I was completely bemused by the promise to reduce government debt. Not as a % of GDP, not in real terms but absolutely. So that means a surplus. In 2023! How the hell does he think that is possible with the current deficit and paying half of everyone's fuel bills?
To be fair, he hasn't received his supplementary maths tuition yet.
Or he meant to say deficit, but doesn't understand the difference.
They hastened its demise. I remain unconvinced it was a model that was ever going to survive in the long run. I am not saying they helped matters.
Ultimately though all universal systems of health care are redistributive. Healthy working people pay more but use less, sicker retired or poor people contribute little in funds but are heavy users. This was the objection to Obama care in the USA as making the plans more inclusive put up bills for those insured.
The way to keep costs down and allow consumer choice by freeing up capacity is by ending universal free access. I am not sure we are ready to go there, but that was how it worked here until 1948.
I disagree. Plenty of other first world countries have universal health care and they run miles better than our system. The problem is not with universal health care - which is, to my mind, the sign of a mature, progressive society. The problem is our version of universal health care which is unfit for purpose and has been for decades.
All health care systems have evolved out of the economic, historical and social developments in their particular counties, including the NHS.
While we can learn from other countries, we cannot just shift to a German system rooted in the Bismarkian system without the physical as well as the socio-political infrastructure of that system over a period of more than a century.
We have different history, culture and politics. It isn't impossible to change these to a more European way of doing things, but that is something that we have moved against in recent years, to a backward, nostalgic autarchy.
If we want to change to such a system then some home truths need to be told to the voters that put this government in power in the Red Wall and Saxon shore, and there is no sign of either Blue or Red Party being willing to touch that electoral kryptonite. The NHS may well be a corpse but both parties are chained to it.
The alternative is to try to make an obsolete system function better by slow evolution, which is the British way. We are not a revolutionary people.
That again is simply not true. The adoption of the NHS and the Welfare State was a revolutionary act in itself. And most revolutions happen not through careful planning but through immediate necessity. The revolution in health care in the UK is now a necessity but it won't be done by the ending of universal health care. There is nothing to stop us adopting more European ways of doing things - it just takes force of will combined with necessity. We have the latter. We just need someone with the former.
No the history of the origins of the NHS are more interesting and less revolutionary than that. The complex system of private, charitable and local authority hospitals that existed in the 1930s was essentially nationalised as a war time measure. By 1948 nearly all British doctors had been working for the government for the best part of a decade, either in khaki or in civies.
Obviously the national desire and landslide victory of Attlees Labour for a comprehensive welfare state was part of its genesis, but in many ways the NHS was created by formalising and continuing the war time nationalisation.
I think that's right. In many ways the grandfather of the NHS was Neville Chamberlain and the Conservative governments of the 1920s, who as Minister of Health greatly developed (not cerated as I thought) the cottage hospital system, which Labour basically nationalised after the war. And the Conservatives would almost certainly have introduced something similar, if not quite as statist, had they won the 1945 election.
But Labour did, so they got the credit.
Yes, and a further set of ancestors of the NHS were the Poor Law Hospitals created under local authority control*, paid for by the ratepayers, and Lloyd George's system of "panel doctors" paid by the state on a per capita basis, who evolved into the system of sub-contractors in General Practice.
The NHS was an evolution based on earlier state provision and wartime mobilisation. It really wasn't that revolutionary.
*Leicester General Hospital was opened as the North Evington Poor Law Infirmary in 1905 and many of the original wards are still used. By 1911 there were 121 000 Poor Law hospital beds in the country, funded by the taxpayer. That is a pretty similar number to current NHS estate.
Just back from hospital. Apparently critical incidents across our trust. Only cancer care going on, everything else cancelled.
My neighbour is a trainee nurse in a and e. She said she was looking after 10 patients in a corridor last shift.
Bizarrely, I got a call yesterday from my hospital to ask if I can come in for my annual scan tomorrow as they have a spare slot. I wasn't expecting it until Feb but happy to go if they have the capacity.
Just back from hospital. Apparently critical incidents across our trust. Only cancer care going on, everything else cancelled.
My neighbour is a trainee nurse in a and e. She said she was looking after 10 patients in a corridor last shift.
It is patchy. My Trust declared a Critical Incident (which has that sort of cancellation baggage) on 30/12/22 but ended it 48 hours later on 1 Jan.
Our A and E is under pressure (with 12 patients on 24+ hours in the department when I left this evening) but that has been pretty much the norm for the last months.
I’ve just been watching an old archive programme on iplayer, “People of Paradise”. A young David Attenborough travels around the Western Pacific in 1960.
One of the most fascinating TV series I’ve watched in years. Highly recommended.
Incidentally the young and middle aged Attenborough will clearly be acted by Hugh Grant in the biopic of his life.
I am afraid the not so young or even middle aged Hugh Grant - 62 - is now too old to play Attenborough in those phases of his life.
62 is early middle age
Hmm. I suspect that if you believe that you are no where near there yet - though of course I might be wrong. It certainly doesn't feel like early middle age as you approach it.
6 months off
Fair enough. I can only assume you have looked after yourself better than I have.
Nope. Just today told an NHS nurse how much I drink, divided by about 3, and got some serious tooth sucking disapproval.
Don't worry, they multiplied your number by three.
I’ve just been watching an old archive programme on iplayer, “People of Paradise”. A young David Attenborough travels around the Western Pacific in 1960.
One of the most fascinating TV series I’ve watched in years. Highly recommended.
Incidentally the young and middle aged Attenborough will clearly be acted by Hugh Grant in the biopic of his life.
I am afraid the not so young or even middle aged Hugh Grant - 62 - is now too old to play Attenborough in those phases of his life.
62 is early middle age
Hmm. I suspect that if you believe that you are no where near there yet - though of course I might be wrong. It certainly doesn't feel like early middle age as you approach it.
6 months off
Fair enough. I can only assume you have looked after yourself better than I have.
Nope. Just today told an NHS nurse how much I drink, divided by about 3, and got some serious tooth sucking disapproval.
Don't worry, they multiplied your number by three.
I take it all with a shovel full of salt. The liver function tests and other blood indices tell me the truth about how much damage is being done.
I’ve just been watching an old archive programme on iplayer, “People of Paradise”. A young David Attenborough travels around the Western Pacific in 1960.
One of the most fascinating TV series I’ve watched in years. Highly recommended.
Incidentally the young and middle aged Attenborough will clearly be acted by Hugh Grant in the biopic of his life.
I am afraid the not so young or even middle aged Hugh Grant - 62 - is now too old to play Attenborough in those phases of his life.
62 is early middle age
Hmm. I suspect that if you believe that you are no where near there yet - though of course I might be wrong. It certainly doesn't feel like early middle age as you approach it.
6 months off
Fair enough. I can only assume you have looked after yourself better than I have.
Nope. Just today told an NHS nurse how much I drink, divided by about 3, and got some serious tooth sucking disapproval.
Don't worry, they multiplied your number by three.
I’ve just been watching an old archive programme on iplayer, “People of Paradise”. A young David Attenborough travels around the Western Pacific in 1960.
One of the most fascinating TV series I’ve watched in years. Highly recommended.
Incidentally the young and middle aged Attenborough will clearly be acted by Hugh Grant in the biopic of his life.
I am afraid the not so young or even middle aged Hugh Grant - 62 - is now too old to play Attenborough in those phases of his life.
62 is early middle age
Hmm. I suspect that if you believe that you are no where near there yet - though of course I might be wrong. It certainly doesn't feel like early middle age as you approach it.
6 months off
Fair enough. I can only assume you have looked after yourself better than I have.
Nope. Just today told an NHS nurse how much I drink, divided by about 3, and got some serious tooth sucking disapproval.
Don't worry, they multiplied your number by three.
I take it all with a shovel full of salt. The liver function tests and other blood indices tell me the truth about how much damage is being done.
And in my case they are saying absolutely none, despite a bottle a day habit (wine not spirits). I will take a bit of notice if and when they do, but only a bit; I seriously don't want to live beyond 80 with the NHS in the state it will be when I get there.
Just back from hospital. Apparently critical incidents across our trust. Only cancer care going on, everything else cancelled.
My neighbour is a trainee nurse in a and e. She said she was looking after 10 patients in a corridor last shift.
It is patchy. My Trust declared a Critical Incident (which has that sort of cancellation baggage) on 30/12/22 but ended it 48 hours later on 1 Jan.
Our A and E is under pressure (with 12 patients on 24+ hours in the department when I left this evening) but that has been pretty much the norm for the last months.
NHS Sussex has declared a Critical incident and just cancelled all out patient appointments for the first week of January….since my cancelled appointment was set up in November I suppose I’m looking at March or April for the next one….
Not paying that much attention to British politics lately I look at this list and it has "Small Boats" which sounds like such a great policy. Everybody's going to get a small boat and go out pottering on the canals or up and down the coast. Wonderful historical Dunkirk vibes, gets the old folk out and about and appreciating nature.
Then I look at the detail and apparently they're *against* small boats. Can't these people get anything right?
So tonight we have crossover - Rishi Sunak is Ed Miliband and Keir Starmer is David Cameron. The conservatives advanced too far to the Left (excessive tax, excessive meddling) leaving Labour to pop up on the middle ground behind them. I could almost laugh.
The impacts of cost of living pressures on households could be seen as consumer credit more than doubled from £700m to £1.5bn driven by an additional £1.2bn of credit card borrowing, the highest amount since 2004.
Households deposited an additional £5.7bn with banks and building societies over the month.
The continued saving and increased credit card borrowing showed "households are still refusing to draw on savings to support their consumption," according to economic research group Pantheon Macroeconomics.
The impacts of cost of living pressures on households could be seen as consumer credit more than doubled from £700m to £1.5bn driven by an additional £1.2bn of credit card borrowing, the highest amount since 2004.
Households deposited an additional £5.7bn with banks and building societies over the month.
The continued saving and increased credit card borrowing showed "households are still refusing to draw on savings to support their consumption," according to economic research group Pantheon Macroeconomics.
Youth 0-20 Young 21-40 Prime 41-70 Older 71-89 Dotage 90+
As a senior clinician I am always clear to my Trainees that the definition of an elderly patient is my age plus a bit. I have been consistently teaching this for a decade, and plan to teach the same for a further decade.
Youth 0-20 Young 21-40 Prime 41-70 Older 71-89 Dotage 90+
As a senior clinician I am always clear to my Trainees that the definition of an elderly patient is my age plus a bit. I have been consistently teaching this for a decade, and plan to teach the same for a further decade.
I am inspired by my father-in-law, who at 70 seems fitter than me. I think he is only just starting to slow down ever so slightly now.
My own father, who turns 88 this month, is driving and generally still pottering about. I am currently trying to help him get a disability badge though.
Keir is trying to shut down any angle of attack the Tories.
Rishi is hoping to hear into the election with two pennies off income tax and falling debt to GDP, and to portray Labour as tax and spend lunatics for a modestly different path.
Youth 0-20 Young 21-40 Prime 41-70 Older 71-89 Dotage 90+
As a senior clinician I am always clear to my Trainees that the definition of an elderly patient is my age plus a bit. I have been consistently teaching this for a decade, and plan to teach the same for a further decade.
I am inspired by my father-in-law, who at 70 seems fitter than me. I think he is only just starting to slow down ever so slightly now.
My own father, who turns 88 this month, is driving and generally still pottering about. I am currently trying to help him get a disability badge though.
Yes, my dad at age 87 drove from Southampton to Cambridge and back for Christmas. He took most of the day, and some breaks along the way, but being old and still healthy isn't a bad life.
The media have decided the Tories have lost the next election, unless Starmer does something cataclysmically stupid.
2023 is the year we learn what our next government is going to do. I can only hope Starmer and Labour are able to really seize the nettle of the significant challenges we face - and demonising public sector workers as the Tories seem intent to do isn’t the solution.
Keir is trying to shut down any angle of attack the Tories.
Rishi is hoping to hear into the election with two pennies off income tax and falling debt to GDP, and to portray Labour as tax and spend lunatics for a modestly different path.
Yes, it looks like that. He has set some definite targets today for the end of the year that smack of optimism, without any real detail of a road map to them.
Set piece policy relaunches always whiff of incipient political failure to me. Its a bit like a statement from the board backing a football manager. It is the first toll of the bell on a political career.
Keir is trying to shut down any angle of attack the Tories.
Rishi is hoping to hear into the election with two pennies off income tax and falling debt to GDP, and to portray Labour as tax and spend lunatics for a modestly different path.
Yes, it looks like that. He has set some definite targets today for the end of the year that smack of optimism, without any real detail of a road map to them.
Set piece policy relaunches always whiff of incipient political failure to me. Its a bit like a statement from the board backing a football manager. It is the first toll of the bell on a political career.
The second toll is set pieces which aren't even fake relaunches. Remember all those 'Nothing has changed' statements from May? They were a hoot with how brief and empty they were.
I’ve just been watching an old archive programme on iplayer, “People of Paradise”. A young David Attenborough travels around the Western Pacific in 1960.
One of the most fascinating TV series I’ve watched in years. Highly recommended.
Incidentally the young and middle aged Attenborough will clearly be acted by Hugh Grant in the biopic of his life.
I am afraid the not so young or even middle aged Hugh Grant - 62 - is now too old to play Attenborough in those phases of his life.
62 is early middle age
Hmm. I suspect that if you believe that you are no where near there yet - though of course I might be wrong. It certainly doesn't feel like early middle age as you approach it.
6 months off
Fair enough. I can only assume you have looked after yourself better than I have.
Nope. Just today told an NHS nurse how much I drink, divided by about 3, and got some serious tooth sucking disapproval.
Don't worry, they multiplied your number by three.
I take it all with a shovel full of salt. The liver function tests and other blood indices tell me the truth about how much damage is being done.
My understanding is that these days they simply ask if you know @Leon, and if you do, they assume 120 units per week.
Keir is trying to shut down any angle of attack the Tories.
Rishi is hoping to hear into the election with two pennies off income tax and falling debt to GDP, and to portray Labour as tax and spend lunatics for a modestly different path.
Yes, it looks like that. He has set some definite targets today for the end of the year that smack of optimism, without any real detail of a road map to them.
Set piece policy relaunches always whiff of incipient political failure to me. Its a bit like a statement from the board backing a football manager. It is the first toll of the bell on a political career.
The second toll is set pieces which aren't even fake relaunches. Remember all those 'Nothing has changed' statements from May? They were a hoot with how brief and empty they were.
Despite the way she ended up a lame duck because of the Brexit impasse, May was probably the best recent premier at using her office to create political theatre and set the agenda.
Perhaps the moment she called the 2017 election was the last time we had a PM who really seemed in control of events.
Keir Starmer is utterly ruthless about getting to Number 10.
"Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile." - Tony Blair
And once there he will be utterly ruthless about staying there, and will do nothing to frighten his first time Labour voters. The triple lock is safe in his hands.
I’ll confess it is hard to really tell from afar, but my feeling is that the media are more certain of Keir than they were of Cameron.
I think it is more they are less uncertain about him than they were about Ed M or even Brown as an incumbent (not helped by some of his own supporters talking about him in a way which made him look bad).
Keir Starmer is utterly ruthless about getting to Number 10.
"Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile." - Tony Blair
And once there he will be utterly ruthless about staying there, and will do nothing to frighten his first time Labour voters. The triple lock is safe in his hands.
He might want to be ruthless, but will his party allow it? Depends on the size of the majority I suppose.
By the way, which Beinn Dearg do you identify as? The 2999ft one?
In US House, after reconvening 8pm, motion by Ryan ally to adjourn. Democrats demand yeas & nays be taken. Thus a roll call on motion to adjourn via electronic voting.
So far only 1 vote by Republican against adjourning until tomorrow.
According to NYT, GOPers voting Nay against motion to adjourn were Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs and Eli Crane; Paul Gosar switched his vote from Nay to Yea.
Comments
Or he meant to say deficit, but doesn't understand the difference.
The NHS was an evolution based on earlier state provision and wartime mobilisation. It really wasn't that revolutionary.
*Leicester General Hospital was opened as the North Evington Poor Law Infirmary in 1905 and many of the original wards are still used. By 1911 there were 121 000 Poor Law hospital beds in the country, funded by the taxpayer. That is a pretty similar number to current NHS estate.
Our A and E is under pressure (with 12 patients on 24+ hours in the department when I left this evening) but that has been pretty much the norm for the last months.
Then I look at the detail and apparently they're *against* small boats. Can't these people get anything right?
Young 21-40
Prime 41-70
Older 71-89
Dotage 90+
We know who the out of touch elite actually are.
I confess nothing struck me as more ridiculous than any other day over the past five years or so.
Households deposited an additional £5.7bn with banks and building societies over the month.
The continued saving and increased credit card borrowing showed "households are still refusing to draw on savings to support their consumption," according to economic research group Pantheon Macroeconomics.
https://news.sky.com/story/amp/mortgage-approvals-at-lowest-level-since-early-months-of-pandemic-as-credit-card-debt-soars-12779606
This seems bonkers to me. Why save for 4% a year and borrow at 29%? I appreciate it's not the same people doing both, but still.
It's mainstream now.
The not managing (renting or with mortgages) are using credit cards to pay for living costs.
The managing quite nicely (no mortgage, inflation-resistant income) are saving because they got the fear during Covid.
My own father, who turns 88 this month, is driving and generally still pottering about. I am currently trying to help him get a disability badge though.
Rishi is hoping to hear into the election with two pennies off income tax and falling debt to GDP, and to portray Labour as tax and spend lunatics for a modestly different path.
2023 is the year we learn what our next government is going to do. I can only hope Starmer and Labour are able to really seize the nettle of the significant challenges we face - and demonising public sector workers as the Tories seem intent to do isn’t the solution.
Set piece policy relaunches always whiff of incipient political failure to me. Its a bit like a statement from the board backing a football manager. It is the first toll of the bell on a political career.
Perhaps the moment she called the 2017 election was the last time we had a PM who really seemed in control of events.
"Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile." - Tony Blair
By the way, which Beinn Dearg do you identify as? The 2999ft one?
So far only 1 vote by Republican against adjourning until tomorrow.
Edit - And now back to 1
Motion to adjourn = 216 yea, 214 nay = motion adopted, House stands adjourned until noon Friday.
Four Republicans recorded as voting Nay.
EDIT - Members who did NOT vote on motion to adjourn = 4 = 2 Rs + 2 Ds.