In part because politicians, local and national, would step in "to save our hospital"
Incidentally, what is your opinion of the sprawling mess that some hospital sites are? I've walked miles in some to get to from the entrance to the ward.
Wouldn't hi-rise with a pile of big lifts be better?
One hospital I went to with a relative you were directed to walk all the way through the hospital following signs, which was quite a way, and then out the back door to another building entirely in order to get a scan.
I've been into Salisbury hospital today for a scan. It's a WW2 barracks-style hospital added to many times over the years. It's an absolute rabbit-warren - miles of corridors and covered ways connecting the various buildings. Must be really depressing to work in day-in, day-out.
Brilliant staff though - patient, kind, caring and good-humoured.
Built in part for war casualties by the Yanks, hence covered ways big enough to drive Jeep down!
I used the satnav on my phone to get back out - about half the distance I went on the way in, following the signs!
Curiously there's a (relatively) new hospital on the site but it all the old buildings seems to have been kept on and are still in use.
I remember the old Salisbury infirmary on Fisherton Street. Both my gran and my mum worked there, both in medical records, the task of getting the patients physical notes to where they needed to be. Now it’s all housing. Quite sad really, but times move on.
Incidentally, scientists should replicate each other's work because they sometimes get different results when they do so.
(Which attribution mistake have I made? Probably many, but here's a relatively recent one. I attributed a quote to JFK that was actually said by Adlai Stevenson: "In America any boy may become President, and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes." source: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/adlai_stevenson_ii_400665 )
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
This is possibly the first time a prominent American political analyst has used a tool designed by the British tabloid @dailystar to judge the prospects of the 3rd most powerful office holder in the world’s most powerful country. It’s a good era for the lettuce @BeschlossDChttps://twitter.com/beschlossdc/status/1610694227331272705
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
I've always though Henry VIII was just obsessed with having a legitimate male heir, everything else flowed from that.
TBF the GOP don't really have a better option. A deal with the Dems would get them lynched by their base, while a more Trumpist speaker rewards the hostage-takers.
Eventually I guess Fox News are going to start yelling at the hold-outs and they vote for McCarthy on like ballot 9876.
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Altogether now... George George George George Will Vic-toriaaaa.
TBF the GOP don't really have a better option. A deal with the Dems would get them lynched by their base, while a more Trumpist speaker rewards the hostage-takers.
Eventually I guess Fox News are going to start yelling at the hold-outs and they vote for McCarthy on like ballot 9876.
If they fail at the ninth ballot they've beaten the kerfuffle in 1923. Getting it on the 10th ballot on the 4th day, ahead of the weekend, might be the time to call an end to the fun.
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Altogether now... George George George George Will Vic-toriaaaa.
If we run with the theory that healthcare has got much worse because too many old and sick are using it compared with before, moving to an insurance based system isn't an obvious solution to the problem. Those old and sick people won't be paying the premiums.
Harry strikes me as the sort of person who, if he can't get exactly what he wants when he wants it, will try and destroy and bring down everyone else around him.
I am not sure he used to be like this.
Are you sure you are not confusing Harry with Boris Johnson?
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Altogether now... George George George George Will Vic-toriaaaa.
Apparently (according to various newspaper sites) Harry is bragging (that's what it is, no matter how he says it) about how many Taliban he's killed in Afghanistan . The lad just doesn't know when to shut up.
Never mind that, read this
Prince Harry describes losing his virginity as 'a humiliating episode' In his autobiography, Prince Harry has spoken about how he lost his virginity with an "older lady" who "loved horses very much".
He described the moment as "a humiliating episode" and says it took place "in a field".
The excerpt read: "I mounted her quickly, after which she spanked my ass and held me back… one of my mistakes was letting it happen in a field, just behind a busy pub.
If real, then respect for being frank I guess, though feels like that level of detail might take away from the core message (I'm guessing that to be that the media are awful, and William a tool).
Internet sleuths can probably start making educated guesses about the pub and year, and start hunting for witnesses.
Yes, what a great idea. Let's start guessing about which woman Prince Harry had sex with in a field. What a shame for voyeurs that he didn't film the whole episode and post it on YouTube.
We dont need to guess. The queen was an older woman that liked horses....nods
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Henry VII was a direct descendant of Edward III, like so many people, so 'barely related to to the royal line' is a bit of a stretch.
Harry might want to note that strict primogeniture is a fairly modern innovation.
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Forenames tend to be dynastic. There's a theory that Richards in English history (I, II and III) were commonly aggressive and insecure because they were never intended to be King.
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Henry VII was a direct descendant of Edward III, like so many people, and 'barely related to to the royal line' is a bit of a stretch.
It was tongue in cheek. Nonetheless, at the start of the wars they'd have probably considered him barely related in terms of being a viable candidate for monarch, it's not like he was waiting in the wings for his shot.
His achievements seem rather underrated to me, overshadowed by his son's larger than life story.
If we run with the theory that healthcare has got much worse because too many old and sick are using it compared with before, moving to an insurance based system isn't an obvious solution to the problem. Those old and sick people won't be paying the premiums.
Not if everyone is required to have insurance, like in the Swiss system. Then not only would they be paying the premiums, they would also be paying for a portion of their care, too.
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Forenames tend to be dynastic. There's a theory that Richards in English history (I, II and III) were commonly aggressive and insecure because they were never intended to be King.
Stephen just doesn't seem like a royal name to me. But I'd like a future monarch to go really old school. King Caratacus, King Drest, Queen Boudica, Queen Athelflaed.
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Henry VII was a direct descendant of Edward III, like so many people, and 'barely related to to the royal line' is a bit of a stretch.
It was tongue in cheek. Nonetheless, at the start of the wars they'd have probably considered him barely related in terms of being a viable candidate for monarch, it's not like he was waiting in the wings for his shot.
His achievements seem rather underrated to me, overshadowed by his son's larger than life story.
And being descended, like Henry VII, from Katherine de Valois as well perhaps Harry's next book might include a claim to the French throne. Bring it on.
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Henry VII was a direct descendant of Edward III, like so many people, and 'barely related to to the royal line' is a bit of a stretch.
It was tongue in cheek. Nonetheless, at the start of the wars they'd have probably considered him barely related in terms of being a viable candidate for monarch, it's not like he was waiting in the wings for his shot.
His achievements seem rather underrated to me, overshadowed by his son's larger than life story.
We went to Pembrokeshire in October and I picked up a decent read about Henry VII and the Bosworth campaign by Chris Skidmore, the MP. Needed a stricter editor but readable and detailed. Certainly for much of his life he was NOT the heir over the water, only when Richard went insane and seized the throne did Richards ever increasing enemies gather round him as the way out of the mess. You are right though, that the extraordinary life of his son (who was initially the spare), totally overshadows him.
If we run with the theory that healthcare has got much worse because too many old and sick are using it compared with before, moving to an insurance based system isn't an obvious solution to the problem. Those old and sick people won't be paying the premiums.
Not if everyone is required to have insurance, like in the Swiss system. Then not only would they be paying the premiums, they would also be paying for a portion of their care, too.
That will happen over time. In 40 years time people have will paid a lifetime's premiums to afford late life care. If you want to "fix"* healthcare earlier than that you will need do something else.
By the way, Swiss healthcare is good but very expensive. It costs nearly twice the UK service in PPP terms.
* on the theory that the root cause of the current degradation of service is due to too many old and sick people consuming healthcare, compared with before.
Keir needs to reform the NHS into a Swiss system. Today he has given himself the room to do that.
Lol, as if. The Swiss healthcare system is fully privatised and insurance based with subsidies offered by the state to low wage workers and unemployed people. Otherwise there is nothing like the NHS in Switzerland, all healthcare providers are privately owned and run for profit and insurers are owned and run privately for profit. There is no scenario where any party will ever propose to switch the UK to Swiss style healthcare, it would mean dismantling the NHS completely, privatising all hospitals and trusts, mandating insurance. It's a non-starter.
That's ultimately what we need Max. NHS is not fit for purpose.
This is true, but significant reform is politically completely impossible, because the vested interests will always accuse you of wanting to Americanise the NHS.
Somebody is going to have to say to Britain:
"The unpalatable truth is that NHS needs fundamental reform. It is broken.
The current political consensus by stasis simply condemns patients to an ever worse system of outcomes. We are witnessing this winter after winter.
All other healthcare systems around the world need to be considered, to discover what they do better than us. We must be able to find elements that will work for us in our system. We need a task force as we had for Covid jabs. The finest minds - think the unthinkable to give us a hugely improved system."
Labour will scream. The healthcare unions will scream. The trusts will scream. But fuck them. They gave got us where we are, whilst refusing to take any responsibility. If somebody can do better, they should be allowed to.
And the worst part of it is that we spend a fucking shit load of money on the NHS, comparable to other nations which have better health outcomes...
Do we ? As a % of GDP, what's the Swiss spend per capita in healthcare; or Germany or France ? From what I can quickly find, it's a bit more than we spend.
For 2019, UK is at 9.9% of GDP, France 11.1%, Switzerland 11.3% and Germany 11.7%.
Yes, it's easy to find those figures, but more difficult to tell whether they are comparing like with like. But it's hard to deny that Switzerland's per capita spending is a lot more than ours.
%GDP is the best comparitor we have. Sure if both Switzerland and the UK spent 11.3% of GDP the nominal Swiss spend per capita would be much higher than the UK's but their Labour costs are correspondingly higher too.
Ignoring the distorting (and temporary) effects of Covid, spending 11%-12% of GDP on health is going to help deliver better outcomes than spending the 10% GDP that the UK historically has.
It's not temporary though, the spending increases on healthcare over COVID haven't been cut back and there is no plan to cut them back. We are spending substantially the same as everywhere else in Europe and not getting anything like those healthcare outcomes.
Anyway, surely you'd prefer an insurance based system, rich people pay more money for better insurance which feeds into capital investment and effective subsidisation of the healthcare by them.
I'd personally have no objection to a universal system of compulsory insurance; I could not support a system that meant you get better cancer treatment, say, by paying higher premiums.
That's why the swiss system works well, broadly everyone gets pretty good healthcare. My wife's insurance package required her to get a GP referral for any specialist treatment so it was a bit cheaper but the GP would always give the referral and the best possible course of action. Some insurance packages which are more expensive allow direct booking for specialists without the GP referral but it's maybe two days extra to get the GP referral and then it's the same specialists in the same hospitals as the person paying much more money.
The point is how efficiently you allocate risk.
Rationing with a monolithic provider certainly can keep procurement costs down but it will carry its own bureaucracy and because it's carrying all the risk for everyone and has to take a one size fits all approach it doesn't really allow people to make their own decisions about where to invest on their own healthcare, or change behaviours, so it doesn't transform outcomes.
The vast majority of European systems have compulsory insurance and pretty much equality of outcomes so I don’t think you’re going to get anyone going down the US route, not least because it’s hideously expensive.
NHS outcomes were reasonable as recently as 2010. We were still a bit behind European peers on cancer survival rates among other things, but it was a value for money health service with high rates of satisfaction.
I don’t see how the funding mechanism is the biggest issue here. The gap with social care is an obvious problem, the dynamic between GPs and hospital care clearly needs fixing and the whole system needs more staff and beds. I don’t see how moving to an insurance based set up changes that, not to mention the doubtless vast cost of change.
Because underperforming hospitals, units and GPs will actually face the prospect of having to close and everyone losing their jobs. The NHS has simply got no recourse to force underperforming healthcare providers to improve. The same failed managers make the same excuses about funding over and over again and patients are on the losing end with worsening healthcare outcomes.
When people become paying customers of something they will expect a minimum service and GPs making excuses to not see patients or hospitals refusing to discharge people because paperwork isn't correctly signed as happened to someone's parent on PB just doesn't happen because insurance companies withdraw their services and find other providers. The NHS being a monopoly provider of healthcare is why those poor behaviours listed are allowed to continue, patients simply don't have the choice to go elsewhere.
See the privatised railways, Royal Mail and our water companies for recent newsworthy examples of people being paying customers of previously state run services.
No, that's ridiculous because there's no regional monopolies in healthcare. Patients are free to take their business elsewhere if they receive poor service at a private GP. I can't get a different train to Cardiff in June for our 15 year graduation anniversary reunion, it's GWR or nothing.
You’re seriously suggesting the full fat US model, with its attendant cost?
Great if you can afford it, pretty shit if you’re uninsured.
No? Where have I suggested that? And how do you get to that point from what I posted?
This is the fucking problem with discussing NHS reform with religious types, any kind of reform is screamed down as "OMG you want the US healthcare system and for poor people to die you Tory scum".
Honestly, I'm done with this shit. I think I'm going to take a break from PB for a while.
Please don't.
The site is dominated by Lefties at the moment and they need challenging.
Tis true, CR, but then you and I have been here long enough to have witnessed the changing composition of the Site. You surely remember when 'the Tory herd' was a thing. Dammit, we've even had infestations of LibDems from time to time.
Swingback doesn't just apply to voting trends. It's built into the Site too.
Oh, absolutely, Peter.
What we have now is the inverse of what we had here in 2008-2010 with 'the Tory herd'.
I even did an analysis the other day with over forty regulars (ex regular) centre-right posters almost all of whom have now gone back to lurking.
How do you know they haven't changed their minds or died? No Tory can support either the current government or any reasonably foreseeable version of a Tory opposition. Meanwhile the leftiest lefty BJO is passionately anti labour. These are strange times.
I've got 40 who've posted or liked something in the last 4 months but done nothing else.
One or two have died, yes. A few more have been perma banned. A very small number three or four have switched to Labour.
The rest lurking.
I have voted Tory in GEs since the 1970s but this time it is Labour unless they lose their heads. Nothing in party politics is all that near to centrist One Nation Tory, but SKS is closest.
Keir needs to reform the NHS into a Swiss system. Today he has given himself the room to do that.
Lol, as if. The Swiss healthcare system is fully privatised and insurance based with subsidies offered by the state to low wage workers and unemployed people. Otherwise there is nothing like the NHS in Switzerland, all healthcare providers are privately owned and run for profit and insurers are owned and run privately for profit. There is no scenario where any party will ever propose to switch the UK to Swiss style healthcare, it would mean dismantling the NHS completely, privatising all hospitals and trusts, mandating insurance. It's a non-starter.
That's ultimately what we need Max. NHS is not fit for purpose.
This is true, but significant reform is politically completely impossible, because the vested interests will always accuse you of wanting to Americanise the NHS.
Somebody is going to have to say to Britain:
"The unpalatable truth is that NHS needs fundamental reform. It is broken.
The current political consensus by stasis simply condemns patients to an ever worse system of outcomes. We are witnessing this winter after winter.
All other healthcare systems around the world need to be considered, to discover what they do better than us. We must be able to find elements that will work for us in our system. We need a task force as we had for Covid jabs. The finest minds - think the unthinkable to give us a hugely improved system."
Labour will scream. The healthcare unions will scream. The trusts will scream. But fuck them. They gave got us where we are, whilst refusing to take any responsibility. If somebody can do better, they should be allowed to.
And the worst part of it is that we spend a fucking shit load of money on the NHS, comparable to other nations which have better health outcomes...
Do we ? As a % of GDP, what's the Swiss spend per capita in healthcare; or Germany or France ? From what I can quickly find, it's a bit more than we spend.
For 2019, UK is at 9.9% of GDP, France 11.1%, Switzerland 11.3% and Germany 11.7%.
Yes, it's easy to find those figures, but more difficult to tell whether they are comparing like with like. But it's hard to deny that Switzerland's per capita spending is a lot more than ours.
%GDP is the best comparitor we have. Sure if both Switzerland and the UK spent 11.3% of GDP the nominal Swiss spend per capita would be much higher than the UK's but their Labour costs are correspondingly higher too.
Ignoring the distorting (and temporary) effects of Covid, spending 11%-12% of GDP on health is going to help deliver better outcomes than spending the 10% GDP that the UK historically has.
It's not temporary though, the spending increases on healthcare over COVID haven't been cut back and there is no plan to cut them back. We are spending substantially the same as everywhere else in Europe and not getting anything like those healthcare outcomes.
Anyway, surely you'd prefer an insurance based system, rich people pay more money for better insurance which feeds into capital investment and effective subsidisation of the healthcare by them.
I'd personally have no objection to a universal system of compulsory insurance; I could not support a system that meant you get better cancer treatment, say, by paying higher premiums.
That's why the swiss system works well, broadly everyone gets pretty good healthcare. My wife's insurance package required her to get a GP referral for any specialist treatment so it was a bit cheaper but the GP would always give the referral and the best possible course of action. Some insurance packages which are more expensive allow direct booking for specialists without the GP referral but it's maybe two days extra to get the GP referral and then it's the same specialists in the same hospitals as the person paying much more money.
The point is how efficiently you allocate risk.
Rationing with a monolithic provider certainly can keep procurement costs down but it will carry its own bureaucracy and because it's carrying all the risk for everyone and has to take a one size fits all approach it doesn't really allow people to make their own decisions about where to invest on their own healthcare, or change behaviours, so it doesn't transform outcomes.
The vast majority of European systems have compulsory insurance and pretty much equality of outcomes so I don’t think you’re going to get anyone going down the US route, not least because it’s hideously expensive.
NHS outcomes were reasonable as recently as 2010. We were still a bit behind European peers on cancer survival rates among other things, but it was a value for money health service with high rates of satisfaction.
I don’t see how the funding mechanism is the biggest issue here. The gap with social care is an obvious problem, the dynamic between GPs and hospital care clearly needs fixing and the whole system needs more staff and beds. I don’t see how moving to an insurance based set up changes that, not to mention the doubtless vast cost of change.
Because underperforming hospitals, units and GPs will actually face the prospect of having to close and everyone losing their jobs. The NHS has simply got no recourse to force underperforming healthcare providers to improve. The same failed managers make the same excuses about funding over and over again and patients are on the losing end with worsening healthcare outcomes.
When people become paying customers of something they will expect a minimum service and GPs making excuses to not see patients or hospitals refusing to discharge people because paperwork isn't correctly signed as happened to someone's parent on PB just doesn't happen because insurance companies withdraw their services and find other providers. The NHS being a monopoly provider of healthcare is why those poor behaviours listed are allowed to continue, patients simply don't have the choice to go elsewhere.
See the privatised railways, Royal Mail and our water companies for recent newsworthy examples of people being paying customers of previously state run services.
No, that's ridiculous because there's no regional monopolies in healthcare. Patients are free to take their business elsewhere if they receive poor service at a private GP. I can't get a different train to Cardiff in June for our 15 year graduation anniversary reunion, it's GWR or nothing.
You’re seriously suggesting the full fat US model, with its attendant cost?
Great if you can afford it, pretty shit if you’re uninsured.
No? Where have I suggested that? And how do you get to that point from what I posted?
This is the fucking problem with discussing NHS reform with religious types, any kind of reform is screamed down as "OMG you want the US healthcare system and for poor people to die you Tory scum".
Honestly, I'm done with this shit. I think I'm going to take a break from PB for a while.
Please don't.
The site is dominated by Lefties at the moment and they need challenging.
Tis true, CR, but then you and I have been here long enough to have witnessed the changing composition of the Site. You surely remember when 'the Tory herd' was a thing. Dammit, we've even had infestations of LibDems from time to time.
Swingback doesn't just apply to voting trends. It's built into the Site too.
When the parties that represent your view are worn out and ideologically bankrupt, it isn't interesting to argue on forums like this that despite them being worthless I am still going to support this absolute shower because I always do.
Quite interesting to see a few posters outing themselves as ex-Tories. I wouldn't have easily guessed from the tone of their posts in most cases. Which is somewhat of a problem for the Blue team just now. Especially if they are shedding 1997 Tory voters.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
I’ve never voted Tory, and have no plans to vote for this junk of a government. My country needs a change of government. The divided Tories have lost their way, they are not delivering, just getting a crap reputation that will turn generations of voters off them for decades - which makes it in interest of Tories themselves, not to wound their long term chances any further by sneaking another 5 years!
There’s also an argument, Brexit, Boris, Corbyn conspired to keep them in longer, than how popular they actually were with middle ground voters, and that wasn’t healthy for any party to overstay its welcome, unique circumstances or not.
And there is a very strong argument Boris and his Brexit/anti business agenda to bring levelling up and a stronger Britain, should ideally have stayed to defend that and his majority at the next election, without him, what is their pitch now? There is nothing from last twelve years to argue they need another five, and more than enough to say they shouldn’t.
The fiscal austerity of the Dave conservatism replaced by the high spending, high taxing, high borrowing irresponsibility of the Boris and Rishi years, isn’t remotely consistent with each other. Is it? And Truss won a big win with membership very open about a completely different way of doing it again. Did any one of 3 Tory ideology get it right? Which of these three clashing ideologies is actually traditional Conservative values in a 21st century modern era? Are they about privatising channel 4 or not? The NFU leader has dealt with 3 governments with three different sets of priorities in last couple of years, she said today.
Anyone who votes Tory at the next election must be trying to kill the party off, not save it. It will be unpatriotic to give this mess of a party another 5 years of so much power in our country.
Can I be anymore clear in squashing your irresponsible speculation about my vote?
Keir needs to reform the NHS into a Swiss system. Today he has given himself the room to do that.
Lol, as if. The Swiss healthcare system is fully privatised and insurance based with subsidies offered by the state to low wage workers and unemployed people. Otherwise there is nothing like the NHS in Switzerland, all healthcare providers are privately owned and run for profit and insurers are owned and run privately for profit. There is no scenario where any party will ever propose to switch the UK to Swiss style healthcare, it would mean dismantling the NHS completely, privatising all hospitals and trusts, mandating insurance. It's a non-starter.
That's ultimately what we need Max. NHS is not fit for purpose.
This is true, but significant reform is politically completely impossible, because the vested interests will always accuse you of wanting to Americanise the NHS.
Somebody is going to have to say to Britain:
"The unpalatable truth is that NHS needs fundamental reform. It is broken.
The current political consensus by stasis simply condemns patients to an ever worse system of outcomes. We are witnessing this winter after winter.
All other healthcare systems around the world need to be considered, to discover what they do better than us. We must be able to find elements that will work for us in our system. We need a task force as we had for Covid jabs. The finest minds - think the unthinkable to give us a hugely improved system."
Labour will scream. The healthcare unions will scream. The trusts will scream. But fuck them. They gave got us where we are, whilst refusing to take any responsibility. If somebody can do better, they should be allowed to.
And the worst part of it is that we spend a fucking shit load of money on the NHS, comparable to other nations which have better health outcomes...
Do we ? As a % of GDP, what's the Swiss spend per capita in healthcare; or Germany or France ? From what I can quickly find, it's a bit more than we spend.
For 2019, UK is at 9.9% of GDP, France 11.1%, Switzerland 11.3% and Germany 11.7%.
Yes, it's easy to find those figures, but more difficult to tell whether they are comparing like with like. But it's hard to deny that Switzerland's per capita spending is a lot more than ours.
%GDP is the best comparitor we have. Sure if both Switzerland and the UK spent 11.3% of GDP the nominal Swiss spend per capita would be much higher than the UK's but their Labour costs are correspondingly higher too.
Ignoring the distorting (and temporary) effects of Covid, spending 11%-12% of GDP on health is going to help deliver better outcomes than spending the 10% GDP that the UK historically has.
It's not temporary though, the spending increases on healthcare over COVID haven't been cut back and there is no plan to cut them back. We are spending substantially the same as everywhere else in Europe and not getting anything like those healthcare outcomes.
Anyway, surely you'd prefer an insurance based system, rich people pay more money for better insurance which feeds into capital investment and effective subsidisation of the healthcare by them.
I'd personally have no objection to a universal system of compulsory insurance; I could not support a system that meant you get better cancer treatment, say, by paying higher premiums.
That's why the swiss system works well, broadly everyone gets pretty good healthcare. My wife's insurance package required her to get a GP referral for any specialist treatment so it was a bit cheaper but the GP would always give the referral and the best possible course of action. Some insurance packages which are more expensive allow direct booking for specialists without the GP referral but it's maybe two days extra to get the GP referral and then it's the same specialists in the same hospitals as the person paying much more money.
The point is how efficiently you allocate risk.
Rationing with a monolithic provider certainly can keep procurement costs down but it will carry its own bureaucracy and because it's carrying all the risk for everyone and has to take a one size fits all approach it doesn't really allow people to make their own decisions about where to invest on their own healthcare, or change behaviours, so it doesn't transform outcomes.
The vast majority of European systems have compulsory insurance and pretty much equality of outcomes so I don’t think you’re going to get anyone going down the US route, not least because it’s hideously expensive.
NHS outcomes were reasonable as recently as 2010. We were still a bit behind European peers on cancer survival rates among other things, but it was a value for money health service with high rates of satisfaction.
I don’t see how the funding mechanism is the biggest issue here. The gap with social care is an obvious problem, the dynamic between GPs and hospital care clearly needs fixing and the whole system needs more staff and beds. I don’t see how moving to an insurance based set up changes that, not to mention the doubtless vast cost of change.
Because underperforming hospitals, units and GPs will actually face the prospect of having to close and everyone losing their jobs. The NHS has simply got no recourse to force underperforming healthcare providers to improve. The same failed managers make the same excuses about funding over and over again and patients are on the losing end with worsening healthcare outcomes.
When people become paying customers of something they will expect a minimum service and GPs making excuses to not see patients or hospitals refusing to discharge people because paperwork isn't correctly signed as happened to someone's parent on PB just doesn't happen because insurance companies withdraw their services and find other providers. The NHS being a monopoly provider of healthcare is why those poor behaviours listed are allowed to continue, patients simply don't have the choice to go elsewhere.
The same is true of the BBC and every other provider of public services that uses this model. The incentive gies the wrong way, and I have been saying this here for many years.
The BBC is one of the worlds biggest and most trusted global media brands. You just don’t like the fact it’s not right wing enough.
My issue has nothing to do with the BBC's politics. My issue is with the relevance and popularity of much of its programming, and it's poor commercial performance given the vast advantage its funding via the license fee ensures. This is an issue we see a lot less with Channel 4/Film4, which seems to do very well being nationally owned, but having to secure revenue from advertising and therefore consumers. It also has an irritating left wing slant to its news, so if that were my issue, I wouldn't be highlighting it as a success.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
I’ve never voted Tory, and have no plans to vote for this junk of a government. My country needs a change of government. The divided Tories have lost their way, they are not delivering, just getting a crap reputation that will turn generations of voters off them for decades - which makes it in interest of Tories themselves, not to wound their long term chances any further by sneaking another 5 years!
There’s also an argument, Brexit, Boris, Corbyn conspired to keep them in longer, than how popular they actually were with middle ground voters, and that wasn’t healthy for any party to overstay its welcome, unique circumstances or not.
And there is a very strong argument Boris and his Brexit/anti business agenda to bring levelling up and a stronger Britain, should ideally have stayed to defend that and his majority at the next election, without him, what is their pitch now? There is nothing from last twelve years to argue they need another five, and more than enough to say they shouldn’t.
The fiscal austerity of the Dave conservatism replaced by the high spending, high taxing, high borrowing irresponsibility of the Boris and Rishi years, isn’t remotely consistent with each other. Is it? And Truss won a big win with membership very open about a completely different way of doing it again. Did any one of 3 Tory ideology get it right? Which of these three clashing ideologies is actually traditional Conservative values in a 21st century modern era? Are they about privatising channel 4 or not? The NFU leader has dealt with 3 governments with three different sets of priorities in last couple of years, she said today.
Anyone who votes Tory at the next election must be trying to kill the party off, not save it. It will be unpatriotic to give this mess of a party another 5 years of so much power in our country.
Can I be anymore clear in squashing your irresponsible speculation about my vote?
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
Scott is driven mad by Brexit and that (and only that) explains everything he does.
Sunil is just bonkers.
I can think of two regular Tories who switched to Lib Dem and maybe three to Labour on top.
"Sunil is just bonkers"?
Charming!
For the record, I voted Tory in 2019 and 2017, LEAVE in 2016, Labour in 2015, Tory in 2010, LibDem in 2005 and 2001, and Labour in 1997. I was too young to vote in 1992.
On the cost of healthcare debate, perhaps one reason the NHS is under such strain is that we have millions of people who can't afford to eat properly or stay warm. Is it any wonder so many of them end up in poor health? It's probably costing the taxpayer more than it's saving in the welfare bill, and certainly costing the country in terms of human misery.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
I’ve never voted Tory, and have no plans to vote for this junk of a government. My country needs a change of government. The divided Tories have lost their way, they are not delivering, just getting a crap reputation that will turn generations of voters off them for decades - which makes it in interest of Tories themselves, not to wound their long term chances any further by sneaking another 5 years!
There’s also an argument, Brexit, Boris, Corbyn conspired to keep them in longer, than how popular they actually were with middle ground voters, and that wasn’t healthy for any party to overstay its welcome, unique circumstances or not.
And there is a very strong argument Boris and his Brexit/anti business agenda to bring levelling up and a stronger Britain, should ideally have stayed to defend that and his majority at the next election, without him, what is their pitch now? There is nothing from last twelve years to argue they need another five, and more than enough to say they shouldn’t.
The fiscal austerity of the Dave conservatism replaced by the high spending, high taxing, high borrowing irresponsibility of the Boris and Rishi years, isn’t remotely consistent with each other. Is it? And Truss won a big win with membership very open about a completely different way of doing it again. Did any one of 3 Tory ideology get it right? Which of these three clashing ideologies is actually traditional Conservative values in a 21st century modern era? Are they about privatising channel 4 or not? The NFU leader has dealt with 3 governments with three different sets of priorities in last couple of years, she said today.
Anyone who votes Tory at the next election must be trying to kill the party off, not save it. It will be unpatriotic to give this mess of a party another 5 years of so much power in our country.
Can I be anymore clear in squashing your irresponsible speculation about my vote?
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Henry VII was a direct descendant of Edward III, like so many people, and 'barely related to to the royal line' is a bit of a stretch.
It was tongue in cheek. Nonetheless, at the start of the wars they'd have probably considered him barely related in terms of being a viable candidate for monarch, it's not like he was waiting in the wings for his shot.
His achievements seem rather underrated to me, overshadowed by his son's larger than life story.
And being descended, like Henry VII, from Katherine de Valois as well perhaps Harry's next book might include a claim to the French throne. Bring it on.
Harry is also descended from Charlemagne, (debatably) Muhammad and (according to early Anglo-Saxon chronicles) Wotan, so he could try for the titles of Holy Roman Emperor, Caliph and Chief of the AEsir while he's at it.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
Scott is driven mad by Brexit and that (and only that) explains everything he does.
Sunil is just bonkers.
I can think of two regular Tories who switched to Lib Dem and maybe three to Labour on top.
"Sunil is just bonkers"?
Charming!
For the record, I voted Tory in 2019 and 2017, LEAVE in 2016, Labour in 2015, Tory in 2010, LibDem in 2005 and 2001, and Labour in 1997. I was too young to vote in 1992.
This is the issue I have with all the 2019 Tory voters who say don't know being added to the Tory voting column. How do we know they don't know which Party they'll vote for to best replace this shower?
Anyone who has written anything critical of Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, and previously Obama, for not getting "bipartisan compromises" with Republicans in Congress [looking at you, most of MSM], reflect upon Kevin McCarthy and repent. https://twitter.com/JamesFallows/status/1611094811158904833
My issue has nothing to do with the BBC's politics. My issue is with the relevance and popularity of much of its programming, and it's poor commercial performance given the vast advantage its funding via the license fee ensures.
What's the point of having a publicly funded broadcaster and then measuring it by commercial performance? If you want 'commercially successful' you can get that from the commercially funded channels; if you're publicly funding TV it should be because you want an outcome you're not getting from the commercial channels, and your metrics should therefore be measuring whatever that other outcome is.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
I’ve never voted Tory, and have no plans to vote for this junk of a government. My country needs a change of government. The divided Tories have lost their way, they are not delivering, just getting a crap reputation that will turn generations of voters off them for decades - which makes it in interest of Tories themselves, not to wound their long term chances any further by sneaking another 5 years!
There’s also an argument, Brexit, Boris, Corbyn conspired to keep them in longer, than how popular they actually were with middle ground voters, and that wasn’t healthy for any party to overstay its welcome, unique circumstances or not.
And there is a very strong argument Boris and his Brexit/anti business agenda to bring levelling up and a stronger Britain, should ideally have stayed to defend that and his majority at the next election, without him, what is their pitch now? There is nothing from last twelve years to argue they need another five, and more than enough to say they shouldn’t.
The fiscal austerity of the Dave conservatism replaced by the high spending, high taxing, high borrowing irresponsibility of the Boris and Rishi years, isn’t remotely consistent with each other. Is it? And Truss won a big win with membership very open about a completely different way of doing it again. Did any one of 3 Tory ideology get it right? Which of these three clashing ideologies is actually traditional Conservative values in a 21st century modern era? Are they about privatising channel 4 or not? The NFU leader has dealt with 3 governments with three different sets of priorities in last couple of years, she said today.
Anyone who votes Tory at the next election must be trying to kill the party off, not save it. It will be unpatriotic to give this mess of a party another 5 years of so much power in our country.
Can I be anymore clear in squashing your irresponsible speculation about my vote?
A brief observation- because I think it highlights something general and probably important.
Aren't you forgetting someone? Grey haired lady, wore big necklaces. Lost her voice in a speech when the backdrop started to collapse.
She was PM longer than Truss, presumably longer than Sunak will manage. Almost as long as Johnson. She had a distinctive agenda, definitely different to Dave, Boris and Liz, possibly more authentically Conservative than any of them.
And now it takes non-trivial effort to remember her at all. You know, thingy.
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Given that King naming is generally by rote and tradition, it's not so strange that the Hanoverians established a new naming tradition for British monarchs. It's more surprising that Victoria went back to Edward. Worth remembering that William IV was not the firstborn son.
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
I've always though Henry VIII was just obsessed with having a legitimate male heir, everything else flowed from that.
I was this close to calling my youngest Henry.
My brother had twins and called them Harry and Henry. What can you do?
Keir needs to reform the NHS into a Swiss system. Today he has given himself the room to do that.
Lol, as if. The Swiss healthcare system is fully privatised and insurance based with subsidies offered by the state to low wage workers and unemployed people. Otherwise there is nothing like the NHS in Switzerland, all healthcare providers are privately owned and run for profit and insurers are owned and run privately for profit. There is no scenario where any party will ever propose to switch the UK to Swiss style healthcare, it would mean dismantling the NHS completely, privatising all hospitals and trusts, mandating insurance. It's a non-starter.
That's ultimately what we need Max. NHS is not fit for purpose.
This is true, but significant reform is politically completely impossible, because the vested interests will always accuse you of wanting to Americanise the NHS.
Somebody is going to have to say to Britain:
"The unpalatable truth is that NHS needs fundamental reform. It is broken.
The current political consensus by stasis simply condemns patients to an ever worse system of outcomes. We are witnessing this winter after winter.
All other healthcare systems around the world need to be considered, to discover what they do better than us. We must be able to find elements that will work for us in our system. We need a task force as we had for Covid jabs. The finest minds - think the unthinkable to give us a hugely improved system."
Labour will scream. The healthcare unions will scream. The trusts will scream. But fuck them. They gave got us where we are, whilst refusing to take any responsibility. If somebody can do better, they should be allowed to.
And the worst part of it is that we spend a fucking shit load of money on the NHS, comparable to other nations which have better health outcomes...
Do we ? As a % of GDP, what's the Swiss spend per capita in healthcare; or Germany or France ? From what I can quickly find, it's a bit more than we spend.
For 2019, UK is at 9.9% of GDP, France 11.1%, Switzerland 11.3% and Germany 11.7%.
Yes, it's easy to find those figures, but more difficult to tell whether they are comparing like with like. But it's hard to deny that Switzerland's per capita spending is a lot more than ours.
%GDP is the best comparitor we have. Sure if both Switzerland and the UK spent 11.3% of GDP the nominal Swiss spend per capita would be much higher than the UK's but their Labour costs are correspondingly higher too.
Ignoring the distorting (and temporary) effects of Covid, spending 11%-12% of GDP on health is going to help deliver better outcomes than spending the 10% GDP that the UK historically has.
It's not temporary though, the spending increases on healthcare over COVID haven't been cut back and there is no plan to cut them back. We are spending substantially the same as everywhere else in Europe and not getting anything like those healthcare outcomes.
Anyway, surely you'd prefer an insurance based system, rich people pay more money for better insurance which feeds into capital investment and effective subsidisation of the healthcare by them.
I'd personally have no objection to a universal system of compulsory insurance; I could not support a system that meant you get better cancer treatment, say, by paying higher premiums.
That's why the swiss system works well, broadly everyone gets pretty good healthcare. My wife's insurance package required her to get a GP referral for any specialist treatment so it was a bit cheaper but the GP would always give the referral and the best possible course of action. Some insurance packages which are more expensive allow direct booking for specialists without the GP referral but it's maybe two days extra to get the GP referral and then it's the same specialists in the same hospitals as the person paying much more money.
The point is how efficiently you allocate risk.
Rationing with a monolithic provider certainly can keep procurement costs down but it will carry its own bureaucracy and because it's carrying all the risk for everyone and has to take a one size fits all approach it doesn't really allow people to make their own decisions about where to invest on their own healthcare, or change behaviours, so it doesn't transform outcomes.
The vast majority of European systems have compulsory insurance and pretty much equality of outcomes so I don’t think you’re going to get anyone going down the US route, not least because it’s hideously expensive.
NHS outcomes were reasonable as recently as 2010. We were still a bit behind European peers on cancer survival rates among other things, but it was a value for money health service with high rates of satisfaction.
I don’t see how the funding mechanism is the biggest issue here. The gap with social care is an obvious problem, the dynamic between GPs and hospital care clearly needs fixing and the whole system needs more staff and beds. I don’t see how moving to an insurance based set up changes that, not to mention the doubtless vast cost of change.
Because underperforming hospitals, units and GPs will actually face the prospect of having to close and everyone losing their jobs. The NHS has simply got no recourse to force underperforming healthcare providers to improve. The same failed managers make the same excuses about funding over and over again and patients are on the losing end with worsening healthcare outcomes.
When people become paying customers of something they will expect a minimum service and GPs making excuses to not see patients or hospitals refusing to discharge people because paperwork isn't correctly signed as happened to someone's parent on PB just doesn't happen because insurance companies withdraw their services and find other providers. The NHS being a monopoly provider of healthcare is why those poor behaviours listed are allowed to continue, patients simply don't have the choice to go elsewhere.
See the privatised railways, Royal Mail and our water companies for recent newsworthy examples of people being paying customers of previously state run services.
No, that's ridiculous because there's no regional monopolies in healthcare. Patients are free to take their business elsewhere if they receive poor service at a private GP. I can't get a different train to Cardiff in June for our 15 year graduation anniversary reunion, it's GWR or nothing.
You’re seriously suggesting the full fat US model, with its attendant cost?
Great if you can afford it, pretty shit if you’re uninsured.
No? Where have I suggested that? And how do you get to that point from what I posted?
This is the fucking problem with discussing NHS reform with religious types, any kind of reform is screamed down as "OMG you want the US healthcare system and for poor people to die you Tory scum".
Honestly, I'm done with this shit. I think I'm going to take a break from PB for a while.
Please don't.
The site is dominated by Lefties at the moment and they need challenging.
As a 'Leftie' it doesn't feel that way to me: You, Max, LuckyGuy, AndyJS, Fishing, HYUFD, Leon, WilliamGlen etc. bang the drum for the Right alongside quite a few others.
Given the sticky wicket you're currently batting on I think you hold your own.
I hope Max stays though!
There are more dividing lines between those of a more right wing outlook here than I have ever known. There has always been foreign policy, and Brexit. Now there is Sunak and all his works, taxation, and the green agenda, upon which the above posters, not to mention Richard Tyndall, Barty, DavidL have no broad consensus at all. I don't think we even all agree on the abject repulsiveness of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Given that King naming is generally by rote and tradition, it's not so strange that the Hanoverians established a new naming tradition for British monarchs. It's more surprising that Victoria went back to Edward. Worth remembering that William IV was not the firstborn son.
Quite interesting to see a few posters outing themselves as ex-Tories. I wouldn't have easily guessed from the tone of their posts in most cases. Which is somewhat of a problem for the Blue team just now. Especially if they are shedding 1997 Tory voters.
I voted Conservative in 2010, and thought the Coalition the best period of government in recent history. I won't be doing so again, at least not until we have a Conservative leader apologise for Brexit and how it was handled.
I don't like Starmer, and will look carefully at the candidates next GE. I could vote Labour for the right candidate but more likely Lib Dem.
Keir needs to reform the NHS into a Swiss system. Today he has given himself the room to do that.
Lol, as if. The Swiss healthcare system is fully privatised and insurance based with subsidies offered by the state to low wage workers and unemployed people. Otherwise there is nothing like the NHS in Switzerland, all healthcare providers are privately owned and run for profit and insurers are owned and run privately for profit. There is no scenario where any party will ever propose to switch the UK to Swiss style healthcare, it would mean dismantling the NHS completely, privatising all hospitals and trusts, mandating insurance. It's a non-starter.
That's ultimately what we need Max. NHS is not fit for purpose.
This is true, but significant reform is politically completely impossible, because the vested interests will always accuse you of wanting to Americanise the NHS.
Somebody is going to have to say to Britain:
"The unpalatable truth is that NHS needs fundamental reform. It is broken.
The current political consensus by stasis simply condemns patients to an ever worse system of outcomes. We are witnessing this winter after winter.
All other healthcare systems around the world need to be considered, to discover what they do better than us. We must be able to find elements that will work for us in our system. We need a task force as we had for Covid jabs. The finest minds - think the unthinkable to give us a hugely improved system."
Labour will scream. The healthcare unions will scream. The trusts will scream. But fuck them. They gave got us where we are, whilst refusing to take any responsibility. If somebody can do better, they should be allowed to.
And the worst part of it is that we spend a fucking shit load of money on the NHS, comparable to other nations which have better health outcomes...
Do we ? As a % of GDP, what's the Swiss spend per capita in healthcare; or Germany or France ? From what I can quickly find, it's a bit more than we spend.
For 2019, UK is at 9.9% of GDP, France 11.1%, Switzerland 11.3% and Germany 11.7%.
Yes, it's easy to find those figures, but more difficult to tell whether they are comparing like with like. But it's hard to deny that Switzerland's per capita spending is a lot more than ours.
%GDP is the best comparitor we have. Sure if both Switzerland and the UK spent 11.3% of GDP the nominal Swiss spend per capita would be much higher than the UK's but their Labour costs are correspondingly higher too.
Ignoring the distorting (and temporary) effects of Covid, spending 11%-12% of GDP on health is going to help deliver better outcomes than spending the 10% GDP that the UK historically has.
It's not temporary though, the spending increases on healthcare over COVID haven't been cut back and there is no plan to cut them back. We are spending substantially the same as everywhere else in Europe and not getting anything like those healthcare outcomes.
Anyway, surely you'd prefer an insurance based system, rich people pay more money for better insurance which feeds into capital investment and effective subsidisation of the healthcare by them.
I'd personally have no objection to a universal system of compulsory insurance; I could not support a system that meant you get better cancer treatment, say, by paying higher premiums.
That's why the swiss system works well, broadly everyone gets pretty good healthcare. My wife's insurance package required her to get a GP referral for any specialist treatment so it was a bit cheaper but the GP would always give the referral and the best possible course of action. Some insurance packages which are more expensive allow direct booking for specialists without the GP referral but it's maybe two days extra to get the GP referral and then it's the same specialists in the same hospitals as the person paying much more money.
The point is how efficiently you allocate risk.
Rationing with a monolithic provider certainly can keep procurement costs down but it will carry its own bureaucracy and because it's carrying all the risk for everyone and has to take a one size fits all approach it doesn't really allow people to make their own decisions about where to invest on their own healthcare, or change behaviours, so it doesn't transform outcomes.
The vast majority of European systems have compulsory insurance and pretty much equality of outcomes so I don’t think you’re going to get anyone going down the US route, not least because it’s hideously expensive.
NHS outcomes were reasonable as recently as 2010. We were still a bit behind European peers on cancer survival rates among other things, but it was a value for money health service with high rates of satisfaction.
I don’t see how the funding mechanism is the biggest issue here. The gap with social care is an obvious problem, the dynamic between GPs and hospital care clearly needs fixing and the whole system needs more staff and beds. I don’t see how moving to an insurance based set up changes that, not to mention the doubtless vast cost of change.
Because underperforming hospitals, units and GPs will actually face the prospect of having to close and everyone losing their jobs. The NHS has simply got no recourse to force underperforming healthcare providers to improve. The same failed managers make the same excuses about funding over and over again and patients are on the losing end with worsening healthcare outcomes.
When people become paying customers of something they will expect a minimum service and GPs making excuses to not see patients or hospitals refusing to discharge people because paperwork isn't correctly signed as happened to someone's parent on PB just doesn't happen because insurance companies withdraw their services and find other providers. The NHS being a monopoly provider of healthcare is why those poor behaviours listed are allowed to continue, patients simply don't have the choice to go elsewhere.
See the privatised railways, Royal Mail and our water companies for recent newsworthy examples of people being paying customers of previously state run services.
No, that's ridiculous because there's no regional monopolies in healthcare. Patients are free to take their business elsewhere if they receive poor service at a private GP. I can't get a different train to Cardiff in June for our 15 year graduation anniversary reunion, it's GWR or nothing.
You’re seriously suggesting the full fat US model, with its attendant cost?
Great if you can afford it, pretty shit if you’re uninsured.
No? Where have I suggested that? And how do you get to that point from what I posted?
This is the fucking problem with discussing NHS reform with religious types, any kind of reform is screamed down as "OMG you want the US healthcare system and for poor people to die you Tory scum".
Honestly, I'm done with this shit. I think I'm going to take a break from PB for a while.
Please don't.
The site is dominated by Lefties at the moment and they need challenging.
As a 'Leftie' it doesn't feel that way to me: You, Max, LuckyGuy, AndyJS, Fishing, HYUFD, Leon, WilliamGlen etc. bang the drum for the Right alongside quite a few others.
Given the sticky wicket you're currently batting on I think you hold your own.
I hope Max stays though!
There are more dividing lines between those of a more right wing outlook here than I have ever known. There has always been foreign policy, and Brexit. Now there is Sunak and all his works, taxation, and the green agenda, upon which the above posters, not to mention Richard Tyndall, Barty, DavidL have no broad consensus at all. I don't think we even all agree on the abject repulsiveness of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
And nobody mention planning ‘reform’ (sic)? Or HS2? Net zero?
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Given that King naming is generally by rote and tradition, it's not so strange that the Hanoverians established a new naming tradition for British monarchs. It's more surprising that Victoria went back to Edward. Worth remembering that William IV was not the firstborn son.
Edward VII was actually Albert Edward of course.
Oh yes. I forgot about the whole woke-before-it-was-cool aspect of Royal naming where they got to choose their own name, instead of living with the one given to them by their parents.
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Given that King naming is generally by rote and tradition, it's not so strange that the Hanoverians established a new naming tradition for British monarchs. It's more surprising that Victoria went back to Edward. Worth remembering that William IV was not the firstborn son.
Keir needs to reform the NHS into a Swiss system. Today he has given himself the room to do that.
Lol, as if. The Swiss healthcare system is fully privatised and insurance based with subsidies offered by the state to low wage workers and unemployed people. Otherwise there is nothing like the NHS in Switzerland, all healthcare providers are privately owned and run for profit and insurers are owned and run privately for profit. There is no scenario where any party will ever propose to switch the UK to Swiss style healthcare, it would mean dismantling the NHS completely, privatising all hospitals and trusts, mandating insurance. It's a non-starter.
That's ultimately what we need Max. NHS is not fit for purpose.
This is true, but significant reform is politically completely impossible, because the vested interests will always accuse you of wanting to Americanise the NHS.
Somebody is going to have to say to Britain:
"The unpalatable truth is that NHS needs fundamental reform. It is broken.
The current political consensus by stasis simply condemns patients to an ever worse system of outcomes. We are witnessing this winter after winter.
All other healthcare systems around the world need to be considered, to discover what they do better than us. We must be able to find elements that will work for us in our system. We need a task force as we had for Covid jabs. The finest minds - think the unthinkable to give us a hugely improved system."
Labour will scream. The healthcare unions will scream. The trusts will scream. But fuck them. They gave got us where we are, whilst refusing to take any responsibility. If somebody can do better, they should be allowed to.
And the worst part of it is that we spend a fucking shit load of money on the NHS, comparable to other nations which have better health outcomes...
Do we ? As a % of GDP, what's the Swiss spend per capita in healthcare; or Germany or France ? From what I can quickly find, it's a bit more than we spend.
For 2019, UK is at 9.9% of GDP, France 11.1%, Switzerland 11.3% and Germany 11.7%.
Yes, it's easy to find those figures, but more difficult to tell whether they are comparing like with like. But it's hard to deny that Switzerland's per capita spending is a lot more than ours.
%GDP is the best comparitor we have. Sure if both Switzerland and the UK spent 11.3% of GDP the nominal Swiss spend per capita would be much higher than the UK's but their Labour costs are correspondingly higher too.
Ignoring the distorting (and temporary) effects of Covid, spending 11%-12% of GDP on health is going to help deliver better outcomes than spending the 10% GDP that the UK historically has.
It's not temporary though, the spending increases on healthcare over COVID haven't been cut back and there is no plan to cut them back. We are spending substantially the same as everywhere else in Europe and not getting anything like those healthcare outcomes.
Anyway, surely you'd prefer an insurance based system, rich people pay more money for better insurance which feeds into capital investment and effective subsidisation of the healthcare by them.
I'd personally have no objection to a universal system of compulsory insurance; I could not support a system that meant you get better cancer treatment, say, by paying higher premiums.
That's why the swiss system works well, broadly everyone gets pretty good healthcare. My wife's insurance package required her to get a GP referral for any specialist treatment so it was a bit cheaper but the GP would always give the referral and the best possible course of action. Some insurance packages which are more expensive allow direct booking for specialists without the GP referral but it's maybe two days extra to get the GP referral and then it's the same specialists in the same hospitals as the person paying much more money.
The point is how efficiently you allocate risk.
Rationing with a monolithic provider certainly can keep procurement costs down but it will carry its own bureaucracy and because it's carrying all the risk for everyone and has to take a one size fits all approach it doesn't really allow people to make their own decisions about where to invest on their own healthcare, or change behaviours, so it doesn't transform outcomes.
The vast majority of European systems have compulsory insurance and pretty much equality of outcomes so I don’t think you’re going to get anyone going down the US route, not least because it’s hideously expensive.
NHS outcomes were reasonable as recently as 2010. We were still a bit behind European peers on cancer survival rates among other things, but it was a value for money health service with high rates of satisfaction.
I don’t see how the funding mechanism is the biggest issue here. The gap with social care is an obvious problem, the dynamic between GPs and hospital care clearly needs fixing and the whole system needs more staff and beds. I don’t see how moving to an insurance based set up changes that, not to mention the doubtless vast cost of change.
Because underperforming hospitals, units and GPs will actually face the prospect of having to close and everyone losing their jobs. The NHS has simply got no recourse to force underperforming healthcare providers to improve. The same failed managers make the same excuses about funding over and over again and patients are on the losing end with worsening healthcare outcomes.
When people become paying customers of something they will expect a minimum service and GPs making excuses to not see patients or hospitals refusing to discharge people because paperwork isn't correctly signed as happened to someone's parent on PB just doesn't happen because insurance companies withdraw their services and find other providers. The NHS being a monopoly provider of healthcare is why those poor behaviours listed are allowed to continue, patients simply don't have the choice to go elsewhere.
See the privatised railways, Royal Mail and our water companies for recent newsworthy examples of people being paying customers of previously state run services.
No, that's ridiculous because there's no regional monopolies in healthcare. Patients are free to take their business elsewhere if they receive poor service at a private GP. I can't get a different train to Cardiff in June for our 15 year graduation anniversary reunion, it's GWR or nothing.
You’re seriously suggesting the full fat US model, with its attendant cost?
Great if you can afford it, pretty shit if you’re uninsured.
No? Where have I suggested that? And how do you get to that point from what I posted?
This is the fucking problem with discussing NHS reform with religious types, any kind of reform is screamed down as "OMG you want the US healthcare system and for poor people to die you Tory scum".
Honestly, I'm done with this shit. I think I'm going to take a break from PB for a while.
Please don't.
The site is dominated by Lefties at the moment and they need challenging.
As a 'Leftie' it doesn't feel that way to me: You, Max, LuckyGuy, AndyJS, Fishing, HYUFD, Leon, WilliamGlen etc. bang the drum for the Right alongside quite a few others.
Given the sticky wicket you're currently batting on I think you hold your own.
I hope Max stays though!
There are more dividing lines between those of a more right wing outlook here than I have ever known. There has always been foreign policy, and Brexit. Now there is Sunak and all his works, taxation, and the green agenda, upon which the above posters, not to mention Richard Tyndall, Barty, DavidL have no broad consensus at all. I don't think we even all agree on the abject repulsiveness of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
That's remarkably perceptive, LG.
I'd never really appreciated it before but the striking feature about the current bunch of PB Tories is not their lack of numbers but the lack of consensus.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
I’ve never voted Tory, and have no plans to vote for this junk of a government. My country needs a change of government. The divided Tories have lost their way, they are not delivering, just getting a crap reputation that will turn generations of voters off them for decades - which makes it in interest of Tories themselves, not to wound their long term chances any further by sneaking another 5 years!
There’s also an argument, Brexit, Boris, Corbyn conspired to keep them in longer, than how popular they actually were with middle ground voters, and that wasn’t healthy for any party to overstay its welcome, unique circumstances or not.
And there is a very strong argument Boris and his Brexit/anti business agenda to bring levelling up and a stronger Britain, should ideally have stayed to defend that and his majority at the next election, without him, what is their pitch now? There is nothing from last twelve years to argue they need another five, and more than enough to say they shouldn’t.
The fiscal austerity of the Dave conservatism replaced by the high spending, high taxing, high borrowing irresponsibility of the Boris and Rishi years, isn’t remotely consistent with each other. Is it? And Truss won a big win with membership very open about a completely different way of doing it again. Did any one of 3 Tory ideology get it right? Which of these three clashing ideologies is actually traditional Conservative values in a 21st century modern era? Are they about privatising channel 4 or not? The NFU leader has dealt with 3 governments with three different sets of priorities in last couple of years, she said today.
Anyone who votes Tory at the next election must be trying to kill the party off, not save it. It will be unpatriotic to give this mess of a party another 5 years of so much power in our country.
Can I be anymore clear in squashing your irresponsible speculation about my vote?
A brief observation- because I think it highlights something general and probably important.
Aren't you forgetting someone? Grey haired lady, wore big necklaces. Lost her voice in a speech when the backdrop started to collapse.
She was PM longer than Truss, presumably longer than Sunak will manage. Almost as long as Johnson. She had a distinctive agenda, definitely different to Dave, Boris and Liz, possibly more authentically Conservative than any of them.
And now it takes non-trivial effort to remember her at all. You know, thingy.
The one that almost lost to Corbyn because the electorate didn't like being told that social care was screwed and needed paying for? That one?
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Given that King naming is generally by rote and tradition, it's not so strange that the Hanoverians established a new naming tradition for British monarchs. It's more surprising that Victoria went back to Edward. Worth remembering that William IV was not the firstborn son.
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Given that King naming is generally by rote and tradition, it's not so strange that the Hanoverians established a new naming tradition for British monarchs. It's more surprising that Victoria went back to Edward. Worth remembering that William IV was not the firstborn son.
Edward VII was actually Albert Edward of course.
Oh yes. I forgot about the whole woke-before-it-was-cool aspect of Royal naming where they got to choose their own name, instead of living with the one given to them by their parents.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
I’ve never voted Tory, and have no plans to vote for this junk of a government. My country needs a change of government. The divided Tories have lost their way, they are not delivering, just getting a crap reputation that will turn generations of voters off them for decades - which makes it in interest of Tories themselves, not to wound their long term chances any further by sneaking another 5 years!
There’s also an argument, Brexit, Boris, Corbyn conspired to keep them in longer, than how popular they actually were with middle ground voters, and that wasn’t healthy for any party to overstay its welcome, unique circumstances or not.
And there is a very strong argument Boris and his Brexit/anti business agenda to bring levelling up and a stronger Britain, should ideally have stayed to defend that and his majority at the next election, without him, what is their pitch now? There is nothing from last twelve years to argue they need another five, and more than enough to say they shouldn’t.
The fiscal austerity of the Dave conservatism replaced by the high spending, high taxing, high borrowing irresponsibility of the Boris and Rishi years, isn’t remotely consistent with each other. Is it? And Truss won a big win with membership very open about a completely different way of doing it again. Did any one of 3 Tory ideology get it right? Which of these three clashing ideologies is actually traditional Conservative values in a 21st century modern era? Are they about privatising channel 4 or not? The NFU leader has dealt with 3 governments with three different sets of priorities in last couple of years, she said today.
Anyone who votes Tory at the next election must be trying to kill the party off, not save it. It will be unpatriotic to give this mess of a party another 5 years of so much power in our country.
Can I be anymore clear in squashing your irresponsible speculation about my vote?
A brief observation- because I think it highlights something general and probably important.
Aren't you forgetting someone? Grey haired lady, wore big necklaces. Lost her voice in a speech when the backdrop started to collapse.
She was PM longer than Truss, presumably longer than Sunak will manage. Almost as long as Johnson. She had a distinctive agenda, definitely different to Dave, Boris and Liz, possibly more authentically Conservative than any of them.
And now it takes non-trivial effort to remember her at all. You know, thingy.
My issue has nothing to do with the BBC's politics. My issue is with the relevance and popularity of much of its programming, and it's poor commercial performance given the vast advantage its funding via the license fee ensures.
What's the point of having a publicly funded broadcaster and then measuring it by commercial performance? If you want 'commercially successful' you can get that from the commercially funded channels; if you're publicly funding TV it should be because you want an outcome you're not getting from the commercial channels, and your metrics should therefore be measuring whatever that other outcome is.
I am not against public funding for a heartbeat of highbrow or otherwise essential public service programming that would otherwise not be made, but much of the BBC's output doesn't fit that profile, it's popular entertainment, just not very entertaining, or as it turns out very popular.
I am also not proposing to privatise the BBC (and I am against privatising Channel 4) but I do believe that with the investment it receives, it should at some point aim to be making money not just using it up.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
Scott is driven mad by Brexit and that (and only that) explains everything he does.
Sunil is just bonkers.
I can think of two regular Tories who switched to Lib Dem and maybe three to Labour on top.
"Sunil is just bonkers"?
Charming!
For the record, I voted Tory in 2019 and 2017, LEAVE in 2016, Labour in 2015, Tory in 2010, LibDem in 2005 and 2001, and Labour in 1997. I was too young to vote in 1992.
No further questions, your honour.
I just vote for the Party that I feel is either nearest to my viewpoint (at the time) OR best placed to run the country. I'm rather bemused by people who claim they are lifetime Labour or lifetime Tory. Why??
In January 2023, looks like the Tory brand is tired and broken and we definitely need a change.
Back in 2010, of course, I felt the same about the Labour Party.
Prince Harry should follow the lead of another Royal Henry, Henry Bolingbroke.
#HenryForKing
Interesting bunch
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess Henry VI - Mad Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
Given that King naming is generally by rote and tradition, it's not so strange that the Hanoverians established a new naming tradition for British monarchs. It's more surprising that Victoria went back to Edward. Worth remembering that William IV was not the firstborn son.
Edward VII was actually Albert Edward of course.
Oh yes. I forgot about the whole woke-before-it-was-cool aspect of Royal naming where they got to choose their own name, instead of living with the one given to them by their parents.
Keir needs to reform the NHS into a Swiss system. Today he has given himself the room to do that.
Lol, as if. The Swiss healthcare system is fully privatised and insurance based with subsidies offered by the state to low wage workers and unemployed people. Otherwise there is nothing like the NHS in Switzerland, all healthcare providers are privately owned and run for profit and insurers are owned and run privately for profit. There is no scenario where any party will ever propose to switch the UK to Swiss style healthcare, it would mean dismantling the NHS completely, privatising all hospitals and trusts, mandating insurance. It's a non-starter.
That's ultimately what we need Max. NHS is not fit for purpose.
This is true, but significant reform is politically completely impossible, because the vested interests will always accuse you of wanting to Americanise the NHS.
Somebody is going to have to say to Britain:
"The unpalatable truth is that NHS needs fundamental reform. It is broken.
The current political consensus by stasis simply condemns patients to an ever worse system of outcomes. We are witnessing this winter after winter.
All other healthcare systems around the world need to be considered, to discover what they do better than us. We must be able to find elements that will work for us in our system. We need a task force as we had for Covid jabs. The finest minds - think the unthinkable to give us a hugely improved system."
Labour will scream. The healthcare unions will scream. The trusts will scream. But fuck them. They gave got us where we are, whilst refusing to take any responsibility. If somebody can do better, they should be allowed to.
And the worst part of it is that we spend a fucking shit load of money on the NHS, comparable to other nations which have better health outcomes...
Do we ? As a % of GDP, what's the Swiss spend per capita in healthcare; or Germany or France ? From what I can quickly find, it's a bit more than we spend.
For 2019, UK is at 9.9% of GDP, France 11.1%, Switzerland 11.3% and Germany 11.7%.
Yes, it's easy to find those figures, but more difficult to tell whether they are comparing like with like. But it's hard to deny that Switzerland's per capita spending is a lot more than ours.
%GDP is the best comparitor we have. Sure if both Switzerland and the UK spent 11.3% of GDP the nominal Swiss spend per capita would be much higher than the UK's but their Labour costs are correspondingly higher too.
Ignoring the distorting (and temporary) effects of Covid, spending 11%-12% of GDP on health is going to help deliver better outcomes than spending the 10% GDP that the UK historically has.
It's not temporary though, the spending increases on healthcare over COVID haven't been cut back and there is no plan to cut them back. We are spending substantially the same as everywhere else in Europe and not getting anything like those healthcare outcomes.
Anyway, surely you'd prefer an insurance based system, rich people pay more money for better insurance which feeds into capital investment and effective subsidisation of the healthcare by them.
I'd personally have no objection to a universal system of compulsory insurance; I could not support a system that meant you get better cancer treatment, say, by paying higher premiums.
That's why the swiss system works well, broadly everyone gets pretty good healthcare. My wife's insurance package required her to get a GP referral for any specialist treatment so it was a bit cheaper but the GP would always give the referral and the best possible course of action. Some insurance packages which are more expensive allow direct booking for specialists without the GP referral but it's maybe two days extra to get the GP referral and then it's the same specialists in the same hospitals as the person paying much more money.
The point is how efficiently you allocate risk.
Rationing with a monolithic provider certainly can keep procurement costs down but it will carry its own bureaucracy and because it's carrying all the risk for everyone and has to take a one size fits all approach it doesn't really allow people to make their own decisions about where to invest on their own healthcare, or change behaviours, so it doesn't transform outcomes.
The vast majority of European systems have compulsory insurance and pretty much equality of outcomes so I don’t think you’re going to get anyone going down the US route, not least because it’s hideously expensive.
NHS outcomes were reasonable as recently as 2010. We were still a bit behind European peers on cancer survival rates among other things, but it was a value for money health service with high rates of satisfaction.
I don’t see how the funding mechanism is the biggest issue here. The gap with social care is an obvious problem, the dynamic between GPs and hospital care clearly needs fixing and the whole system needs more staff and beds. I don’t see how moving to an insurance based set up changes that, not to mention the doubtless vast cost of change.
Because underperforming hospitals, units and GPs will actually face the prospect of having to close and everyone losing their jobs. The NHS has simply got no recourse to force underperforming healthcare providers to improve. The same failed managers make the same excuses about funding over and over again and patients are on the losing end with worsening healthcare outcomes.
When people become paying customers of something they will expect a minimum service and GPs making excuses to not see patients or hospitals refusing to discharge people because paperwork isn't correctly signed as happened to someone's parent on PB just doesn't happen because insurance companies withdraw their services and find other providers. The NHS being a monopoly provider of healthcare is why those poor behaviours listed are allowed to continue, patients simply don't have the choice to go elsewhere.
See the privatised railways, Royal Mail and our water companies for recent newsworthy examples of people being paying customers of previously state run services.
No, that's ridiculous because there's no regional monopolies in healthcare. Patients are free to take their business elsewhere if they receive poor service at a private GP. I can't get a different train to Cardiff in June for our 15 year graduation anniversary reunion, it's GWR or nothing.
You’re seriously suggesting the full fat US model, with its attendant cost?
Great if you can afford it, pretty shit if you’re uninsured.
No? Where have I suggested that? And how do you get to that point from what I posted?
This is the fucking problem with discussing NHS reform with religious types, any kind of reform is screamed down as "OMG you want the US healthcare system and for poor people to die you Tory scum".
Honestly, I'm done with this shit. I think I'm going to take a break from PB for a while.
Please don't.
The site is dominated by Lefties at the moment and they need challenging.
As a 'Leftie' it doesn't feel that way to me: You, Max, LuckyGuy, AndyJS, Fishing, HYUFD, Leon, WilliamGlen etc. bang the drum for the Right alongside quite a few others.
Given the sticky wicket you're currently batting on I think you hold your own.
I hope Max stays though!
There are more dividing lines between those of a more right wing outlook here than I have ever known. There has always been foreign policy, and Brexit. Now there is Sunak and all his works, taxation, and the green agenda, upon which the above posters, not to mention Richard Tyndall, Barty, DavidL have no broad consensus at all. I don't think we even all agree on the abject repulsiveness of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
That's remarkably perceptive, LG.
I'd never really appreciated it before but the striking feature about the current bunch of PB Tories is not their lack of numbers but the lack of consensus.
And I think that reflects the wider party. Apart from protecting the Brexit brand, what are Conservatives for?
There's always been a degree of that - agreeing that Tories don't like Socialists has been enough to keep the blue team together. Indeed, it's given the party to intellectual suppleness to go in different directions as the need has arisen.
But it's tended to do so as a coherent grouping, following the leader (for now). Right now, that doesn't seem to be happening. Which adds to the smell of 1997 not 1992. In fact, this smells worse than my 1997 memories.
Keir needs to reform the NHS into a Swiss system. Today he has given himself the room to do that.
Lol, as if. The Swiss healthcare system is fully privatised and insurance based with subsidies offered by the state to low wage workers and unemployed people. Otherwise there is nothing like the NHS in Switzerland, all healthcare providers are privately owned and run for profit and insurers are owned and run privately for profit. There is no scenario where any party will ever propose to switch the UK to Swiss style healthcare, it would mean dismantling the NHS completely, privatising all hospitals and trusts, mandating insurance. It's a non-starter.
Not all Swiss healthcare providers are for-profit. The compulsory health insurance is not allowed to be for-profit. Swiss healthcare is the second most expensive in the world.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
Scott is driven mad by Brexit and that (and only that) explains everything he does.
Sunil is just bonkers.
I can think of two regular Tories who switched to Lib Dem and maybe three to Labour on top.
"Sunil is just bonkers"?
Charming!
For the record, I voted Tory in 2019 and 2017, LEAVE in 2016, Labour in 2015, Tory in 2010, LibDem in 2005 and 2001, and Labour in 1997. I was too young to vote in 1992.
No further questions, your honour.
I just vote for the Party that I feel is either nearest to my viewpoint (at the time) OR best placed to run the country. I'm rather bemused by people who claim they are lifetime Labour or lifetime Tory. Why??
In January 2023, looks like the Tory brand is tired and broken and we definitely need a change.
Back in 2010, of course, I felt the same about the Labour Party.
Your not remotely bonkers Sunil - you are a credit to the nation.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
I’ve never voted Tory, and have no plans to vote for this junk of a government. My country needs a change of government. The divided Tories have lost their way, they are not delivering, just getting a crap reputation that will turn generations of voters off them for decades - which makes it in interest of Tories themselves, not to wound their long term chances any further by sneaking another 5 years!
There’s also an argument, Brexit, Boris, Corbyn conspired to keep them in longer, than how popular they actually were with middle ground voters, and that wasn’t healthy for any party to overstay its welcome, unique circumstances or not.
And there is a very strong argument Boris and his Brexit/anti business agenda to bring levelling up and a stronger Britain, should ideally have stayed to defend that and his majority at the next election, without him, what is their pitch now? There is nothing from last twelve years to argue they need another five, and more than enough to say they shouldn’t.
The fiscal austerity of the Dave conservatism replaced by the high spending, high taxing, high borrowing irresponsibility of the Boris and Rishi years, isn’t remotely consistent with each other. Is it? And Truss won a big win with membership very open about a completely different way of doing it again. Did any one of 3 Tory ideology get it right? Which of these three clashing ideologies is actually traditional Conservative values in a 21st century modern era? Are they about privatising channel 4 or not? The NFU leader has dealt with 3 governments with three different sets of priorities in last couple of years, she said today.
Anyone who votes Tory at the next election must be trying to kill the party off, not save it. It will be unpatriotic to give this mess of a party another 5 years of so much power in our country.
Can I be anymore clear in squashing your irresponsible speculation about my vote?
A brief observation- because I think it highlights something general and probably important.
Aren't you forgetting someone? Grey haired lady, wore big necklaces. Lost her voice in a speech when the backdrop started to collapse.
She was PM longer than Truss, presumably longer than Sunak will manage. Almost as long as Johnson. She had a distinctive agenda, definitely different to Dave, Boris and Liz, possibly more authentically Conservative than any of them.
And now it takes non-trivial effort to remember her at all. You know, thingy.
I liked May, her personality - big necklaces, cornfields, Church, cricket. She scored with me for telling Osborne to push off too. Politically though, she was a convinced big-state authoritarian. I don't find that conservative.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
Scott is driven mad by Brexit and that (and only that) explains everything he does.
Sunil is just bonkers.
I can think of two regular Tories who switched to Lib Dem and maybe three to Labour on top.
"Sunil is just bonkers"?
Charming!
For the record, I voted Tory in 2019 and 2017, LEAVE in 2016, Labour in 2015, Tory in 2010, LibDem in 2005 and 2001, and Labour in 1997. I was too young to vote in 1992.
No further questions, your honour.
I just vote for the Party that I feel is either nearest to my viewpoint (at the time) OR best placed to run the country. I'm rather bemused by people who claim they are lifetime Labour or lifetime Tory. Why??
In January 2023, looks like the Tory brand is tired and broken and we definitely need a change.
Back in 2010, of course, I felt the same about the Labour Party.
Your not remotely bonkers Sunil - you are a credit to the nation.
Keir needs to reform the NHS into a Swiss system. Today he has given himself the room to do that.
Lol, as if. The Swiss healthcare system is fully privatised and insurance based with subsidies offered by the state to low wage workers and unemployed people. Otherwise there is nothing like the NHS in Switzerland, all healthcare providers are privately owned and run for profit and insurers are owned and run privately for profit. There is no scenario where any party will ever propose to switch the UK to Swiss style healthcare, it would mean dismantling the NHS completely, privatising all hospitals and trusts, mandating insurance. It's a non-starter.
That's ultimately what we need Max. NHS is not fit for purpose.
This is true, but significant reform is politically completely impossible, because the vested interests will always accuse you of wanting to Americanise the NHS.
Somebody is going to have to say to Britain:
"The unpalatable truth is that NHS needs fundamental reform. It is broken.
The current political consensus by stasis simply condemns patients to an ever worse system of outcomes. We are witnessing this winter after winter.
All other healthcare systems around the world need to be considered, to discover what they do better than us. We must be able to find elements that will work for us in our system. We need a task force as we had for Covid jabs. The finest minds - think the unthinkable to give us a hugely improved system."
Labour will scream. The healthcare unions will scream. The trusts will scream. But fuck them. They gave got us where we are, whilst refusing to take any responsibility. If somebody can do better, they should be allowed to.
And the worst part of it is that we spend a fucking shit load of money on the NHS, comparable to other nations which have better health outcomes...
Do we ? As a % of GDP, what's the Swiss spend per capita in healthcare; or Germany or France ? From what I can quickly find, it's a bit more than we spend.
For 2019, UK is at 9.9% of GDP, France 11.1%, Switzerland 11.3% and Germany 11.7%.
Yes, it's easy to find those figures, but more difficult to tell whether they are comparing like with like. But it's hard to deny that Switzerland's per capita spending is a lot more than ours.
%GDP is the best comparitor we have. Sure if both Switzerland and the UK spent 11.3% of GDP the nominal Swiss spend per capita would be much higher than the UK's but their Labour costs are correspondingly higher too.
Ignoring the distorting (and temporary) effects of Covid, spending 11%-12% of GDP on health is going to help deliver better outcomes than spending the 10% GDP that the UK historically has.
It's not temporary though, the spending increases on healthcare over COVID haven't been cut back and there is no plan to cut them back. We are spending substantially the same as everywhere else in Europe and not getting anything like those healthcare outcomes.
Anyway, surely you'd prefer an insurance based system, rich people pay more money for better insurance which feeds into capital investment and effective subsidisation of the healthcare by them.
I'd personally have no objection to a universal system of compulsory insurance; I could not support a system that meant you get better cancer treatment, say, by paying higher premiums.
That's why the swiss system works well, broadly everyone gets pretty good healthcare. My wife's insurance package required her to get a GP referral for any specialist treatment so it was a bit cheaper but the GP would always give the referral and the best possible course of action. Some insurance packages which are more expensive allow direct booking for specialists without the GP referral but it's maybe two days extra to get the GP referral and then it's the same specialists in the same hospitals as the person paying much more money.
The point is how efficiently you allocate risk.
Rationing with a monolithic provider certainly can keep procurement costs down but it will carry its own bureaucracy and because it's carrying all the risk for everyone and has to take a one size fits all approach it doesn't really allow people to make their own decisions about where to invest on their own healthcare, or change behaviours, so it doesn't transform outcomes.
The vast majority of European systems have compulsory insurance and pretty much equality of outcomes so I don’t think you’re going to get anyone going down the US route, not least because it’s hideously expensive.
NHS outcomes were reasonable as recently as 2010. We were still a bit behind European peers on cancer survival rates among other things, but it was a value for money health service with high rates of satisfaction.
I don’t see how the funding mechanism is the biggest issue here. The gap with social care is an obvious problem, the dynamic between GPs and hospital care clearly needs fixing and the whole system needs more staff and beds. I don’t see how moving to an insurance based set up changes that, not to mention the doubtless vast cost of change.
Because underperforming hospitals, units and GPs will actually face the prospect of having to close and everyone losing their jobs. The NHS has simply got no recourse to force underperforming healthcare providers to improve. The same failed managers make the same excuses about funding over and over again and patients are on the losing end with worsening healthcare outcomes.
When people become paying customers of something they will expect a minimum service and GPs making excuses to not see patients or hospitals refusing to discharge people because paperwork isn't correctly signed as happened to someone's parent on PB just doesn't happen because insurance companies withdraw their services and find other providers. The NHS being a monopoly provider of healthcare is why those poor behaviours listed are allowed to continue, patients simply don't have the choice to go elsewhere.
See the privatised railways, Royal Mail and our water companies for recent newsworthy examples of people being paying customers of previously state run services.
No, that's ridiculous because there's no regional monopolies in healthcare. Patients are free to take their business elsewhere if they receive poor service at a private GP. I can't get a different train to Cardiff in June for our 15 year graduation anniversary reunion, it's GWR or nothing.
You’re seriously suggesting the full fat US model, with its attendant cost?
Great if you can afford it, pretty shit if you’re uninsured.
No? Where have I suggested that? And how do you get to that point from what I posted?
This is the fucking problem with discussing NHS reform with religious types, any kind of reform is screamed down as "OMG you want the US healthcare system and for poor people to die you Tory scum".
Honestly, I'm done with this shit. I think I'm going to take a break from PB for a while.
Please don't.
The site is dominated by Lefties at the moment and they need challenging.
As a 'Leftie' it doesn't feel that way to me: You, Max, LuckyGuy, AndyJS, Fishing, HYUFD, Leon, WilliamGlen etc. bang the drum for the Right alongside quite a few others.
Given the sticky wicket you're currently batting on I think you hold your own.
I hope Max stays though!
There are more dividing lines between those of a more right wing outlook here than I have ever known. There has always been foreign policy, and Brexit. Now there is Sunak and all his works, taxation, and the green agenda, upon which the above posters, not to mention Richard Tyndall, Barty, DavidL have no broad consensus at all. I don't think we even all agree on the abject repulsiveness of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
And nobody mention planning ‘reform’ (sic)? Or HS2? Net zero?
Net zero I include with the other greenery, but yes, disagreement on the other two.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
I’ve never voted Tory, and have no plans to vote for this junk of a government. My country needs a change of government. The divided Tories have lost their way, they are not delivering, just getting a crap reputation that will turn generations of voters off them for decades - which makes it in interest of Tories themselves, not to wound their long term chances any further by sneaking another 5 years!
There’s also an argument, Brexit, Boris, Corbyn conspired to keep them in longer, than how popular they actually were with middle ground voters, and that wasn’t healthy for any party to overstay its welcome, unique circumstances or not.
And there is a very strong argument Boris and his Brexit/anti business agenda to bring levelling up and a stronger Britain, should ideally have stayed to defend that and his majority at the next election, without him, what is their pitch now? There is nothing from last twelve years to argue they need another five, and more than enough to say they shouldn’t.
The fiscal austerity of the Dave conservatism replaced by the high spending, high taxing, high borrowing irresponsibility of the Boris and Rishi years, isn’t remotely consistent with each other. Is it? And Truss won a big win with membership very open about a completely different way of doing it again. Did any one of 3 Tory ideology get it right? Which of these three clashing ideologies is actually traditional Conservative values in a 21st century modern era? Are they about privatising channel 4 or not? The NFU leader has dealt with 3 governments with three different sets of priorities in last couple of years, she said today.
Anyone who votes Tory at the next election must be trying to kill the party off, not save it. It will be unpatriotic to give this mess of a party another 5 years of so much power in our country.
Can I be anymore clear in squashing your irresponsible speculation about my vote?
A brief observation- because I think it highlights something general and probably important.
Aren't you forgetting someone? Grey haired lady, wore big necklaces. Lost her voice in a speech when the backdrop started to collapse.
She was PM longer than Truss, presumably longer than Sunak will manage. Almost as long as Johnson. She had a distinctive agenda, definitely different to Dave, Boris and Liz, possibly more authentically Conservative than any of them.
And now it takes non-trivial effort to remember her at all. You know, thingy.
I liked May, her personality - big necklaces, cornfields, Church, cricket. She scored with me for telling Osborne to push off too. Politically though, she was a convinced big-state authoritarian. I don't find that conservative.
And she was vaguely attractive - in a PMILFY kind of way.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
Scott is driven mad by Brexit and that (and only that) explains everything he does.
Sunil is just bonkers.
I can think of two regular Tories who switched to Lib Dem and maybe three to Labour on top.
"Sunil is just bonkers"?
Charming!
For the record, I voted Tory in 2019 and 2017, LEAVE in 2016, Labour in 2015, Tory in 2010, LibDem in 2005 and 2001, and Labour in 1997. I was too young to vote in 1992.
No further questions, your honour.
I just vote for the Party that I feel is either nearest to my viewpoint (at the time) OR best placed to run the country. I'm rather bemused by people who claim they are lifetime Labour or lifetime Tory. Why??
In January 2023, looks like the Tory brand is tired and broken and we definitely need a change.
Back in 2010, of course, I felt the same about the Labour Party.
I've voted for the Greens at every general election, bar my first, so for the last five elections straight, so I guess I'm well on my way to being a lifelong Green voter.
The reason being that I disagree with most of the British public about the relative importance of Green issues. I've always felt that we should do more to reduce carbon emissions more quickly, and that we ought to prioritise quality of life issues related to the environment over simplistic arguments for economic efficiency.
Generally speaking I'd guess that lifelong Labour/Tory voters are in a similar position. They fundamentally disagree with the majority of the British public on a point of principle - such as redistribution of wealth, or the futility of trying to redistribute wealth, depending on which end - and so they always find themselves voting for that side of the debate, for that point of principle. The only difference with me is that they sometimes find that they are voting in common with enough of the British public that they happen to vote for the government.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
Scott is driven mad by Brexit and that (and only that) explains everything he does.
Sunil is just bonkers.
I can think of two regular Tories who switched to Lib Dem and maybe three to Labour on top.
"Sunil is just bonkers"?
Charming!
For the record, I voted Tory in 2019 and 2017, LEAVE in 2016, Labour in 2015, Tory in 2010, LibDem in 2005 and 2001, and Labour in 1997. I was too young to vote in 1992.
No further questions, your honour.
I just vote for the Party that I feel is either nearest to my viewpoint (at the time) OR best placed to run the country. I'm rather bemused by people who claim they are lifetime Labour or lifetime Tory. Why??
In January 2023, looks like the Tory brand is tired and broken and we definitely need a change.
Back in 2010, of course, I felt the same about the Labour Party.
Your not remotely bonkers Sunil - you are a credit to the nation.
My issue has nothing to do with the BBC's politics. My issue is with the relevance and popularity of much of its programming, and it's poor commercial performance given the vast advantage its funding via the license fee ensures.
What's the point of having a publicly funded broadcaster and then measuring it by commercial performance? If you want 'commercially successful' you can get that from the commercially funded channels; if you're publicly funding TV it should be because you want an outcome you're not getting from the commercial channels, and your metrics should therefore be measuring whatever that other outcome is.
I am not against public funding for a heartbeat of highbrow or otherwise essential public service programming that would otherwise not be made, but much of the BBC's output doesn't fit that profile, it's popular entertainment, just not very entertaining, or as it turns out very popular.
I am also not proposing to privatise the BBC (and I am against privatising Channel 4) but I do believe that with the investment it receives, it should at some point aim to be making money not just using it up.
“I am against privatising Channel 4”
Don’t you feel it survived privatisation by living on past glories, sentimentality not it’s output today, nor it’s hopeless future of dishing out unoriginal stuff just easily now found everywhere else.
When it was born there were only four channels, and the community remit, to provide access to something different, was 100% real then, but 0% real now. What’s point of C4 foreign film/LGBT season when you can have all that from any or all options on Netflix, Sky Cinema, Prime, MUBI. What is original now on C4 - when so many other places are being more original with better budgets?
Privatisation isn’t the answer - it should be retired, put to sleep, whilst at birth it was 100% relevant, it’s now 0% relevant.
This is no country for unoriginal old channels, whether paid by tax payers or not.
Keir needs to reform the NHS into a Swiss system. Today he has given himself the room to do that.
Lol, as if. The Swiss healthcare system is fully privatised and insurance based with subsidies offered by the state to low wage workers and unemployed people. Otherwise there is nothing like the NHS in Switzerland, all healthcare providers are privately owned and run for profit and insurers are owned and run privately for profit. There is no scenario where any party will ever propose to switch the UK to Swiss style healthcare, it would mean dismantling the NHS completely, privatising all hospitals and trusts, mandating insurance. It's a non-starter.
That's ultimately what we need Max. NHS is not fit for purpose.
This is true, but significant reform is politically completely impossible, because the vested interests will always accuse you of wanting to Americanise the NHS.
Somebody is going to have to say to Britain:
"The unpalatable truth is that NHS needs fundamental reform. It is broken.
The current political consensus by stasis simply condemns patients to an ever worse system of outcomes. We are witnessing this winter after winter.
All other healthcare systems around the world need to be considered, to discover what they do better than us. We must be able to find elements that will work for us in our system. We need a task force as we had for Covid jabs. The finest minds - think the unthinkable to give us a hugely improved system."
Labour will scream. The healthcare unions will scream. The trusts will scream. But fuck them. They gave got us where we are, whilst refusing to take any responsibility. If somebody can do better, they should be allowed to.
And the worst part of it is that we spend a fucking shit load of money on the NHS, comparable to other nations which have better health outcomes...
Do we ? As a % of GDP, what's the Swiss spend per capita in healthcare; or Germany or France ? From what I can quickly find, it's a bit more than we spend.
For 2019, UK is at 9.9% of GDP, France 11.1%, Switzerland 11.3% and Germany 11.7%.
Yes, it's easy to find those figures, but more difficult to tell whether they are comparing like with like. But it's hard to deny that Switzerland's per capita spending is a lot more than ours.
%GDP is the best comparitor we have. Sure if both Switzerland and the UK spent 11.3% of GDP the nominal Swiss spend per capita would be much higher than the UK's but their Labour costs are correspondingly higher too.
Ignoring the distorting (and temporary) effects of Covid, spending 11%-12% of GDP on health is going to help deliver better outcomes than spending the 10% GDP that the UK historically has.
It's not temporary though, the spending increases on healthcare over COVID haven't been cut back and there is no plan to cut them back. We are spending substantially the same as everywhere else in Europe and not getting anything like those healthcare outcomes.
Anyway, surely you'd prefer an insurance based system, rich people pay more money for better insurance which feeds into capital investment and effective subsidisation of the healthcare by them.
I'd personally have no objection to a universal system of compulsory insurance; I could not support a system that meant you get better cancer treatment, say, by paying higher premiums.
That's why the swiss system works well, broadly everyone gets pretty good healthcare. My wife's insurance package required her to get a GP referral for any specialist treatment so it was a bit cheaper but the GP would always give the referral and the best possible course of action. Some insurance packages which are more expensive allow direct booking for specialists without the GP referral but it's maybe two days extra to get the GP referral and then it's the same specialists in the same hospitals as the person paying much more money.
The point is how efficiently you allocate risk.
Rationing with a monolithic provider certainly can keep procurement costs down but it will carry its own bureaucracy and because it's carrying all the risk for everyone and has to take a one size fits all approach it doesn't really allow people to make their own decisions about where to invest on their own healthcare, or change behaviours, so it doesn't transform outcomes.
The vast majority of European systems have compulsory insurance and pretty much equality of outcomes so I don’t think you’re going to get anyone going down the US route, not least because it’s hideously expensive.
NHS outcomes were reasonable as recently as 2010. We were still a bit behind European peers on cancer survival rates among other things, but it was a value for money health service with high rates of satisfaction.
I don’t see how the funding mechanism is the biggest issue here. The gap with social care is an obvious problem, the dynamic between GPs and hospital care clearly needs fixing and the whole system needs more staff and beds. I don’t see how moving to an insurance based set up changes that, not to mention the doubtless vast cost of change.
Because underperforming hospitals, units and GPs will actually face the prospect of having to close and everyone losing their jobs. The NHS has simply got no recourse to force underperforming healthcare providers to improve. The same failed managers make the same excuses about funding over and over again and patients are on the losing end with worsening healthcare outcomes.
When people become paying customers of something they will expect a minimum service and GPs making excuses to not see patients or hospitals refusing to discharge people because paperwork isn't correctly signed as happened to someone's parent on PB just doesn't happen because insurance companies withdraw their services and find other providers. The NHS being a monopoly provider of healthcare is why those poor behaviours listed are allowed to continue, patients simply don't have the choice to go elsewhere.
See the privatised railways, Royal Mail and our water companies for recent newsworthy examples of people being paying customers of previously state run services.
No, that's ridiculous because there's no regional monopolies in healthcare. Patients are free to take their business elsewhere if they receive poor service at a private GP. I can't get a different train to Cardiff in June for our 15 year graduation anniversary reunion, it's GWR or nothing.
You’re seriously suggesting the full fat US model, with its attendant cost?
Great if you can afford it, pretty shit if you’re uninsured.
No? Where have I suggested that? And how do you get to that point from what I posted?
This is the fucking problem with discussing NHS reform with religious types, any kind of reform is screamed down as "OMG you want the US healthcare system and for poor people to die you Tory scum".
Honestly, I'm done with this shit. I think I'm going to take a break from PB for a while.
Please don't.
The site is dominated by Lefties at the moment and they need challenging.
As a 'Leftie' it doesn't feel that way to me: You, Max, LuckyGuy, AndyJS, Fishing, HYUFD, Leon, WilliamGlen etc. bang the drum for the Right alongside quite a few others.
Given the sticky wicket you're currently batting on I think you hold your own.
I hope Max stays though!
There are more dividing lines between those of a more right wing outlook here than I have ever known. There has always been foreign policy, and Brexit. Now there is Sunak and all his works, taxation, and the green agenda, upon which the above posters, not to mention Richard Tyndall, Barty, DavidL have no broad consensus at all. I don't think we even all agree on the abject repulsiveness of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
That's remarkably perceptive, LG.
I'd never really appreciated it before but the striking feature about the current bunch of PB Tories is not their lack of numbers but the lack of consensus.
But why should there be a consensus about any of those things? The problems facing us are complex and not easily slotted into my-values-are-x-therefore-my-favoured-solution-is-y. There is a similar lack of consensus on the left, veiled only slightly by a consensus that the Labour Party would do better. (And of course the main consensus on the right has always been no mattet how bad the conservatives are, Labour would probably be worse.)
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
Scott is driven mad by Brexit and that (and only that) explains everything he does.
Sunil is just bonkers.
I can think of two regular Tories who switched to Lib Dem and maybe three to Labour on top.
"Sunil is just bonkers"?
Charming!
For the record, I voted Tory in 2019 and 2017, LEAVE in 2016, Labour in 2015, Tory in 2010, LibDem in 2005 and 2001, and Labour in 1997. I was too young to vote in 1992.
No further questions, your honour.
I just vote for the Party that I feel is either nearest to my viewpoint (at the time) OR best placed to run the country. I'm rather bemused by people who claim they are lifetime Labour or lifetime Tory. Why??
In January 2023, looks like the Tory brand is tired and broken and we definitely need a change.
Back in 2010, of course, I felt the same about the Labour Party.
I've voted for the Greens at every general election, bar my first, so for the last five elections straight, so I guess I'm well on my way to being a lifelong Green voter.
The reason being that I disagree with most of the British public about the relative importance of Green issues. I've always felt that we should do more to reduce carbon emissions more quickly, and that we ought to prioritise quality of life issues related to the environment over simplistic arguments for economic efficiency.
Generally speaking I'd guess that lifelong Labour/Tory voters are in a similar position. They fundamentally disagree with the majority of the British public on a point of principle - such as redistribution of wealth, or the futility of trying to redistribute wealth, depending on which end - and so they always find themselves voting for that side of the debate, for that point of principle. The only difference with me is that they sometimes find that they are voting in common with enough of the British public that they happen to vote for the government.
Well explained. I believe in reducing inequality more than I believe in anything else so I always vote for the left wing party which has the best chance of winning. This has thus far been Labour. If it became the Tories I'd vote for them.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
Scott is driven mad by Brexit and that (and only that) explains everything he does.
Sunil is just bonkers.
I can think of two regular Tories who switched to Lib Dem and maybe three to Labour on top.
"Sunil is just bonkers"?
Charming!
For the record, I voted Tory in 2019 and 2017, LEAVE in 2016, Labour in 2015, Tory in 2010, LibDem in 2005 and 2001, and Labour in 1997. I was too young to vote in 1992.
No further questions, your honour.
I just vote for the Party that I feel is either nearest to my viewpoint (at the time) OR best placed to run the country. I'm rather bemused by people who claim they are lifetime Labour or lifetime Tory. Why??
In January 2023, looks like the Tory brand is tired and broken and we definitely need a change.
Back in 2010, of course, I felt the same about the Labour Party.
Your not remotely bonkers Sunil - you are a credit to the nation.
How do you know. He might be sitting in front of his keyboard stark naked except for bunny ears and straws up his nose and throwing blancmanges at the wall.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
Scott is driven mad by Brexit and that (and only that) explains everything he does.
Sunil is just bonkers.
I can think of two regular Tories who switched to Lib Dem and maybe three to Labour on top.
"Sunil is just bonkers"?
Charming!
For the record, I voted Tory in 2019 and 2017, LEAVE in 2016, Labour in 2015, Tory in 2010, LibDem in 2005 and 2001, and Labour in 1997. I was too young to vote in 1992.
No further questions, your honour.
I just vote for the Party that I feel is either nearest to my viewpoint (at the time) OR best placed to run the country. I'm rather bemused by people who claim they are lifetime Labour or lifetime Tory. Why??
In January 2023, looks like the Tory brand is tired and broken and we definitely need a change.
Back in 2010, of course, I felt the same about the Labour Party.
Your not remotely bonkers Sunil - you are a credit to the nation.
How do you know. He might be sitting in front of his keyboard stark naked except for bunny ears and straws up his nose and throwing blancmanges at the wall.
The odds of two of us doing that are pretty low, so he probably is not.
Just returned from a party and I see I’m now a lefty. Not voted Labour since 1997 but I suppose it’s all relative.
I know it’s a page old now but I’d asked if one of the posters was proposing a full on US style healthcare system. This is because what was being mooted was choice on whether or not to take insurance, choice of provider, and an escalating service quality depending on payment. That is much closer to the US system than anything in Europe.
Anyway interesting anecdotes from some snatched semi-political conversations at this party, with a couple of people closer to the boomer end of Gen X than I am. And I can announce that I’ve found the 16%
- The problems in the NHS are the fault of strikers - I’d never step inside a Lidl (what, even for the wine?) - Sir Keir will be inviting Mick Lynch in for beer and sandwiches once he’s inside no10
But, and this is notably different from what you’d get in an equivalent conversation in the US: “climate change, big worry isn’t it. Good for your vineyard mate but it really seems to getting out of control”.
Quite interesting to see a few posters outing themselves as ex-Tories. I wouldn't have easily guessed from the tone of their posts in most cases. Which is somewhat of a problem for the Blue team just now. Especially if they are shedding 1997 Tory voters.
I voted Conservative in 2010, and thought the Coalition the best period of government in recent history. I won't be doing so again, at least not until we have a Conservative leader apologise for Brexit and how it was handled.
I don't like Starmer, and will look carefully at the candidates next GE. I could vote Labour for the right candidate but more likely Lib Dem.
So you support years of austerity, where nurses pay was definitely squeezed, but not the pay of everyone, and what that has done to public services? Surely that government you praise actually done the mostest to set up the crisis in vacancies, stitching up the current crop of leading politicians?
When 2010-15 government entered into austerity, to solve a problem they bigged up that’s not a patch on what it is today after further years of conservatives, that government should have known the central plank of their policy would be the inherent vice of lowering incomes, leading to problem to recruit and retain skilled staff? How did they imagine winning a third term, by putting right all the damage caused by austerity in their first? the years of that government actually done the most to set up the current crisis in health and social services - whilst it’s so clear now, we weren’t all in it together either - nurses income drop, rich people big tax cuts.
So arguably neither a clever long term plan, or remotely fair?
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
Scott is driven mad by Brexit and that (and only that) explains everything he does.
Sunil is just bonkers.
I can think of two regular Tories who switched to Lib Dem and maybe three to Labour on top.
"Sunil is just bonkers"?
Charming!
For the record, I voted Tory in 2019 and 2017, LEAVE in 2016, Labour in 2015, Tory in 2010, LibDem in 2005 and 2001, and Labour in 1997. I was too young to vote in 1992.
No further questions, your honour.
I just vote for the Party that I feel is either nearest to my viewpoint (at the time) OR best placed to run the country. I'm rather bemused by people who claim they are lifetime Labour or lifetime Tory. Why??
In January 2023, looks like the Tory brand is tired and broken and we definitely need a change.
Back in 2010, of course, I felt the same about the Labour Party.
Your not remotely bonkers Sunil - you are a credit to the nation.
How do you know. He might be sitting in front of his keyboard stark naked except for bunny ears and straws up his nose and throwing blancmanges at the wall.
The odds of two of us doing that are pretty low, so he probably is not.
Not convinced that you and me doing that alter the probability of Sunil also doing it.
Quite interesting to see a few posters outing themselves as ex-Tories. I wouldn't have easily guessed from the tone of their posts in most cases. Which is somewhat of a problem for the Blue team just now. Especially if they are shedding 1997 Tory voters.
I voted Conservative in 2010, and thought the Coalition the best period of government in recent history. I won't be doing so again, at least not until we have a Conservative leader apologise for Brexit and how it was handled.
I don't like Starmer, and will look carefully at the candidates next GE. I could vote Labour for the right candidate but more likely Lib Dem.
So you support years of austerity, where nurses pay was definitely squeezed, but not the pay of everyone, and what that has done to public services? Surely that government you praise actually done the mostest to set up the crisis in vacancies, stitching up the current crop of leading politicians?
When 2010-15 government entered into austerity, to solve a problem they bigged up that’s not a patch on what it is today after further years of conservatives, that government should have known the central plank of their policy would be the inherent vice of lowering incomes, leading to problem to recruit and retain skilled staff? How did they imagine winning a third term, by putting right all the damage caused by austerity in their first? the years of that government you actually done the most to set up the current crisis in health and social services - whilst it’s so clear now, we weren’t all in it together either - nurses income drop, rich people big tax cuts.
So arguably neither a clever long term plan, or remotely fair?
Certainly at the beginning of the Coalition the Austerity programme was needed to reestablish economic credibility in the land. It probably should have ended sooner.
The real terms cuts in pay for nurses were small because inflation was low. The substantial real terms cuts of the last year are more than that entire parliament.
My issue has nothing to do with the BBC's politics. My issue is with the relevance and popularity of much of its programming, and it's poor commercial performance given the vast advantage its funding via the license fee ensures.
What's the point of having a publicly funded broadcaster and then measuring it by commercial performance? If you want 'commercially successful' you can get that from the commercially funded channels; if you're publicly funding TV it should be because you want an outcome you're not getting from the commercial channels, and your metrics should therefore be measuring whatever that other outcome is.
I am not against public funding for a heartbeat of highbrow or otherwise essential public service programming that would otherwise not be made, but much of the BBC's output doesn't fit that profile, it's popular entertainment, just not very entertaining, or as it turns out very popular.
I am also not proposing to privatise the BBC (and I am against privatising Channel 4) but I do believe that with the investment it receives, it should at some point aim to be making money not just using it up.
“I am against privatising Channel 4”
Don’t you feel it survived privatisation by living on past glories, sentimentality not it’s output today, nor it’s hopeless future of dishing out unoriginal stuff just easily now found everywhere else.
When it was born there were only four channels, and the community remit, to provide access to something different, was 100% real then, but 0% real now. What’s point of C4 foreign film/LGBT season when you can have all that from any or all options on Netflix, Sky Cinema, Prime, MUBI. What is original now on C4 - when so many other places are being more original with better budgets?
Privatisation isn’t the answer - it should be retired, put to sleep, whilst at birth it was 100% relevant, it’s now 0% relevant.
This is no country for unoriginal old channels, whether paid by tax payers or not.
It's an old, unoriginal channel that makes a profit, and is largely responsible for funding the UK film industry. Why are we in such a rush to get rid of the parts of the State (see also Royal Mail privatisation) that actually run at a profit?
So, as I understand it, the rebel Republicans have had most of their major demands met: places on the Rules Committee, and the ability to move for the removal of the Speaker. But they still refuse to vote for McCarthy. Either they are too stupid to realise that they won't get everything, and/or it's McCarthy that is the block, or possibly just that they are bomb-throwers and nothing else. In addition, they have failed, on ten votes now, to grow their group and show they have momentum.Winning this battle is beyond them.
McCarthy has given in to the rebel demands, but has failed to persuade them to vote for him. So he fails the first criterion for actually being Speaker: the ability to corral enough people to win a vote. The second criterion would be to look for alternative ways of achieving his goal, but that seems to be beyond him too: whether he believes – possibly with reason – that he's made himself too toxic to the Democrats to get a compromise with the moderate Dems, or that he too is so stupid he doesn't grasp that there is such an alternative. And it is becoming increasingly obvious that he is too egoistic to realise that he is blocking this process, and also that he demonstrates, with every successive vote and failure, that he doesn't have what it takes to be speaker. Winning this battle is beyond him.
The mainstream R strategy seems to be nothing more than hold votes until the rebels are worn enough to fall into line, or to fall apart in their opposition, but there is absolutely no sign of movement to encourage that view. And yet, on they go with it, blindly and naively hoping for a something to turn up, while taking no action to look for that something. Winning this battle is beyond them.
How could this end? Someone, anyone, on the Republican side needs to realise that there needs to be a change – finding a candidate acceptable to the rebels, or to moderate Democrats, or completely left field. There's no sign of it yet. Or enough Democrats need to get sloppy, or lazy, and not turn up to vote so the threshold drops far enough for a result. But there's no sign of that yet – if anything, it's the Republican side that seems to have an eroding organisation.
I am beginning to feel that we could be here for a long time to come. A long time. The record is 133 votes over two months. Could that be about to change? Maybe. And every vote and every day is another signal to the voting public in the US that the Republican Party is no longer a serious, functioning political party.
So, as I understand it, the rebel Republicans have had most of their major demands met: places on the Rules Committee, and the ability to move for the removal of the Speaker. But they still refuse to vote for McCarthy. Either they are too stupid to realise that they won't get everything, and/or it's McCarthy that is the block, or possibly just that they are bomb-throwers and nothing else. In addition, they have failed, on ten votes now, to grow their group and show they have momentum.Winning this battle is beyond them.
McCarthy has given in to the rebel demands, but has failed to persuade them to vote for him. So he fails the first criterion for actually being Speaker: the ability to corral enough people to win a vote. The second criterion would be to look for alternative ways of achieving his goal, but that seems to be beyond him too: whether he believes – possibly with reason – that he's made himself too toxic to the Democrats to get a compromise with the moderate Dems, or that he too is so stupid he doesn't grasp that there is such an alternative. And it is becoming increasingly obvious that he is too egoistic to realise that he is blocking this process, and also that he demonstrates, with every successive vote and failure, that he doesn't have what it takes to be speaker. Winning this battle is beyond him.
The mainstream R strategy seems to be nothing more than hold votes until the rebels are worn enough to fall into line, or to fall apart in their opposition, but there is absolutely no sign of movement to encourage that view. And yet, on they go with it, blindly and naively hoping for a something to turn up, while taking no action to look for that something. Winning this battle is beyond them.
How could this end? Someone, anyone, on the Republican side needs to realise that there needs to be a change – finding a candidate acceptable to the rebels, or to moderate Democrats, or completely left field. There's no sign of it yet. Or enough Democrats need to get sloppy, or lazy, and not turn up to vote so the threshold drops far enough for a result. But there's no sign of that yet – if anything, it's the Republican side that seems to have an eroding organisation.
I am beginning to feel that we could be here for a long time to come. A long time. The record is 133 votes over two months. Could that be about to change? Maybe. And every vote and every day is another signal to the voting public in the US that the Republican Party is no longer a serious, functioning political party.
All you say about lack of change, and thus potential to go on for a long time, is true, but I just cannot believe the rebels have the stomach to keep this up for that much longer. They're not going to get much more, and yet as you say they are not growing the group either.
They've prevented McCarthy more than any Speaker for 150+ years, that's got to be enough eventually.
My issue has nothing to do with the BBC's politics. My issue is with the relevance and popularity of much of its programming, and it's poor commercial performance given the vast advantage its funding via the license fee ensures.
What's the point of having a publicly funded broadcaster and then measuring it by commercial performance? If you want 'commercially successful' you can get that from the commercially funded channels; if you're publicly funding TV it should be because you want an outcome you're not getting from the commercial channels, and your metrics should therefore be measuring whatever that other outcome is.
I am not against public funding for a heartbeat of highbrow or otherwise essential public service programming that would otherwise not be made, but much of the BBC's output doesn't fit that profile, it's popular entertainment, just not very entertaining, or as it turns out very popular.
I am also not proposing to privatise the BBC (and I am against privatising Channel 4) but I do believe that with the investment it receives, it should at some point aim to be making money not just using it up.
“I am against privatising Channel 4”
Don’t you feel it survived privatisation by living on past glories, sentimentality not it’s output today, nor it’s hopeless future of dishing out unoriginal stuff just easily now found everywhere else.
When it was born there were only four channels, and the community remit, to provide access to something different, was 100% real then, but 0% real now. What’s point of C4 foreign film/LGBT season when you can have all that from any or all options on Netflix, Sky Cinema, Prime, MUBI. What is original now on C4 - when so many other places are being more original with better budgets?
Privatisation isn’t the answer - it should be retired, put to sleep, whilst at birth it was 100% relevant, it’s now 0% relevant.
This is no country for unoriginal old channels, whether paid by tax payers or not.
It's an old, unoriginal channel that makes a profit, and is largely responsible for funding the UK film industry. Why are we in such a rush to get rid of the parts of the State (see also Royal Mail privatisation) that actually run at a profit?
The measurement of nationalised company’s is simply if they are making profit?
Does a nationalised rail have to run a profit to save itself from privatisation - or fulfil its remit of providing a service to the country - get people to work and business on time for the productivity of the nation?
I explained a tax payer funded Channel 4 is 0% fulfilling its remit these days, in that case why is it getting largess from the tax payer? They should only get tax payer cash for achieving remit, not claiming profit.
I personally know people who go to BFI for funding, not C4, lottery funded BFI largely responsible for funding the UK film industry I think you will find, not C4 speculating on films with tax payer cash.
There are a number of ex-centre right posters who now appear to be centre-left posters. Scott and Sunil spring instantly to mind. Don't think they've moved much. But the situation certainly has. Plus. Our resident Lib Dems don't seem overly anxious to see another Tory-led government. Nor particularly spooked by a Labour one. MoonRabbit possibly the exception.
Scott is driven mad by Brexit and that (and only that) explains everything he does.
Sunil is just bonkers.
I can think of two regular Tories who switched to Lib Dem and maybe three to Labour on top.
"Sunil is just bonkers"?
Charming!
For the record, I voted Tory in 2019 and 2017, LEAVE in 2016, Labour in 2015, Tory in 2010, LibDem in 2005 and 2001, and Labour in 1997. I was too young to vote in 1992.
No further questions, your honour.
I just vote for the Party that I feel is either nearest to my viewpoint (at the time) OR best placed to run the country. I'm rather bemused by people who claim they are lifetime Labour or lifetime Tory. Why??
In January 2023, looks like the Tory brand is tired and broken and we definitely need a change.
Back in 2010, of course, I felt the same about the Labour Party.
Your not remotely bonkers Sunil - you are a credit to the nation.
How do you know. He might be sitting in front of his keyboard stark naked except for bunny ears and straws up his nose and throwing blancmanges at the wall.
The odds of two of us doing that are pretty low, so he probably is not.
Not convinced that you and me doing that alter the probability of Sunil also doing it.
I was looking to pack my bunny ears Sunday night and couldn’t find them! 🤔
Quite interesting to see a few posters outing themselves as ex-Tories. I wouldn't have easily guessed from the tone of their posts in most cases. Which is somewhat of a problem for the Blue team just now. Especially if they are shedding 1997 Tory voters.
I voted Conservative in 2010, and thought the Coalition the best period of government in recent history. I won't be doing so again, at least not until we have a Conservative leader apologise for Brexit and how it was handled.
I don't like Starmer, and will look carefully at the candidates next GE. I could vote Labour for the right candidate but more likely Lib Dem.
So you support years of austerity, where nurses pay was definitely squeezed, but not the pay of everyone, and what that has done to public services? Surely that government you praise actually done the mostest to set up the crisis in vacancies, stitching up the current crop of leading politicians?
When 2010-15 government entered into austerity, to solve a problem they bigged up that’s not a patch on what it is today after further years of conservatives, that government should have known the central plank of their policy would be the inherent vice of lowering incomes, leading to problem to recruit and retain skilled staff? How did they imagine winning a third term, by putting right all the damage caused by austerity in their first? the years of that government you actually done the most to set up the current crisis in health and social services - whilst it’s so clear now, we weren’t all in it together either - nurses income drop, rich people big tax cuts.
So arguably neither a clever long term plan, or remotely fair?
Certainly at the beginning of the Coalition the Austerity programme was needed to reestablish economic credibility in the land. It probably should have ended sooner.
The real terms cuts in pay for nurses were small because inflation was low. The substantial real terms cuts of the last year are more than that entire parliament.
To be fair to you, how are you defining nurse, as they unlikely to all receive the same pay and less paid may not have received the full one fifth cut? But then the talent drain might even be more acute further up, as why take on more managerial stress if your pay don’t really compensate it?
Comments
Now it’s all housing. Quite sad really, but times move on.
source: https://www.businessinsider.com/misattributed-quotes-2013-10
Incidentally, scientists should replicate each other's work because they sometimes get different results when they do so.
(Which attribution mistake have I made? Probably many, but here's a relatively recent one. I attributed a quote to JFK that was actually said by Adlai Stevenson: "In America any boy may become President, and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes."
source: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/adlai_stevenson_ii_400665 )
Henry I - seized the crown ahead of his elder brother
Henry II - Became heir by force of arms as the price for peace, then king
Henry III - Long reign, but needed his son to rescue him from rebels
Henry IV - Overthrew and probably killed his predecessor
Henry V - Warrior prince who flamed out early, leaving a mess
Henry VI - Mad
Henry VII - Barely related to the royal line but seized it by force of arms
Henry VIII - power mad tyrant
It is weird we've had no Henry's since 1547, and will have 7 Georges in the last 300 years.
I was this close to calling my youngest Henry.
Eventually I guess Fox News are going to start yelling at the hold-outs and they vote for McCarthy on like ballot 9876.
https://youtu.be/vC6okzIKQvg
Harry might want to note that strict primogeniture is a fairly modern innovation.
His achievements seem rather underrated to me, overshadowed by his son's larger than life story.
You are right though, that the extraordinary life of his son (who was initially the spare), totally overshadows him.
By the way, Swiss healthcare is good but very expensive. It costs nearly twice the UK service in PPP terms.
* on the theory that the root cause of the current degradation of service is due to too many old and sick people consuming healthcare, compared with before.
https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1610316616679530497?t=5a9foW66dQKAhP2phdrWYA&s=19
Or even motion
I suppose it's the "Shy PartyX" effect.
This is the BEGINNING of the chaos. They're just warming up the clown car's engine. They haven't even left the driveway yet. https://twitter.com/DecodingFoxNews/status/1611058123531497473
Which is somewhat of a problem for the Blue team just now.
Especially if they are shedding 1997 Tory voters.
There’s also an argument, Brexit, Boris, Corbyn conspired to keep them in longer, than how popular they actually were with middle ground voters, and that wasn’t healthy for any party to overstay its welcome, unique circumstances or not.
And there is a very strong argument Boris and his Brexit/anti business agenda to bring levelling up and a stronger Britain, should ideally have stayed to defend that and his majority at the next election, without him, what is their pitch now? There is nothing from last twelve years to argue they need another five, and more than enough to say they shouldn’t.
The fiscal austerity of the Dave conservatism replaced by the high spending, high taxing, high borrowing irresponsibility of the Boris and Rishi years, isn’t remotely consistent with each other. Is it? And Truss won a big win with membership very open about a completely different way of doing it again. Did any one of 3 Tory ideology get it right? Which of these three clashing ideologies is actually traditional Conservative values in a 21st century modern era? Are they about privatising channel 4 or not? The NFU leader has dealt with 3 governments with three different sets of priorities in last couple of years, she said today.
Anyone who votes Tory at the next election must be trying to kill the party off, not save it. It will be unpatriotic to give this mess of a party another 5 years of so much power in our country.
Can I be anymore clear in squashing your irresponsible speculation about my vote?
That was a clarification and a half.
Charming!
For the record, I voted Tory in 2019 and 2017, LEAVE in 2016, Labour in 2015, Tory in 2010, LibDem in 2005 and 2001, and Labour in 1997. I was too young to vote in 1992.
How do we know they don't know which Party they'll vote for to best replace this shower?
https://twitter.com/JamesFallows/status/1611094811158904833
Aren't you forgetting someone? Grey haired lady, wore big necklaces. Lost her voice in a speech when the backdrop started to collapse.
She was PM longer than Truss, presumably longer than Sunak will manage. Almost as long as Johnson. She had a distinctive agenda, definitely different to Dave, Boris and Liz, possibly more authentically Conservative than any of them.
And now it takes non-trivial effort to remember her at all. You know, thingy.
I don't like Starmer, and will look carefully at the candidates next GE. I could vote Labour for the right candidate but more likely Lib Dem.
I'd never really appreciated it before but the striking feature about the current bunch of PB Tories is not their lack of numbers but the lack of consensus.
I am also not proposing to privatise the BBC (and I am against privatising Channel 4) but I do believe that with the investment it receives, it should at some point aim to be making money not just using it up.
In January 2023, looks like the Tory brand is tired and broken and we definitely need a change.
Back in 2010, of course, I felt the same about the Labour Party.
There's always been a degree of that - agreeing that Tories don't like Socialists has been enough to keep the blue team together. Indeed, it's given the party to intellectual suppleness to go in different directions as the need has arisen.
But it's tended to do so as a coherent grouping, following the leader (for now).
Right now, that doesn't seem to be happening. Which adds to the smell of 1997 not 1992. In fact, this smells worse than my 1997 memories.
The compulsory health insurance is not allowed to be for-profit.
Swiss healthcare is the second most expensive in the world.
All the values of the Conservative and Unionist party were burned on the altar of Brexit.
EDIT: Ooops - wrong forum!
The reason being that I disagree with most of the British public about the relative importance of Green issues. I've always felt that we should do more to reduce carbon emissions more quickly, and that we ought to prioritise quality of life issues related to the environment over simplistic arguments for economic efficiency.
Generally speaking I'd guess that lifelong Labour/Tory voters are in a similar position. They fundamentally disagree with the majority of the British public on a point of principle - such as redistribution of wealth, or the futility of trying to redistribute wealth, depending on which end - and so they always find themselves voting for that side of the debate, for that point of principle. The only difference with me is that they sometimes find that they are voting in common with enough of the British public that they happen to vote for the government.
Don’t you feel it survived privatisation by living on past glories, sentimentality not it’s output today, nor it’s hopeless future of dishing out unoriginal stuff just easily now found everywhere else.
When it was born there were only four channels, and the community remit, to provide access to something different, was 100% real then, but 0% real now. What’s point of C4 foreign film/LGBT season when you can have all that from any or all options on Netflix, Sky Cinema, Prime, MUBI. What is original now on C4 - when so many other places are being more original with better budgets?
Privatisation isn’t the answer - it should be retired, put to sleep, whilst at birth it was 100% relevant, it’s now 0% relevant.
This is no country for unoriginal old channels, whether paid by tax payers or not.
New thread
There is a similar lack of consensus on the left, veiled only slightly by a consensus that the Labour Party would do better. (And of course the main consensus on the right has always been no mattet how bad the conservatives are, Labour would probably be worse.)
.
I know it’s a page old now but I’d asked if one of the posters was proposing a full on US style healthcare system. This is because what was being mooted was choice on whether or not to take insurance, choice of provider, and an escalating service quality depending on payment. That is much closer to the US system than anything in Europe.
Anyway interesting anecdotes from some snatched semi-political conversations at this party, with a couple of people closer to the boomer end of Gen X than I am. And I can announce that I’ve found the 16%
- The problems in the NHS are the fault of strikers
- I’d never step inside a Lidl (what, even for the wine?)
- Sir Keir will be inviting Mick Lynch in for beer and sandwiches once he’s inside no10
But, and this is notably different from what you’d get in an equivalent conversation in the US: “climate change, big worry isn’t it. Good for your vineyard mate but it really seems to getting out of control”.
When 2010-15 government entered into austerity, to solve a problem they bigged up that’s not a patch on what it is today after further years of conservatives, that government should have known the central plank of their policy would be the inherent vice of lowering incomes, leading to problem to recruit and retain skilled staff? How did they imagine winning a third term, by putting right all the damage caused by austerity in their first? the years of that government actually done the most to set up the current crisis in health and social services - whilst it’s so clear now, we weren’t all in it together either - nurses income drop, rich people big tax cuts.
So arguably neither a clever long term plan, or remotely fair?
The real terms cuts in pay for nurses were small because inflation was low. The substantial real terms cuts of the last year are more than that entire parliament.
McCarthy has given in to the rebel demands, but has failed to persuade them to vote for him. So he fails the first criterion for actually being Speaker: the ability to corral enough people to win a vote. The second criterion would be to look for alternative ways of achieving his goal, but that seems to be beyond him too: whether he believes – possibly with reason – that he's made himself too toxic to the Democrats to get a compromise with the moderate Dems, or that he too is so stupid he doesn't grasp that there is such an alternative. And it is becoming increasingly obvious that he is too egoistic to realise that he is blocking this process, and also that he demonstrates, with every successive vote and failure, that he doesn't have what it takes to be speaker. Winning this battle is beyond him.
The mainstream R strategy seems to be nothing more than hold votes until the rebels are worn enough to fall into line, or to fall apart in their opposition, but there is absolutely no sign of movement to encourage that view. And yet, on they go with it, blindly and naively hoping for a something to turn up, while taking no action to look for that something. Winning this battle is beyond them.
How could this end? Someone, anyone, on the Republican side needs to realise that there needs to be a change – finding a candidate acceptable to the rebels, or to moderate Democrats, or completely left field. There's no sign of it yet. Or enough Democrats need to get sloppy, or lazy, and not turn up to vote so the threshold drops far enough for a result. But there's no sign of that yet – if anything, it's the Republican side that seems to have an eroding organisation.
I am beginning to feel that we could be here for a long time to come. A long time. The record is 133 votes over two months. Could that be about to change? Maybe. And every vote and every day is another signal to the voting public in the US that the Republican Party is no longer a serious, functioning political party.
They've prevented McCarthy more than any Speaker for 150+ years, that's got to be enough eventually.
Does a nationalised rail have to run a profit to save itself from privatisation - or fulfil its remit of providing a service to the country - get people to work and business on time for the productivity of the nation?
I explained a tax payer funded Channel 4 is 0% fulfilling its remit these days, in that case why is it getting largess from the tax payer? They should only get tax payer cash for achieving remit, not claiming profit.
I personally know people who go to BFI for funding, not C4, lottery funded BFI largely responsible for funding the UK film industry I think you will find, not C4 speculating on films with tax payer cash.
https://www.nursinginpractice.com/latest-news/nurses-real-wage-down-20-in-ten-years-despite-raises/
To be fair to you, how are you defining nurse, as they unlikely to all receive the same pay and less paid may not have received the full one fifth cut? But then the talent drain might even be more acute further up, as why take on more managerial stress if your pay don’t really compensate it?