Tower Hamlets council is heading for the same sort of report. The rotten boroughs are proliferating once again.

“All I can say about this is that my friends who are teachers have spent the last 4 saying that the Conservative education policies are indicative of people who have have no idea what they are talking about riding roughshod over the input of teachers in the name of political point scoring with their equally opinionated and ill-informed core voters.”

And all universities and employers say is that they are having to provide new students / recruits with remedial learning for basic numeracy, literacy and verbal reasoning.

The reason that the UK has slipped so far down the international league tables is because these things are not seen as important in schools but are seen as important by just about everyone else – it’s one of the reasons that students from “traditional” / regressive education systems like France are securing so many of the good jobs in the south east.

Personally if it was only purchased last July I’d go with the provisions in the sales of goods act and avoid a warranty repair by just demanding a complete refund.

To answer the OP’s question, Labour’s definition of “the rich” is anyone who is a high rate tax payer – despite the fact that now includes many nurses, teachers and other roles historically viewed as underpaid.

With earnings well over the threshold for 40% the OP is in fact too well off and without realising, part of the reason there is inequality in the UK.

The OP should vote for Ed if he wants to make up for his pariah like status because Ed knows how to spend your money better than you do – even if that means most of it in reality will just be wasted – which is precisely why Labour introduced the tax credit system to ensure that families on benefits can receive the same income as the OP’s net wage without actually having to work.

the root cause of the current problems has been long in the making and most of the “solutions” being proposed won’t actually fix the problems.

1. The NHS is still poor at caring for the patients with long term conditions. Too many of them still land up in A&E because their conditions aren’t proactively managed, and many of them repeatedly go back through A&E because even there the poor management of LTCs isn’t sorted properly 1st time. As the population ages, more people have LTCs and the problem is just going to get worse (and more expensive).

2. Under the last government the NHS budget rose from c£65B to £100B+ and some 400,000 extra staff were hired. Despite this the National Audit Office found that productivity fell every year for 10 consecutive years.

A lot of noise is being made now about the £20B efficiency saving programme (that was actually designed under the last government rather than the current one), but this still only recovers half of the productivity gain that should have been achieved naturally as a result of the additional staff that were recruited and doesn’t make any headroads into getting treatment right first time and improving flow, both of which avoid waste / rework / cost.

3. As the recent analysis of HES data by Deloitte shows, Bed blocking is in the majority of cases the direct result of poor management within the hospital and lack of effective communication between specialities.

Where it’s arising because of delays in discharge to social care / residential care the root cause is often the significant reduction in residential care home places under the last government – for years councils paid below the going rate for care homes with the result around 25% closed.

4. The “not invented here” mindset.

If we were starting out afresh, few people would design the NHS structure / organisations the way it’s currently set up.

The very design of the NHS results in massive duplication of non clinical roles and poor utilisation of extremely expensive buildings and specialist skillsets.

We need more care closer to home and more money going into primary care. As long as clinicians, politicians and the public are wedded to massive hospitals that we don’t actually need now given reductions in length of stay etc, the NHS is doomed to secondary care sucking in the majority of the funding and primary care services getting worse and worse.

Despite this, the majority of NHS staff and trade unions won’t accept the need for change and simply dismiss the learnings from other health systems where innovation and patient centred pathways have enabled better clinical outcomes to be achieved at lower cost.

We need a design for a new NHS based on evidence and learning from the best approaches worldwide. This represents our best chance for maintaining healthcare free at the point of use but with delivering improvements to clinical outcomes and equally importantly carrying the potential to re-create a great place to work for the many NHS staff who are currently overworked and feel unable to deliver the quality of care that gives them job satisfaction.

McKinsey’s report for the last government offers some good pointers for the sort of change that’s required:

http://www.nhshistory.net/mckinsey%20report.pdf

“Pay her your share each month and keep your primary residence as your other house to avoid tax.”

The OP won’t avoid tax that way. “Rent a room” only applies where the owner is resident, and any more than one room rented doesn’t count.

Is this where the OP tells us that he “forgot” to do a self assessment to declare the additional income?

are the Greeks going to vote next for more sunshine, less rain and a 500% increase in the price Europeans are willing to pay for Feta Cheese and Olives?

Is it any more likely that Syriza will deliver on these things compared to “ending” austerity?

samunkim – sorry but 600+ types of glove is proof of a lack of standard work / standard equipment – it’s nothing to do with “bull***t reports by tory lickspittals” because if you’d actually read the articles you’d have seen the source for the “waste” conclusion was actually the National Audit office.

As for M.C.I.Ps, if so many buyers are qualified, why is their such enormous waste in the procurement on goods and services? Are you seriously making a case that everyone including the National Audit Office are wrong in their evidence based conclusions of waste, and what are you comparing it to?

“I don’t think anyone has ever, anywhere claimed that Rotherham was isolated or unique”

Spot on. In fact the Children’s Commissioner said on record in December that the same sort of grooming was taking place in nearly all towns and cities in England – they were /are looking at another 16,000 children who are victims of grooming gangs.

The A&E Crisis is a good example of the challenge the NHS faces. Much of the recent commentary and proposed remedies by Trusts hasn’t been built off a detailed analysis of their own readily available data. The result of this is that the “problem” some Trusts are trying to solve is the wrong one, and the focus on the managing the associated root causes is in most cases just a waste of money and staff time.

This is one of the most detailed analyses I’ve seen and is built off the NHS’ own data.

http://blogs.deloitte.co.uk/health/2015/01/a-winters-tale-whats-really-causing-the-ae-crisis.html

“This suggests that solving the problem of availability of beds is not an A&E problem. It is a whole hospital problem that will only respond to whole hospital solutions. If the behaviour of the clinical community in the hospital is not coordinated with the demand from A&E (which it mostly isn’t) then there will be problems with finding the beds required for A&E patients (notwithstanding that most hospitals are making valiant efforts to try and resolve this challenge). Nevertheless, this last point is critical to attempting to resolve the A&E crisis. The biggest benefit might come from investments that don’t have anything to do with A&E. For example, better coordination of and more capacity in community care. But an even bigger gain should be possible with investment in real time bed management and better coordination of the flow through beds in the hospital, helping hospitals to improve control over the timing of discharges and avoid internal delays in the discharge process.”

We’ve heard a lot about “bed blocking” due to delays in arranging community care, but how much have we heard about internal delays in discharge management, even though is a bigger problem and fully owned by the Trusts?

the most recent conspiracy theory with Leon Brittan was that he had stood down as a non exec director of several banks because of the allegations regarding child abuse. What we now know is that he was in fact dying of terminal cancer – but you won’t hear any of the conspiracists having the integrity to apologise for what they were saying at the time.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/9444286/Hundreds-of-small-decisions-will-save-the-NHS-money.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14971984

The NHS buys 652 different types of glove. The lack of standardisation even on day to day low cost supplies is one of the reasons that £billions is wasted every year – it’s a free for all even on low cost items – when you look at the variance on expensive equipment like defibrillators you’ll find “purchasing managers” (that in many instances actually have no relevant experience or qualifications) that are buying the same item as the 3 miles Trust down the road but paying 5 times more. When the delta of prices paid by trusts per item is literally £10,000 or more it tells you something about the lack of planning and control.

Someone mentioned expensive drugs earlier in the thread – the actual facts show us that the UK spends amongst the lowest on medicines as a percentage of GDP and pays some of the lowest prices on branded and generic drugs in Europe – prices on patented drugs are currently also subject to a multi year price freeze.

I’ve been wavering on whether to sell my 2008 BadBoy Ultra if anyone is interested – it’s an upgraded model with full XTR, Mavic Crossmax 29 wheels and carbon bars / seatpost.

about £2.50 on three’s 123 payg tariff 😀

have to say that Ocado really sets the standard for online supermarket shops – we’ve not had any substitutions in the 4 months we’ve been using them.

The price really is cheaper than Tesco and Sainsburys as well – I made sure by checking against a selection of complete orders to see which supermarket had the lowest cost for the entire week’s shop.

“Introduce the new higher rate of income tax at 50% for incomes above £100,000,”

They don’t seem to even realise that the CURRENT marginal rate of tax at £100K to £120K is 62%.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/tax/10682583/Should-headteachers-pay-a-62pc-tax-rate.html

and “We believe that the Government’s projections for GDP growth are too high, and that tax receipts on existing policies in 2013 will be only £603bn (item 7 above), £14bn less than the Government’s assumed £617bn (item 2 above)“

so the current lot were out by 3% on their forecast, but much closer than nearly all leading economists and the IMF… what exactly was the green’s forecast in the same period?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10884632/Do-I-have-to-go-on-my-knees-grovelling-apology-from-IMF-head-for-incorrect-warnings-on-UK-economy.html

Wwaswas, the independent schools may have claimed tax relief to the tune of £100m or so but the additional cost to the state of educating their 615,000 pupils would be around £4.5b in direct costs and likely many more times that in capital costs to build the space required. £100m to save £4.5b seems like a pretty good return.

amongst their other bonkers destructive policies:

– membership and public support for proscribed terrorist organisations like Al Quaeda and the IRA will no longer be a criminal offence
– “inheritance” taxes will no be charged during life as well as on death
– the economy will be managed into decline so as to reduce consumption – with the goal being prolonged recession
– dope will be available for all, despite the knock on effect on mental health… but booze will be taxed much higher
– independent schools will pay corporation tax, almost certainly leading to the long term failure of the country as we “dumb down” to the lowest standard
– the BBC will be forced to show “educational” programming at peak time, irrespective of whether anyone wants to watch it
– advertising of holidays / holiday flights will be banned
– a vegan diet will be imposed on the population through “research, education and economic measures”
– Britain will leave NATO
– Large enterprise will be dismantled and we will all work for cottage industries

The Green’s seem as far removed from reality as much of the labour party whose policies are largely driven by populist politics of division, perfectly illustrated by the spat between Chris Bryant and James Blunt

Chris Bryant is a classist prejudiced wazzock

The thing is… what he said Medhi said (and Medhi denied) he does in fact appear to have said i.e. calling non believers Kuffir

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4hpfqFt-0Q – Non Muslims live like animals

http://my.telegraph.co.uk/saifrahman/saifrahman/129/mehdi-hasan-the-great-pretender-2/

Hague had a good stint in industry before politics though – he worked for McKinsey who generally employ only the very brightest of minds – McK tend to be the pipeline for industry CEOs so Hague is probably worse off than his peer group with “only” having achieved a £2.5m gaff in wales.

here’s another good example…

“PD432 We will end all subsidies to arms exports, close DESO (Defence Export Services Organisation) and the Export Credit Guarantee Department, and disband service units that presently demonstrate British defence equipment.”

So that pretty much wipes out a good 50,000 – 100,000 jobs in the UK, enough corporation tax to pay for the NHS for half the year and would wipe out a lot of development that leads to civilian applications via tech transfer and associated revenues for the country.

Having read through the Green’s “policies”, about a 1/3 are well intentioned, 1/3 would break the economy and the other 1/3 will only work with the help from the fairies at the bottom of the garden.

“PD302 On inspection, there is little or no threat of direct invasion of the UK by any nation. Commitment to a large standing army, a navy of large warships around our coastline, squadrons of fighter planes and a cripplingly expensive missile defence system is therefore unnecessary”

We can all feel safer now, what with the russian’s running regular military air sortie’s over UK airspace and sailing their subs into our coastal waters.

barclays are doing a 10 year fix for 2.99% which could be good for anyone not intending to move and who needs reasonably constant bills e.g. still has kids at home.

“40 minutes on hold. Urgh. Orange’s best deal is £19.99.

Tesco here I come.”

If you go Sim only then unlimited calls, texts and 5Gb data on EE is £16 a month. You also get the benefit of a network which enables you to use the data in most places – which surely needs to be factored into the o2 / tesco price given that o2 has the worst quality coverage and 2nd smallest coverage area for 3G?

Tesco use o2 who like vodafone are currently hovering around 50% 4G coverage and 92% 3G coverage. EE are at 80% 4G coverage and 98% 3G coverage.

If you mainly need a phone for voice calls go for Vodafone but if you need any data go for EE or Three.

Additionally, wifi calling on EE launches in March – it won’t require an app and just means that at home your phone will select Wifi or a cellular network depending which gives better speed / quality of voice calls… I’ve used the same technology in the states and it works really well.

Well this should make this year’s summer holiday destination choice easier – the Prime Minister of Turkey is now on record as saying that the massacre in Paris was actually staged by the French as an excuse to attack Islam and Muslims:

“The duplicity of the west is obvious,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a press conference on Monday evening. “As Muslims we have never sided with terror or massacres: racism, hate speech, Islamophobia are behind these massacres. The culprits are clear: French citizens undertook this massacre and Muslims were blamed for it,”

The leader of Turkey’s AK Party goes one better:

“Mossad [the Israeli intelligence service] is definitely behind such incidents?.?.?.?it is boosting enmity towards Islam.” Mr Gokcek linked the attacks to French moves towards recognising Palestine. And Ali Sahin, a member of Turkey’s parliament and foreign affairs spokesman for the AK party, last week set out eight reasons why he suspected the killings were staged so that “the attack will be blamed on Muslims and Islam”

This is just unbelievable but quite in line with last night’s BBC Panorama which focussed on the efforts of extremists in the UK to portray Islam as being “under attack” and thus justify their murderous ideology.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8e9e4ac6-9a6e-11e4-8426-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fhome_uk%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct&siteedition=uk#axzz3OhBm7ezU

I would have thought that unless alluding to a supplier and their subcontractors is specifically covered by the acceptable use / social media policy the grounds for a disciplinary are quite weak.

For Muslims to have bombed London on 7/7 and 21/7 (Wrong 91%)

Wow. So that’s only 9% or close to 1/3 million people who thought the bombings were “right” then. We can all sleep safer knowing that.

No it’ll hurt our freedom of speech and the meaning of democracy.

Personally I think that was fatally wounded when we allowed men to openly advocate the murder of Salman Rushdie and burn the Union flag on the streets of Britain without any consequences.

Home

You can set up ten categories / weekly spending targets then just track your spending through the website or smartphone apps. It remembers previous entries so after a few weeks of use just takes seconds to add a new entry.

I’ve got the following weekly budgets set up – each gets a budgeted amount added each week and once I’ve spent the budget amount I try to avoid spending any more. Underspends roll over which means you don’t have to worry too much about cash as long as you’re not overspending on the category.

House / Car – used for all household and car expenses
Food – used for weekly shops and any snacks
Work Food – food at work
Entertainment / Eating Out
Misc – used for odds and sods and “big purchases” for home
Bike (always shows a deficit)
Sell / Gifts – used to track income from stuff I sell and how much I spend on presents etc.
Holidays
Clothes
Mobile

This system works really well for me and meant that for the last 2 years I actually managed to save something.

BT again here…

cancelled the tv after 12 months but the box is ours to keep so all in:

70 meg broadband – £24 a month
line rental – paid yearly in advance – £144

total – £36 a month.

We already have amazon prime for loads of free films, and any “rentals” are £3.49 for new films.

“I’m a teacher and the latest lot of cuts are grim. No money for books, hardly any working computers in the school and no money to replace them, getting told not to print or photocopy, every pencil a prisoner. And then to cap it all the usual drive to improve results year on year from the same group of people pushing the cuts through.”

Funding for education has increased year on year faster than inflation over the course of the current parliament – it’s risen 10% in 5 years and appears reasonably stable in real terms.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/330717/PESA_2014_-_print.pdf

See data tables on page 20.

If the police were as racist as they are said to be I can’t believe I would have black friends who have spent their whole lives in London without ever being stopped and searched – I think they largely stop and search based on judgements around clothing (hoods up even on sunny days) or demeanour (acting in ways that appears suspicious, sometimes deliberately so to provoke a response).

Black people suffer greatly as victims of violent crime in London and their own accounts of the offenders suggest that young black men are disproportionately likely to be cited as the offender by black victims of crime. Just based on demographics young black men are therefore much more likely to get stopped and searched for the simple reason they account for around 3% of the population but are cited in 54% of street crime, 59% of all robberies and 67% of all gun crimes (all 2010 figures).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7856787/Violent-inner-city-crime-the-figures-and-a-question-of-race.html

if you’re planning to do anything other than voice calls and texts o2 and vodafone are hopeless.

Here are the latest coverage figures from Ofcom – check out their 3g landmass coverage compared to EE and Three:

It’s a 1.8% reduction in spending – hardly the end of the world. “Labour” areas are hit harder because they tend to be more deprived and thus have bigger budgets in the first place – so it’s hardly surprising that in cash terms the number is bigger.

How about a model aircraft?

Part of the reasoning is that someone already convicted for the murder told someone in prison that he concocted the story of the husband paying for the murder to cover up for the fact it was a robbery that had gone wrong. Neither of the two people in prison had anything to gain from sharing this information so it does seem to be significant in that it explains away many of the other factors of the case.

you need to be a bit careful – some 29er rims aren’t built to handle the high pressures of road tyres and may fail in use.

Binners, you wrote that tax receipts are down due to the number of jobs that are created with minimum wage/zero hours but I’m pretty sceptical about that.

My hypotheses is different – tax rates are now so high that there has been a surge in the number of people who choose to be self employed – many of these who can then use various techniques to minimise their real income and thus pay significantly less tax than someone earning the same as a salary which in many cases means they will pay net tax of around 22% compared to the 40% tax that more skilled roles would attract on a salaried basis.

The CIPD report on Zero Hours would seem to support this – its estimate is that only 1.3m people are on Zero hours, approx 3% of all workers. Within that 1.3m, around half are working a number of hours they are satisfied with i.e. if they were offered more hours they would not take them.

The Labour Force survey (which uses different data) seems to suggest the number of zero hours workers has increased by around 20% over the last 4 years, and as we already know, many of these contracts are in place in charities, the NHS and Labour run councils – so it’s not entirely a case of evil robbing capital firms using them.

http://www.cipd.co.uk/binaries/zero-hours-contracts_2013-myth-reality.pdf

By contrast, the number of self employed workers has now risen to close to 5m, with nearly 2/3 of all additional workers between 2008 and 2014 working this way.

What do you think?

Mitchell has already paid £300K in legal costs and now faces a further bill of £2m.

For an event in which there doesn’t appear to be much evidence other than proven evidence of a concerted and coordinated smear campaign by the police union, this outcome seems pretty strange.