On the subject of missing workers and part time working.
A relative rubs a building business. He tells me that a serious problem for him now is people who are working x hours a week, could do more, but won’t.
Because their benefits would get withdrawn at suck a rate that they would, in effect, by working for pennies to the hour.
So he has to hire more people, which is much less efficient.
Of course official unemployment is actually rather low. How much increase in part time working has there been?
Morning all! On topic I cannot see a winning outcome either for the Tories or for their remaining desperate shills like the Daily Mail. Of all the groups they could attack, nurses is worses. They are not going to persuade people that the nurses are some militant commie group trying to bring down the country. Nor that the unaffiliated RCN is Labour's puppetmaster. Nor that refusal to negotiate is them being reasonable.
So ultimately the government will back down and will lose. And in all the time it sit there sniffily attacking the perfidious NHS heroes it provides succour to the unions who really are trying to bring down the country.
What they should have done was agreed to negotiate, avoided the strikes completely, and quietly reached a compromise whilst contrasting the heroic nurses against the evil train people. Instead we have this. Sunak is a spanner.
Same goes for the ambulance drivers. They are going out of their way to try and make sure that they don't end up killing people (for obvious reasons both humanitarian and public relations) and all the Trusts/Unions have procedures in place where they can ask for staff from the picket line if there are emergency cases to be answered.
These are not militant, politically motivated actions, they are a cry for help. I just don't see any way that Sunak wins, all the more so if he does 'win' in the dispute. Not least because he will draw exactly the wrong conclusion from such a 'victory'.
Nobody is going to "win", least of all the taxpayer and the patient. The reality is that the NHS is an anachronism. It is a system that has evolved to favour the vested interests rather than the patient. The best way to reward the staff would be to first completely decentralise all of it. Sadly this will never happen as there are still plenty of gullible fools who really believe it is "the envy of the world".
The NHS used to be the "envy of the world" and it still was at the end of the last Labour government when public satisfaction with the NHS had reached an all time record high. Compare and contrast, 12 years on.
Essentially it is down to cash. Spending on health as a proportion of GDP is the key measure. We have always had health on the cheap in the UK, because the health service is relatively efficient especially compared to private and insurance based systems. The gap between the UK and other developed countries did narrow slightly with the investment under Labour, but spending on health in the UK has fallen behind badly since then. The cash simply hasn't been there to meet the rising demand of an ageing population.
The NHS was only "envy of the world" amongst those who had never experienced health systems elsewhere in Europe. Those of us who had didn't believe the hype then and certainly don't believe it now.
I thought the ‘free at the point of use’ was the unique thing about the NHS.
No, it isn’t.
To start with, it isn’t entirely free. Prescription charges, for example.
But in much of the developed world you get a lot medical treatment for the asking, without any insurance style excess payment.
Meanwhile, whilst the denizens of PB were telling each other whatever they had been telling each other for the previous X years, NHS England had quietly increased the number of nurses by 11% between Aug 2019 and Aug 2022.
From 287,458 in Aug 2019 to 319,616 in Aug 2022. FTE equivalent numbers for nurses and health visitors in NHS England.
Before anyone asks, Doctors are up by 13% over the same period. And it's a very nice interactive tool.
On the headline numbers it looks like a sticky wicket for the nursing unions.
I have no idea what the numbers are for SWNI, or whether they publish any timely or relevant data.
It's sunny; I need to go on the roof an investigate a suspicious sounding scratching noise heard last night.
Have a nice day, all.
Which opens up a very interesting question - how if staff numbers are rising (and elsewhere there is evidence that there are more GP appointments than ever before) is the NHS in such a mess.
Particularly given that the number of staff vacancies is also increasing. Currently there are 47,000 nurse vacancies in England - the highest on record and equivalent to 13% of the workforce. Numbers for GP vacancies are similar - around 12% of the workforce and predicted to rise to 25% by the end of the decade. .
GPs are hardly pay constrained. And it seems quite cushty to me compared to being a hospital doctor in all honesty.
I don't begin to understand the reasons for the shortages and it is not my job to solve them but clearly there is a massive issue and those who are supposed to understand these things are failing to address them.
I think any massive issue, if it exists, is around unlimited and ill-defined expectations. It is also around a need for particular political narratives.
As for current COVID recovery issues, there is a recovery plan which afaics is working its way through longer waits etc, to the extent that the longest delays (2, 3 year) have now been eliminated. When you lose an entire 6 months of work (see the activity stats I posted last week), it doesn't get recovered in 6 months or a year.
I posted on my expectations some detail last evening, so I won't repeat any of it here.
When I check international comparative surveys (eg Commonwealth Institute), the NHS seems to come out fairly well.
I think we need some comparative numbers for recovery of European Health Services post Covid, and data for different nations within the UK. Rose tinted spectacles about other places are not, shall we say, unusual.
And now I really do need to go and plan for this shivering Roland looking for a warm roof to hide in.
Morning all! On topic I cannot see a winning outcome either for the Tories or for their remaining desperate shills like the Daily Mail. Of all the groups they could attack, nurses is worses. They are not going to persuade people that the nurses are some militant commie group trying to bring down the country. Nor that the unaffiliated RCN is Labour's puppetmaster. Nor that refusal to negotiate is them being reasonable.
So ultimately the government will back down and will lose. And in all the time it sit there sniffily attacking the perfidious NHS heroes it provides succour to the unions who really are trying to bring down the country.
What they should have done was agreed to negotiate, avoided the strikes completely, and quietly reached a compromise whilst contrasting the heroic nurses against the evil train people. Instead we have this. Sunak is a spanner.
Same goes for the ambulance drivers. They are going out of their way to try and make sure that they don't end up killing people (for obvious reasons both humanitarian and public relations) and all the Trusts/Unions have procedures in place where they can ask for staff from the picket line if there are emergency cases to be answered.
These are not militant, politically motivated actions, they are a cry for help. I just don't see any way that Sunak wins, all the more so if he does 'win' in the dispute. Not least because he will draw exactly the wrong conclusion from such a 'victory'.
Nobody is going to "win", least of all the taxpayer and the patient. The reality is that the NHS is an anachronism. It is a system that has evolved to favour the vested interests rather than the patient. The best way to reward the staff would be to first completely decentralise all of it. Sadly this will never happen as there are still plenty of gullible fools who really believe it is "the envy of the world".
The NHS used to be the "envy of the world" and it still was at the end of the last Labour government when public satisfaction with the NHS had reached an all time record high. Compare and contrast, 12 years on.
Essentially it is down to cash. Spending on health as a proportion of GDP is the key measure. We have always had health on the cheap in the UK, because the health service is relatively efficient especially compared to private and insurance based systems. The gap between the UK and other developed countries did narrow slightly with the investment under Labour, but spending on health in the UK has fallen behind badly since then. The cash simply hasn't been there to meet the rising demand of an ageing population.
The NHS was only "envy of the world" amongst those who had never experienced health systems elsewhere in Europe. Those of us who had didn't believe the hype then and certainly don't believe it now.
I thought the ‘free at the point of use’ was the unique thing about the NHS.
No, it isn’t.
To start with, it isn’t entirely free. Prescription charges, for example.
But in much of the developed world you get a lot medical treatment for the asking, without any insurance style excess payment.
Meanwhile, whilst the denizens of PB were telling each other whatever they had been telling each other for the previous X years, NHS England had quietly increased the number of nurses by 11% between Aug 2019 and Aug 2022.
From 287,458 in Aug 2019 to 319,616 in Aug 2022. FTE equivalent numbers for nurses and health visitors in NHS England.
Before anyone asks, Doctors are up by 13% over the same period. And it's a very nice interactive tool.
On the headline numbers it looks like a sticky wicket for the nursing unions.
I have no idea what the numbers are for SWNI, or whether they publish any timely or relevant data.
It's sunny; I need to go on the roof an investigate a suspicious sounding scratching noise heard last night.
Have a nice day, all.
Which opens up a very interesting question - how if staff numbers are rising (and elsewhere there is evidence that there are more GP appointments than ever before) is the NHS in such a mess.
Particularly given that the number of staff vacancies is also increasing. Currently there are 47,000 nurse vacancies in England - the highest on record and equivalent to 13% of the workforce. Numbers for GP vacancies are similar - around 12% of the workforce and predicted to rise to 25% by the end of the decade. .
GPs are hardly pay constrained. And it seems quite cushty to me compared to being a hospital doctor in all honesty.
I don't begin to understand the reasons for the shortages and it is not my job to solve them but clearly there is a massive issue and those who are supposed to understand these things are failing to address them.
I think any massive issue, if it exists, is around unlimited and ill-defined expectations. It is also around a need for particular political narratives.
As for current COVID recovery issues, there is a recovery plan which afaics is working its way through longer waits etc, to the extent that the longest delays (2, 3 year) have now been eliminated.
I posted on my expectations some detail last evening, so I won't repeat any of it here.
When I check international comparative surveys (eg Commonwealth Institute), the NHS seems to come out fairly well.
I think we need some comparative numbers for recovery of European Health Services post Covid, and data for different nations within the UK.
And now I really do need to go and plan for this shivering Roland looking for a warm roof to hide in.
The Commonwealth Institute survey is a joke. It was produced by an organisation whose purpose is to change the US health care system so it looks more like the NHS. They managed to create a comparison survey which put the NHS top of all the health care systems whilst in the only criteria that really matters - patient outcomes (keeping people alive and making them better) the NHS scores second worst only to the US.
Having control of your drugs system and being good at paperwork should not trump making sick people better
Gurwinder is one of my favourite recent Twitter additions.
I like his latest tweet because I don't think I've seen this variation on the old "simple answers to complex problems" chestnut before.
"You can gauge someone's ignorance by the number of phenomena they explain with the same answer. Those who blame many different issues (e.g. war, poverty, pollution) on just 1 cause (e.g. capitalism) are recycling explanations because the demand for answers outstrips their supply."
We all do it. I have certainly indulged in the past regarding Brexit. I'd say it's sometimes ignorance, but often also a type of tribal double-think where deep down we know the Tories aren't completely to blame for raw sewage releases into rivers and Gordon Brown didn't cause the financial crisis, but we say it anyway.
This is fair comment and I'm as guilty as the next man. I mean, if we abolished the elitist English public schools system would it really put the brakes on climate change?
China has reported no new Covid deaths on Tuesday...
The crematoriums operating 24/7, they aren't burning the bodies of COVID patients, they are just operating as community centres where people go to keep warm....
Gurwinder is one of my favourite recent Twitter additions.
I like his latest tweet because I don't think I've seen this variation on the old "simple answers to complex problems" chestnut before.
"You can gauge someone's ignorance by the number of phenomena they explain with the same answer. Those who blame many different issues (e.g. war, poverty, pollution) on just 1 cause (e.g. capitalism) are recycling explanations because the demand for answers outstrips their supply."
We all do it. I have certainly indulged in the past regarding Brexit. I'd say it's sometimes ignorance, but often also a type of tribal double-think where deep down we know the Tories aren't completely to blame for raw sewage releases into rivers and Gordon Brown didn't cause the financial crisis, but we say it anyway.
This is fair comment and I'm as guilty as the next man. I mean, if we abolished the elitist English public schools system would it really put the brakes on climate change?
A thank you for the NHS from me today. GP's appointment was spot on time this morning, even though it was booked a week ago. After checking over my arthritic knee, GP booked another X-ray in the local hospital. Previous one three years ago had said moderate to severe arthritis. She suspects this one will be up a notch.
She lent me a booklet on suggested knee exercises, and joked (lightly) on how long the list currently was for knee replacements. My wife dropped me off a few minutes ago for X-ray (just call in), and I was out within 20 minutes.
Brilliant service, but a week to notify GP, and the wait begins. The NHS in a nutshell.
Gurwinder is one of my favourite recent Twitter additions.
I like his latest tweet because I don't think I've seen this variation on the old "simple answers to complex problems" chestnut before.
"You can gauge someone's ignorance by the number of phenomena they explain with the same answer. Those who blame many different issues (e.g. war, poverty, pollution) on just 1 cause (e.g. capitalism) are recycling explanations because the demand for answers outstrips their supply."
We all do it. I have certainly indulged in the past regarding Brexit. I'd say it's sometimes ignorance, but often also a type of tribal double-think where deep down we know the Tories aren't completely to blame for raw sewage releases into rivers and Gordon Brown didn't cause the financial crisis, but we say it anyway.
This is fair comment and I'm as guilty as the next man. I mean, if we abolished the elitist English public schools system would it really put the brakes on climate change?
It would, yes!
It wouldn't even be the best drummer in the Beatles. We have had an entrenched elite since the dawn of time, and public schools for a couple of centuries. You are going to be sooo disappointed.
China has reported no new Covid deaths on Tuesday...
The crematoriums operating 24/7, they aren't burning the bodies of COVID patients, they are just operating as community centres where people go to keep warm....
Heard on the TV yesterday that some old dears love in China for "traditional" medicine could come back to haunt them...
Morning all! On topic I cannot see a winning outcome either for the Tories or for their remaining desperate shills like the Daily Mail. Of all the groups they could attack, nurses is worses. They are not going to persuade people that the nurses are some militant commie group trying to bring down the country. Nor that the unaffiliated RCN is Labour's puppetmaster. Nor that refusal to negotiate is them being reasonable.
So ultimately the government will back down and will lose. And in all the time it sit there sniffily attacking the perfidious NHS heroes it provides succour to the unions who really are trying to bring down the country.
What they should have done was agreed to negotiate, avoided the strikes completely, and quietly reached a compromise whilst contrasting the heroic nurses against the evil train people. Instead we have this. Sunak is a spanner.
Same goes for the ambulance drivers. They are going out of their way to try and make sure that they don't end up killing people (for obvious reasons both humanitarian and public relations) and all the Trusts/Unions have procedures in place where they can ask for staff from the picket line if there are emergency cases to be answered.
These are not militant, politically motivated actions, they are a cry for help. I just don't see any way that Sunak wins, all the more so if he does 'win' in the dispute. Not least because he will draw exactly the wrong conclusion from such a 'victory'.
Nobody is going to "win", least of all the taxpayer and the patient. The reality is that the NHS is an anachronism. It is a system that has evolved to favour the vested interests rather than the patient. The best way to reward the staff would be to first completely decentralise all of it. Sadly this will never happen as there are still plenty of gullible fools who really believe it is "the envy of the world".
The NHS used to be the "envy of the world" and it still was at the end of the last Labour government when public satisfaction with the NHS had reached an all time record high. Compare and contrast, 12 years on.
Essentially it is down to cash. Spending on health as a proportion of GDP is the key measure. We have always had health on the cheap in the UK, because the health service is relatively efficient especially compared to private and insurance based systems. The gap between the UK and other developed countries did narrow slightly with the investment under Labour, but spending on health in the UK has fallen behind badly since then. The cash simply hasn't been there to meet the rising demand of an ageing population.
The NHS was only "envy of the world" amongst those who had never experienced health systems elsewhere in Europe. Those of us who had didn't believe the hype then and certainly don't believe it now.
I thought the ‘free at the point of use’ was the unique thing about the NHS.
No, it isn’t.
To start with, it isn’t entirely free. Prescription charges, for example.
But in much of the developed world you get a lot medical treatment for the asking, without any insurance style excess payment.
Meanwhile, whilst the denizens of PB were telling each other whatever they had been telling each other for the previous X years, NHS England had quietly increased the number of nurses by 11% between Aug 2019 and Aug 2022.
From 287,458 in Aug 2019 to 319,616 in Aug 2022. FTE equivalent numbers for nurses and health visitors in NHS England.
China has reported no new Covid deaths on Tuesday...
The crematoriums operating 24/7, they aren't burning the bodies of COVID patients, they are just operating as community centres where people go to keep warm....
Heard on the TV yesterday that some old dears love in China for "traditional" medicine could come back to haunt them...
That's certainly one reason why vaccines have been resisted.
But even for people who accept vaccines, they've been taught to accept only the Chinese-made ones, which have turned out to be pretty much useless.
World Cup - Winner jointly Canada/Mexico/US June – July 2026
Brazil 7 France 8 England 10 Argentina 11 Germany 11 Spain 12 Portugal 17 Netherlands 21 Italy 26 Belgium 34
Oooh! You're making an anti-English post. What an incredibly unexpected thing for you to do. Are we wound up enough for you? Are you enjoying our English faces twisted in paroxisms of rage at your little jokes, you little scamp you.
It's an inferiority complex. He secretly quite likes England - remember that post he made about how much he enjoyed visiting Henley and having tea and cakes? - but he quietly hates himself for that.
There's so much going on here and, at the same time, so little.
I really don’t think he does like England or the English.
Usual pity party from you
Get a job will you. Pay into the coffers you so gleefully trough from.
I bet I pay a lot more tax than you sucker and bleed less off the public tit as well. Certainly do a lot less whining.
Gurwinder is one of my favourite recent Twitter additions.
I like his latest tweet because I don't think I've seen this variation on the old "simple answers to complex problems" chestnut before.
"You can gauge someone's ignorance by the number of phenomena they explain with the same answer. Those who blame many different issues (e.g. war, poverty, pollution) on just 1 cause (e.g. capitalism) are recycling explanations because the demand for answers outstrips their supply."
We all do it. I have certainly indulged in the past regarding Brexit. I'd say it's sometimes ignorance, but often also a type of tribal double-think where deep down we know the Tories aren't completely to blame for raw sewage releases into rivers and Gordon Brown didn't cause the financial crisis, but we say it anyway.
This is fair comment and I'm as guilty as the next man. I mean, if we abolished the elitist English public schools system would it really put the brakes on climate change?
So, Conservative legislator “Lady” (Michelle) Mone OBE is on an Alpine break is she? Nice work. I assume she’ll be in police custody by the end of the week.
I actually have no problem with you being repetitive on this one Dicky, if SNP, Lib Dem or Labour were responsible for something like this the Tory press and Tory party would be raging about it from Dawn to Dusk day in day out, repetitively - it’s no different than what you hear about in other countries around the world and conclude it’s a corrupt country, those in power merely using it to line the pockets of themselves, friends and supporters.
And one of the people accused is John Swinney, deputy First Minister, Minister for Education (in which role he makes Williamson look capable) and acting Minister of Finance.
Strangely, I haven’t seen much call from Stuart for him to be taken into police custody.
He may be useless but I have not seen proof that he diddled hundreds of millions of public money for chums as we see re the people in Stuart's post. Where does it say he made multi-millions for chums he introduced and agreed to ignore any process in place. Bit of hyperbole there and usual whine when they are caught grifting down south , point to some minor deal in Scotland and claim it si fine for the swindlers as some clown in Scotland made a bad decision.
It says it in the last section Malc, if you care to scroll that far…
On the subject of missing workers and part time working.
A relative rubs a building business. He tells me that a serious problem for him now is people who are working x hours a week, could do more, but won’t.
Because their benefits would get withdrawn at suck a rate that they would, in effect, by working for pennies to the hour.
So he has to hire more people, which is much less efficient.
Of course official unemployment is actually rather low. How much increase in part time working has there been?
Quite a lot, IIRC
One suggestion is that having stopped work during lockdown, many people reassessed how much money they were actually making. And realised that because of benefit withdrawal at staggering rates, they were working some hours for about 50p an hour.
World Cup - Winner jointly Canada/Mexico/US June – July 2026
Brazil 7 France 8 England 10 Argentina 11 Germany 11 Spain 12 Portugal 17 Netherlands 21 Italy 26 Belgium 34
Oooh! You're making an anti-English post. What an incredibly unexpected thing for you to do. Are we wound up enough for you? Are you enjoying our English faces twisted in paroxisms of rage at your little jokes, you little scamp you.
Great that you avoided taking the bait.
Yes. I am just one of those awful, awful Sassenachs you love to wind up with your cheeky little ways. I bow to your genetic superiority.
Leaden 5th form sarcasm, great stuff. There’s a few people on here who suffer an allergic reaction to a whiff of Scotch but you’re definitely tops. Did yer maw eat an out of date Tunnock’s tea cake while bearing you?
Inferiority complex shines through on every post with a Scot, exposes his dislike of anything Scottish and highlights his pathetic Little Englander views.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I'd require extra money in order to WFH.
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
Good luck with that, especially if your WFH is voluntary (or "voluntary").
Had this conversation with a recruiter a few months ago.
"And the best part is, this is a WFH job!" "Great, how much extra are they going to pay me?" "Huh?" "How much extra? For the rental of part of my home as their office space." "Uhhh.... But it's work from home!" "I know. How much extra do I get from my employer in rent for turning parts of my home into their office?" "Uhhh....."
Needless to say I didn't go for the job...
I despised WFH when it was mandated by lockdown. It obliterated any sense of being part of a team, made it easy for my manager to cut me out of the loop and control access to information (i.e. keep me from knowing what was really going on), favoured those who were part of the "in" group and god knows how new people were onboarded/upskilled. When given the ability to pick team members I chose people I knew from pre-lockdown times, not faces on a screen I'd never met and couldn't trust.
I can understand people WFH a day or two a week, but having no real life interaction, ever, with the people you're expected to work with day in day out dehumanises us all and turns us into cogs in a machine. No longer a person, just a face on a screen.
I have worked from home for years - since long before the pandemic. I do one week every 6 or 8 up in Aberdeen to catch up with people and otherwise everything is online. When most of your team is 120 miles offshore in the middle of the North Sea, what difference does it make if you talk to them from Aberdeen or rural Lincolnshire? We are far more responsive being online rather than face to face given the job is 24/7 and it means, for example, that I will be able to have Christmas at home rather than stuck in a hotel and office 350 miles from my family and yet still run the drilling operations on Christmas Day just as I do the whole of the rest of the year.
The world of work has changed (and for the better) and people need to change with it.
I don't see why this argument has to be all one or all the other. Flexibility and options are good. Not all jobs are the same.
People seem to want there to be one true answer to the question of work from home. It works for you and it works for me, but there will be some times when it doesn't.
I don't see why I should be pointlessly dragged into an office for now good reason.
The trouble comes when the office is split between those who wfh is working well and those that regard the office as a social hub and wfh is despised. Generally the latter get peeved when the colleagues they want the interaction with are too selfish to come to the office and stay in their cosy homes and then start agitating that everyone else should be in too
China has reported no new Covid deaths on Tuesday...
The crematoriums operating 24/7, they aren't burning the bodies of COVID patients, they are just operating as community centres where people go to keep warm....
To be fair, the crematoriums *are* a place where people go to get warm. Even if they have previously died of COVID.
So, Conservative legislator “Lady” (Michelle) Mone OBE is on an Alpine break is she? Nice work. I assume she’ll be in police custody by the end of the week.
I actually have no problem with you being repetitive on this one Dicky, if SNP, Lib Dem or Labour were responsible for something like this the Tory press and Tory party would be raging about it from Dawn to Dusk day in day out, repetitively - it’s no different than what you hear about in other countries around the world and conclude it’s a corrupt country, those in power merely using it to line the pockets of themselves, friends and supporters.
And one of the people accused is John Swinney, deputy First Minister, Minister for Education (in which role he makes Williamson look capable) and acting Minister of Finance.
Strangely, I haven’t seen much call from Stuart for him to be taken into police custody.
He may be useless but I have not seen proof that he diddled hundreds of millions of public money for chums as we see re the people in Stuart's post. Where does it say he made multi-millions for chums he introduced and agreed to ignore any process in place. Bit of hyperbole there and usual whine when they are caught grifting down south , point to some minor deal in Scotland and claim it si fine for the swindlers as some clown in Scotland made a bad decision.
It says it in the last section Malc, if you care to scroll that far…
Well they made a shambles of the ferries for sure but not seen any evidence yet that they personally or their chums made fortunes out of it.
I am all for self-determination. But the idea that meaningful referendums can be held at gunpoint, or after massive population changes caused by war, is a bit naive. It is basically saying that the 'winning' side gets the territory.
Yes, as someone who sees a Ukraine deal ending with local referendums, I do agree this is a real problem. If France invades the Channel Islands, displacing half the population, and a lot of French people move in, who votes in any subsequent referendum? And does the answer change if the referendum is in 5 years? In 20? Palestine and the West Bank offer other examples to ponder.
I think I feel that displaced people need to be compensated lavishly to help them settle in their new home, but referendums should be of the people living in the area now. I'm not very interested in arguments about historical boundaries and who ceded what to whom in the past, de facto or de jure, even if it was by force. But as you say it tends to reward the "winning" side, and I'm not comfortable with that either.
China has reported no new Covid deaths on Tuesday...
The crematoriums operating 24/7, they aren't burning the bodies of COVID patients, they are just operating as community centres where people go to keep warm....
Heard on the TV yesterday that some old dears love in China for "traditional" medicine could come back to haunt them...
Chinese herbal medicine is huge in China. I still encounter Chinese pharmacy students and discuss it with them. Some stuff has interesting properties, but a lot of it is likely junk.
I am all for self-determination. But the idea that meaningful referendums can be held at gunpoint, or after massive population changes caused by war, is a bit naive. It is basically saying that the 'winning' side gets the territory.
Yes, as someone who sees a Ukraine deal ending with local referendums, I do agree this is a real problem. If France invades the Channel Islands, displacing half the population, and a lot of French people move in, who votes in any subsequent referendum? And does the answer change if the referendum is in 5 years? In 20? Palestine and the West Bank offer other examples to ponder.
I think I feel that displaced people need to be compensated lavishly to help them settle in their new home, but referendums should be of the people living in the area now. I'm not very interested in arguments about historical boundaries and who ceded what to whom in the past, de facto or de jure, even if it was by force. But as you say it tends to reward the "winning" side, and I'm not comfortable with that either.
It's worth watching the film 'Tantura'
Or read up on the history of the Yugoslav wars.
Where genocides and ethnic cleansing was deliberately used to create “Facts on the Ground” - that is, change population so that territory could be taken, using Dr Palmers criteria, above
Gurwinder is one of my favourite recent Twitter additions.
I like his latest tweet because I don't think I've seen this variation on the old "simple answers to complex problems" chestnut before.
"You can gauge someone's ignorance by the number of phenomena they explain with the same answer. Those who blame many different issues (e.g. war, poverty, pollution) on just 1 cause (e.g. capitalism) are recycling explanations because the demand for answers outstrips their supply."
We all do it. I have certainly indulged in the past regarding Brexit. I'd say it's sometimes ignorance, but often also a type of tribal double-think where deep down we know the Tories aren't completely to blame for raw sewage releases into rivers and Gordon Brown didn't cause the financial crisis, but we say it anyway.
This is fair comment and I'm as guilty as the next man. I mean, if we abolished the elitist English public schools system would it really put the brakes on climate change?
It would, yes!
It wouldn't even be the best drummer in the Beatles. We have had an entrenched elite since the dawn of time, and public schools for a couple of centuries. You are going to be sooo disappointed.
I'm not because it's not going to happen. We are wedded to privilege. This is something I've come to realize through the hard yards of debating it for a long time in many different groups and forums. It's a guilty pleasure - impressive verbal contortions are executed in order to avoid admitting it - but in England we do like privilege.
Those who benefit like it because they benefit. Those who don't benefit like it because they 'aspire' to one day partake via some 'upward mobility'. Instead of wanting to dismantle class advantage we talk instead of providing 'ladders' for "bright working class kids" to 'escape' and 'move up'.
As if this is a good thing, a highly unequal terrain with a few ladders dangling down. Much better to level the terrain IMO. Address the issue at source rather than firefight the problems it causes. But hardly anybody agrees. I'm a voice in the wilderness screaming into the void.
China has reported no new Covid deaths on Tuesday...
The crematoriums operating 24/7, they aren't burning the bodies of COVID patients, they are just operating as community centres where people go to keep warm....
Heard on the TV yesterday that some old dears love in China for "traditional" medicine could come back to haunt them...
Chinese herbal medicine is huge in China. I still encounter Chinese pharmacy students and discuss it with them. Some stuff has interesting properties, but a lot of it is likely junk.
FPT for @Anabobazina on near 100% Japanese masking
"This is excruciatingly sad, if true. What is the driver for this? I assumed they would have similar immunity to us?"
+++
My guess is it is a mixture of a naturally quite introverted people, and also a highly conformist society. Japan is not a nation of rebels. Until they get at least 40% of people unmasking (my random guess) then no one will dare to copy
We saw it in the UK - and we are much more individualistic and bolshy. Recall the clap for carers, and the pressure to follow the crowd. Recall ALL THE BLOODY LOCKDOWNS
It is also certainly true. I have friends in Bangkok who tell me that 100% masking has only now begun to wane in BKK, and they say in HK, Taiwan and Japan it is still dreadful
it is indeed awful sad
Tokyo always had lots of masks before Covid, on the basis that they kept out pollution. There's a difference in cultural habit there - there's no iron law that wearing a mask when you go out must spoil your quality of life any more than, say, wearing a hat.
Relatedly - I know wfh is not equal lockdown, but this is quite interesting in offering some polling data on how much money people are willing to forego in order not to have to go out to work in an office:
This isn't the way everyone feels, but I do wonder if wfh isn't going to gradually become the norm for office work, incidentally easing the shortage of job applicants (because you can recruit internationally). Anecdotally I know several organisations who are both struggling to recruit and losing staff because of a rigid policy requiring attendance in the office at least one day a week. It's only partly the appeal of being in your chosen home surroundings and not having to commute, but also the opportunity to move somewhere cheaper so your perhaps spartan home surroundings actually get BETTER.
I'd require extra money in order to WFH.
The cost of the extra 200 sq foot or so of my home that my employer is now colonising in order to turn into their office space.
Plus the cost of heating, electricity etc.
People willing to take a pay cut to WFH are literally paying their employer to work. Suckers.
The answer is to make offices better. End open plan battery hen cages, give people privacy and space. I don't think its offices people hate, its the cramped, dehumanising, zero-privacy failed open plan experiment that people hate. When people say they like WFH, what they mean is they like having their own space and a bit of privacy.
I'd still expect my employer to pay for that, though, if they're using part of my house as their office space.
Good luck with that, especially if your WFH is voluntary (or "voluntary").
Had this conversation with a recruiter a few months ago.
"And the best part is, this is a WFH job!" "Great, how much extra are they going to pay me?" "Huh?" "How much extra? For the rental of part of my home as their office space." "Uhhh.... But it's work from home!" "I know. How much extra do I get from my employer in rent for turning parts of my home into their office?" "Uhhh....."
Needless to say I didn't go for the job...
I despised WFH when it was mandated by lockdown. It obliterated any sense of being part of a team, made it easy for my manager to cut me out of the loop and control access to information (i.e. keep me from knowing what was really going on), favoured those who were part of the "in" group and god knows how new people were onboarded/upskilled. When given the ability to pick team members I chose people I knew from pre-lockdown times, not faces on a screen I'd never met and couldn't trust.
I can understand people WFH a day or two a week, but having no real life interaction, ever, with the people you're expected to work with day in day out dehumanises us all and turns us into cogs in a machine. No longer a person, just a face on a screen.
I have worked from home for years - since long before the pandemic. I do one week every 6 or 8 up in Aberdeen to catch up with people and otherwise everything is online. When most of your team is 120 miles offshore in the middle of the North Sea, what difference does it make if you talk to them from Aberdeen or rural Lincolnshire? We are far more responsive being online rather than face to face given the job is 24/7 and it means, for example, that I will be able to have Christmas at home rather than stuck in a hotel and office 350 miles from my family and yet still run the drilling operations on Christmas Day just as I do the whole of the rest of the year.
The world of work has changed (and for the better) and people need to change with it.
I don't see why this argument has to be all one or all the other. Flexibility and options are good. Not all jobs are the same.
People seem to want there to be one true answer to the question of work from home. It works for you and it works for me, but there will be some times when it doesn't.
I don't see why I should be pointlessly dragged into an office for now good reason.
The trouble comes when the office is split between those who wfh is working well and those that regard the office as a social hub and wfh is despised. Generally the latter get peeved when the colleagues they want the interaction with are too selfish to come to the office and stay in their cosy homes and then start agitating that everyone else should be in too
I think some of it at least is that extroverted people *like* being physically at work - chatting, being around people, glad-handing. And they're also likely to be... well, 'extrovert' about their views on people who aren't.
So, Conservative legislator “Lady” (Michelle) Mone OBE is on an Alpine break is she? Nice work. I assume she’ll be in police custody by the end of the week.
I actually have no problem with you being repetitive on this one Dicky, if SNP, Lib Dem or Labour were responsible for something like this the Tory press and Tory party would be raging about it from Dawn to Dusk day in day out, repetitively - it’s no different than what you hear about in other countries around the world and conclude it’s a corrupt country, those in power merely using it to line the pockets of themselves, friends and supporters.
And one of the people accused is John Swinney, deputy First Minister, Minister for Education (in which role he makes Williamson look capable) and acting Minister of Finance.
Strangely, I haven’t seen much call from Stuart for him to be taken into police custody.
He may be useless but I have not seen proof that he diddled hundreds of millions of public money for chums as we see re the people in Stuart's post. Where does it say he made multi-millions for chums he introduced and agreed to ignore any process in place. Bit of hyperbole there and usual whine when they are caught grifting down south , point to some minor deal in Scotland and claim it si fine for the swindlers as some clown in Scotland made a bad decision.
It says it in the last section Malc, if you care to scroll that far…
Well they made a shambles of the ferries for sure but not seen any evidence yet that they personally or their chums made fortunes out of it.
No, they didn't make fortunes. But that was because they made such a shambles of it. At the last count, £158.5 million which was designed to be channelled - illegally - to this shipyard has gone missing. And it went to people who should not have got it, based on information that was false.
And incidentally, despite allegations of criminal behaviour Police Scotland have persistently refused to even investigate.
Comments
As for current COVID recovery issues, there is a recovery plan which afaics is working its way through longer waits etc, to the extent that the longest delays (2, 3 year) have now been eliminated. When you lose an entire 6 months of work (see the activity stats I posted last week), it doesn't get recovered in 6 months or a year.
I posted on my expectations some detail last evening, so I won't repeat any of it here.
When I check international comparative surveys (eg Commonwealth Institute), the NHS seems to come out fairly well.
I think we need some comparative numbers for recovery of European Health Services post Covid, and data for different nations within the UK. Rose tinted spectacles about other places are not, shall we say, unusual.
And now I really do need to go and plan for this shivering Roland looking for a warm roof to hide in.
Having control of your drugs system and being good at paperwork should not trump making sick people better
It would, yes!
The crematoriums operating 24/7, they aren't burning the bodies of COVID patients, they are just operating as community centres where people go to keep warm....
So, quite clearly abolishing private schoold would reduce climate change
There may be some oversimplification in that directed acyclic graph...
She lent me a booklet on suggested knee exercises, and joked (lightly) on how long the list currently was for knee replacements. My wife dropped me off a few minutes ago for X-ray (just call in), and I was out within 20 minutes.
Brilliant service, but a week to notify GP, and the wait begins. The NHS in a nutshell.
But even for people who accept vaccines, they've been taught to accept only the Chinese-made ones, which have turned out to be pretty much useless.
Certainly do a lot less whining.
One suggestion is that having stopped work during lockdown, many people reassessed how much money they were actually making. And realised that because of benefit withdrawal at staggering rates, they were working some hours for about 50p an hour.
Why would you do that?
A whole book on your favourite place in the world!
Some stuff has interesting properties, but a lot of it is likely junk.
Where genocides and ethnic cleansing was deliberately used to create “Facts on the Ground” - that is, change population so that territory could be taken, using Dr Palmers criteria, above
Those who benefit like it because they benefit. Those who don't benefit like it because they 'aspire' to one day partake via some 'upward mobility'. Instead of wanting to dismantle class advantage we talk instead of providing 'ladders' for "bright working class kids" to 'escape' and 'move up'.
As if this is a good thing, a highly unequal terrain with a few ladders dangling down. Much better to level the terrain IMO. Address the issue at source rather than firefight the problems it causes. But hardly anybody agrees. I'm a voice in the wilderness screaming into the void.
And incidentally, despite allegations of criminal behaviour Police Scotland have persistently refused to even investigate.