard
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Germany and France 'will block David Cameron's plan for a new EU treaty'
Heavyweight nations snub PM's plans to defuse the Conservative party's
civil war over Europe
David Cameron delivering a speech on immigration. The prime minister has
pledged to renegotiate Britain's position in Europe.
David Cameron's "grand plan" to defuse the Tory civil war over Europe by winning
back powers from the EU has been thrown into doubt after Germany said it
would prefer to solve the eurozone's problems without a new European treaty.
In a blow to the prime minister, who has pledged to renegotiate UK membership
before calling an in/out referendum in 2017, both Germany and France are now
coming out against opening up the EU rulebook again in the timescale envisaged by Cameron.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
oh well on the subs bench again.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
but a sub that wont be called on
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 705- Registered: 23 Sep 2010
- Posts: 661
Wow- that Gabraith character does have a way with words!
Never give up...
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Have to agree................worth another airing ....
As the economist JK Galbraith observed: "The modern conservative is engaged in one
of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is, the search for a superior moral
justification for selfishness."
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
Don't blame maggie lol
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Norman Tebbit: Don't let David Cameron destroy our NHS
IT is not often the Daily Mirror and I find ourselves on common ground but we are both staunch
supporters of the principles of the NHS, whatever its difficulties and problems - some of them
, I fear, of its own making.
I have known the Secretary of State, Andrew Lansley, for 30 years. In his day he was a very
able civil servant, and it seems to me that if anyone could unravel and reform the tangled
bureaucracy which holds up the devoted professionals of the NHS, it ought to be someone
with his experience.
What worries me about the reforms however is the difficulty of organising fair competition
between the state-owned hospitals and those in the private sector.
In my time I have seen many efforts to create competition between state-owned airlines, car factories
and steel makers.
They all came unstuck. The unfairnesses were not all one way and they spring from the fact that
state-owned and financed businesses and private sector ones are different animals. I have long
been a customer of the NHS and although I've never worked in it, for 15 years I was chairman
of a charity which supported an NHS teaching hospital (to the tune of £14million) and saw it go
through the agony of a PFI scheme.
I also saw the damage done under the Blair government when it lost a lot of its bread and butter
work to a private hospital.
I believe there is nothing wrong with people choosing to spend their own money, or pay outs from
health insurance companies, on health care in private hospitals. It simply eases the load on the NHS.
But it is different when the NHS or the taxpayer (you and me) pays for NHS patients to be treated
in private hospitals on anything more than a very small scale in special circumstances.
One problem is that within the NHS there are teaching hospitals, often centres of excellence,
which apart from treating patients, also have the responsibility of training doctors and nurses.
That all takes time and costs money.
Private hospitals are under no obligation to do training and do not have to carry those costs.
Even worse for the teaching hospitals, if the private hospitals can hoover up all the straightforward
routine surgery, like hip joint replacement, where can the young surgeons gain the experience which
would allow them to move on to more difficult surgery?
Another problem for the NHS hospitals is that they cannot refuse to treat patients.
Whether it is a drunken fool with a cut face from a street brawl, or a young mother with cancer or a
heart attack, no one can be turned away, but the private hospital can pick and choose.
However, it is not all one way. When an NHS hospital fails in its duty to patients - be it from botched
surgery, poor hygiene allowing MRSA to spread, or the neglect of vulnerable, sick people - it may
be fined. That can be a very big sum, or it might be £250 a day each time they keep male and female
patients on the same ward. In similar circumstances a private hospital might be taken to court and
have to cough up a lot in compensation.
At the very least it would hit profits, and at worst, the company could go out of business.
Either way it would be the owners of the business who lost their own money.
When a failing NHS hospital is fined, it finds the money by cutting back somewhere and it is the patients
who lose out.
When a new NHS hospital is built, or an old one is modernised, it is the taxpayer who pays up one
way or another.
When a private hospital is built, it is private money that has to be found, put at risk and paid for.
On the other hand, the NHS will most likely be cursed with a PFI scheme, which is even worse
than either a credit sale or a hire purchase scheme.
With this system, the NHS doesn't even own the hospital for 30 years. Instead it pays rent for all
that time and all maintenance has to be carried out by the PFI contractors who regularly rip off the
NHS. So who gets the worst deal - the NHS or the private hospital? At any particular time or place
it could be either, but one thing is sure - one is using and risking our money and the other is risking its own.
More importantly, I am not at all sure that the patients are better off in the long term.
I can understand why the Coalition is in a hurry to get all this through so that it is up and running
before the next election, but as my grandfather often warned me, more haste can mean less speed.
I think NuLabour played fast and loose with the NHS, pouring money in but getting little back for it
except hordes of "managers", but fewer nurses beside beds.
That is no reason for my friends to follow Blair's bad example. We need to listen and persuade
, especially those who treat patients, that we have got it right, or to change it where we cannot.
The inefficient NHS is a long way from perfect. There is much it could learn from the private sector
, but there is a lot of good in it that should not be put a risk.
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
We are overpaying for doctors and consultants, a GP in the uk gets over £100'0000 a year, A GP in France & Germany under £50'000 ,
This over paying for middle class jobs in the UK infects every aria of the public sector, And a lot of privet sector jobs to,
all being past on to the customers and bleeding out the system And reducing services
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
51, any right-minded person will agree with that. Lord Tebbitt is no fool.
52, that's because we are spraying taxpayers' money at our GPs. In Europe they have to compete for business and get paid (mostly) via the state or private health insurance schemes. If they are too expensive they don't get the patients.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
Not often I agree with Norman
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Should've kept it zipped? Boris Johnson admits bumbling self-deprecation is a 'cunning device'
Asked in an interview with TV network CNBC whether his "remarkable openness" and "self-depreciation"
were typical qualities of a politician, he said: "No I think it's a very cunning device. Self-depreciation is
all about understanding that basically people regard politicians as a bunch of shysters,
so you've got to be understood."
He also said he used his sense of humour as a political tool to capture people's attention
. "Most people actually find lots of political stuff incredibly dull," he said.
"So if you can make a joke or if you can find some way of illuminating some idea or subject
with a metaphor that captures people's imagination...then you've got them for a second."
Mr Johnson went on to admit, in his trademark self-deprecating manner, that becoming
Mayor of London "was a fluke" and later tells a humorous anecdote about when his bodyguard
took a photo of his "arse" as he was stuck on London's zip wire.
The televised interview is the latest in a number the Tory MP has conducted recently, after
his notable grilling by Eddie Mair on The Andrew Marr Show. It is also just three weeks
since BBC2 documentary The Irresistible Rise of Boris Johnson went out.
In the interview with CNBC, due to be broadcast tonight, Mr Johnson claims to remember
nothing about his "embarrassing time" in Oxford's Bullingdon Club, saying: "I think the
blessed sponge of amnesia has wiped the slate."
When asked about his future political career, the Mayor of London said he "intended to
bash on" but evaded talking about any ambition to become Prime Minister.
"I think most sensible people who know enough about British politics know that I'm jolly
lucky to be Mayor, let alone anything else and that's what I'm going to focus on," he said.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
seems like flash has thrown in the towel already, sandgate's gain is our erm er loss.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
blimey thats a come down
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Judith Roberts- Registered: 15 May 2012
- Posts: 637
I don't usually contribute to the political threads, but if Dave the dolphin is back I will make an exception!
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
aha dave the dolphin and not dippy dave from downing street.
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Ukip surge could put David Cameron at risk, Tories warn
Party likely to deprive Tories of victory in many seats, fuelling fears about their prospects in 2015
David Cameron's leadership of the Conservative Party could come under renewed threat if the UK
Independence Party performs strongly in next week's local elections, senior Tories warned today.
The Tory high command has insisted that the Prime Minister has enough credit in the bank to survive
expected losses of more than 300 council seats on Thursday.
However, senior Tory MPs denied that a formal challenge to Mr Cameron before the 2015 general
election had been ruled out. "It all depends on how Ukip does next week," one told The Independent.
"If Ukip does well, all bets are off."
Conservative chiefs argue that the Tory family closed ranks after Margaret Thatcher's death and that
party spirits have been raised after Britain avoided a "triple dip" recession and Mr Cameron gave MPs
a bigger role in policy-making in a shake-up of the Downing Street machine.
But they acknowledge the "wildcard" in next week's contests will be the impact of Ukip, which is
standing in more than 70 per cent of the 2,400 local authority seats up for grabs.
