I can quite believe that there's something ridiculous going on where if they're supplied on prescription (to people who don't pay prescription charges presumably?) they're silly money.

Never mind the cost of the drugs, the cost of an appointment slot with a GP will be pretty high. I wouldn't be surprised if a 15 minute appointment cost north of £50 when looked at from an activity based costing perspective.

Cut paracetamol from the list of drugs available on prescription

Can't see how this saves money. Prescription cost (in England at least) is £7.20 (i think), cost of a packet of paracetamol about 5p. Looks like a money maker to me! 🙂 A bit like a drug I take that costs £1 or so but I have to pay £7.20 on prescription – my additional personal subsidy to the NHS.

Edit – others got there first – my, you lot have fast fingers.

SA80 is a good example – IIRC instead of designing/developping it, we could have bought US M16s and then paid all the UK people who'd have lost their jobs quite significant salaries to do something useful and still spent less than we did…

Book by someone I know who sites several similar examples:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/lions-donkeys-and-dinosaurs-by-lewis-page-522690.html

Rio – no one (or at least very few people) who pays prescription charges get paracetamol on prescription – it's people who don't pay prescription charges that create the cost.

Clubber – good point, I tend to forget that I seem to be the only person in the country who still pays for prescriptions.

druidh – Member

Methinks you haven't really got hold of the scale of the problem yet. Trident replacement cost will be c.£130Bn over its life. The total deficit is currently almost £1,000Bn.

Methinks you haven't got hold of the difference between the deficit (£150bn ish) and national debt (c.£950bn).

Eurofighter was built specifically as something that Europe would be able to look after. It's still got US bits in it.

Nothing critical. When Clinton was president, he lent heavily on Blair to buy the American next generation missile to go on the Eurofighter. It would have been easy to just buy it off them. Only it would have meant that when it came to selling the aircraft to other nations The US would have a say who we could sell it too as the weapons package would be US.

Instead we have chosen to develop Meteor instead.

Given what most UK defence projects cost, we could easily buy yank kit, pay them for all the spares and still be better off. Eurofighter is nigh on out of date, Merlin can't lift anything, and the SA80 was in service for years before we got a version made that worked well.

And lose our operational independence. Also, Eurofighter…out of date? What does make those highly modern US f-15, and F-16's then? You know the ones that flew in the 70's and the US are STILL selling to other countries? If you don't have an industry, you can't sell your product to anyone. I'd have thought you wouldn't have missed that capitalist principle.

SA80 is a classic example of trying to do things on the cheap, as for the Merlin not being able to lift anything…where'd you get that from? If you want to point the finger at something how about the latest lynx, that is a waste of money.

Development costs are a major part of the price of these things, so it makes sense to buy the kit from someone who's already spread those costs across the biggest defence budget in the world.

And not get what you want. The reason we chose to develop stuff with European countries is down to a couple of things: to develop an industry that creates jobs and to be EQUAL partners.

If you buy off the US you are merely a customer with little or no say in what you are getting. The US defence industry is geared towards selling its wares to the US military…any other sales would be a bonus. Of course if you want something extra, you have to pay for it and the US will still refuse to integrate certain items onto the hardware they sell you. Go and look at the F-16 deal with the UAE for and example.

Book by someone I know who sites several similar examples:

Lewis Page? Now I know that you don't know what you are talking about. Whenever his name is mentioned in military circles is to much merriment and p*ss taking.

Stop publishing council "newspapers" which tell the public how wonderful the council are. There's no need.

It won't save a lot of money but it will save spending on a complete waste.

The free local paper in my area contains important information for people, guides to what's on, stories of local interest and bits of local history. I'd say it performs a pretty good task. Not a waste of money at all.

The free local paper in my area contains important information for people, guides to what's on, stories of local interest and bits of local history. I'd say it performs a pretty good task. Not a waste of money at all.

you see the value, others see the cost. Unfortunately this country is full of accountants these days.

project – Member

Close down all alcohol and drug dependancy units run by the state, and get the lazy sods working, cutting grass, or sweeping the streets.

this is one of the "more complex than it looks"

So much crime is committed by junkies and drunks that it ends up for every £ spent on rehab £7 is saved in costs in the judicial system – so actually spending more on junkie rehab would save huge amounts of money

treating drug addiction as a public health issue not a criminal justice issue would save massive amounts of money

How about telling the junkies that they get free drugs for life if they wrestle a hungry lion to the ground?

you see the value,

…you pay for it then. Or go to the library, or the council website, or read the local paper, or read the local councillors' newsletters or pamphlets.

tron – Member

Stop publishing council "newspapers" which tell the public how wonderful the council are. There's no need.

Yes – this. The amount of total tripe which comes through my letterbox is unbelievable.

Also, legalise all drugs straightaway and crime will nigh on disappear overnight.

EDIT: OK, perhaps not legalise, but certainly hand out smack and crack for free, on the state, in an organised fashion.

Get rid of all the people working as "recycling advisors" get rid of all the people working at recycling centres, and get rid of all the people driving recycling wagons.

Bin van pulls up at local prison, empties load, inmates repay their debt to society by carefully sorting the rubbish into recyclables and non!

Think of the reduction in landfill, 95000 people successfully kept busy sorting through rubbish, and you don't have to pay them a penny! Indeed, the value of all the recycled materials can go to offset the cost of keeping them there in the first place, we could even make the prison system profitable!