Joe Biden: "The Most Underrated Presidency in Recent History" by Julain Zelizer for CNN.
"President Joe Biden has been consistently underestimated. Democrats performed exceptionally well by historical standards on Tuesday and Biden walks away having fared better than any other President in his first midterm since George W. Bush in 2002."
Joe Biden will stand again, unopposed. And he will probably win again in 2024.
Yes, but it’s because the GOP overreached and are self-destructing rather than down to Biden’s political genius?
Genius is putting it a bit strong, but his legislative achievements, considering the slim to non existent Senate majority, are considerable. And the administration has pursued a notably effective foreign policy. How much of that is Biden, and how much his team, is an interesting question.
He has been astute enough to recognise that he had a narrow window of opportunity before these elections and legislation may be much more difficult after them. In fact, it may not be as difficult as he anticipated if the Senate remains level but he was right to move fast.
Indeed - compare and contrast to Obama who had 60 senate seats (!) and a big house majority in his first two years but only managed to pass a half-baked health reform. Would have been a great time to pass voting protections, get Roe v Wade into law, sensible gun control, etc. A shocking waste in hindsight.
Yes, Clinton (H.) might have made a much better president in 2012. Possibly stopped Putin's ambitions with a tougher line in Syria too.
Hillary Clinton was a disastrous Secretary of State, and she'd have been a worse president. Her main contribution was Libya, where they proved to dictators everywhere that there was no point in doing a deal with the US, and the only way to protect yourself was with nuclear weapons.
There's no reason to think adding Syria to the US's list of wars would have helped deter Putin in Ukraine, and she and Obama just continued the worst-of-all-possible-worlds fence-sitting on Ukraine that got us where we are today, where they talked about the possibility of Nato membership enough to scare Putin and make him want to destabilize them, but not enough to give them any actual help defending themselves.
Surely Obama must take most of the blame for foreign policy while he was president? Weird how people give him a free pass, while calling Clinton a disaster for things that happened under his presidency. I mean, much as I dislike Jack Straw, it would be weird to blame him for the invasion of Iraq but not Tony Blair.
Sure, Obama shares the blame. But we know a bit about how the Libya policy got made since the people involved have written memoirs, and she seems to be the person who made it happen.
It’s strange watching the Ukraine war unfold the way it has done.
For most of my adult life, indeed probably my entire life, wars were generally either asymmetric affairs between a large imperial power and a guerrilla force in a weaker country, or civil wars within smaller nations.
Here we have an archetype of an early 20th century war. 2 nations fighting over territory with artillery, tanks and missiles. With a few drones thrown in for 21st century flavour. The last ever traditional territorial war in human history.
Trenches, attacks and counterattacks, towns being occupied then liberated, annexations, sieges, retreats, PoWs. And the casualty figures are huge and tragic. I read the reports from Kherson and wonder what it must feel like to be a soldier, trapped by the riverside, artillery fire raining down, not knowing whether I’ll survive the night. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
This war was completely avoidable, a war of choice based on a deluded vision and nostalgia for empire. I really hope it’s the last such event.
It looks as if several thousand Russians, along with a huge quantity of kit, are going to be trapped in Kherson and will have to surrender. There must be a real question as to whether or not Putin can survive this humiliation.
The wave of job cuts across the technology industry is a particular concern for Ireland and its finances, thanks to its huge exposure to tax revenue from multinational corporations.
The announcement from Meta Platforms Inc. that it’s cutting 13% of its workforce -- which would equate to about 350 roles in Ireland -- followed news of huge reductions at Stripe Inc. and Twitter Inc. That’s hundreds of jobs lost or at risk within days, with more expected.
I think that may well prove optimistic. The cuts do not have to be on a pro rata basis. There were rumours that Google might come out of Dublin entirely which is something like 3k jobs. These are the risks of a branch economy in hard times. It is a risk that the UK faces too with so much of our production now owned by foreign interests.
I'm told that Meta UK doesn't face a huge proportion of those cuts which are happening to SG&A (Ireland) rather than the core tech development (UK).
I think this will be the case across tech companies. There's a lot of fat to trim in revenue maintenance/operations which frees up cash for investment in the core product. The UK is probably best placed to benefit from this in Europe. Mainly because the UK serves as development hub for most American big tech and well over half of all European start ups. Branch offices that are selling or marketing locally will face very large cuts.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
R4 pushback on NEXT boss remarks yesterday “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and needs to pay his workers more”. David Goodheart of Policy Exchange. Suggests expanding the scheme for 18-30 year olds to come & work for 2 years that we currently have bilaterally with Aus/Nz/Japan/S.Korea unilaterally with EU27.
Non-reciprocal freedom of movement for EU workers? I'll chalk that up as another benefit of Brexit.
R4 pushback on NEXT boss remarks yesterday “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and needs to pay his workers more”. David Goodheart of Policy Exchange. Suggests expanding the scheme for 18-30 year olds to come & work for 2 years that we currently have bilaterally with Aus/Nz/Japan/S.Korea unilaterally with EU27.
Non-reciprocal freedom of movement for EU workers? I'll chalk that up as another benefit of Brexit.
Kelly in Arizona looks good for the win . In the governors race far too close there but it would be great to see Lake implode if she doesn’t win !
The question mark in Nevada is the composition of those votes put into drop boxes on Election Day .
The ED vote favoured the GOP in actual polling stations . There was some suggestions that the all important culinary Union was recommending the drop boxes so if their members followed that would help the Dems .
So the trend will be decided tonight . If the drop boxes break strongly for Casto then it’s all over for Laxalt .
Reading around online the Sunsynk seems to have better reviews than the growatt. Dunno if that outweighs the price difference though. Anyone have experience of these batteries ?
I have been quoted, via solar together the group buying scheme that a number of councils have pushed, £4900 all in for 3.3kWh pylontech battery with a solis ac inverter.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
Reading around online the Sunsynk seems to have better reviews than the growatt. Dunno if that outweighs the price difference though. Anyone have experience of these batteries ?
All fail the crap name test. Sunsynk ffs. Say what you like about Elon, a tesla powerwall sounds something you would want to spend money on.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
R4 pushback on NEXT boss remarks yesterday “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and needs to pay his workers more”. David Goodheart of Policy Exchange. Suggests expanding the scheme for 18-30 year olds to come & work for 2 years that we currently have bilaterally with Aus/Nz/Japan/S.Korea unilaterally with EU27.
Non-reciprocal freedom of movement for EU workers? I'll chalk that up as another benefit of Brexit.
Those deals are reciprocal.
The suggestion this morning was to make a non reciprocal offer to EU youngster just to overcome the issues and make goodwill gestures to the EU.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
And if you want to make good seven day use of expensive equipment, you need more staff full stop.
Again, there's an obvious block on that happening.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
This is true, but the idea that anyone can or should enter any medical field without realising that it has to function 24/7 on 365 days a year and that to be part of it is a vocation is hopeless.
It’s strange watching the Ukraine war unfold the way it has done.
For most of my adult life, indeed probably my entire life, wars were generally either asymmetric affairs between a large imperial power and a guerrilla force in a weaker country, or civil wars within smaller nations.
Here we have an archetype of an early 20th century war. 2 nations fighting over territory with artillery, tanks and missiles. With a few drones thrown in for 21st century flavour. The last ever traditional territorial war in human history.
Trenches, attacks and counterattacks, towns being occupied then liberated, annexations, sieges, retreats, PoWs. And the casualty figures are huge and tragic. I read the reports from Kherson and wonder what it must feel like to be a soldier, trapped by the riverside, artillery fire raining down, not knowing whether I’ll survive the night. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
This war was completely avoidable, a war of choice based on a deluded vision and nostalgia for empire. I really hope it’s the last such event.
It looks as if several thousand Russians, along with a huge quantity of kit, are going to be trapped in Kherson and will have to surrender. There must be a real question as to whether or not Putin can survive this humiliation.
Even if it is just half the quoted 20,000 troops (I suspect without their officers), and there's no way out as UKR forces have got their regular artillery in range of the river, that's going to be hard to hide in Russia.
Biden’s problem isn’t his effectiveness (which is, as many have said, low key impressive), but his weaknesses in messaging and presentation.
This pervades his whole administration, who give the impression of being somewhat tentative and unconfident. It is preventing it from being perceived as a genuinely impressive and deft administration, and helps breed the right wing attack lines of old, doddery, decrepit etc.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
Maybe negotiators should offer a 10% pay increase on condition the NHS becomes a 7 day a week service.
R4 pushback on NEXT boss remarks yesterday “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and needs to pay his workers more”. David Goodheart of Policy Exchange. Suggests expanding the scheme for 18-30 year olds to come & work for 2 years that we currently have bilaterally with Aus/Nz/Japan/S.Korea unilaterally with EU27.
Non-reciprocal freedom of movement for EU workers? I'll chalk that up as another benefit of Brexit.
Those deals are reciprocal.
Though the deal mentioned by Carlotta above would be unilateral. Because right now, we need people.
Given that reciprocal FOM was and is electoral hemlock, it's not gonna fly.
Joe Biden: "The Most Underrated Presidency in Recent History" by Julain Zelizer for CNN.
"President Joe Biden has been consistently underestimated. Democrats performed exceptionally well by historical standards on Tuesday and Biden walks away having fared better than any other President in his first midterm since George W. Bush in 2002."
Joe Biden will stand again, unopposed. And he will probably win again in 2024.
Yes, but it’s because the GOP overreached and are self-destructing rather than down to Biden’s political genius?
Genius is putting it a bit strong, but his legislative achievements, considering the slim to non existent Senate majority, are considerable. And the administration has pursued a notably effective foreign policy. How much of that is Biden, and how much his team, is an interesting question.
Given that there is significant overlap in the team between him and Obama but the latter was a dreadful foreign policy president it would suggest that either Biden has good judgement, Obama poor or both.
My guess is that having a Cold War warrior as President has been helpful in the current environment
Reading around online the Sunsynk seems to have better reviews than the growatt. Dunno if that outweighs the price difference though. Anyone have experience of these batteries ?
I had to reread that - I thouight for a moment God Almighty had joined PB.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
Is that so? Every government for the past few decades. Are we really sure that it's money that is the problem. Gordon Brown hosed the NHS with money why didn't the NHS decide to change it's practices then? I fear you are looking at the wrong place for blame. The NHS is NHS-centric, not patient-centric. Everyone who has spent 1 minute with the NHS knows that.
.@NicolaSturgeon continues to ignore public opposition and seeks to push through the Gender Recognition Reform Bill in under two weeks, demonstrating once again that she prioritises the approval of lobby groups over Scottish voters' concerns. 1/2
The polling is clear: this bill is not supported by the public. Principled MSPs have already voted against it and one has resigned, yet the First Feminist remains determined to undermine the sex-based rights of Scottish girls and women. 2/2
Sunak happily signing up to Climate Reparations are a sign of that.
Eh?
Rishi Sunak has dealt a blow to the developing countries hardest-hit by climate change by shunning appeals for the UK to contribute towards reparations for the natural disasters caused by hundreds of years of industrial pollution.
Ah, that was different to what was being briefed at the start of the week.
Good news for once.
Cumulative U.K. CO2 emissions since the start of the Industrial Revolution are less than 5% of the total in any case. The US & China are orders of magnitude the biggest. Good luck getting them to cough up! Unless you’re a virtue signalling regional politician in search of an international job…..
There was an article in the Telegraph this week pointing out China had put more emissions into the atmosphere in the last 8 years than we had since the start of the Industrial revolution.
They produced more steel in the last 2 years than we ever have.
Fair play to Sunak for standing up to this nonsense, unlike Starmer who won't.
Our electric consumption has increased by 50% since 1990 but our use of non renewables hasn't
Of course many of the groups who want these "reparations" would be the ones with a financial interest in seeing it through as they will be involved in projects using these funds.
Hence the howls of anguish when the aid budget was cut from various charities and NGO's.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
It is eye opening having to go into a hospital on a weekend daytime just how totally deserted it and the car park etc is. On a weekday it can be a case of queueing just to wait for the barrier to lift for a space to be available in the car park, on a weekend its deserted.
A total waste of money. A factory with the level of investment hospitals have wouldn't shut down just because its a Sunday.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
This is true, but the idea that anyone can or should enter any medical field without realising that it has to function 24/7 on 365 days a year and that to be part of it is a vocation is hopeless.
It's not just the doctors and nurses. That would include porters, physios, social workers (or whoever the almoners are called these days), secretaries, receptionists ...
R4 pushback on NEXT boss remarks yesterday “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and needs to pay his workers more”. David Goodheart of Policy Exchange. Suggests expanding the scheme for 18-30 year olds to come & work for 2 years that we currently have bilaterally with Aus/Nz/Japan/S.Korea unilaterally with EU27.
Non-reciprocal freedom of movement for EU workers? I'll chalk that up as another benefit of Brexit.
Those deals are reciprocal.
The suggestion this morning was to make a non reciprocal offer to EU youngster just to overcome the issues and make goodwill gestures to the EU.
That's just stupid, especially when the EU doesn't control this kind of deal anyway. They are on a national basis and we'd have to sign 27 separate ones. We could legitimately pick and choose.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
It is eye opening having to go into a hospital on a weekend daytime just how totally deserted it and the car park etc is. On a weekday it can be a case of queueing just to wait for the barrier to lift for a space to be available in the car park, on a weekend its deserted.
A total waste of money. A factory with the level of investment hospitals have wouldn't shut down just because its a Sunday.
But the patient demand can't be turned on and off like a factory. So it's never going to be optimal staffing, whether it's 7/7 or whatever. [edit] That's the classic excuse of the privatisers - run the service down till it is well beyond the sane operational level to take care of small scale fluctuiations, and blame the NHS model itself. I strongly suspect we are seeing the traffic queuing fallacy being used as a shield to attack the public medicine model.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
And if you want to make good seven day use of expensive equipment, you need more staff full stop.
Again, there's an obvious block on that happening.
There has been an increasing NHS budget every year since goodness knows when. The simple answer is that the NHS doesn't think it a good idea to go to 7-day working.
Senior doctors (this morning, R4) and previous health secretaries (Hunt) have mooted this to huge outcry.
It’s strange watching the Ukraine war unfold the way it has done.
For most of my adult life, indeed probably my entire life, wars were generally either asymmetric affairs between a large imperial power and a guerrilla force in a weaker country, or civil wars within smaller nations.
Here we have an archetype of an early 20th century war. 2 nations fighting over territory with artillery, tanks and missiles. With a few drones thrown in for 21st century flavour. The last ever traditional territorial war in human history.
Trenches, attacks and counterattacks, towns being occupied then liberated, annexations, sieges, retreats, PoWs. And the casualty figures are huge and tragic. I read the reports from Kherson and wonder what it must feel like to be a soldier, trapped by the riverside, artillery fire raining down, not knowing whether I’ll survive the night. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
This war was completely avoidable, a war of choice based on a deluded vision and nostalgia for empire. I really hope it’s the last such event.
It looks as if several thousand Russians, along with a huge quantity of kit, are going to be trapped in Kherson and will have to surrender. There must be a real question as to whether or not Putin can survive this humiliation.
Even if it is just half the quoted 20,000 troops (I suspect without their officers), and there's no way out as UKR forces have got their regular artillery in range of the river, that's going to be hard to hide in Russia.
The Russians have already blown the bridges across the Dnipro and announced a complete withdrawal.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
This is true, but the idea that anyone can or should enter any medical field without realising that it has to function 24/7 on 365 days a year and that to be part of it is a vocation is hopeless.
It's not just the doctors and nurses. That would include porters, physios, social workers (or whoever the almoners are called these days), secretaries, receptionists ...
Yes, absolutely.
As a starting point, making the existing five-day NHS take Mondays and Tuesdays off, rather than Saturdays and Sundays, would make a massive difference to the level of service in the minds of their patients, and productivity in the general economy.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
Is that so? Every government for the past few decades. Are we really sure that it's money that is the problem. Gordon Brown hosed the NHS with money why didn't the NHS decide to change it's practices then? I fear you are looking at the wrong place for blame. The NHS is NHS-centric, not patient-centric. Everyone who has spent 1 minute with the NHS knows that.
Gordon Brown hosed the NHS with money and... NHS health outcomes improved.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
Also the private sector can pick and choose. NHS has to deal with everything. (And my experien ce of being referred to specialist private dentistry was of markedly less efficiency than the NHS for a dental problem - very slow to deal with it. I was very lucky to get the series of ops completed before lockdown 1.)
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
Is that so? Every government for the past few decades. Are we really sure that it's money that is the problem. Gordon Brown hosed the NHS with money why didn't the NHS decide to change it's practices then? I fear you are looking at the wrong place for blame. The NHS is NHS-centric, not patient-centric. Everyone who has spent 1 minute with the NHS knows that.
Gordon Brown hosed the NHS with money and... NHS health outcomes improved.
Post-2010 they've got worse.
"Outcomes", eh? Are these the outcomes that have seen, as @Richard_Tyndall so acutely points out every time this topic come up, the NHS knock all metrics out of the park vs international peers save for the trivial areas of keeping people alive and making them better. Those outcomes? And he hosed it with money and every government since has increased NHS spending in real terms.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
It would cost a fortune to instil in the NHS a culture of responsibility towards its patients that I can probably agree with.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
It would cost a fortune to instil in the NHS a culture of responsibility towards its patients that I can probably agree with.
On the other hand, my distinct impression is that the private ops industry relies heavily on being able to dump post-op complications on the NHS. It would be good to have someone more knowledgeable comment on that point.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
Is that so? Every government for the past few decades. Are we really sure that it's money that is the problem. Gordon Brown hosed the NHS with money why didn't the NHS decide to change it's practices then? I fear you are looking at the wrong place for blame. The NHS is NHS-centric, not patient-centric. Everyone who has spent 1 minute with the NHS knows that.
The NHS is a vast vested interest. It is designed to give primary self-interest to the medical profession. Patients are often an inconvenient irritant.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
Is that so? Every government for the past few decades. Are we really sure that it's money that is the problem. Gordon Brown hosed the NHS with money why didn't the NHS decide to change it's practices then? I fear you are looking at the wrong place for blame. The NHS is NHS-centric, not patient-centric. Everyone who has spent 1 minute with the NHS knows that.
Gordon Brown hosed the NHS with money and... NHS health outcomes improved.
Post-2010 they've got worse.
I think you can argue whether Brown got value for money, but its undeniable that all the indicators have gone in the wrong direction since 2010.
Partly, the 2008 crash allowed a party into power who decided that reduced spending was needed to 'balance the books', conveniently forgetting that the national finances are NOT the same as Mr Micawber's. Its undeniable that the money available for the NHS in real terms has declined, and we have just had a once in a century pandemic that stretched resources beyond breaking point.
What I think I'd like to see is where our health spends is vs our comparable western European neighbours. Who gets the best value? Who gets the best healthcare? How is it funded?
I also want a grown-up electorate that doesn't say before an election that they would pay more for the NHS/social care and then when the election arrives reneges on it and chooses the party promising not to raise more tax. See Teresa May's disastrous campaign for recent example.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
It would cost a fortune to instil in the NHS a culture of responsibility towards its patients that I can probably agree with.
On the other hand, my distinct impression is that the private ops industry relies heavily on being able to dump post-op complications on the NHS. It would be good to have someone more knowledgeable comment on that point.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
It would cost a fortune to instil in the NHS a culture of responsibility towards its patients that I can probably agree with.
On the other hand, my distinct impression is that the private ops industry relies heavily on being able to dump post-op complications on the NHS. It would be good to have someone more knowledgeable comment on that point.
Not the case in my experience (n = 1).
Based on what I have heard about the general staffing, expertise etc. of some operators. Anything bnad goes wrong, it's off to the NHS.
Edit: not to say that youyr experiense is wrong.
But one corollary is that even private hospitals would have to reorganise themselves considerably if the NHS didn't exist.
Trump calls DeSantis a very 'average' governor and lacking in loyalty and class. Certainly suggests Trump ain't standing aside for Ron and will fight him all the way for the GOP nomination in 2024 and maybe beyond as an Independent if DeSantis wins that nomination
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
It would cost a fortune to instil in the NHS a culture of responsibility towards its patients that I can probably agree with.
On the other hand, my distinct impression is that the private ops industry relies heavily on being able to dump post-op complications on the NHS. It would be good to have someone more knowledgeable comment on that point.
Not the case in my experience (n = 1).
Based on what I have heard about the general staffing, expertise etc. of some operators. Anything bnad goes wrong, it's off to the NHS.
Sozza but we can't work with "based on what I have heard". Need some more evidence even if anecdotal would be a start.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
Is that so? Every government for the past few decades. Are we really sure that it's money that is the problem. Gordon Brown hosed the NHS with money why didn't the NHS decide to change it's practices then? I fear you are looking at the wrong place for blame. The NHS is NHS-centric, not patient-centric. Everyone who has spent 1 minute with the NHS knows that.
The NHS is a vast vested interest. It is designed to give primary self-interest to the medical profession. Patients are often an inconvenient irritant.
It has also achieved the extraordinary outcome in terms of PR that everything right with it is because of our marvellous NHS nurses and doctors, and everything wrong with it is the fault of 'the government'.
The NHS is a taxpayer funded quango; health care funding in the UK is not bigly out of line with the developed world.
The railway industry has always worked 24/7. Even at Christmas when the passenger services aren't running there are engineering works. Yes staff get a bit more for unsociable hours but the extra is not excessive and not voluntary.
76 is no great age, Trump is merely fat rather than grossly obese, and no sign of dementia. But perhaps a 44 year old will highlight the unreasonably high average age of US politicians.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
Also the private sector can pick and choose. NHS has to deal with everything. (And my experien ce of being referred to specialist private dentistry was of markedly less efficiency than the NHS for a dental problem - very slow to deal with it. I was very lucky to get the series of ops completed before lockdown 1.)
"NHS for a dental problem."
LOL you do realise that precisely 0.047% of the population is ever able to go near an "NHS Dentist".
In quotation marks because I have yet to confirm their existence.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
Is that so? Every government for the past few decades. Are we really sure that it's money that is the problem. Gordon Brown hosed the NHS with money why didn't the NHS decide to change it's practices then? I fear you are looking at the wrong place for blame. The NHS is NHS-centric, not patient-centric. Everyone who has spent 1 minute with the NHS knows that.
"The NHS is NHS-centric, not patient-centric."
Yes - the documentary from a few years back, Waiting for Superman, is well worth a watch.
If you view the NHS (and state schools) through the premise that these services are not primarily run for the benefit of the public but primarily for the benefit of the people that work within it things becomes much clearer.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
It would cost a fortune to instil in the NHS a culture of responsibility towards its patients that I can probably agree with.
On the other hand, my distinct impression is that the private ops industry relies heavily on being able to dump post-op complications on the NHS. It would be good to have someone more knowledgeable comment on that point.
Not the case in my experience (n = 1).
Based on what I have heard about the general staffing, expertise etc. of some operators. Anything bnad goes wrong, it's off to the NHS.
Sozza but we can't work with "based on what I have heard". Need some more evidence even if anecdotal would be a start.
Comments made by friends in uni who study such things (but are not medics or NHS employees). I wasn't paying particular attention at the time, bvut it is certainly an area which is more complex than the usual DM soundbite.
It's interesting that in the US, where birth by caesarean section by appointment is much more common than in the UK, there is a marked weekly cycle in birth numbers, with much lower numbers of births on the weekend. This is in a largely private healthcare system.
People don't want to work on the weekends if they can avoid it. If they have children they will want to spend time with them. Many social and community activities are scheduled on the basis of assuming that most people don't work on the weekends. If you want to have strong communities you need to provide space and time for them to function in. How many NHS staff volunteer for parkrun on a Saturday morning, for example?
It is not simply a matter of the NHS being a state monolith.
Maybe, despite that, it would make sense to employ more people, and to pay enhanced weekend rates, so that the NHS could operate on a 7-day basis. I'd guess that the main stumbling blocks are the overall shortage in staff, and that there are cheaper ways to expand capacity.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
It would cost a fortune to instil in the NHS a culture of responsibility towards its patients that I can probably agree with.
On the other hand, my distinct impression is that the private ops industry relies heavily on being able to dump post-op complications on the NHS. It would be good to have someone more knowledgeable comment on that point.
Not the case in my experience (n = 1).
Based on what I have heard about the general staffing, expertise etc. of some operators. Anything bnad goes wrong, it's off to the NHS.
Edit: not to say that youyr experiense is wrong.
But one corollary is that even private hospitals would have to reorganise themselves considerably if the NHS didn't exist.
Well that's an interesting point that no one was really advancing - the NHS not to exist. But plenty of other healthcare systems internationally don't have an "NHS" and they do pretty well. Save America, I belive.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
It would cost a fortune to instil in the NHS a culture of responsibility towards its patients that I can probably agree with.
On the other hand, my distinct impression is that the private ops industry relies heavily on being able to dump post-op complications on the NHS. It would be good to have someone more knowledgeable comment on that point.
Not the case in my experience (n = 1).
Based on what I have heard about the general staffing, expertise etc. of some operators. Anything bnad goes wrong, it's off to the NHS.
Edit: not to say that youyr experiense is wrong.
But one corollary is that even private hospitals would have to reorganise themselves considerably if the NHS didn't exist.
Yes. True. But private medicine is tiny and limited. It is not geared to be funded to the tune of 10% of the entire UK economy, to which all its users and non users contribute by taxes.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
This is true, but the idea that anyone can or should enter any medical field without realising that it has to function 24/7 on 365 days a year and that to be part of it is a vocation is hopeless.
It's not just the doctors and nurses. That would include porters, physios, social workers (or whoever the almoners are called these days), secretaries, receptionists ...
Yes, absolutely.
As a starting point, making the existing five-day NHS take Mondays and Tuesdays off, rather than Saturdays and Sundays, would make a massive difference to the level of service in the minds of their patients, and productivity in the general economy.
Just to check, though.
Would your intention be to keep everything else the same (pay etc), just changing the NHS week to Tuesday to Sunday? Because that's an awful lot less attractive to anyone with a partner who doesn't work in the NHS, let alone having children.
In a world where ancillary staff can go and work for someone else, and medical staff can go and work abroad, it would be a brave move for an employer to make.
Of course you're entitled to an opinion. By all means believe that doctors are paid too much money for too little work. Ultimately, the market works this out and the observation that there are massive recruitment problems leading to huge spending on agency staff says otherwise.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
Is that so? Every government for the past few decades. Are we really sure that it's money that is the problem. Gordon Brown hosed the NHS with money why didn't the NHS decide to change it's practices then? I fear you are looking at the wrong place for blame. The NHS is NHS-centric, not patient-centric. Everyone who has spent 1 minute with the NHS knows that.
The NHS is a vast vested interest. It is designed to give primary self-interest to the medical profession. Patients are often an inconvenient irritant.
And yet my GP in Germany is open 08:00 to 12:30 Monday to Friday, plus 15:00 to 17:30 Tuesdays and Thursdays. This can be annoying, but it's pretty normal.
If the NHS is exists just for the benefit of the medical profession that explains why there is such a massive surplus of medical professionals wanting to work for it.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
Also the private sector can pick and choose. NHS has to deal with everything. (And my experien ce of being referred to specialist private dentistry was of markedly less efficiency than the NHS for a dental problem - very slow to deal with it. I was very lucky to get the series of ops completed before lockdown 1.)
"NHS for a dental problem."
LOL you do realise that precisely 0.047% of the population is ever able to go near an "NHS Dentist".
In quotation marks because I have yet to confirm their existence.
We have NHS dentists for our family. Regular checkups etc.
Talking about a problem which in this case was looked at by a NHS hospital maxillofacial or oro-wotsit or whatever specialist in a general hospital.
Trump calls DeSantis a very 'average' governor and lacking in loyalty and class. Certainly suggests Trump ain't standing aside for Ron and will fight him all the way for the GOP nomination in 2024 and maybe beyond as an Independent if DeSantis wins that nomination
Whereas most Conservative media, from Fox News to the Murdoch press, has deciceively turned away from Trump and towards DeSantis in the past 48 hours. There’s little chance of coming back from there, politics is brutal sometimes.
It’s strange watching the Ukraine war unfold the way it has done.
For most of my adult life, indeed probably my entire life, wars were generally either asymmetric affairs between a large imperial power and a guerrilla force in a weaker country, or civil wars within smaller nations.
Here we have an archetype of an early 20th century war. 2 nations fighting over territory with artillery, tanks and missiles. With a few drones thrown in for 21st century flavour. The last ever traditional territorial war in human history.
Trenches, attacks and counterattacks, towns being occupied then liberated, annexations, sieges, retreats, PoWs. And the casualty figures are huge and tragic. I read the reports from Kherson and wonder what it must feel like to be a soldier, trapped by the riverside, artillery fire raining down, not knowing whether I’ll survive the night. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
This war was completely avoidable, a war of choice based on a deluded vision and nostalgia for empire. I really hope it’s the last such event.
It looks as if several thousand Russians, along with a huge quantity of kit, are going to be trapped in Kherson and will have to surrender. There must be a real question as to whether or not Putin can survive this humiliation.
Even if it is just half the quoted 20,000 troops (I suspect without their officers), and there's no way out as UKR forces have got their regular artillery in range of the river, that's going to be hard to hide in Russia.
The Russians have already blown the bridges across the Dnipro and announced a complete withdrawal.
Both of the Antonivskyi road and rail bridges are down, allegedly by the Russians themselves.
If they have done this, and there are still thousands of Russian troops on the other bank, then it's a reminder of Napoleon's chaotic withdrawal after the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, when a bridge was blown whilst troops were crossing, with thousands left to the mercy of the Cossacks.
It’s strange watching the Ukraine war unfold the way it has done.
For most of my adult life, indeed probably my entire life, wars were generally either asymmetric affairs between a large imperial power and a guerrilla force in a weaker country, or civil wars within smaller nations.
Here we have an archetype of an early 20th century war. 2 nations fighting over territory with artillery, tanks and missiles. With a few drones thrown in for 21st century flavour. The last ever traditional territorial war in human history.
Trenches, attacks and counterattacks, towns being occupied then liberated, annexations, sieges, retreats, PoWs. And the casualty figures are huge and tragic. I read the reports from Kherson and wonder what it must feel like to be a soldier, trapped by the riverside, artillery fire raining down, not knowing whether I’ll survive the night. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
This war was completely avoidable, a war of choice based on a deluded vision and nostalgia for empire. I really hope it’s the last such event.
It looks as if several thousand Russians, along with a huge quantity of kit, are going to be trapped in Kherson and will have to surrender. There must be a real question as to whether or not Putin can survive this humiliation.
Even if it is just half the quoted 20,000 troops (I suspect without their officers), and there's no way out as UKR forces have got their regular artillery in range of the river, that's going to be hard to hide in Russia.
The Russians have already blown the bridges across the Dnipro and announced a complete withdrawal.
The UKR forces had already throttled that - I think the idea that the Russians have organized an effective withdrawal is probably media management in the motherland. We've gone from UKR whispers being that the RU troops haven't left and are going to fight, to "the officers have left and the remaining RU forces are stranded". The videos that are starting to come out today, but are from the last couple of days seem to support that view. I imagine there will be considerable caution for a few more days until the picture is clear.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
Also the private sector can pick and choose. NHS has to deal with everything. (And my experien ce of being referred to specialist private dentistry was of markedly less efficiency than the NHS for a dental problem - very slow to deal with it. I was very lucky to get the series of ops completed before lockdown 1.)
"NHS for a dental problem."
LOL you do realise that precisely 0.047% of the population is ever able to go near an "NHS Dentist".
In quotation marks because I have yet to confirm their existence.
We have NHS dentists for our family. Regular checkups etc.
Talking about a problem which in this case was looked at by a NHS hospital maxillofacial or oro-wotsit or whatever specialist in a general hospital.
It's irritating that my NHS dentist often pushes me onto their hygenist for cleans and stuff at a cost £75 a pop cus the NHS doesn't cover this although, according the dentist, I need it.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
It would cost a fortune to instil in the NHS a culture of responsibility towards its patients that I can probably agree with.
On the other hand, my distinct impression is that the private ops industry relies heavily on being able to dump post-op complications on the NHS. It would be good to have someone more knowledgeable comment on that point.
Not the case in my experience (n = 1).
Based on what I have heard about the general staffing, expertise etc. of some operators. Anything bnad goes wrong, it's off to the NHS.
Sozza but we can't work with "based on what I have heard". Need some more evidence even if anecdotal would be a start.
Comments made by friends in uni who study such things (but are not medics or NHS employees). I wasn't paying particular attention at the time, bvut it is certainly an area which is more complex than the usual DM soundbite.
Can confirm from long term girlfriend who was a senior theatre nurse, NHS or Nuffield depending on pay and conditions. There's a reason private hospitals are next to NHS hospitals, because if it all goes horribly wrong on the private side you whisk the patient across the road. Her advice was for serious surgery, start in the NHS. Nuffield for jumping the new joints queue, and fresh orange juice.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
This is true, but the idea that anyone can or should enter any medical field without realising that it has to function 24/7 on 365 days a year and that to be part of it is a vocation is hopeless.
It's not just the doctors and nurses. That would include porters, physios, social workers (or whoever the almoners are called these days), secretaries, receptionists ...
Yes, absolutely.
As a starting point, making the existing five-day NHS take Mondays and Tuesdays off, rather than Saturdays and Sundays, would make a massive difference to the level of service in the minds of their patients, and productivity in the general economy.
Just to check, though.
Would your intention be to keep everything else the same (pay etc), just changing the NHS week to Tuesday to Sunday? Because that's an awful lot less attractive to anyone with a partner who doesn't work in the NHS, let alone having children.
In a world where ancillary staff can go and work for someone else, and medical staff can go and work abroad, it would be a brave move for an employer to make.
Of course you're entitled to an opinion. By all means believe that doctors are paid too much money for too little work. Ultimately, the market works this out and the observation that there are massive recruitment problems leading to huge spending on agency staff says otherwise.
Right-of-centre politics is meant to understand this.
Have we discussed money? The NHS is given plenty of money by the government. I haven't looked at Hunt's plans for a seven day service but I would have thought it would absolutely require a premium to work at weekends.
How do the police, fire, er, ambulance, railways, shopworkers, restaurant workers, London Eye employees, Worksop & District Municipal Parks wardens, etc do it?
In terms of votes the Republicans lead by 51.2 million to 46 million. That gap will narrow as California completes its counting, to something like 56 million to 54 million.
222/3 Republicans to 212/3 Democrats seems the likeliest outcome, now. And, Boebert will return to infest the House.
It’s strange watching the Ukraine war unfold the way it has done.
For most of my adult life, indeed probably my entire life, wars were generally either asymmetric affairs between a large imperial power and a guerrilla force in a weaker country, or civil wars within smaller nations.
Here we have an archetype of an early 20th century war. 2 nations fighting over territory with artillery, tanks and missiles. With a few drones thrown in for 21st century flavour. The last ever traditional territorial war in human history.
Trenches, attacks and counterattacks, towns being occupied then liberated, annexations, sieges, retreats, PoWs. And the casualty figures are huge and tragic. I read the reports from Kherson and wonder what it must feel like to be a soldier, trapped by the riverside, artillery fire raining down, not knowing whether I’ll survive the night. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
This war was completely avoidable, a war of choice based on a deluded vision and nostalgia for empire. I really hope it’s the last such event.
It looks as if several thousand Russians, along with a huge quantity of kit, are going to be trapped in Kherson and will have to surrender. There must be a real question as to whether or not Putin can survive this humiliation.
Even if it is just half the quoted 20,000 troops (I suspect without their officers), and there's no way out as UKR forces have got their regular artillery in range of the river, that's going to be hard to hide in Russia.
The Russians have already blown the bridges across the Dnipro and announced a complete withdrawal.
Both of the Antonivskyi road and rail bridges are down, allegedly by the Russians themselves.
If they have done this, and there are still thousands of Russian troops on the other bank, then it's a reminder of Napoleon's chaotic withdrawal after the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, when a bridge was blown whilst troops were crossing, with thousands left to the mercy of the Cossacks.
It’s strange watching the Ukraine war unfold the way it has done.
For most of my adult life, indeed probably my entire life, wars were generally either asymmetric affairs between a large imperial power and a guerrilla force in a weaker country, or civil wars within smaller nations.
Here we have an archetype of an early 20th century war. 2 nations fighting over territory with artillery, tanks and missiles. With a few drones thrown in for 21st century flavour. The last ever traditional territorial war in human history.
Trenches, attacks and counterattacks, towns being occupied then liberated, annexations, sieges, retreats, PoWs. And the casualty figures are huge and tragic. I read the reports from Kherson and wonder what it must feel like to be a soldier, trapped by the riverside, artillery fire raining down, not knowing whether I’ll survive the night. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
This war was completely avoidable, a war of choice based on a deluded vision and nostalgia for empire. I really hope it’s the last such event.
It looks as if several thousand Russians, along with a huge quantity of kit, are going to be trapped in Kherson and will have to surrender. There must be a real question as to whether or not Putin can survive this humiliation.
Even if it is just half the quoted 20,000 troops (I suspect without their officers), and there's no way out as UKR forces have got their regular artillery in range of the river, that's going to be hard to hide in Russia.
The Russians have already blown the bridges across the Dnipro and announced a complete withdrawal.
The UKR forces had already throttled that - I think the idea that the Russians have organized an effective withdrawal is probably media management in the motherland. We've gone from UKR whispers being that the RU troops haven't left and are going to fight, to "the officers have left and the remaining RU forces are stranded". The videos that are starting to come out today, but are from the last couple of days seem to support that view. I imagine there will be considerable caution for a few more days until the picture is clear.
There were a lot of claims about thousands of Russian troops trapped in Lyman, but in the end they were either never there, or most managed to retreat. I suspect that Russia will have managed to pull out most of its forces, although there will be some exceptions.
If many thousands have been stranded then that would be a major deterioration in the Russian ability to execute a retreat.
Trump calls DeSantis a very 'average' governor and lacking in loyalty and class. Certainly suggests Trump ain't standing aside for Ron and will fight him all the way for the GOP nomination in 2024 and maybe beyond as an Independent if DeSantis wins that nomination
Whereas most Conservative media, from Fox News to the Murdoch press, has deciceively turned away from Trump and towards DeSantis in the past 48 hours. There’s little chance of coming back from there, politics is brutal sometimes.
Trump will still get a large number of Republicans to vote for him in 2024 even if DeSantis wins the nomination.
Trump will also threaten to run as an Independent if he does not win the nomination most likely, which would hand the election to the Democrats on a plate due to a split Conservative vote.
It's interesting that in the US, where birth by caesarean section by appointment is much more common than in the UK, there is a marked weekly cycle in birth numbers, with much lower numbers of births on the weekend. This is in a largely private healthcare system.
People don't want to work on the weekends if they can avoid it. If they have children they will want to spend time with them. Many social and community activities are scheduled on the basis of assuming that most people don't work on the weekends. If you want to have strong communities you need to provide space and time for them to function in. How many NHS staff volunteer for parkrun on a Saturday morning, for example?
It is not simply a matter of the NHS being a state monolith.
Maybe, despite that, it would make sense to employ more people, and to pay enhanced weekend rates, so that the NHS could operate on a 7-day basis. I'd guess that the main stumbling blocks are the overall shortage in staff, and that there are cheaper ways to expand capacity.
There would be a very large cost premium to staffing at weekends, maybe not so much the medical staff who largely work 24/7 already (excluding specialists and consultants) but all the ancillary and clerical staff.
One of the reasons the NHS can get away with paying below market rates is that the hours can be made to fit around childcare. As soon as that stops then people like my girlfriend who have taken a pay cut to work for the NHS for convenience will just go back to their old professions because the hours and/or money are both better, and for many people it is the hours that are more important.
Speaking personally I wouldn't take a 24/7 job for any money. (Well, OK, any realistic amount of money. Offer me £1m for a year I might do it).
In terms of votes the Republicans lead by 51.2 million to 46 million. That gap will narrow as California completes its counting, to something like 56 million to 54 million.
222/3 Republicans to 212/3 Democrats seems the likeliest outcome, now. And, Boebert will return to infest the House.
One thing that I don't like is the large number of uncontested seats - looks like 22 without a Dem candidate and 12 without a GOP candidate.
Aside from making a national vote total harder to calculate it seems undemocratic to me.
Trump calls DeSantis a very 'average' governor and lacking in loyalty and class. Certainly suggests Trump ain't standing aside for Ron and will fight him all the way for the GOP nomination in 2024 and maybe beyond as an Independent if DeSantis wins that nomination
Whereas most Conservative media, from Fox News to the Murdoch press, has deciceively turned away from Trump and towards DeSantis in the past 48 hours. There’s little chance of coming back from there, politics is brutal sometimes.
Trump will still get a large number of Republicans to vote for him in 2024 even if DeSantis wins the nomination.
Trump will also threaten to run as an Independent if he does not win the nomination most likely, which would hand the election to the Democrats on a plate due to a split Conservative vote.
There is a cohort which will always vote Trump and never for anyone else. There is also a group who could never vote Trump but would vote for DeSantis.
Russia are building defences in Crimea. It seems that they think they will do well to even hold that.
Looking at those videos, my *guess* would be that the Russian withdrawal was pretty much complete as planned (I would not be surprised if they left troops behind to fight the Ukies).
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
Living in a mostly-private healthcare market, the outpatient facilities are totally rammed at the weekend - because that’s when there’s most demand for outpatient services! Why should I need to take a day off work for a minor appointment?
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
I use NHS, private dentist and recently reluctantly had a private operation as it was a choice between getting it done and retirement.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Yes but you might not want the NHS to operate at that level - it would cost a fortune on top of the fortune it already costs.
It would cost a fortune to instil in the NHS a culture of responsibility towards its patients that I can probably agree with.
On the other hand, my distinct impression is that the private ops industry relies heavily on being able to dump post-op complications on the NHS. It would be good to have someone more knowledgeable comment on that point.
Not the case in my experience (n = 1).
Based on what I have heard about the general staffing, expertise etc. of some operators. Anything bnad goes wrong, it's off to the NHS.
Sozza but we can't work with "based on what I have heard". Need some more evidence even if anecdotal would be a start.
Comments made by friends in uni who study such things (but are not medics or NHS employees). I wasn't paying particular attention at the time, bvut it is certainly an area which is more complex than the usual DM soundbite.
Can confirm from long term girlfriend who was a senior theatre nurse, NHS or Nuffield depending on pay and conditions. There's a reason private hospitals are next to NHS hospitals, because if it all goes horribly wrong on the private side you whisk the patient across the road. Her advice was for serious surgery, start in the NHS. Nuffield for jumping the new joints queue, and fresh orange juice.
All true. But the number of people I have encountered recently who have reluctantly gone private because the NHS is not working for them is large and growing.
Everyone knows the NHS is the best and only for critical emergency care. But for a private operation recently I would have had to retire.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
This is true, but the idea that anyone can or should enter any medical field without realising that it has to function 24/7 on 365 days a year and that to be part of it is a vocation is hopeless.
It's not just the doctors and nurses. That would include porters, physios, social workers (or whoever the almoners are called these days), secretaries, receptionists ...
Yes, absolutely.
As a starting point, making the existing five-day NHS take Mondays and Tuesdays off, rather than Saturdays and Sundays, would make a massive difference to the level of service in the minds of their patients, and productivity in the general economy.
Just to check, though.
Would your intention be to keep everything else the same (pay etc), just changing the NHS week to Tuesday to Sunday? Because that's an awful lot less attractive to anyone with a partner who doesn't work in the NHS, let alone having children.
In a world where ancillary staff can go and work for someone else, and medical staff can go and work abroad, it would be a brave move for an employer to make.
Of course you're entitled to an opinion. By all means believe that doctors are paid too much money for too little work. Ultimately, the market works this out and the observation that there are massive recruitment problems leading to huge spending on agency staff says otherwise.
Right-of-centre politics is meant to understand this.
Have we discussed money? The NHS is given plenty of money by the government. I haven't looked at Hunt's plans for a seven day service but I would have thought it would absolutely require a premium to work at weekends.
How do the police, fire, er, ambulance, railways, shopworkers, restaurant workers, London Eye employees, Worksop & District Municipal Parks wardens, etc do it?
Of course it's possible. The questions are what would it cost (because even if you think zero would be fair, fairness has nothing to do with it) and whether that cost is the best use of the money (Is it better to have a certain number of people working evenings and weekends or more people added to core hours? I don't know, but it's a choice.)
Trump calls DeSantis a very 'average' governor and lacking in loyalty and class. Certainly suggests Trump ain't standing aside for Ron and will fight him all the way for the GOP nomination in 2024 and maybe beyond as an Independent if DeSantis wins that nomination
Insufficient "loyalty" to HIM, he means and doesn't bother pretending otherwise. A gang boss mentality and proud of it. Why so many over there are fine with this - revel in it even - I do not know.
Any case, what a mess the GOP have gotten themselves into. Stick with Trump and lose in 24, or reject him and risk an even bigger loss if he decides his base is his personal property.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
Is that so? Every government for the past few decades. Are we really sure that it's money that is the problem. Gordon Brown hosed the NHS with money why didn't the NHS decide to change it's practices then? I fear you are looking at the wrong place for blame. The NHS is NHS-centric, not patient-centric. Everyone who has spent 1 minute with the NHS knows that.
The NHS is a vast vested interest. It is designed to give primary self-interest to the medical profession. Patients are often an inconvenient irritant.
And yet my GP in Germany is open 08:00 to 12:30 Monday to Friday, plus 15:00 to 17:30 Tuesdays and Thursdays. This can be annoying, but it's pretty normal.
If the NHS is exists just for the benefit of the medical profession that explains why there is such a massive surplus of medical professionals wanting to work for it.
Nope it is explained by extraordinarily incompetent staff demand planning by the UK teaching hospitals and the ridiculously exorbitant pensions that enable GPs to retire at 60 on pensions that are much higher than many professionals earn in fulltime work.
Couple of polls this morning, first a zany People Polling with Greens, LD and Reform all scrapping for third and Lab down to their pre conference levels, Con grubbing low 20s still Westminster Voting Intention:
Trump calls DeSantis a very 'average' governor and lacking in loyalty and class. Certainly suggests Trump ain't standing aside for Ron and will fight him all the way for the GOP nomination in 2024 and maybe beyond as an Independent if DeSantis wins that nomination
Whereas most Conservative media, from Fox News to the Murdoch press, has deciceively turned away from Trump and towards DeSantis in the past 48 hours. There’s little chance of coming back from there, politics is brutal sometimes.
Trump will still get a large number of Republicans to vote for him in 2024 even if DeSantis wins the nomination.
Trump will also threaten to run as an Independent if he does not win the nomination most likely, which would hand the election to the Democrats on a plate due to a split Conservative vote.
And lead to Trump being humiliated when he gets only 5% of the vote.
He's not someone who wants to be humiliated.
It would also destroy any hopes the Trump brats have of a political career.
It's interesting that in the US, where birth by caesarean section by appointment is much more common than in the UK, there is a marked weekly cycle in birth numbers, with much lower numbers of births on the weekend. This is in a largely private healthcare system.
People don't want to work on the weekends if they can avoid it. If they have children they will want to spend time with them. Many social and community activities are scheduled on the basis of assuming that most people don't work on the weekends. If you want to have strong communities you need to provide space and time for them to function in. How many NHS staff volunteer for parkrun on a Saturday morning, for example?
It is not simply a matter of the NHS being a state monolith.
Maybe, despite that, it would make sense to employ more people, and to pay enhanced weekend rates, so that the NHS could operate on a 7-day basis. I'd guess that the main stumbling blocks are the overall shortage in staff, and that there are cheaper ways to expand capacity.
There would be a very large cost premium to staffing at weekends, maybe not so much the medical staff who largely work 24/7 already (excluding specialists and consultants) but all the ancillary and clerical staff.
One of the reasons the NHS can get away with paying below market rates is that the hours can be made to fit around childcare. As soon as that stops then people like my girlfriend who have taken a pay cut to work for the NHS for convenience will just go back to their old professions because the hours and/or money are both better, and for many people it is the hours that are more important.
Speaking personally I wouldn't take a 24/7 job for any money. (Well, OK, any realistic amount of money. Offer me £1m for a year I might do it).
I think there are good reasons to move the NHS to seven-day working, but the way some people talk about it's as though they think it's an easy way to magic 40% of extra capacity into existence at zero additional cost.
And anyway, it's entirely pointless when the social care system can't deal with the current rate of patients working their way through.
Well above expectations. Market has it as -0.6% so expecting a real downturn, not just a minor one. We may now just see two quarters of minor recession with inflation falling by Q2 next year bringing relief for households and businesses. The Bank of England's doom forecast of a 2 year recession doesn't look realistic. They're suffering from Davos group think.
If it hadn't been for the Queen's death (to keep @TOPPING happy) we might well have not been in recession at all. Forecasts of a large increase in unemployment seem wide of the mark.
'preciated.
Meanwhile, extremely sensible doctor bloke on the radio saying how for starters the NHS needs to go to a 7-day week. Apparently last time this kite was flown (by the current CotE) there was a strike or threat of it.
Everyone knows that precisely nothing happens at the NHS from Friday pm to Monday mid-morning.
No wonder our health outcomes vs the rest are so useless.
If you want people to work unsociable hours like weekends and nights you need to pay them properly for it compensation. The government appears unwilling to do so.
This is true, but the idea that anyone can or should enter any medical field without realising that it has to function 24/7 on 365 days a year and that to be part of it is a vocation is hopeless.
It's not just the doctors and nurses. That would include porters, physios, social workers (or whoever the almoners are called these days), secretaries, receptionists ...
Yes, absolutely.
As a starting point, making the existing five-day NHS take Mondays and Tuesdays off, rather than Saturdays and Sundays, would make a massive difference to the level of service in the minds of their patients, and productivity in the general economy.
Just to check, though.
Would your intention be to keep everything else the same (pay etc), just changing the NHS week to Tuesday to Sunday? Because that's an awful lot less attractive to anyone with a partner who doesn't work in the NHS, let alone having children.
In a world where ancillary staff can go and work for someone else, and medical staff can go and work abroad, it would be a brave move for an employer to make.
Of course you're entitled to an opinion. By all means believe that doctors are paid too much money for too little work. Ultimately, the market works this out and the observation that there are massive recruitment problems leading to huge spending on agency staff says otherwise.
Right-of-centre politics is meant to understand this.
There are a lot of jobs where weekend working is now the norm. For example in retail, hospitality, transport, etc. This has changed over time, starting with relaxing the rules around Sunday trading.
To have an efficient business, with the use of expensive capital equipment, you need to sweat the assets by maximising use over the weekend - a steady utilisation approach.
Whereas, in a low capital but high workforce business, it is more important to keep your employees working efficiently and reducing time of work for illness etc - peaks and troughs.
This suggests that different parts of the NHS, with different capital/workforce requirements, should have varied patterns working.
It's interesting that in the US, where birth by caesarean section by appointment is much more common than in the UK, there is a marked weekly cycle in birth numbers, with much lower numbers of births on the weekend. This is in a largely private healthcare system.
People don't want to work on the weekends if they can avoid it. If they have children they will want to spend time with them. Many social and community activities are scheduled on the basis of assuming that most people don't work on the weekends. If you want to have strong communities you need to provide space and time for them to function in. How many NHS staff volunteer for parkrun on a Saturday morning, for example?
It is not simply a matter of the NHS being a state monolith.
Maybe, despite that, it would make sense to employ more people, and to pay enhanced weekend rates, so that the NHS could operate on a 7-day basis. I'd guess that the main stumbling blocks are the overall shortage in staff, and that there are cheaper ways to expand capacity.
There would be a very large cost premium to staffing at weekends, maybe not so much the medical staff who largely work 24/7 already (excluding specialists and consultants) but all the ancillary and clerical staff.
One of the reasons the NHS can get away with paying below market rates is that the hours can be made to fit around childcare. As soon as that stops then people like my girlfriend who have taken a pay cut to work for the NHS for convenience will just go back to their old professions because the hours and/or money are both better, and for many people it is the hours that are more important.
Speaking personally I wouldn't take a 24/7 job for any money. (Well, OK, any realistic amount of money. Offer me £1m for a year I might do it).
I think there are good reasons to move the NHS to seven-day working, but the way some people talk about it's as though they think it's an easy way to magic 40% of extra capacity into existence at zero additional cost.
And anyway, it's entirely pointless when the social care system can't deal with the current rate of patients working their way through.
I agree, it makes sense for services to be available when people want them. But we have to recognise there is a cost in that, and so far all the evidence is that people don't want to pay for it, on the whole.
In terms of votes the Republicans lead by 51.2 million to 46 million. That gap will narrow as California completes its counting, to something like 56 million to 54 million.
222/3 Republicans to 212/3 Democrats seems the likeliest outcome, now. And, Boebert will return to infest the House.
I am not particularly au fait with how party discipline works in the House, I feel much more clued up in terms of how the Senate works. I would have thought a House majority of 10 would be very unstable for actually passing much that the GOP leadership would want, but maybe the whipping operation is more effective there than here?
Certainly Pelosi seemed to manage OK with a small majority but then I think she has earned a reputation as a very strong congressional dealmaker.
Joe Biden: "The Most Underrated Presidency in Recent History" by Julain Zelizer for CNN.
"President Joe Biden has been consistently underestimated. Democrats performed exceptionally well by historical standards on Tuesday and Biden walks away having fared better than any other President in his first midterm since George W. Bush in 2002."
Joe Biden will stand again, unopposed. And he will probably win again in 2024.
Yes, but it’s because the GOP overreached and are self-destructing rather than down to Biden’s political genius?
Genius is putting it a bit strong, but his legislative achievements, considering the slim to non existent Senate majority, are considerable. And the administration has pursued a notably effective foreign policy. How much of that is Biden, and how much his team, is an interesting question.
He has been astute enough to recognise that he had a narrow window of opportunity before these elections and legislation may be much more difficult after them. In fact, it may not be as difficult as he anticipated if the Senate remains level but he was right to move fast.
Indeed - compare and contrast to Obama who had 60 senate seats (!) and a big house majority in his first two years but only managed to pass a half-baked health reform. Would have been a great time to pass voting protections, get Roe v Wade into law, sensible gun control, etc. A shocking waste in hindsight.
Yes, Clinton (H.) might have made a much better president in 2012. Possibly stopped Putin's ambitions with a tougher line in Syria too.
Hillary Clinton was a disastrous Secretary of State, and she'd have been a worse president. Her main contribution was Libya, where they proved to dictators everywhere that there was no point in doing a deal with the US, and the only way to protect yourself was with nuclear weapons.
There's no reason to think adding Syria to the US's list of wars would have helped deter Putin in Ukraine, and she and Obama just continued the worst-of-all-possible-worlds fence-sitting on Ukraine that got us where we are today, where they talked about the possibility of Nato membership enough to scare Putin and make him want to destabilize them, but not enough to give them any actual help defending themselves.
Careful now. It is PB treason to suggest Nato (and/or EU) expansion might have triggered Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
It’s strange watching the Ukraine war unfold the way it has done.
For most of my adult life, indeed probably my entire life, wars were generally either asymmetric affairs between a large imperial power and a guerrilla force in a weaker country, or civil wars within smaller nations.
Here we have an archetype of an early 20th century war. 2 nations fighting over territory with artillery, tanks and missiles. With a few drones thrown in for 21st century flavour. The last ever traditional territorial war in human history.
Trenches, attacks and counterattacks, towns being occupied then liberated, annexations, sieges, retreats, PoWs. And the casualty figures are huge and tragic. I read the reports from Kherson and wonder what it must feel like to be a soldier, trapped by the riverside, artillery fire raining down, not knowing whether I’ll survive the night. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
This war was completely avoidable, a war of choice based on a deluded vision and nostalgia for empire. I really hope it’s the last such event.
It looks as if several thousand Russians, along with a huge quantity of kit, are going to be trapped in Kherson and will have to surrender. There must be a real question as to whether or not Putin can survive this humiliation.
Even if it is just half the quoted 20,000 troops (I suspect without their officers), and there's no way out as UKR forces have got their regular artillery in range of the river, that's going to be hard to hide in Russia.
The Russians have already blown the bridges across the Dnipro and announced a complete withdrawal.
The UKR forces had already throttled that - I think the idea that the Russians have organized an effective withdrawal is probably media management in the motherland. We've gone from UKR whispers being that the RU troops haven't left and are going to fight, to "the officers have left and the remaining RU forces are stranded". The videos that are starting to come out today, but are from the last couple of days seem to support that view. I imagine there will be considerable caution for a few more days until the picture is clear.
Media management is now focused on blaming the generals, and very definitely not on the guy actually calling the shots.
Trump calls DeSantis a very 'average' governor and lacking in loyalty and class. Certainly suggests Trump ain't standing aside for Ron and will fight him all the way for the GOP nomination in 2024 and maybe beyond as an Independent if DeSantis wins that nomination
Whereas most Conservative media, from Fox News to the Murdoch press, has deciceively turned away from Trump and towards DeSantis in the past 48 hours. There’s little chance of coming back from there, politics is brutal sometimes.
Trump will still get a large number of Republicans to vote for him in 2024 even if DeSantis wins the nomination.
Trump will also threaten to run as an Independent if he does not win the nomination most likely, which would hand the election to the Democrats on a plate due to a split Conservative vote.
And lead to Trump being humiliated when he gets only 5% of the vote.
He's not someone who wants to be humiliated.
It would also destroy any hopes the Trump brats have of a political career.
It's interesting that in the US, where birth by caesarean section by appointment is much more common than in the UK, there is a marked weekly cycle in birth numbers, with much lower numbers of births on the weekend. This is in a largely private healthcare system.
People don't want to work on the weekends if they can avoid it. If they have children they will want to spend time with them. Many social and community activities are scheduled on the basis of assuming that most people don't work on the weekends. If you want to have strong communities you need to provide space and time for them to function in. How many NHS staff volunteer for parkrun on a Saturday morning, for example?
It is not simply a matter of the NHS being a state monolith.
Maybe, despite that, it would make sense to employ more people, and to pay enhanced weekend rates, so that the NHS could operate on a 7-day basis. I'd guess that the main stumbling blocks are the overall shortage in staff, and that there are cheaper ways to expand capacity.
There would be a very large cost premium to staffing at weekends, maybe not so much the medical staff who largely work 24/7 already (excluding specialists and consultants) but all the ancillary and clerical staff.
One of the reasons the NHS can get away with paying below market rates is that the hours can be made to fit around childcare. As soon as that stops then people like my girlfriend who have taken a pay cut to work for the NHS for convenience will just go back to their old professions because the hours and/or money are both better, and for many people it is the hours that are more important.
Speaking personally I wouldn't take a 24/7 job for any money. (Well, OK, any realistic amount of money. Offer me £1m for a year I might do it).
I think there are good reasons to move the NHS to seven-day working, but the way some people talk about it's as though they think it's an easy way to magic 40% of extra capacity into existence at zero additional cost.
And anyway, it's entirely pointless when the social care system can't deal with the current rate of patients working their way through.
I've experienced too much of the NHS from a patient perspective in my life. I don't think there is a direction of travel to make the NHS a 7 day service, aside from A&E etc. Peoples work life balance is important too, including those who work for the NHS.
Where there could be movement is things such as MRI scanners etc. These should be in use 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The costs of running them don't stop at 5.00pm, you don't turn off a superconducting magnet for the weekend.
Not having things at the weekend can have consequences. During cancer treatment I ended up staying in a isolation from a couple of days longer than I needed because bloods weren't taken that should have been. Did it matter? Ultimately not, but I was hogging an isolation bed for no genuine reason at that point.
There's already a shortage of staff in the NHS. Huge numbers of NHS workers of all types have young kids and would like to see them at weekends. So weekend working is likely to exacerbate the shortage as people leave or don't apply in the first place. It's a real conundrum.
It's not like train drivers or supermarket workers, for example, who apply for those jobs knowing that weekend shifts are involved.
It's interesting that in the US, where birth by caesarean section by appointment is much more common than in the UK, there is a marked weekly cycle in birth numbers, with much lower numbers of births on the weekend. This is in a largely private healthcare system.
People don't want to work on the weekends if they can avoid it. If they have children they will want to spend time with them. Many social and community activities are scheduled on the basis of assuming that most people don't work on the weekends. If you want to have strong communities you need to provide space and time for them to function in. How many NHS staff volunteer for parkrun on a Saturday morning, for example?
It is not simply a matter of the NHS being a state monolith.
Maybe, despite that, it would make sense to employ more people, and to pay enhanced weekend rates, so that the NHS could operate on a 7-day basis. I'd guess that the main stumbling blocks are the overall shortage in staff, and that there are cheaper ways to expand capacity.
There would be a very large cost premium to staffing at weekends, maybe not so much the medical staff who largely work 24/7 already (excluding specialists and consultants) but all the ancillary and clerical staff.
One of the reasons the NHS can get away with paying below market rates is that the hours can be made to fit around childcare. As soon as that stops then people like my girlfriend who have taken a pay cut to work for the NHS for convenience will just go back to their old professions because the hours and/or money are both better, and for many people it is the hours that are more important.
Speaking personally I wouldn't take a 24/7 job for any money. (Well, OK, any realistic amount of money. Offer me £1m for a year I might do it).
I think there are good reasons to move the NHS to seven-day working, but the way some people talk about it's as though they think it's an easy way to magic 40% of extra capacity into existence at zero additional cost.
And anyway, it's entirely pointless when the social care system can't deal with the current rate of patients working their way through.
I agree, it makes sense for services to be available when people want them. But we have to recognise there is a cost in that, and so far all the evidence is that people don't want to pay for it, on the whole.
The way to do it within the current cost envelope would be to close 2/7ths of the current hospitals and operate the remaining sites 7 days instead of 5. But that then damages the convenience argument because a lot of people would have to travel a lot further.
So why does it take California so long to count its votes ?
And I wonder if the attack on Paul Pelosi had an effect - not the attack itself but the gleeful MAGA reaction to it.
"How long after Election Day will ballots still count if postmarked by Election Day?
California has extended the time that vote-by-mail ballots can arrive to county elections offices for this election. Vote-by-mail ballots postmarked on or before Election Day can arrive up to 17 days after Election Day and be counted."
In terms of votes the Republicans lead by 51.2 million to 46 million. That gap will narrow as California completes its counting, to something like 56 million to 54 million.
222/3 Republicans to 212/3 Democrats seems the likeliest outcome, now. And, Boebert will return to infest the House.
I am not particularly au fait with how party discipline works in the House, I feel much more clued up in terms of how the Senate works. I would have thought a House majority of 10 would be very unstable for actually passing much that the GOP leadership would want, but maybe the whipping operation is more effective there than here?
Certainly Pelosi seemed to manage OK with a small majority but then I think she has earned a reputation as a very strong congressional dealmaker.
I imagine lots of deal making.
Biden gets some of what he wants in return for the moderate GOP getting some of what they want.
Comments
It looks as if several thousand Russians, along with a huge quantity of kit, are going to be trapped in Kherson and will have to surrender. There must be a real question as to whether or not Putin can survive this humiliation.
Quite illuminating, especially to those claiming Irish GDP per capita was so far ahead of the UK.
Does the NHS exist primarily for the benefit of its customers, or the convenience of its staff?
The question mark in Nevada is the composition of those votes put into drop boxes on Election Day .
The ED vote favoured the GOP in actual polling stations . There was some suggestions that the all important culinary Union was recommending the drop boxes so if their members followed that would help the Dems .
So the trend will be decided tonight . If the drop boxes break strongly for Casto then it’s all over for Laxalt .
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1590956804854497281?s=20&t=L0-vL-mVyEQc27uPCL4HoA
Your quotes do not seem unreasonable.
The difference in culture is absolutely staggering. Basically in the NHS the system (especially admin aspects and front of house) steers towards the idea that the system is doing you a favour; in the other sector you are the customer and they are to providing a service, which they do reliably and well.
Again, there's an obvious block on that happening.
This pervades his whole administration, who give the impression of being somewhat tentative and unconfident. It is preventing it from being perceived as a genuinely impressive and deft administration, and helps breed the right wing attack lines of old, doddery, decrepit etc.
Given that reciprocal FOM was and is electoral hemlock, it's not gonna fly.
My guess is that having a Cold War warrior as President has been helpful in the current environment
They produced more steel in the last 2 years than we ever have.
Fair play to Sunak for standing up to this nonsense, unlike Starmer who won't.
Our electric consumption has increased by 50% since 1990 but our use of non renewables hasn't
Of course many of the groups who want these "reparations" would be the ones with a financial interest in seeing it through as they will be involved in projects using these funds.
Hence the howls of anguish when the aid budget was cut from various charities and NGO's.
A total waste of money. A factory with the level of investment hospitals have wouldn't shut down just because its a Sunday.
Senior doctors (this morning, R4) and previous health secretaries (Hunt) have mooted this to huge outcry.
As a starting point, making the existing five-day NHS take Mondays and Tuesdays off, rather than Saturdays and Sundays, would make a massive difference to the level of service in the minds of their patients, and productivity in the general economy.
Post-2010 they've got worse.
Partly, the 2008 crash allowed a party into power who decided that reduced spending was needed to 'balance the books', conveniently forgetting that the national finances are NOT the same as Mr Micawber's. Its undeniable that the money available for the NHS in real terms has declined, and we have just had a once in a century pandemic that stretched resources beyond breaking point.
What I think I'd like to see is where our health spends is vs our comparable western European neighbours. Who gets the best value? Who gets the best healthcare? How is it funded?
I also want a grown-up electorate that doesn't say before an election that they would pay more for the NHS/social care and then when the election arrives reneges on it and chooses the party promising not to raise more tax. See Teresa May's disastrous campaign for recent example.
Edit: not to say that youyr experiense is wrong.
But one corollary is that even private hospitals would have to reorganise themselves considerably if the NHS didn't exist.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63593457
The NHS is a taxpayer funded quango; health care funding in the UK is not bigly out of line with the developed world.
LOL you do realise that precisely 0.047% of the population is ever able to go near an "NHS Dentist".
In quotation marks because I have yet to confirm their existence.
Yes - the documentary from a few years back, Waiting for Superman, is well worth a watch.
If you view the NHS (and state schools) through the premise that these services are not primarily run for the benefit of the public but primarily for the benefit of the people that work within it things becomes much clearer.
People don't want to work on the weekends if they can avoid it. If they have children they will want to spend time with them. Many social and community activities are scheduled on the basis of assuming that most people don't work on the weekends. If you want to have strong communities you need to provide space and time for them to function in. How many NHS staff volunteer for parkrun on a Saturday morning, for example?
It is not simply a matter of the NHS being a state monolith.
Maybe, despite that, it would make sense to employ more people, and to pay enhanced weekend rates, so that the NHS could operate on a 7-day basis. I'd guess that the main stumbling blocks are the overall shortage in staff, and that there are cheaper ways to expand capacity.
Would your intention be to keep everything else the same (pay etc), just changing the NHS week to Tuesday to Sunday? Because that's an awful lot less attractive to anyone with a partner who doesn't work in the NHS, let alone having children.
In a world where ancillary staff can go and work for someone else, and medical staff can go and work abroad, it would be a brave move for an employer to make.
Of course you're entitled to an opinion. By all means believe that doctors are paid too much money for too little work. Ultimately, the market works this out and the observation that there are massive recruitment problems leading to huge spending on agency staff says otherwise.
From today's news:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-63588959
Right-of-centre politics is meant to understand this.
If the NHS is exists just for the benefit of the medical profession that explains why there is such a massive surplus of medical professionals wanting to work for it.
Talking about a problem which in this case was looked at by a NHS hospital maxillofacial or oro-wotsit or whatever specialist in a general hospital.
https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1590987929295654913
If they have done this, and there are still thousands of Russian troops on the other bank, then it's a reminder of Napoleon's chaotic withdrawal after the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, when a bridge was blown whilst troops were crossing, with thousands left to the mercy of the Cossacks.
How do the police, fire, er, ambulance, railways, shopworkers, restaurant workers, London Eye employees, Worksop & District Municipal Parks wardens, etc do it?
222/3 Republicans to 212/3 Democrats seems the likeliest outcome, now. And, Boebert will return to infest the House.
If many thousands have been stranded then that would be a major deterioration in the Russian ability to execute a retreat.
Video showing damage to the Antonovsky Bridge after it was destroyed by Russian forces.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1591003415651311616
Russia are building defences in Crimea. It seems that they think they will do well to even hold that.
Trump will also threaten to run as an Independent if he does not win the nomination most likely, which would hand the election to the Democrats on a plate due to a split Conservative vote.
One of the reasons the NHS can get away with paying below market rates is that the hours can be made to fit around childcare. As soon as that stops then people like my girlfriend who have taken a pay cut to work for the NHS for convenience will just go back to their old professions because the hours and/or money are both better, and for many people it is the hours that are more important.
Speaking personally I wouldn't take a 24/7 job for any money. (Well, OK, any realistic amount of money. Offer me £1m for a year I might do it).
Aside from making a national vote total harder to calculate it seems undemocratic to me.
It is quite an achievement to already be a potential President nominee when your birth year is 2066 !
It's difficult to know how this settles out.
And I wonder if the attack on Paul Pelosi had an effect - not the attack itself but the gleeful MAGA reaction to it.
Shame.
Everyone knows the NHS is the best and only for critical emergency care. But for a private operation recently I would have had to retire.
Any case, what a mess the GOP have gotten themselves into. Stick with Trump and lose in 24, or reject him and risk an even bigger loss if he decides his base is his personal property.
Feel very sorry for the GOP.
Westminster Voting Intention:
LAB: 42% (-5)
CON: 21% (=)
LDM: 9% (-1)
GRN: 9% (+2)
REF: 8% (+3)
SNP: 5% (=)
Via @PeoplePolling, On 9 November,
Changes w/ 1 November.
He's not someone who wants to be humiliated.
It would also destroy any hopes the Trump brats have of a political career.
Westminster Voting Intention:
LAB: 49% (=)
CON: 30% (+1)
LDM: 8% (-1)
GRN: 4% (=)
SNP: 4% (=)
Via @techneUK, On 9-10 November,
Changes w/ 2-3 November.
And anyway, it's entirely pointless when the social care system can't deal with the current rate of patients working their way through.
Also reports of attacks on the dam at Kakhovska overnight.
Anyhoo. Even flexible work needs to be done. Laters.
To have an efficient business, with the use of expensive capital equipment, you need to sweat the assets by maximising use over the weekend - a steady utilisation approach.
Whereas, in a low capital but high workforce business, it is more important to keep your employees working efficiently and reducing time of work for illness etc - peaks and troughs.
This suggests that different parts of the NHS, with different capital/workforce requirements, should have varied patterns working.
Certainly Pelosi seemed to manage OK with a small majority but then I think she has earned a reputation as a very strong congressional dealmaker.
This is the angriest Solovyev I've ever seen.
https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1590827196079550464
Where there could be movement is things such as MRI scanners etc. These should be in use 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The costs of running them don't stop at 5.00pm, you don't turn off a superconducting magnet for the weekend.
Not having things at the weekend can have consequences. During cancer treatment I ended up staying in a isolation from a couple of days longer than I needed because bloods weren't taken that should have been. Did it matter? Ultimately not, but I was hogging an isolation bed for no genuine reason at that point.
It's not like train drivers or supermarket workers, for example, who apply for those jobs knowing that weekend shifts are involved.
California has extended the time that vote-by-mail ballots can arrive to county elections offices for this election. Vote-by-mail ballots postmarked on or before Election Day can arrive up to 17 days after Election Day and be counted."
Biden gets some of what he wants in return for the moderate GOP getting some of what they want.
With the MAGA GOP getting even more angry.