1. Raab won't resign 2. Sunak won't fire Raaab 3. Incredulity from opposition / hacks batted away by Lee Anderson 4. Senior Civil Servants start to resign in alarming numbers, telling stories about the brute Raaaab 5. Sunak fires Raaaaaab. Tries to claim credit for doing so. 6. Incredulity from opposition / hacks batted away by Lee Anderson
Most probably.
If I was Sunak and the report speaks badly of Raab I’d probably be using it as a reason to promote someone into the FSoS/DPM position who can communicate well and gear the party up for an election. Mordaunt or Badenoch for instance. But that won’t happen in all likelihood, because I’m not convinced he thinks that strategically.
And maybe they've got a point, although there are still questions about how far the US will continue, and what the US aims are here, how the US sees the war ending.
I've never seen any US official articulate what their strategic goal is in Ukraine. We get plenty of pabulum about 'democracy' and 'freedom' no actual definition of success.
Probably because it's already been achieved? Sweden and Finland into NATO.
Has Sweden been able to join NATO? I thought that they had been delayed.
And maybe they've got a point, although there are still questions about how far the US will continue, and what the US aims are here, how the US sees the war ending.
I've never seen any US official articulate what their strategic goal is in Ukraine. We get plenty of pabulum about 'democracy' and 'freedom' no actual definition of success.
If someone smacks you in the head, then what is your - as the smacked entity - strategic goal?
And maybe they've got a point, although there are still questions about how far the US will continue, and what the US aims are here, how the US sees the war ending.
I've never seen any US official articulate what their strategic goal is in Ukraine. We get plenty of pabulum about 'democracy' and 'freedom' no actual definition of success.
So no different to any other US intervention in recent times.
And maybe they've got a point, although there are still questions about how far the US will continue, and what the US aims are here, how the US sees the war ending.
I've never seen any US official articulate what their strategic goal is in Ukraine. We get plenty of pabulum about 'democracy' and 'freedom' no actual definition of success.
Whereas Putin, Russia and their shills give out 1,001 different strategic goals for their adventure in Ukraine every day... All patently ridiculous; whether it's around "denazification" goal, or the preventing NATO expansion.
I think the US's strategic goal is simple: to rein in Russia's expansionist goals before it gets much more expensive to do so. The longer it is left, and the more 'wins' Russia gets, the harder it is to stop them.
And maybe they've got a point, although there are still questions about how far the US will continue, and what the US aims are here, how the US sees the war ending.
I've never seen any US official articulate what their strategic goal is in Ukraine. We get plenty of pabulum about 'democracy' and 'freedom' no actual definition of success.
If someone smacks you in the head, then what is your - as the smacked entity - strategic goal?
To charge them for dental work as Mrs DA's premium rates?
And maybe they've got a point, although there are still questions about how far the US will continue, and what the US aims are here, how the US sees the war ending.
I've never seen any US official articulate what their strategic goal is in Ukraine. We get plenty of pabulum about 'democracy' and 'freedom' no actual definition of success.
If someone smacks you in the head, then what is your - as the smacked entity - strategic goal?
And maybe they've got a point, although there are still questions about how far the US will continue, and what the US aims are here, how the US sees the war ending.
I've never seen any US official articulate what their strategic goal is in Ukraine. We get plenty of pabulum about 'democracy' and 'freedom' no actual definition of success.
If someone smacks you in the head, then what is your - as the smacked entity - strategic goal?
Well Ukraine say their goal is to reclaim all the territory occupied by Russia including Crimea and other bits taken in 2014. The US, on the other hand hasn't said this, the little they have said indicates that they wont support Ukraine that far.
And maybe they've got a point, although there are still questions about how far the US will continue, and what the US aims are here, how the US sees the war ending.
I've never seen any US official articulate what their strategic goal is in Ukraine. We get plenty of pabulum about 'democracy' and 'freedom' no actual definition of success.
Probably because it's already been achieved? Sweden and Finland into NATO.
Has Sweden been able to join NATO? I thought that they had been delayed.
I suspect that depends on the Turkish Election result...
Either way is it possible for Russia to invade Sweden without invading Finland first?
And maybe they've got a point, although there are still questions about how far the US will continue, and what the US aims are here, how the US sees the war ending.
I've never seen any US official articulate what their strategic goal is in Ukraine. We get plenty of pabulum about 'democracy' and 'freedom' no actual definition of success.
If someone smacks you in the head, then what is your - as the smacked entity - strategic goal?
Well Ukraine say their goal is to reclaim all the territory occupied by Russia including Crimea and other bits taken in 2014. The US, on the other hand hasn't said this, the little they have said indicates that they wont support Ukraine that far.
eg this from December:
'“Our focus is on continuing to do what we’ve been doing, which is to make sure that Ukraine has in its hands what it needs to defend itself, what it needs to push back against the Russian aggression, to take back territory that’s been seized from it since Feb. 24, to make sure as well that it has the support economically and on a humanitarian basis to withstand what’s happening in the country every single day,” Mr. Blinken told the WSJ CEO Council Summit late Monday.'
And maybe they've got a point, although there are still questions about how far the US will continue, and what the US aims are here, how the US sees the war ending.
I've never seen any US official articulate what their strategic goal is in Ukraine. We get plenty of pabulum about 'democracy' and 'freedom' no actual definition of success.
Probably because it's already been achieved? Sweden and Finland into NATO.
Has Sweden been able to join NATO? I thought that they had been delayed.
I suspect that depends on the Turkish Election result...
Either way is it possible for Russia to invade Sweden without invading Finland first?
There's a roundabout route via Norway, and various ways to get there by sea. But essentially, no.
Joking apart - the key point in Mordaunt's statement is that if the SNP do not have audited accounts by 31 May they will receive no further Short Money after April's payment:
Ooft 🔥 "On the upside though I guess It will be easier for them to have a whip-round amongst their membership as that number is dwindling to a point where most of them could fit into a Luxury Campervan! 😂🤣
The US remain the only NATO nation with really significant readily usable reserves.
I remember the fuss 3 months ago when Germany was delaying the decision on Leopard 2 tanks by 5 days. According to some on here every day's delay meant Germany was deliberately murdering Ukrainian babies, and every single other NATO/European country was just itching to give hundreds of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine immediately if only Germany would stop preventing them. The reality of the last 3 months has been very different (with the exception of Poland), and yours is the first post about Leopard 2 tanks I've seen here for months. What happened to people's passionate urgency about Leopard 2 tanks?
F-16s were the new MBTs for a while but but even the doughtiest Couch Cossacks on here are getting a bit bored of the SMO. Ukraine need to reboot the franchise.
The main reason why there isn't the same passion on here about Ukraine not getting F-16s is because it isn't Germans preventing it.
Or it could be because everyone understands the extra complexity of training someone on an aircraft type vs. an MBT, the relative lack of numbers, and the fact that nations have other missions for their F16s especially when Russia is playing silly buggers on the NATO border.
LOL. Of course on PB "everyone understands".
I for one don't understand this. I mean it sounds kind of plausible. But it also sounds a lot like the some of the reasons/excuses for not supplying MBTs. For all I know it's easier for Ukraine's allies to find enough spare F-16s to make a difference, than it is to find enough spare working MBT's to make a difference. And maybe the F-16s are actually more needed in Ukraine than the MBTs. And how much extra training does an F-16 need compared to a Leopard 2? An extra month? an extra year?
The F-16 B Course is 40 weeks at which point a pilot is judged to be capable of flying and fighting the aircraft to a standard which makes them marginally more dangerous to the enemy than their own side,
Focusing on the length of the course rather misses the point. A USAF F-16 squadron doesn't have 18 nuggets straight off the B course, it'll have a mixture of experience levels including flint eyed killers with 10+ years and thousands of hours on the Viper. So putting 18 x AFU pilots through the F-16 training program doesn’t deliver a Ukrainian F-16 squadron, it delivers 18 rookies with no F-16 experten to guide them and who will be expected to go off and fight Su-35s to the death.
Joking apart - the key point in Mordaunt's statement is that if the SNP do not have audited accounts by 31 May they will receive no further Short Money after April's payment:
Ooft 🔥 "On the upside though I guess It will be easier for them to have a whip-round amongst their membership as that number is dwindling to a point where most of them could fit into a Luxury Campervan! 😂🤣
Sunak must be hoping that the Raab report is clear cut. If the conclusions are a bit wooly, and he has to make a decision, then the pressure is on him.
I have a feeling Raab will reverse ferret on his commitment to leave if he's found to have bullied, going down the 'I don't accept the verdict' route.
You wonder why this government chooses to pick a fight with healthcare staff.
I think you might have that the wrong way around. Well compensated professionals on what most taxpayers would consider good salaries and massive pension deals are demanding a 35% increase. Do you think the government should just roll over?
Wrong question. The governments are responsible for delivering public services. If the governments can't keep staff so that the services they are responsible for can't be delivered that's the the government's problem, not the staff's problem.
Attempting to cut their salaries in real terms is definitely part of this.
Local Elections 2 weeks away received my postal vote just now. Plenty of time to spoil my ballot with juvenile scribblings
Make sure you don't accidentally leave it valid. Every election people have to be reminded that writing on it wont automatically invalidate, and that, yes, a penis in or around the box might well be deemed acceptable.
Joking apart - the key point in Mordaunt's statement is that if the SNP do not have audited accounts by 31 May they will receive no further Short Money after April's payment:
Ooft 🔥 "On the upside though I guess It will be easier for them to have a whip-round amongst their membership as that number is dwindling to a point where most of them could fit into a Luxury Campervan! 😂🤣
Nice to see Penny giving a verbal bitch slap to that weirdo Andrew Bridgen MP as well.
Still think she would have been the best choice as leader.
She didn't really excel in the contest though. I expected more from her. I thought her the best option prior to the first leadership contest but she underwhelmed.
I think she let herself get too bogged down with the trans issue and it sidelined her a little.
FPT legal tender thing is largely a myth but I would be sad if cash ceased to be used.
For me it's a civil liberties issue. Why should the vendor know who I am when I buy something? A whiff of the officious and a step towards dystopia I think.
On that basis, why should the consumer know who the vendor is?
I know contract law and consumer protections are geared towards protecting customers (end users usually) but for cash transactions you do have:
The customer knows who the vendor is (via a sales invoice) but The vendor doesn't know who the customer is.
It isn't quite right. Surely both parties should know who the other is, or neither party needs to know?
Local Elections 2 weeks away received my postal vote just now. Plenty of time to spoil my ballot with juvenile scribblings
Make sure you don't accidentally leave it valid. Every election people have to be reminded that writing on it wont automatically invalidate, and that, yes, a penis in or around the box might well be deemed acceptable.
Joking apart - the key point in Mordaunt's statement is that if the SNP do not have audited accounts by 31 May they will receive no further Short Money after April's payment:
Ooft 🔥 "On the upside though I guess It will be easier for them to have a whip-round amongst their membership as that number is dwindling to a point where most of them could fit into a Luxury Campervan! 😂🤣
Nah, it's based on reduced life-expectancy (and therefore reduced population, but mostly not affecting those of working age) from continuing to screw up the NHS and other health-related things
The US remain the only NATO nation with really significant readily usable reserves.
I remember the fuss 3 months ago when Germany was delaying the decision on Leopard 2 tanks by 5 days. According to some on here every day's delay meant Germany was deliberately murdering Ukrainian babies, and every single other NATO/European country was just itching to give hundreds of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine immediately if only Germany would stop preventing them. The reality of the last 3 months has been very different (with the exception of Poland), and yours is the first post about Leopard 2 tanks I've seen here for months. What happened to people's passionate urgency about Leopard 2 tanks?
F-16s were the new MBTs for a while but but even the doughtiest Couch Cossacks on here are getting a bit bored of the SMO. Ukraine need to reboot the franchise.
The main reason why there isn't the same passion on here about Ukraine not getting F-16s is because it isn't Germans preventing it.
Or it could be because everyone understands the extra complexity of training someone on an aircraft type vs. an MBT, the relative lack of numbers, and the fact that nations have other missions for their F16s especially when Russia is playing silly buggers on the NATO border.
LOL. Of course on PB "everyone understands".
I for one don't understand this. I mean it sounds kind of plausible. But it also sounds a lot like the some of the reasons/excuses for not supplying MBTs. For all I know it's easier for Ukraine's allies to find enough spare F-16s to make a difference, than it is to find enough spare working MBT's to make a difference. And maybe the F-16s are actually more needed in Ukraine than the MBTs. And how much extra training does an F-16 need compared to a Leopard 2? An extra month? an extra year?
The F-16 B Course is 40 weeks at which point a pilot is judged to be capable of flying and fighting the aircraft to a standard which makes them marginally more dangerous to the enemy than their own side,
Focusing on the length of the course rather misses the point. A USAF F-16 squadron doesn't have 18 nuggets straight off the B course, it'll have a mixture of experience levels including flint eyed killers with 10+ years and thousands of hours on the Viper. So putting 18 x AFU pilots through the F-16 training program doesn’t deliver a Ukrainian F-16 squadron, it delivers 18 rookies with no F-16 experten to guide them and who will be expected to go off and fight Su-35s to the death.
Twenty- minuters, as Blackadder had it. Which might be fine if the Ukrainians wanted to own the risk, except for the fact hag the airframe costs lots, contains secret into, and would be better used elsewhere to deter the Russians. For instance in backfilling of Migs donated to Ukraine, if it really is true Ukraine still has more trained pilots than serviceable airframes.
As above, I do now concede though that there is a case to start to build a new capability in Ukraine, mostly for after this war, and the best choice for that may not be the F16. If I was them I might be taking to Saab instead actually, if the Gripen production line is still open, on the basis Ukraine might actually have to pay for this kit one day.
Local Elections 2 weeks away received my postal vote just now. Plenty of time to spoil my ballot with juvenile scribblings
Make sure you don't accidentally leave it valid. Every election people have to be reminded that writing on it wont automatically invalidate, and that, yes, a penis in or around the box might well be deemed acceptable.
If it were canine anatomy then presumably the vote would be for the one that was indicated to be the dog's bollocks?
BTW, I was a bit slow on the uptake regarding the names and for a moment thought you were either claiming to be the subject of the drawing or the artist - or both!
FPT legal tender thing is largely a myth but I would be sad if cash ceased to be used.
For me it's a civil liberties issue. Why should the vendor know who I am when I buy something? A whiff of the officious and a step towards dystopia I think.
On that basis, why should the consumer know who the vendor is?
I know contract law and consumer protections are geared towards protecting customers (end users usually) but for cash transactions you do have:
The customer knows who the vendor is (via a sales invoice) but The vendor doesn't know who the customer is.
It isn't quite right. Surely both parties should know who the other is, or neither party needs to know?
Why would the average vendor need to know who their customer is?
Joking apart - the key point in Mordaunt's statement is that if the SNP do not have audited accounts by 31 May they will receive no further Short Money after April's payment:
Ooft 🔥 "On the upside though I guess It will be easier for them to have a whip-round amongst their membership as that number is dwindling to a point where most of them could fit into a Luxury Campervan! 😂🤣
And maybe they've got a point, although there are still questions about how far the US will continue, and what the US aims are here, how the US sees the war ending.
I've never seen any US official articulate what their strategic goal is in Ukraine. We get plenty of pabulum about 'democracy' and 'freedom' no actual definition of success.
Probably because it's already been achieved? Sweden and Finland into NATO.
I was at an interesting talk recently and the speaker noted that while the US (and the West) might win the battle of Ukraine (and might not), whatever that means to anyone, it might be in the process thereby of losing the wider war whereby eg the Global South is increasingly putting itself on the opposite side to that of the Western allies.
Plenty of articles he pointed to about it. These from google first few results. No idea of the biases in the publications.
Joking apart - the key point in Mordaunt's statement is that if the SNP do not have audited accounts by 31 May they will receive no further Short Money after April's payment:
Ooft 🔥 "On the upside though I guess It will be easier for them to have a whip-round amongst their membership as that number is dwindling to a point where most of them could fit into a Luxury Campervan! 😂🤣
The US remain the only NATO nation with really significant readily usable reserves.
I remember the fuss 3 months ago when Germany was delaying the decision on Leopard 2 tanks by 5 days. According to some on here every day's delay meant Germany was deliberately murdering Ukrainian babies, and every single other NATO/European country was just itching to give hundreds of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine immediately if only Germany would stop preventing them. The reality of the last 3 months has been very different (with the exception of Poland), and yours is the first post about Leopard 2 tanks I've seen here for months. What happened to people's passionate urgency about Leopard 2 tanks?
F-16s were the new MBTs for a while but but even the doughtiest Couch Cossacks on here are getting a bit bored of the SMO. Ukraine need to reboot the franchise.
The main reason why there isn't the same passion on here about Ukraine not getting F-16s is because it isn't Germans preventing it.
Or it could be because everyone understands the extra complexity of training someone on an aircraft type vs. an MBT, the relative lack of numbers, and the fact that nations have other missions for their F16s especially when Russia is playing silly buggers on the NATO border.
LOL. Of course on PB "everyone understands".
I for one don't understand this. I mean it sounds kind of plausible. But it also sounds a lot like the some of the reasons/excuses for not supplying MBTs. For all I know it's easier for Ukraine's allies to find enough spare F-16s to make a difference, than it is to find enough spare working MBT's to make a difference. And maybe the F-16s are actually more needed in Ukraine than the MBTs. And how much extra training does an F-16 need compared to a Leopard 2? An extra month? an extra year?
The F-16 B Course is 40 weeks at which point a pilot is judged to be capable of flying and fighting the aircraft to a standard which makes them marginally more dangerous to the enemy than their own side,
Focusing on the length of the course rather misses the point. A USAF F-16 squadron doesn't have 18 nuggets straight off the B course, it'll have a mixture of experience levels including flint eyed killers with 10+ years and thousands of hours on the Viper. So putting 18 x AFU pilots through the F-16 training program doesn’t deliver a Ukrainian F-16 squadron, it delivers 18 rookies with no F-16 experten to guide them and who will be expected to go off and fight Su-35s to the death.
Twenty- minuters, as Blackadder had it. Which might be fine if the Ukrainians wanted to own the risk, except for the fact hag the airframe costs lots, contains secret into, and would be better used elsewhere to deter the Russians. For instance in backfilling of Migs donated to Ukraine, if it really is true Ukraine still has more trained pilots than serviceable airframes.
As above, I do now concede though that there is a case to start to build a new capability in Ukraine, mostly for after this war, and the best choice for that may not be the F16. If I was them I might be taking to Saab instead actually, if the Gripen production line is still open, on the basis Ukraine might actually have to pay for this kit one day.
I had an airfix model of a Saab something fighter when I was about 8yrs old. Two points to note:
1. I put the fuel tanks under the wings instead of the missiles because I thought they were bigger missiles; and 2. I painted it a great camouflage of gold and bright blue. Not 100% sure what theatre I was thinking it might be operating in.
Joking apart - the key point in Mordaunt's statement is that if the SNP do not have audited accounts by 31 May they will receive no further Short Money after April's payment:
Ooft 🔥 "On the upside though I guess It will be easier for them to have a whip-round amongst their membership as that number is dwindling to a point where most of them could fit into a Luxury Campervan! 😂🤣
FPT legal tender thing is largely a myth but I would be sad if cash ceased to be used.
For me it's a civil liberties issue. Why should the vendor know who I am when I buy something? A whiff of the officious and a step towards dystopia I think.
On that basis, why should the consumer know who the vendor is?
I know contract law and consumer protections are geared towards protecting customers (end users usually) but for cash transactions you do have:
The customer knows who the vendor is (via a sales invoice) but The vendor doesn't know who the customer is.
It isn't quite right. Surely both parties should know who the other is, or neither party needs to know?
Civil liberties are precious and attach to individuals not corporate entities. There has been a creeping trend of corporations making claims to such liberties and I think this is regrettable and wrong.
Individuals are the pipers and they adapt to our tune - not the other way round.
As well as putting more funds into the NHS we need to ease the burden on it by encouraging those who can afford it to go private. In terms of Covid as long as we avoid any new vaccine immune variant it is over for now
Tax incentives for private health care and back of the queue for the obese.
The first won't happen under Tory or Labour, regrettably, mainly because Labour has scorched the political earth for a mixed economy solution.
Your second suggestion is extremely discriminatory and simplistic. Obese people are a health problem, but a lot of the causes are demographic. The poorer someone is the greater chance of them being obese is. One of the many problems of the NHS is that it is an illness service, not a health service. It does very little to treat the causes and focusses on the symptoms. It is beginning to look at rehabilitation approaches for the obese and there are interesting innovations in this area, but there is a long way to go.
There was a study done by if I remember the swedish where they looked at the lifetime healthcare costs of drinkers,smokers,the obese and healthy living. The healthy living had the highest lifetime healthcare costs. I will see if I can find the link
If you compare the average annual costs between the groups, the differences are much less than those between the lifetime costs, though.
Lifetime costs for healthy individuals are 12% more than the obese, but the annual cost is only 4% more, as it's spread over a greater number of years.
For smokers vs healthy, the numbers are 27% and 14% respectively, so much more significant in reality.
My quick skim suggested higher annual costs for the obese/smokers which were offset by longer life for the healthy giving them higher costs overall. Did I mis-read?
There's also the point that the healthy are likely to contribute more in taxes etc, although that seemed to be accounted for in at least the second link. What I didn't get to was whether they counted other costs of illness such as carers having reduced working capacity etc, likely more relevant in a working age obese/smoking population than the retired carers of the generally healthy but old.
I suspect its something where you can get different answers depending how many societal costs you include, but I wouldn't be surprised if the basic point stands. People who live long enough to have multiple joint replacements (and particularly those developing dementia, if you include care costs) could easily cost more than those dying of cancer or heart disease.
Those extra years the healthy gain are unlikely to be years working, they will be years taking from the government in the form of a state pension.
Sure. But there may be extra years of work, compared to the less well. Or extra years of productivity through voluntary work etc. Possibly higher lifetime earnings (and taxes - although the sin taxes for e.g. smoking offset that) given the correlations between social class and health (you can argue the direction of causation).
I'm just saying it's not clearcut and different answers are probably available depending what you include in the calculations. The general point may well stand. But if it's all about saving money, we shoot everyone on retirement day, don't we?
The initial response was to the idea of sending the obese etc to the back of the queue....we often see it being touted that the sinners cost the nhs more money I was merely refuting that which I think was achieved.
Shooting people on retirement seems a bit logans run but if I get a jenny agutter along the way I could live with it
I have however in the past suggested everyone should get a lifetime healthcare budget, with some exemptions for those born with conditions. They should then be expected to insure against exceeding the budget.
I agree re Jenny Agutter.
One of the main points of having a national healthcare system is that the costs of lifetime healthcare are so variable and so out of our control, therefore it makes sense to pool the risks. A lifetime healthcare budget goes against that.
And maybe they've got a point, although there are still questions about how far the US will continue, and what the US aims are here, how the US sees the war ending.
I've never seen any US official articulate what their strategic goal is in Ukraine. We get plenty of pabulum about 'democracy' and 'freedom' no actual definition of success.
Probably because it's already been achieved? Sweden and Finland into NATO.
I was at an interesting talk recently and the speaker noted that while the US (and the West) might win the battle of Ukraine (and might not), whatever that means to anyone, it might be in the process thereby of losing the wider war whereby eg the Global South is increasingly putting itself on the opposite side to that of the Western allies.
Plenty of articles he pointed to about it. These from google first few results. No idea of the biases in the publications.
I haven't read those articles, but I've seen similar arguments. Lots of people have been saying that much of Russia's infowars capability has not been towards Europe and the US, but other countries, as they understandably believe it will be easier to get a 'sympathetic' hearing from many in those countries who may not be naturally inclined towards the west.
That might well be correct. But then there's the other weight on the balance: if Russia is seen to 'lose' this war; if Russia is so massively weakened by it (as is happening), then allying with them, or even building closer ties with them, is allying with a loser. Why buy Russian military equipment if it's seen as performing poorly in battle, and they don't deliver as they need the weapons for themselves? Why buy their oil and gas at non-discounted prices, if they might just threaten to cut those supplies off when they have a hissy fit?
And China is waiting in the wings. Countries who do not wish to ally with the west may get very friendly receptions from China. However the future develops, I cannot see Russia being anything other than a diminished power in the next ten years. But there are opportunities for both the 'west' and China.
The US remain the only NATO nation with really significant readily usable reserves.
I remember the fuss 3 months ago when Germany was delaying the decision on Leopard 2 tanks by 5 days. According to some on here every day's delay meant Germany was deliberately murdering Ukrainian babies, and every single other NATO/European country was just itching to give hundreds of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine immediately if only Germany would stop preventing them. The reality of the last 3 months has been very different (with the exception of Poland), and yours is the first post about Leopard 2 tanks I've seen here for months. What happened to people's passionate urgency about Leopard 2 tanks?
F-16s were the new MBTs for a while but but even the doughtiest Couch Cossacks on here are getting a bit bored of the SMO. Ukraine need to reboot the franchise.
The main reason why there isn't the same passion on here about Ukraine not getting F-16s is because it isn't Germans preventing it.
Or it could be because everyone understands the extra complexity of training someone on an aircraft type vs. an MBT, the relative lack of numbers, and the fact that nations have other missions for their F16s especially when Russia is playing silly buggers on the NATO border.
LOL. Of course on PB "everyone understands".
I for one don't understand this. I mean it sounds kind of plausible. But it also sounds a lot like the some of the reasons/excuses for not supplying MBTs. For all I know it's easier for Ukraine's allies to find enough spare F-16s to make a difference, than it is to find enough spare working MBT's to make a difference. And maybe the F-16s are actually more needed in Ukraine than the MBTs. And how much extra training does an F-16 need compared to a Leopard 2? An extra month? an extra year?
The F-16 B Course is 40 weeks at which point a pilot is judged to be capable of flying and fighting the aircraft to a standard which makes them marginally more dangerous to the enemy than their own side,
Focusing on the length of the course rather misses the point. A USAF F-16 squadron doesn't have 18 nuggets straight off the B course, it'll have a mixture of experience levels including flint eyed killers with 10+ years and thousands of hours on the Viper. So putting 18 x AFU pilots through the F-16 training program doesn’t deliver a Ukrainian F-16 squadron, it delivers 18 rookies with no F-16 experten to guide them and who will be expected to go off and fight Su-35s to the death.
Twenty- minuters, as Blackadder had it. Which might be fine if the Ukrainians wanted to own the risk, except for the fact hag the airframe costs lots, contains secret into, and would be better used elsewhere to deter the Russians. For instance in backfilling of Migs donated to Ukraine, if it really is true Ukraine still has more trained pilots than serviceable airframes.
As above, I do now concede though that there is a case to start to build a new capability in Ukraine, mostly for after this war, and the best choice for that may not be the F16. If I was them I might be taking to Saab instead actually, if the Gripen production line is still open, on the basis Ukraine might actually have to pay for this kit one day.
I had an airfix model of a Saab something fighter when I was about 8yrs old. Two points to note:
1. I put the fuel tanks under the wings instead of the missiles because I thought they were bigger missiles; and 2. I painted it a great camouflage of gold and bright blue. Not 100% sure what theatre I was thinking it might be operating in.
I am not aware of either being trialled. Offer the concept to the MOD. Make your fortune.
Fergus Ewing calls the Greens “wine bar revolutionaries” during FMQs. Ooft!!!
Genuinely thought wine bars died out about 20 years ago.
They are still around, there are just far fewer of them now.
They are today what craft beer Micro bars will be in 20 years time.
"Craft" = Keg at £8 a pint
I'm not a fan of much craft beer (must prefer malty cask ale) but you'd struggle to pay £8 a pint for it, even down here. Where do you drink? The Savoy?
The US remain the only NATO nation with really significant readily usable reserves.
I remember the fuss 3 months ago when Germany was delaying the decision on Leopard 2 tanks by 5 days. According to some on here every day's delay meant Germany was deliberately murdering Ukrainian babies, and every single other NATO/European country was just itching to give hundreds of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine immediately if only Germany would stop preventing them. The reality of the last 3 months has been very different (with the exception of Poland), and yours is the first post about Leopard 2 tanks I've seen here for months. What happened to people's passionate urgency about Leopard 2 tanks?
F-16s were the new MBTs for a while but but even the doughtiest Couch Cossacks on here are getting a bit bored of the SMO. Ukraine need to reboot the franchise.
The main reason why there isn't the same passion on here about Ukraine not getting F-16s is because it isn't Germans preventing it.
Or it could be because everyone understands the extra complexity of training someone on an aircraft type vs. an MBT, the relative lack of numbers, and the fact that nations have other missions for their F16s especially when Russia is playing silly buggers on the NATO border.
LOL. Of course on PB "everyone understands".
I for one don't understand this. I mean it sounds kind of plausible. But it also sounds a lot like the some of the reasons/excuses for not supplying MBTs. For all I know it's easier for Ukraine's allies to find enough spare F-16s to make a difference, than it is to find enough spare working MBT's to make a difference. And maybe the F-16s are actually more needed in Ukraine than the MBTs. And how much extra training does an F-16 need compared to a Leopard 2? An extra month? an extra year?
The F-16 B Course is 40 weeks at which point a pilot is judged to be capable of flying and fighting the aircraft to a standard which makes them marginally more dangerous to the enemy than their own side,
Focusing on the length of the course rather misses the point. A USAF F-16 squadron doesn't have 18 nuggets straight off the B course, it'll have a mixture of experience levels including flint eyed killers with 10+ years and thousands of hours on the Viper. So putting 18 x AFU pilots through the F-16 training program doesn’t deliver a Ukrainian F-16 squadron, it delivers 18 rookies with no F-16 experten to guide them and who will be expected to go off and fight Su-35s to the death.
Twenty- minuters, as Blackadder had it. Which might be fine if the Ukrainians wanted to own the risk, except for the fact hag the airframe costs lots, contains secret into, and would be better used elsewhere to deter the Russians. For instance in backfilling of Migs donated to Ukraine, if it really is true Ukraine still has more trained pilots than serviceable airframes.
As above, I do now concede though that there is a case to start to build a new capability in Ukraine, mostly for after this war, and the best choice for that may not be the F16. If I was them I might be taking to Saab instead actually, if the Gripen production line is still open, on the basis Ukraine might actually have to pay for this kit one day.
I had an airfix model of a Saab something fighter when I was about 8yrs old. Two points to note:
1. I put the fuel tanks under the wings instead of the missiles because I thought they were bigger missiles; and 2. I painted it a great camouflage of gold and bright blue. Not 100% sure what theatre I was thinking it might be operating in.
With that paint job, it sounds like the more exciting Swedish equivalent of the RAF Voyager!
Luxembourg may be fictional but I've been to Ireland and it definitely exists.
The fake is brilliant - nearly as good as the one they do, where you think you are actually visiting Australia.
Which obviously doesn't exist.
Fake Australia is hilarious, they don't even try to make it believable. I went in June, which as we all know is the summertime, and they were making out it was winter.
The US remain the only NATO nation with really significant readily usable reserves.
I remember the fuss 3 months ago when Germany was delaying the decision on Leopard 2 tanks by 5 days. According to some on here every day's delay meant Germany was deliberately murdering Ukrainian babies, and every single other NATO/European country was just itching to give hundreds of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine immediately if only Germany would stop preventing them. The reality of the last 3 months has been very different (with the exception of Poland), and yours is the first post about Leopard 2 tanks I've seen here for months. What happened to people's passionate urgency about Leopard 2 tanks?
F-16s were the new MBTs for a while but but even the doughtiest Couch Cossacks on here are getting a bit bored of the SMO. Ukraine need to reboot the franchise.
The main reason why there isn't the same passion on here about Ukraine not getting F-16s is because it isn't Germans preventing it.
Or it could be because everyone understands the extra complexity of training someone on an aircraft type vs. an MBT, the relative lack of numbers, and the fact that nations have other missions for their F16s especially when Russia is playing silly buggers on the NATO border.
LOL. Of course on PB "everyone understands".
I for one don't understand this. I mean it sounds kind of plausible. But it also sounds a lot like the some of the reasons/excuses for not supplying MBTs. For all I know it's easier for Ukraine's allies to find enough spare F-16s to make a difference, than it is to find enough spare working MBT's to make a difference. And maybe the F-16s are actually more needed in Ukraine than the MBTs. And how much extra training does an F-16 need compared to a Leopard 2? An extra month? an extra year?
The F-16 B Course is 40 weeks at which point a pilot is judged to be capable of flying and fighting the aircraft to a standard which makes them marginally more dangerous to the enemy than their own side,
Focusing on the length of the course rather misses the point. A USAF F-16 squadron doesn't have 18 nuggets straight off the B course, it'll have a mixture of experience levels including flint eyed killers with 10+ years and thousands of hours on the Viper. So putting 18 x AFU pilots through the F-16 training program doesn’t deliver a Ukrainian F-16 squadron, it delivers 18 rookies with no F-16 experten to guide them and who will be expected to go off and fight Su-35s to the death.
Twenty- minuters, as Blackadder had it. Which might be fine if the Ukrainians wanted to own the risk, except for the fact hag the airframe costs lots, contains secret into, and would be better used elsewhere to deter the Russians. For instance in backfilling of Migs donated to Ukraine, if it really is true Ukraine still has more trained pilots than serviceable airframes.
As above, I do now concede though that there is a case to start to build a new capability in Ukraine, mostly for after this war, and the best choice for that may not be the F16. If I was them I might be taking to Saab instead actually, if the Gripen production line is still open, on the basis Ukraine might actually have to pay for this kit one day.
I had an airfix model of a Saab something fighter when I was about 8yrs old. Two points to note:
1. I put the fuel tanks under the wings instead of the missiles because I thought they were bigger missiles; and 2. I painted it a great camouflage of gold and bright blue. Not 100% sure what theatre I was thinking it might be operating in.
I am not aware of either being trialled. Offer the concept to the MOD. Make your fortune.
I suppose there were plenty who queried the efficacy of the dazzle ships also.
I've already given too much away about the proprietary design. I will say no more.
As well as putting more funds into the NHS we need to ease the burden on it by encouraging those who can afford it to go private. In terms of Covid as long as we avoid any new vaccine immune variant it is over for now
Tax incentives for private health care and back of the queue for the obese.
The first won't happen under Tory or Labour, regrettably, mainly because Labour has scorched the political earth for a mixed economy solution.
Your second suggestion is extremely discriminatory and simplistic. Obese people are a health problem, but a lot of the causes are demographic. The poorer someone is the greater chance of them being obese is. One of the many problems of the NHS is that it is an illness service, not a health service. It does very little to treat the causes and focusses on the symptoms. It is beginning to look at rehabilitation approaches for the obese and there are interesting innovations in this area, but there is a long way to go.
There was a study done by if I remember the swedish where they looked at the lifetime healthcare costs of drinkers,smokers,the obese and healthy living. The healthy living had the highest lifetime healthcare costs. I will see if I can find the link
If you compare the average annual costs between the groups, the differences are much less than those between the lifetime costs, though.
Lifetime costs for healthy individuals are 12% more than the obese, but the annual cost is only 4% more, as it's spread over a greater number of years.
For smokers vs healthy, the numbers are 27% and 14% respectively, so much more significant in reality.
My quick skim suggested higher annual costs for the obese/smokers which were offset by longer life for the healthy giving them higher costs overall. Did I mis-read?
There's also the point that the healthy are likely to contribute more in taxes etc, although that seemed to be accounted for in at least the second link. What I didn't get to was whether they counted other costs of illness such as carers having reduced working capacity etc, likely more relevant in a working age obese/smoking population than the retired carers of the generally healthy but old.
I suspect its something where you can get different answers depending how many societal costs you include, but I wouldn't be surprised if the basic point stands. People who live long enough to have multiple joint replacements (and particularly those developing dementia, if you include care costs) could easily cost more than those dying of cancer or heart disease.
Those extra years the healthy gain are unlikely to be years working, they will be years taking from the government in the form of a state pension.
Sure. But there may be extra years of work, compared to the less well. Or extra years of productivity through voluntary work etc. Possibly higher lifetime earnings (and taxes - although the sin taxes for e.g. smoking offset that) given the correlations between social class and health (you can argue the direction of causation).
I'm just saying it's not clearcut and different answers are probably available depending what you include in the calculations. The general point may well stand. But if it's all about saving money, we shoot everyone on retirement day, don't we?
The initial response was to the idea of sending the obese etc to the back of the queue....we often see it being touted that the sinners cost the nhs more money I was merely refuting that which I think was achieved.
Shooting people on retirement seems a bit logans run but if I get a jenny agutter along the way I could live with it
I have however in the past suggested everyone should get a lifetime healthcare budget, with some exemptions for those born with conditions. They should then be expected to insure against exceeding the budget.
I agree re Jenny Agutter.
One of the main points of having a national healthcare system is that the costs of lifetime healthcare are so variable and so out of our control, therefore it makes sense to pool the risks. A lifetime healthcare budget goes against that.
Healthcare is a limited resource....there is only so much the taxpayer can pay for. General taxation+insurance is the health care model used by both France and Germany both of which are considered by most to have better health care than us, your solution is to do what? Chuck ever increasing amounts at the NHS despite all the evidence of the last 30 years that this is doing sweet bugger all. We certainly are not getting 1£ extra health care for every 1£ we chuck at it.
It has to be rationed somehow and I don't think leaving people waiting years for treatment is a good rationing system personally.
You wonder why this government chooses to pick a fight with healthcare staff.
I think you might have that the wrong way around. Well compensated professionals on what most taxpayers would consider good salaries and massive pension deals are demanding a 35% increase. Do you think the government should just roll over?
Wrong question. The governments are responsible for delivering public services. If the governments can't keep staff so that the services they are responsible for can't be delivered that's the the government's problem, not the staff's problem.
Attempting to cut their salaries in real terms is definitely part of this.
That’s only true if you believe in concepts antithetical to modern conservatism, like the “free market”.
Joking apart - the key point in Mordaunt's statement is that if the SNP do not have audited accounts by 31 May they will receive no further Short Money after April's payment:
Ooft 🔥 "On the upside though I guess It will be easier for them to have a whip-round amongst their membership as that number is dwindling to a point where most of them could fit into a Luxury Campervan! 😂🤣
Nice to see Penny giving a verbal bitch slap to that weirdo Andrew Bridgen MP as well.
Still think she would have been the best choice as leader.
She didn't really excel in the contest though. I expected more from her. I thought her the best option prior to the first leadership contest but she underwhelmed.
I think she let herself get too bogged down with the trans issue and it sidelined her a little.
TBF a lot of the issue was also the DM gunning for her every day.
The Tory Party has really missed a trick by sidelining her.
The US remain the only NATO nation with really significant readily usable reserves.
I remember the fuss 3 months ago when Germany was delaying the decision on Leopard 2 tanks by 5 days. According to some on here every day's delay meant Germany was deliberately murdering Ukrainian babies, and every single other NATO/European country was just itching to give hundreds of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine immediately if only Germany would stop preventing them. The reality of the last 3 months has been very different (with the exception of Poland), and yours is the first post about Leopard 2 tanks I've seen here for months. What happened to people's passionate urgency about Leopard 2 tanks?
F-16s were the new MBTs for a while but but even the doughtiest Couch Cossacks on here are getting a bit bored of the SMO. Ukraine need to reboot the franchise.
The main reason why there isn't the same passion on here about Ukraine not getting F-16s is because it isn't Germans preventing it.
Or it could be because everyone understands the extra complexity of training someone on an aircraft type vs. an MBT, the relative lack of numbers, and the fact that nations have other missions for their F16s especially when Russia is playing silly buggers on the NATO border.
LOL. Of course on PB "everyone understands".
I for one don't understand this. I mean it sounds kind of plausible. But it also sounds a lot like the some of the reasons/excuses for not supplying MBTs. For all I know it's easier for Ukraine's allies to find enough spare F-16s to make a difference, than it is to find enough spare working MBT's to make a difference. And maybe the F-16s are actually more needed in Ukraine than the MBTs. And how much extra training does an F-16 need compared to a Leopard 2? An extra month? an extra year?
The F-16 B Course is 40 weeks at which point a pilot is judged to be capable of flying and fighting the aircraft to a standard which makes them marginally more dangerous to the enemy than their own side,
Focusing on the length of the course rather misses the point. A USAF F-16 squadron doesn't have 18 nuggets straight off the B course, it'll have a mixture of experience levels including flint eyed killers with 10+ years and thousands of hours on the Viper. So putting 18 x AFU pilots through the F-16 training program doesn’t deliver a Ukrainian F-16 squadron, it delivers 18 rookies with no F-16 experten to guide them and who will be expected to go off and fight Su-35s to the death.
Twenty- minuters, as Blackadder had it. Which might be fine if the Ukrainians wanted to own the risk, except for the fact hag the airframe costs lots, contains secret into, and would be better used elsewhere to deter the Russians. For instance in backfilling of Migs donated to Ukraine, if it really is true Ukraine still has more trained pilots than serviceable airframes.
As above, I do now concede though that there is a case to start to build a new capability in Ukraine, mostly for after this war, and the best choice for that may not be the F16. If I was them I might be taking to Saab instead actually, if the Gripen production line is still open, on the basis Ukraine might actually have to pay for this kit one day.
I had an airfix model of a Saab something fighter when I was about 8yrs old. Two points to note:
1. I put the fuel tanks under the wings instead of the missiles because I thought they were bigger missiles; and 2. I painted it a great camouflage of gold and bright blue. Not 100% sure what theatre I was thinking it might be operating in.
I am not aware of either being trialled. Offer the concept to the MOD. Make your fortune.
I suppose there were plenty who queried the efficacy of the dazzle ships also.
I've already given too much away about the proprietary design. I will say no more.
As well as putting more funds into the NHS we need to ease the burden on it by encouraging those who can afford it to go private. In terms of Covid as long as we avoid any new vaccine immune variant it is over for now
Tax incentives for private health care and back of the queue for the obese.
The first won't happen under Tory or Labour, regrettably, mainly because Labour has scorched the political earth for a mixed economy solution.
Your second suggestion is extremely discriminatory and simplistic. Obese people are a health problem, but a lot of the causes are demographic. The poorer someone is the greater chance of them being obese is. One of the many problems of the NHS is that it is an illness service, not a health service. It does very little to treat the causes and focusses on the symptoms. It is beginning to look at rehabilitation approaches for the obese and there are interesting innovations in this area, but there is a long way to go.
There was a study done by if I remember the swedish where they looked at the lifetime healthcare costs of drinkers,smokers,the obese and healthy living. The healthy living had the highest lifetime healthcare costs. I will see if I can find the link
If you compare the average annual costs between the groups, the differences are much less than those between the lifetime costs, though.
Lifetime costs for healthy individuals are 12% more than the obese, but the annual cost is only 4% more, as it's spread over a greater number of years.
For smokers vs healthy, the numbers are 27% and 14% respectively, so much more significant in reality.
My quick skim suggested higher annual costs for the obese/smokers which were offset by longer life for the healthy giving them higher costs overall. Did I mis-read?
There's also the point that the healthy are likely to contribute more in taxes etc, although that seemed to be accounted for in at least the second link. What I didn't get to was whether they counted other costs of illness such as carers having reduced working capacity etc, likely more relevant in a working age obese/smoking population than the retired carers of the generally healthy but old.
I suspect its something where you can get different answers depending how many societal costs you include, but I wouldn't be surprised if the basic point stands. People who live long enough to have multiple joint replacements (and particularly those developing dementia, if you include care costs) could easily cost more than those dying of cancer or heart disease.
Those extra years the healthy gain are unlikely to be years working, they will be years taking from the government in the form of a state pension.
Sure. But there may be extra years of work, compared to the less well. Or extra years of productivity through voluntary work etc. Possibly higher lifetime earnings (and taxes - although the sin taxes for e.g. smoking offset that) given the correlations between social class and health (you can argue the direction of causation).
I'm just saying it's not clearcut and different answers are probably available depending what you include in the calculations. The general point may well stand. But if it's all about saving money, we shoot everyone on retirement day, don't we?
The initial response was to the idea of sending the obese etc to the back of the queue....we often see it being touted that the sinners cost the nhs more money I was merely refuting that which I think was achieved.
Shooting people on retirement seems a bit logans run but if I get a jenny agutter along the way I could live with it
I have however in the past suggested everyone should get a lifetime healthcare budget, with some exemptions for those born with conditions. They should then be expected to insure against exceeding the budget.
I agree re Jenny Agutter.
One of the main points of having a national healthcare system is that the costs of lifetime healthcare are so variable and so out of our control, therefore it makes sense to pool the risks. A lifetime healthcare budget goes against that.
Healthcare is a limited resource....there is only so much the taxpayer can pay for. General taxation+insurance is the health care model used by both France and Germany both of which are considered by most to have better health care than us, your solution is to do what? Chuck ever increasing amounts at the NHS despite all the evidence of the last 30 years that this is doing sweet bugger all. We certainly are not getting 1£ extra health care for every 1£ we chuck at it.
It has to be rationed somehow and I don't think leaving people waiting years for treatment is a good rationing system personally.
Healthcare is a limited resource, so I think a national solution is better than a private insurance model for tackling that.
France and Germany don’t have the system you proposed (a set lifetime healthcare budget). France and Germany spend a bit more than we do as a nation on health. So, I’m happy to learn from the French and German approaches, starting with spending a bit more on health than we currently do. There are other specific ideas I think we should copy. Germany is leading the way in the adoption of patient-facing digital health with its DiGA model, and France are introducing something similar (with a better acronym that I’m struggling to remember right now!). The UK is lagging behind here. Why? In part, because the people who were working in the NHS and Public Health England on such issues got hit by re-organisations and big cuts in staffing. So, that’s my idea #2: stop with the politically-driven re-organisations and properly invest in these functions.
How should we ration (publicly-funded) healthcare? The use of cost effectiveness thresholds by NICE works reasonably well. Using the size of the NHS to keep drug costs manageable works well, and we should be extending that to other areas of costs.
Either @SandyRentool has very expensive tastes in bars, or he's talking out of his arse again.
I went to a bar in Bristol, maybe 10 years ago, where they insisted on serving the keg craft in thirds, halves, or pints, based on the alcoholic strength, rather than the customer choosing. When you multiplied the cost of the strong third by three, it was easily north of £10.
With stories like this it's small bleeding wonder things are in a mess.
Bad enough there aren't enough training places, worse that we can't even employ the ones we do train!
Worse still is that there are hundreds of vacant anaesthetic Consultant posts.
HEE (and its devolved equivalents) is a nightmare. Sorting it out would massively help Junior Doctors in their careers, improve retention and tackle backlogs.
Just read the comments by Juniors under this rather smug HEE tweet:
Will there training spaces for the "bump" in undergrads caused by the COVID/A Level/increased university entry issue?
In general, the conditions and career structure for medical staff appear to be constructed on the basis that "Beatings will continue until moral improves". Put up with terrible conditions and OKish pay until you break through into the sunny uplands of being Senior.
This is 19th cent thinking. It is completely unsurprising, to me, that people in the 21st cent are not massively enthused by this.
It is how things were done, historically. But times have changed.
Don't be daft. HEE haven't increased postgraduate training numbers other than GPVT in 15 years. Why start now?
As well as putting more funds into the NHS we need to ease the burden on it by encouraging those who can afford it to go private. In terms of Covid as long as we avoid any new vaccine immune variant it is over for now
Tax incentives for private health care and back of the queue for the obese.
The first won't happen under Tory or Labour, regrettably, mainly because Labour has scorched the political earth for a mixed economy solution.
Your second suggestion is extremely discriminatory and simplistic. Obese people are a health problem, but a lot of the causes are demographic. The poorer someone is the greater chance of them being obese is. One of the many problems of the NHS is that it is an illness service, not a health service. It does very little to treat the causes and focusses on the symptoms. It is beginning to look at rehabilitation approaches for the obese and there are interesting innovations in this area, but there is a long way to go.
There was a study done by if I remember the swedish where they looked at the lifetime healthcare costs of drinkers,smokers,the obese and healthy living. The healthy living had the highest lifetime healthcare costs. I will see if I can find the link
If you compare the average annual costs between the groups, the differences are much less than those between the lifetime costs, though.
Lifetime costs for healthy individuals are 12% more than the obese, but the annual cost is only 4% more, as it's spread over a greater number of years.
For smokers vs healthy, the numbers are 27% and 14% respectively, so much more significant in reality.
My quick skim suggested higher annual costs for the obese/smokers which were offset by longer life for the healthy giving them higher costs overall. Did I mis-read?
There's also the point that the healthy are likely to contribute more in taxes etc, although that seemed to be accounted for in at least the second link. What I didn't get to was whether they counted other costs of illness such as carers having reduced working capacity etc, likely more relevant in a working age obese/smoking population than the retired carers of the generally healthy but old.
I suspect its something where you can get different answers depending how many societal costs you include, but I wouldn't be surprised if the basic point stands. People who live long enough to have multiple joint replacements (and particularly those developing dementia, if you include care costs) could easily cost more than those dying of cancer or heart disease.
Those extra years the healthy gain are unlikely to be years working, they will be years taking from the government in the form of a state pension.
Sure. But there may be extra years of work, compared to the less well. Or extra years of productivity through voluntary work etc. Possibly higher lifetime earnings (and taxes - although the sin taxes for e.g. smoking offset that) given the correlations between social class and health (you can argue the direction of causation).
I'm just saying it's not clearcut and different answers are probably available depending what you include in the calculations. The general point may well stand. But if it's all about saving money, we shoot everyone on retirement day, don't we?
The initial response was to the idea of sending the obese etc to the back of the queue....we often see it being touted that the sinners cost the nhs more money I was merely refuting that which I think was achieved.
Shooting people on retirement seems a bit logans run but if I get a jenny agutter along the way I could live with it
I have however in the past suggested everyone should get a lifetime healthcare budget, with some exemptions for those born with conditions. They should then be expected to insure against exceeding the budget.
I agree re Jenny Agutter.
One of the main points of having a national healthcare system is that the costs of lifetime healthcare are so variable and so out of our control, therefore it makes sense to pool the risks. A lifetime healthcare budget goes against that.
Healthcare is a limited resource....there is only so much the taxpayer can pay for. General taxation+insurance is the health care model used by both France and Germany both of which are considered by most to have better health care than us, your solution is to do what? Chuck ever increasing amounts at the NHS despite all the evidence of the last 30 years that this is doing sweet bugger all. We certainly are not getting 1£ extra health care for every 1£ we chuck at it.
It has to be rationed somehow and I don't think leaving people waiting years for treatment is a good rationing system personally.
Healthcare is a limited resource, so I think a national solution is better than a private insurance model for tackling that.
France and Germany don’t have the system you proposed (a set lifetime healthcare budget). France and Germany spend a bit more than we do as a nation on health. So, I’m happy to learn from the French and German approaches, starting with spending a bit more on health than we currently do. There are other specific ideas I think we should copy. Germany is leading the way in the adoption of patient-facing digital health with its DiGA model, and France are introducing something similar (with a better acronym that I’m struggling to remember right now!). The UK is lagging behind here. Why? In part, because the people who were working in the NHS and Public Health England on such issues got hit by re-organisations and big cuts in staffing. So, that’s my idea #2: stop with the politically-driven re-organisations and properly invest in these functions.
How should we ration (publicly-funded) healthcare? The use of cost effectiveness thresholds by NICE works reasonably well. Using the size of the NHS to keep drug costs manageable works well, and we should be extending that to other areas of costs.
I didnt say they had the lifetime budget.....I said they have the mix of tax + private insurance. Insurance works for the reason I stated, they dont do treatment they dont get paid.....throwing more tax at them doesnt work as we see because they don't do the work but still get the money
drug purchase and nice do work well for us, the problem is then those drugs and ops are rationed by making people wait years on a waiting list to get them......no good having nice cheap drugs to cure us if we aren't actually receiving them because you are in a 3 year queue to be assessed as to whether you need them.
We have fed and fed the NHS year after year and decade after decade often with above inflation amounts and we get less and less treatment out the other end. The only conclusion is that all the extra money shovelled in is not reaching the customer in terms of treatments. Your solution of just chuck more money at it just isn't working.
Comments
If I was Sunak and the report speaks badly of Raab I’d probably be using it as a reason to promote someone into the FSoS/DPM position who can communicate well and gear the party up for an election. Mordaunt or Badenoch for instance. But that won’t happen in all likelihood, because I’m not convinced he thinks that strategically.
I think the US's strategic goal is simple: to rein in Russia's expansionist goals before it gets much more expensive to do so. The longer it is left, and the more 'wins' Russia gets, the harder it is to stop them.
Either way is it possible for Russia to invade Sweden without invading Finland first?
'“Our focus is on continuing to do what we’ve been doing, which is to make sure that Ukraine has in its hands what it needs to defend itself, what it needs to push back against the Russian aggression, to take back territory that’s been seized from it since Feb. 24, to make sure as well that it has the support economically and on a humanitarian basis to withstand what’s happening in the country every single day,” Mr. Blinken told the WSJ CEO Council Summit late Monday.'
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-goal-in-ukraine-drive-russians-back-to-pre-invasion-lines-blinken-says-11670351786
RANKING (Net Est. $$$ Change from 2023-2028)
Luxembourg ($146,147) +$13,775
Ireland ($139,001) +$24,420
Switzerland ($121,063) +$22,296
Norway ($104,734) +$3,631
Iceland ($102,525) +$27,345
Denmark ($82,681) +$13,854
Netherlands ($71,497) +$10,398
Austria ($64,009) +$7,207
Sweden ($62,156) +$6,761
Finland ($61,947) +$7,596
United Kingdom ($61,130) +$14,759
Germany ($60,260) +$8,876
Belgium ($59,644) +$6,266
France ($50,793) +$6,385
Malta ($46,107) +$9,117
Estonia ($44,585) +$13,376
Italy ($41,660) +$4,848
Slovenia ($41,485) +$9,270
Cyprus ($41,068) +$7,261
Czechia ($40,079) +$8,711
Luxembourg and Ireland fictional, obviously.
The UK figure must be based on a strengthening pound, I suppose, because it looks rather out of step with France and Germany.
Full data:
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/April/weo-report
But essentially, no.
Focusing on the length of the course rather misses the point. A USAF F-16 squadron doesn't have 18 nuggets straight off the B course, it'll have a mixture of experience levels including flint eyed killers with 10+ years and thousands of hours on the Viper. So putting 18 x AFU pilots through the F-16 training program doesn’t deliver a Ukrainian F-16 squadron, it delivers 18 rookies with no F-16 experten to guide them and who will be expected to go off and fight Su-35s to the death.
They are today what craft beer Micro bars will be in 20 years time.
Attempting to cut their salaries in real terms is definitely part of this.
If it were canine anatomy then presumably the vote would be for the one that was indicated to be the dog's bollocks?
I think she let herself get too bogged down with the trans issue and it sidelined her a little.
I know contract law and consumer protections are geared towards protecting customers (end users usually) but for cash transactions you do have:
The customer knows who the vendor is (via a sales invoice) but
The vendor doesn't know who the customer is.
It isn't quite right. Surely both parties should know who the other is, or neither party needs to know?
Any returning officer could only deduce that is a clear cut vote for Tim Loughton.
Rishi is working out better than I expected but Penny would have been formidable IMO and would have saved us from the Truss disaster...
As above, I do now concede though that there is a case to start to build a new capability in Ukraine, mostly for after this war, and the best choice for that may not be the F16. If I was them I might be taking to Saab instead actually, if the Gripen production line is still open, on the basis Ukraine might actually have to pay for this kit one day.
Plenty of articles he pointed to about it. These from google first few results. No idea of the biases in the publications.
https://www.socialeurope.eu/winning-in-ukraine-losing-the-global-south
https://www.crisisgroup.org/global-ukraine/global-south-and-ukraine-war-un
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraine-must-do-more-to-counter-russian-narratives-in-the-global-south/
Admittedly by causing a much worse disaster.
1. I put the fuel tanks under the wings instead of the missiles because I thought they were bigger missiles; and
2. I painted it a great camouflage of gold and bright blue. Not 100% sure what theatre I was thinking it might be operating in.
Individuals are the pipers and they adapt to our tune - not the other way round.
One of the main points of having a national healthcare system is that the costs of lifetime healthcare are so variable and so out of our control, therefore it makes sense to pool the risks. A lifetime healthcare budget goes against that.
That might well be correct. But then there's the other weight on the balance: if Russia is seen to 'lose' this war; if Russia is so massively weakened by it (as is happening), then allying with them, or even building closer ties with them, is allying with a loser. Why buy Russian military equipment if it's seen as performing poorly in battle, and they don't deliver as they need the weapons for themselves? Why buy their oil and gas at non-discounted prices, if they might just threaten to cut those supplies off when they have a hissy fit?
And China is waiting in the wings. Countries who do not wish to ally with the west may get very friendly receptions from China. However the future develops, I cannot see Russia being anything other than a diminished power in the next ten years. But there are opportunities for both the 'west' and China.
Which obviously doesn't exist.
NEW:
Humza Yousaf has said the SNP is "definitely not facing bankruptcy".
https://www.menumodo.com/app.php/viewer/outlet/4733/11415?lang=en&tags=h
Maybe the Ritz too.
Either @SandyRentool has very expensive tastes in bars, or he's talking out of his arse again.
I've already given too much away about the proprietary design. I will say no more.
It has to be rationed somehow and I don't think leaving people waiting years for treatment is a good rationing system personally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1wcilQ58hI
The Tory Party has really missed a trick by sidelining her.
Yousaf, asked how much money the SNP owes Peter Murrell, says he’ll answer after the “transparency review”. unsurpassable.
https://twitter.com/euanmccolm/status/1649023256135974914?s=46
Is the Netherlands really going to be that much richer than Italy or France?
NEW THREAD
France and Germany don’t have the system you proposed (a set lifetime healthcare budget). France and Germany spend a bit more than we do as a nation on health. So, I’m happy to learn from the French and German approaches, starting with spending a bit more on health than we currently do. There are other specific ideas I think we should copy. Germany is leading the way in the adoption of patient-facing digital health with its DiGA model, and France are introducing something similar (with a better acronym that I’m struggling to remember right now!). The UK is lagging behind here. Why? In part, because the people who were working in the NHS and Public Health England on such issues got hit by re-organisations and big cuts in staffing. So, that’s my idea #2: stop with the politically-driven re-organisations and properly invest in these functions.
How should we ration (publicly-funded) healthcare? The use of cost effectiveness thresholds by NICE works reasonably well. Using the size of the NHS to keep drug costs manageable works well, and we should be extending that to other areas of costs.
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-test
drug purchase and nice do work well for us, the problem is then those drugs and ops are rationed by making people wait years on a waiting list to get them......no good having nice cheap drugs to cure us if we aren't actually receiving them because you are in a 3 year queue to be assessed as to whether you need them.
We have fed and fed the NHS year after year and decade after decade often with above inflation amounts and we get less and less treatment out the other end. The only conclusion is that all the extra money shovelled in is not reaching the customer in terms of treatments. Your solution of just chuck more money at it just isn't working.