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ernie, does that mean that everyone who has written a speech or two, as well as doing an interview or two is "very influental in the Labour party"? If so, Eddie Izzard and Fiona Phillips are evidently the beacons of Labour policy! 😉
Hannan is A face of the Conservatives, much as the oh so right on [url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5309794/MPs-expenses-Left-wing-MPs-118000-claims-for-second-home.html ]Bob Marshall-Andrews[/url] is A face of the Labour party. That is not to say that either is the very heart of the party.
Zulu-Eleven - MemberErnie, I did not say for one second that he didn't say it, I think you've missed my point completely - you cannot deny the fact that in this case free market economics were not allowed to reign,
Not allowed to reign ? Not allowed to reign ???
So why the **** did your messiah say that it was the best example in the world ??!!
He said that he knew everything that anyone needed to know about Iceland. He said that he had been travelling to Iceland for ten years and knew a multitude of Icelandic politicians, indeed I believe that he was best man at the wedding of an Icelandic minister.
Have you actually read the article ?
Dan Hannan was wrong......wrong wrong wrong. Not because he didn't understand what was happening in Iceland, but because the economics he supports, are shit. You use a technical term.
Zulu 11 can you answer my post rather than go on about Iceland not being a true free market economy (which is true).
No one uses free market economics for a very good reason it does not work unless all you seek is equilibrium. Unfortunately we[ humans] value other things above finding the perfect supply and demand for goods/services etc . Apparently we want poor people to eat and most of us to work , taxation to be fair, to have our own industries rather than just China, to have Green policies , educate our children and (I know but get this one) redistribute wealth - some crazy people think this is fair way to do things. Imagine that. Have they not heard of the trickle down effect the idiots.
Given this how could we ever have a freemarket anywhere is everyone wrong but you?
What kind of nirvana do you think it would have provided if Iceland had just gone for it?
CaptainFlashheart - Memberernie, does that mean that blah blah blah
If you think Dan Hannan is irrelevant Cap'ain, you best write to the BBC and tell them not to waste your money giving long interviews to irrelevant nobodies.
Personally I trust the BBC's judgement on the subject more than yours.
And how important Dan Hannan is, is the one thing me and Zulu-Eleven actually agree on 😯
A nasty bunch the tories - you can see them rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of cutting the welfare state.
Lets get a couple of things clear. UK is not highly taxed in comparison to other EC states and our services are badly funded as a result. Our poor services are due in the main to underfunding.
GBs handling of the economic crisis is well thought of worldwide and most other countries followed his lead in managing it. Osbornes answer of " do nothing" would have made it a lot worse.
If the tories get in with a decent majority as looks likely you can say goodbye to the NHS as a universal and free service. You can see the final end of social services and this increases in nastyness such as the baby P case. Increased unemployment and poverty with the rise in crime that brings is a given.
You will see a massive rise in crime - compared to the massive reduction is crime over the last ten years. Crime is at a 30 yr low in scotland.
You can kiss goodbye to the affluence we have.
What a wasted opportunity the last ten years. Some good stuff at the beginning of the labour government - devolution, family tax credits, expansion of secondary education and an easing of the underfunding of the NHS. How did all that goodwill and the massive majority end in so little concrete improvement? Why did they lose their way so quickly.
For sure they don't deserve our support anymore more but teh prospect of a Tory government is so depressing. Kiss goodbye to the NHS
Ernie, I would be happy to see the BBC not give long coverage to a great many people.
Personally I trust the BBC's judgement on the subject more than yours.
Good for you, my dear old thing, good for you. I, however, would suspect that given their rather Guardianista/Left leaning bias (Who is Marr married to again, oh yes...) they had chosen to interview Hannan as it is exactly the message they wish to make. Now, that is not to say the the BBC is [i]always[/i] biased, but many of their senior political reporters are very well connected within the Labour party.
Hannan is, as I said before, one part of a party. There are people in the Labour party who dwell on the outer edges as well, viz Dennis Skinner, but that does not make them the voice of their party. Both are trivial, entertaining to the other side's conspiracy loons but little more than that.
If you are so convinced that Hannan is writing Conservative policy, please do provide the proof of that.
TJ, do shut up. What a pile of sensationalist tosh. Do you write for the Guardian? Oh, no wait a minute, you can spell so clearly not.
Ernie - perhaps he just wasn't aware of the behind the scenes government guarantees and “artificially low interest rates” caused by the Housing Financing Fund (HFF)? After all, he did say it was a miracle...
Junkyard - The driver of the free market is greed, the brake of that greed is fear of loss, Free market economics accepts that for there to be winners, there have to be losers, the reason that governments intervene is that nobody wants to be the loser, and governments continue promise the impossible to their people in an effort to get elected - as long as we all stay greedy, in our consumerist western lifestyle, then we acknowledge that someone somewhere is poor to balance our wealth, quite clearly, thats unsustainable, and sooner or later there will be a crash.
If you are so convinced that Hannan is writing Conservative policy, please do provide the proof of that.
Dan Hannan is a leader writer for the Daily Telegraph. He has written speeches for Tory leaders. He is close to Cameron. He doesn't sound like a nobody in the Tory Party to me.
You want proof ? Look it up yourself - it's all out there on the internet.
TandemJeremy - Member
A nasty bunch the tories - you can see them rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of cutting the welfare state.
Prove it. How about cutting the waste on a client/voter state?TandemJeremy - Member Our poor services are due in the main to underfunding.
Despite Labour pouring funds at public spending? No, the problem is poor spending, poor management. Not funds.TandemJeremy - Member
GBs handling of the economic crisis is well thought of worldwide and most other countries followed his lead in managing it. Osbornes answer of " do nothing" would have made it a lot worse.
Well done, parrot the "Do nothing Tories" line.TandemJeremy - Member
If the tories get in with a decent majority as looks likely you can say goodbye to the NHS as a universal and free service.
Policy evidence, if you please. Or is this more sensationalist tosh designed to scare the masses?TandemJeremy - Member
You can see the final end of social services and this increases in nastyness such as the baby P case. Increased unemployment and poverty with the rise in crime that brings is a given.
Stop it now, please, it's too funny!TandemJeremy - Member
You will see a massive rise in crime - compared to the massive reduction is crime over the last ten years. Crime is at a 30 yr low in scotland.
According to whatever set of figures you choose to use.TandemJeremy - Member
You can kiss goodbye to the affluence we have.
The whole F**ING country is bankrupt. Public borrowing is spiralling out of control. Is that really "affluence"?TandemJeremy - Member
What a wasted opportunity the last ten years. Some good stuff at the beginning of the labour government - devolution, family tax credits, expansion of secondary education and an easing of the underfunding of the NHS. How did all that goodwill and the massive majority end in so little concrete improvement? Why did they lose their way so quickly.Why did people vote for them again and again? You are the people to blame.
TandemJeremy - Member
For sure they don't deserve our support anymore more but teh prospect of a Tory government is so depressing. Kiss goodbye to the NHS
Again, please provide your proof that the Conservative government will do away with the NHS.Bored now. Going to watch Kevin Mcloud on the Grand Tour instead. Far more intellectually stimulating than your dull, parroted dross.
Ernie - perhaps he just wasn't aware of the behind the scenes government guarantees and “artificially low interest rates”
Well we best ignore everything he says then. Because this was a subject which he said he knew extremely well.
And you best throw away your copy of "The Plan" ..........clearly the bloke doesn't know what he's talking about.
Probably best not to vote Tory too, since according to you, he will be "pulling the strings" in any Tory government.
[s]Ernie[/s] edit - TJ - you've missed the fact that even if "right wing loonies" like Hannan are writing Tory policy, the policy doesn't threaten the universal health care obligation:
[i]
?is is not a shift to a non-universal scheme. we are committed to a system that covers all citizens, whatever their circumstances. most people might be able to look after their healthcare, free from government targets and bureaucracies. But some will never manage to earn enough to pay enough into their own savings or catastrophic insurance accounts. Here the state must continue funding healthcare through the welfare system, and there will need to be state oversight ensuring that expenditure is required and cost effective. ?e poorest will receive a better quality of care than now, partly due to market efficiencies which will make the entire health sector more competitive, but also because instead of attempting to look after all citizens the government is focusing on the most vulnerable.[/i]
Ernie - have you actually read the plan yet? I mean, if you're going to tell us all about what an austere hellish nightmare we would all be living under if Hannan was pulling the strings, it might be worth having actually read what he's proposing... or is it just the classic 'beware the bogeyman' scare tactic?
Junkyard, if you were right regards iceland, then why haven't the other tax islands failed, Switzerland, the Channel Islands, Lichtenstein, Monaco?
CFH - underfunding in the NHS is the main issue it faces - simple. We spend around 9% of GDP on healthcare, most of the rest of the EU around 12%, the USA 20%. It was 7% of gdp when labour came in. Underfunding over decades ins the main issue. We still spend less than all our rivals on healthcare. We need to spend more to have a decent healthcare system.
This is undeniable truth as is the reduction in crime - all figures from reported crime to the british crime survey show massive reductions in crime over ten years. Fact and unarguable by anyone with a grain of intelligence
The do nothing Tories line? Only repeating what Osbourne has said. That was clearly their preferred policy for dealing with the recession - cut spending not increase spending as the rest of the world has done.
Proof that the conservatives will destry the NHS - again speeches made by senior tories and ideas from their think tanks and previous experience of tory governments and the NHS
Zulu - that quote from you clearly means the end of universal provision and the creation of a two tier system.
CFH - not up to your usual standard old chap yours is the dull parrotted dross that is actually wrong in fact - in ewassily provasble facts.
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Ernie - have you actually read the plan yet? ......or is it just the classic 'beware the bogeyman' scare tactic?
WTF would I do that ? 😯
I know the geezer talks complete shite, I've seen him tell an American audience that the British NHS makes people "iller" as he puts it. And that it is a 60 year old failed experiment.
Would you like me to post the link to the video ? I can if you want........that would be a very good 'beware the bogeyman' scare tactic, eh ?
I've also seen plenty of other complete bollox he spouts (apart Iceland) so why would want to sit down and read a book by him ffs ?
Ah, so, you don't know what the tories actually intend to do (since clearly Hannan is writing their policies), but you inherently [b]know[/b] that it will be bad and cut everything and end the NHS because, they're, well, tories - nicely constructed argument there Ernie
[b]Creation[/b] of a two tier system? Erm, have you ever heard of BUPA...
Mmmm, have you tried to find an Intensive Care bed in a BUPA hospital?
I'm quite looking forward to it really. What do you think they'll get - 1, mibbe 2 MPs in Scotland. With Labour finished for a generation, Cameron might just be the last PM of the UK.
Have you tried to find one in an NHS hospital recently crikey? I mean, since we're spending how much more on the NHS than we were a decade ago?
I know how many beds there are, and can tell you which ones are empty closest to you....
How about chemotherapy? how much of that do BUPA do?
What about an Accident and Emergency unit?
Hmmm? BUPA do those do they?
Zulu-Eleven - MemberAh, so, you don't know what the tories actually intend to do......
Well I do know that you talk as much shite as your messiah Dan Hannan does.
Does that count ?
And your point being?
Sorry, we don't have a two tier system at the moment?
Funny you should mention Chaemo really isn't it, given the availability of certain cancer therapies on the NHS that you can buy privately...
Ernie - Well I do know that you talk as much shite as your messiah Dan Hannan does.
Ah, you see, you fall back into the old trap of trying to play the man not the ball, you couldn't debate the issues without trying to get personally abusive could you, Just like Fred you lose it and start getting shouty and abusive when you cannot make a coherent argument... such a shame
Zulu - don't talk carp - I know you find it hard not to
When labour came to power we spent about 7.8% of GDP on healthcare. We now spend 9% EU average is 12% and the USA spends 20%.
So we still spend far less than comparable countries. Our NHS is still underfunded. This is the main reason for its sometimes poor performance
The only silver lining is a druidh says - should mean independence for Scotland because i really don't think the Scots will take another tory cutting government that they have not voted for.
So, we spend more Tandem, thats the test is it?
great, we spend more money on managers and external consultants
🙄
[i]Sorry, we don't have a two tier system at the moment?[/i]
No, we have a system where you can pay to see the same doctors that you see in the NHS, that allows you to be treated earlier or more convieniently.
A system that mainly treats those without serious or terminal conditions, that provides no emergency care, no critical care, not much in the way of longer term care.
We actually have one system, the NHS, and a small private sector.
Zulu - Ernies position is far more coherent that yours which is full of lies, half truths and misrepresentations and ill considered tory dogma
No private healthcare system anywhere in the world does as much for as little money as the NHS it is the single most efficient provider of healthcare in the world - except perhaps cuba
Zulu - yes. More money is needed. Better management as a part of this. NHS managerial costs are the lowest in the EU.
Not just better management but better research, better funding for meds, better pay for the staff and more staff. its not rocket science
No, we have a system where you can pay to see the same doctors that you see in the NHS, that allows you to be treated earlier or more convieniently.
And thats not two tier? thats the great dream is it?
Lies and half truths TJ? party political dogma? Like:
If the tories get in with a decent majority as looks likely you can say goodbye to the NHS as a universal and free service. You can see the final end of social services and this increases in nastyness such as the baby P case.
Better management TJ? Try telling that to the patients of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust
Great dream?
Go on then, give me a clue what that means.
without trying to get personally abusive
LOL ! Have we got to the bit in the argument where you say "you're being horrid to me " ? 😀
Well actually, we've got to the bit in the argument where I think to myself "why am I arguing with this dipstick".
So yeah, I'll leave it to you and TJ......... I might take a peak every now again to see how you're getting on 8)
Don't do that Earnie - don't leave me trapped with the loonies!
Zulu - the NHS needs more and better management. Probably its worst aspect is poor management at middle and senior grades along with political moving of the goal posts too frequently.
Are you saying the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust would be better with less money and less management?
Yeah, TJ, more managers, thats what was needed, not someone with the simple ****ing common sense to say "hang on theres a problem here, everything's covered in shite!"
C'mon Ernie, argue the points and play nicely, thats always been the way here, I don't feel the need to start calling you names because you don't agree with me - its like having a petulant Fred back in the building.
TJ spouting his usual bollocks, again.
TBH TJ, you should be first in the cull of NHS workers. Your job is obviously not that important or needed as you seem to be on here most of the time. Or is it allowed in the public sector that workers/comrades spend half their working day on the internet, posting, bollocks?
You were going to explain what the great dream is?
While you're thinking about it, here's something to read.
[u]Robert Baker: Don't use private medicine unless you're feeling fine[/u]
[i]I am going to let you in on a trade secret. One that every junior doctor in Britain knows; and then promptly forgets when they get to be a consultant. It is a secret that could just save your life - or, at very least, your savings. That secret is this: If you have anything wrong with you, don't go private. Stick to the bread and butter NHS.
Please note that conditional clause. If you have anything wrong with you. I will explain later why, if you're well, you might also want to steer clear of MammonCare plc.
Let us suppose you require major surgery. You discover that your local hospital has a long waiting list, so you use your savings to bring your date forward. You are admitted to a prestigious private hospital. The operation goes well but afterwards you suffer complications. You need a tube in your throat to help you to breathe. During the night your tube falls out or becomes blocked. The (only available) duty doctor is called. He does not know how to replace the tube or unblock it and nor do the nurses. There is no other doctor available. You die.
This is an extreme - but true - example of one of the problems with private hospitals. What would have happened in the NHS? Even your local bog-standard rackety old district general would have multiple doctors from various specialties on hand for just such emergencies.
About 500 seriously ill patients are transferred to NHS intensive-care beds from private hospitals every year - ICU is not covered by most insurance policies. There are virtually no private intensive care units. Out of hours, private hospitals usually boast a single duty doctor - the RMO, or resident medical officer. They are usually in training, working for an exam and desperate for a quiet life. They may have no experience whatever of your particular condition.
Of course I exempt (from this particular criticism) those few private units that are situated within large NHS hospitals. Nor would I be so bold as to present our final experiment with socialism as perfect. But there are clear, even statutory differences between the two that reflect their relative safety. Some are exempt from regulations by registering as nursing homes or, in one case, by Royal Charter.
The Government's new plan for improving the quality in the NHS in the wake of Bristol, Ledward and the rest is called Clinical Governance. The scheme can best be understood under seven headings, bombastically called the Seven Pillars. Taking each in turn:
Research and Development. The non-pharmaceutical private sector contributes, effectively, no research or development. No marks. Quality Indicators - designed to compare units and hospitals - private sector not included, no marks. Risk Management - designed to reduce accident and error. No statutory obligation to carry this out in private hospitals. No marks. Clinical Efficacy - assessing the best and most effective treatments - exclusively carried out by the state and academic sectors. No marks. Continuing Medical Education - ensuring that consultants are kept up to speed. No obligation for private consultants to comply. No marks. Audit - examining past performance against an agreed standard. No involvement by private sector. No marks Patient Empowerment - self explanatory. I suppose if you want the choice of a leather sofa in the waiting room, and a doctor who uses a Montblanc pen, then that's a sort of power. One mark. Total for private hospitals: one mark out of seven.
Harley Street is, of course, utterly unregulated. Any quack can set up shop on the Street of Shamen (sic) and any quack does. Like Elsie in Cabaret, rental may be arranged by the hour. One lucrative pastime comprises employment health screening. If you work in the City you may have had to undergo this yourself - a round of blood tests and a trot on the treadmill to check out your ticker. Such patients - and the worried well - are known as the "dairy herd", to be regularly milked.
There is a simple mathematical theory to explain why screening the healthy is so bent. Bayes' theorem of conditional probability refers to the interpretation of any given test with reference to the prior conditions of the studied population. Consider two weather forecasters, one living in Addis Ababa and one in Fort William. Both use the same tests, including monitoring changes in atmospheric pressure on a barometer. Suppose the barometer needle says "rain likely". Which meteorologist is going to be correct in his prediction?
Similarly, if you apply medical tests to the wrong population, then your results will not be reliable, and the consequences unpredictable. No test is perfect and there will inevitably be both false positives and false negatives, with potentially serious results. For these reasons there is almost no point - with certain exceptions, like HIV tests - in screening healthy people.
What can be done about it? The Commission for Health Improvement has announced that it is going to be "breathing down the neck" of private hospitals. Quite right too. The chief difference between accepting money for iffy medical practice and pick-pocketing is that the Artful Dodger never expected his victims to hold their wallets deferentially open and say, "Do you take Visa?"
The writer is a registrar at a London teaching hospital [/i]
never post from work. I only work part time.
I speak from 30 yrs of experience of the NHS and private healthcare working from healthcare assistant to senior management- firstly under labour, then tory, then labour, then SNP.
My experience leads me to believe that:
On the whole the Tories put less money into the NHS. The historical record and the rehtoric from them now show this
Political involvement in the NHS is rarely useful from any side.
Better quality management is crucial to the success of the NHS
Clinical skills are not as good as people would like you to think
Wastage is much less than people would like you to think
Underfunding is obvious to anyone who has significant experience in the NHS although the increase in funding over the last 12 years is obvious.
Zulu - lanesra - what is your experience of the NHS You appear not to have a clue what you are talking about.
Yeah Crikey, and in the meantime we pay for people like John Pilley to get two sex changes on the NHS:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article787563.ece
Let alone pissing money up the wall working round the two week rule and paying Lloyd Grossman £100k to taste a menu...
Do you really think that people should get non essential treatment on the NHS?
if you want something more than that, should everyone else pay for it? of course not - I really suggest that you go away and read what has actually been proposed by the conservative thinktanks regards medical insurance rather than harp on about some threat of a "two tier" NHS that we already have!
Hmm, I think I'm with ernie; you're not really clued up enough to argue with. Night.
Zulu? You sum up, both yourself and the party you will be voting for(winning by a huge majority), for being a smug selfish arrogant shower.
You're welcome to one-another.
Healthcare spending - I'm a bit confused, the US spends the biggest %age of it's GDP on healthcare but don't have an NHS - so does this include private exenditure? Strangely the US has a lower average life expectancy than we have here.
Mudshark - yes the % I quote include private and state healthcare. The UKs private is a tiny % of the total.
The USA spends twice as much as us - to cover 70% of the population. Not only does the USA have a lower life expectancy but also higher child mortality rates.
TJ - you allowed yourself to fall victim to absolutely classic Labrat tactics. When Ratty finds himself on dodgy ground he invariably uses diversionary tactics and moves the argument into another area, and then another area, and so on. That's why basically I can't be arsed to argue with him.
In this case he got you bogged down in arguing over the NHS (and remember his guru is Dan Hannan who thinks we should adopt the US model) And you fell for it, hook line and sinker.
You should have stuck to the original subject mate, which was "have the Tories got any solutions ?" And his initial comment which was, that Cameron is just a mask for the Tories and that the people pulling his strings have their own agenda. As he stated here :
Zulu-Eleven - MemberCameron bears the classic politicians curse, like McBroon, of being the least offensive option to all wings of the party.
Fortunately the people pulling his strings are somewhat more embedded in the principles of Libertarian Conservatism than he appears to be.
He really really didn't like it, when I pointed out that by "Libertarian Conservatism" he meant Dan Hannan, the 'man with The Plan', and I went on to comprehensively denounce his much-loved messiah.
In fact he accused me of a, quote : [i]"classic 'beware the bogeyman' scare tactic"[/i]
despite the fact that he had unbelievably a few hours earlier [u]himself[/u] said, quote :
"[i]For all who worry about what damage the tories could do if they get in, I need only offer three horrifying words - Prime Minister Mandelson [/i]"
Knowing full well that it is impossible for Mandelson, as a peer in the House of Lords, to become Prime Minister. Still, nothing quote like trying to scare people, eh ?
Labrat really isn't worth arguing with apart for exposing his ridiculous right-wing Tory views. And of course the 'entertainment value' 8)
Ernie, you seem to think that I get no entertainment value from winding up the Guardianistas 😉
Anyways, back on topic ......... do Conservatives ever have the solutions ?
Well I noticed that yesterday, the Greek people gave the Socialists a landslide victory in a general election and kicked out the Greek Conservative government.
Because the Greek Conservatives after years in power have screwed up the Greek economy so much, that Greek national debt as percentage of GDP, is now almost TWICE that of Britain - yes [u]TWICE[/u].
Now of course some will try to dismiss that by saying that it wasn't the fault of conservative policies, it was all the fault of Greece being in the Eurozone, or Greece unlike Britain, being a small and weak economy, or other such like bollox.
But the United States, which has the largest economy in the world, and is the obviously also the richest country in the world, has also had a Conservative government following conservative policies. And when G W Bush left the Whitehouse a few months ago, the US had a national debt HIGHER as percentage of GDP, than Britain. Yes [u]higher[/u]......... quite how they managed that, considering the US government doesn't spend any money on it's own people, is frankly beyond me.
Right-wing conservationism is never the solution. It never has been, and it never will be. Not here, nor anywhere else.
Ernie, you seem to think that I get no entertainment value from winding up the Guardianistas
Well I bleedin hope you get something out of it Ratty.
Otherwise, it can't be much fun talking bollox all the time 😐
TBH TJ, you should be first in the cull of NHS workers. Your job is obviously not that important or needed as you seem to be on here most of the time.
Apologies for butting in, but this implication that everyone in the NHS is lazy gets my goat. My missus works in the NHS (drug worker) and works so bloody hard that I think if I had to do half of what she does I'd be off with permanent stress.
And from what I know, TJ is right. The main thing holding the NHS back is lack of/insecurity of funding and interference by politicians. If the clinicians and managers were left to do their job free from interference with adequate, secure long-term funding, then the NHS would be second to none.
The main thing holding the NHS back is lack of/insecurity of funding and interference by politicians. If the clinicians and managers were left to do their job free from interference with adequate, secure long-term funding, then the NHS would be second to none.
If you don't want politicians interfering with the day to day running of the NHS then you won't be wanting to vote for Labour then, will you, as they attempt to micromanage everything.