Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
But they don’t make it here, which is why the current arrangements are sustainable. You can work yourself up into a tizzy about something that’s never going to happen if you want, but it doesn’t seem to serve any useful purpose.
I am not in a tizzy. And I agree that through some good fortune of geography we actually receive fewer asylum seekers than many European countries.
But the absurd Rwandan scheme cost us something like £750m. It arose because our government sold the idea of "illegal migration" as some sort of threat, reflecting, in fairness, many peoples' views on the matter.
More than 80% of the small boat people are not "illegal" at all. They are people who want to seek asylum here and are qualified to do so. Labour's answer, rather than pointing this out, is that they are going to "smash the gangs". A policy that has worked so well in drugs that our country is of course free of illegal drugs. Or something.
What we need is a realistic conversation about both immigration and asylum. In my view if we are to sell that we will need to have control of the process. In other words we choose who has the right to seek asylum here, whether that is Ukrainians, Hong Kong Chinese, those that helped us in Afghanistan, a set number from Syria or wherever. I don't think any government will ever sell uncontrolled immigration which is what we currently have given our rules on asylum.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The article is paywalled, so I for one couldn't read it.
I work with a lot of immigrant staff. Half my department qualified overseas, and I think it a slur with more than a hint of racism to suggest they do not care as much as British staff. There are bad examples in both groups. Shipman, Allit and Letby were all British trained.
Waiting times in ED have gone up because of shortage of funding (4 hour target was last met in 2015) and working in such an overcrowded department is stressful and leads to burnout. This can breed a certain callouses. I remember myself hardening in such an environment.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
Indeed.
A realistic annual number might be 0.1% of the population with perhaps extra from specific obligations such as Ukraine or Hong Kong.
Which, curiously enough, is roughly the current rate;
In 2023, 67,337 applications for asylum were made in the UK, which related to 84,425 individuals (more than one applicant can be included in a single application)...
In 2022, there were around 13 asylum applications for every 10,000 people living in the UK. Across the EU27 there were 22 asylum applications for every 10,000 people. The UK was therefore below the average among EU countries for asylum applications per head of population, ranking 19th among EU27 countries plus the UK on this measure.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The article is paywalled, so I for one couldn't read it.
I work with a lot of immigrant staff. Half my department qualified overseas, and I think it a slur with more than a hint of racism to suggest they do not care as much as British staff. There are bad examples in both groups. Shipman, Allit and Letby were all British trained.
Waiting times in ED have gone up because of shortage of funding (4 hour target was last met in 2015) and working in such an overcrowded department is stressful and leads to burnout. This can breed a certain callouses. I remember myself hardening in such an environment.
Archive.ph is the archive service that many sites let passed their paywall.
It also quite nicely lands a visitor straight in the "paste URL here" box.
So copy the web address of the article, drop it in the box at https://archive.ph/, and it will either archive it (sometimes a short queue), or give you the link to the last time it did so.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
You think party faithful who go to a political rally are indicative of the wider electorate ???
Whether its a Trump rally or a Harris rally it might be no more than a few dozen fanatics cheering themselves hoarse.
You were talking about the Democrats showing a lack of interest in the rust belt. To which I answered with link showing a Harris rally in a rust belt state.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
But they don’t make it here, which is why the current arrangements are sustainable. You can work yourself up into a tizzy about something that’s never going to happen if you want, but it doesn’t seem to serve any useful purpose.
I am not in a tizzy. And I agree that through some good fortune of geography we actually receive fewer asylum seekers than many European countries.
But the absurd Rwandan scheme cost us something like £750m. It arose because our government sold the idea of "illegal migration" as some sort of threat, reflecting, in fairness, many peoples' views on the matter.
More than 80% of the small boat people are not "illegal" at all. They are people who want to seek asylum here and are qualified to do so. Labour's answer, rather than pointing this out, is that they are going to "smash the gangs". A policy that has worked so well in drugs that our country is of course free of illegal drugs. Or something.
What we need is a realistic conversation about both immigration and asylum. In my view if we are to sell that we will need to have control of the process. In other words we choose who has the right to seek asylum here, whether that is Ukrainians, Hong Kong Chinese, those that helped us in Afghanistan, a set number from Syria or wherever. I don't think any government will ever sell uncontrolled immigration which is what we currently have given our rules on asylum.
All good points except, what do we do about people who arrive illegally irregularly?
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
But they don’t make it here, which is why the current arrangements are sustainable. You can work yourself up into a tizzy about something that’s never going to happen if you want, but it doesn’t seem to serve any useful purpose.
I am not in a tizzy. And I agree that through some good fortune of geography we actually receive fewer asylum seekers than many European countries.
But the absurd Rwandan scheme cost us something like £750m. It arose because our government sold the idea of "illegal migration" as some sort of threat, reflecting, in fairness, many peoples' views on the matter.
More than 80% of the small boat people are not "illegal" at all. They are people who want to seek asylum here and are qualified to do so. Labour's answer, rather than pointing this out, is that they are going to "smash the gangs". A policy that has worked so well in drugs that our country is of course free of illegal drugs. Or something.
What we need is a realistic conversation about both immigration and asylum. In my view if we are to sell that we will need to have control of the process. In other words we choose who has the right to seek asylum here, whether that is Ukrainians, Hong Kong Chinese, those that helped us in Afghanistan, a set number from Syria or wherever. I don't think any government will ever sell uncontrolled immigration which is what we currently have given our rules on asylum.
All good points except, what do we do about people who arrive illegally irregularly?
quickly check their asylum claim rather than arsing around for 2 years while they settle into the UK...
And it only takes so long to process asylum claims because the tories cut back the service is 2017 and a long backlog has been created because you no one can do the work of 2-5 people which is what is currently required.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
We do need to have a better ED, after all private hospitals do not run EDs, indeed often they send their sickest patient to the NHS ones.
When you have your heart attack there is nowhere else to go, so even the rich Alison Pearson needs it to be functional. It's not just about money, but there also needs to be better staff training and leadership.
Yes - that's fair.
However it's a highly abusive article, without knowing the circumstances of the people she is abusing. Having read all 2300 words, I think she's well out of order.
She even dismissed "patients treated in order of acuity" (FFS):
"You’ll be treated in order of acuity,” she said. Acuity? Which tier of useless NHS management came up with that buzzword to fob off the folk they are paid to care for?"
I'm happy to accept her views of her personal experience. But utterly clueless about the rest.
Really? She isn't "abusing" anyone, she is describing a real situation which has been experienced by many. I normally don't like the opinions of Allison Pearson generally; I find her simplistic right wing and irritating. However, she is spot on with this. The NHS is "broken", but it is not just "The Tories" that are responsible, it is the vested interests including the doctors' unions that are responsible for sloppy entitled practices that put the patient not first, but last. It is a shitty nationalised system that prioritises itself as an entity and was designed for the 1950s and is still stuck there.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Irregular migration is a more accurate term. It's not illegal to seek asylum, even if some wish it so.
Yes, one of the many traps that the previous government got itself into was going on and on about illegal immigration when a very high percentage of the small boat people are found to qualify for asylum once they were processed. Under our current regime we are obliged to accept as many qualifying asylum seekers from around the world as can make it to our shores.
In which case we should be told what the number that could potentially be.
The alternative is to set a maximum number of qualifying asylum seekers to be allowed and if that was reached then its an immediate, if unfortunate, rejection of any beyond that.
I reckon there are at least a couple of billion people living in complete shitholes in danger of their life who will qualify for asylum if they make it here. It's why I do not think the current asylum arrangements are sustainable.
But they don’t make it here, which is why the current arrangements are sustainable. You can work yourself up into a tizzy about something that’s never going to happen if you want, but it doesn’t seem to serve any useful purpose.
I am not in a tizzy. And I agree that through some good fortune of geography we actually receive fewer asylum seekers than many European countries.
But the absurd Rwandan scheme cost us something like £750m. It arose because our government sold the idea of "illegal migration" as some sort of threat, reflecting, in fairness, many peoples' views on the matter.
The South Sea Company was absurd.
Trump's decision to contest the 2020 result was absurd.
The idea The Last Jedi is worth watching is absurd.
'Absurd' just doesn't do justice to the Rwanda scheme.
At one point I backed Harris at 70 to be POTUS. Only £10. Then I had £200 on Biden at around 3.25. This was pre-debate. Then he drifted a bit and I got cold feet and cashed out - losing my Harris bet in the process! Then the debate happened and I backed Harris at 12/1 and shorter. Then came the Trump assassination attempt and I reversed a lot of my Harris position and backed Biden.Then Harris drifted to 16 and I nearly backed her - but didn't. Then Biden withdrew from the race and I backed Harris at 3.7 down to 3.35. I've also got £15 on Vance at 150.
Overall my book is now
Trump -£815 Harris +£1788
Not bad given all my bad calls and the many twists and turns in the race. I'm hoping the odds between the two continue to narrow and I can get level on Trump and close to +£1k Harris.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The article is paywalled, so I for one couldn't read it.
I work with a lot of immigrant staff. Half my department qualified overseas, and I think it a slur with more than a hint of racism to suggest they do not care as much as British staff. There are bad examples in both groups. Shipman, Allit and Letby were all British trained.
Waiting times in ED have gone up because of shortage of funding (4 hour target was last met in 2015) and working in such an overcrowded department is stressful and leads to burnout. This can breed a certain callouses. I remember myself hardening in such an environment.
Good morning
Over the last 9 months I have had an enormous amount of interaction with A & E, hospitals, consultants, and my GP practice and, whilst there are many problems expecially in A & E, I am wholly with @Foxy about the staff, consultants and doctors, and utterly reject @MisterBedfordshire unwarranted slurs about them
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
We do need to have a better ED, after all private hospitals do not run EDs, indeed often they send their sickest patient to the NHS ones.
When you have your heart attack there is nowhere else to go, so even the rich Alison Pearson needs it to be functional. It's not just about money, but there also needs to be better staff training and leadership.
You tell me if I’m a million miles off, but on all my recent visits to A&E, with assorted sick or broken family members in tow, it has seemed to me that they were staffed by dedicated and skilled people; but managed poorly. Like six year olds playing football, they were drawn to the new, sickest person, and failing to do things like discharge a now diagnosed person to make space. It seemed to me that that was a priority too, but wasn’t actioned as one. The place was full of people part way through a process.
The clear solution? More NHS managers! In this case, proper shop floor type lean process merchants.
You mean a Hattie Jaques type Matron?
Recently, my father was in hospital. He would have died, except for the family pushing and asking questions. The issue was joined up care - a procession of different doctors would come by and read the notes. And ask questions. But missed the bleeding obvious.
In the end, we pushed hard enough that a senior consultant arrived (a cloud of juniors in his train) and announced that the patient was in his personal care - he talked of the old style where his name would have been written on a chalk board above the patients bed.
It's mildly ironic that Musk possibly has more in common with Democratic policy - notably the drive to reindutrialise the US - than he does with the GOP, in terms of substantive policy as opposed to culture war.
In my dealings with A&E I’ve never been able to fault them really. I do admit that I have never seen it in say a Saturday night peak (a trend I hope to continue).
I don’t deny the fact that the journo in question in the Telegraph article looks to have had a terrible experience, but I do wonder how widespread that is. I would have thought someone presenting with chest pains would almost always be seen as a high priority? Certainly that has been the case when I recently had a relative who needed to go for that reason.
There are many things wrong with the NHS. I’m not sure staff dedication in the A&E or some nebulous concept of a lack of caring culture* is the right target.
*and a quick note on that one. In all medical professionals and staff I have interacted with, both public and private, in hospital settings, I think it’s fair to say that some people’s bedside manner has been much better than others. There is no discernible pattern that marks one person out as being more likely to be better at it than another, that I can see.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The article is paywalled, so I for one couldn't read it.
I work with a lot of immigrant staff. Half my department qualified overseas, and I think it a slur with more than a hint of racism to suggest they do not care as much as British staff. There are bad examples in both groups. Shipman, Allit and Letby were all British trained.
Waiting times in ED have gone up because of shortage of funding (4 hour target was last met in 2015) and working in such an overcrowded department is stressful and leads to burnout. This can breed a certain callouses. I remember myself hardening in such an environment.
Archive.ph is the archive service that many sites let passed their paywall.
It also quite nicely lands a visitor straight in the "paste URL here" box.
So copy the web address of the article, drop it in the box at https://archive.ph/, and it will either archive it (sometimes a short queue), or give you the link to the last time it did so.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
We do need to have a better ED, after all private hospitals do not run EDs, indeed often they send their sickest patient to the NHS ones.
When you have your heart attack there is nowhere else to go, so even the rich Alison Pearson needs it to be functional. It's not just about money, but there also needs to be better staff training and leadership.
There's no doubt that her experience, assuming it is broadly accurate, is being used by her to push a general point she makes a lot about migration. She has come across in recent times as basically a Faragist as far as I can see.
But the actual reported experience chimes very well with stories I have heard about A&E from extended family/acquaintances etc.
Twenty hours in A&E is the longest I have heard first hand from a person I know.
I had two emergency referrals to A & E in the last 9 months and on the first occasion and despite a serious dvt I waited with my wife overnight in an overcrowded A & E before seeing the on duty doctor 13 hours later who immediately admitted me as a medical emergency
On my second visit I waited 9 hours and on this visit I met a patient who had been there for 48 hours
A & E is in a national crisis but let's not get into blaming the staff who are overworked and under severe pressure, with an extraordinary amount of abuse directed at them from some patients
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The article is paywalled, so I for one couldn't read it.
I work with a lot of immigrant staff. Half my department qualified overseas, and I think it a slur with more than a hint of racism to suggest they do not care as much as British staff. There are bad examples in both groups. Shipman, Allit and Letby were all British trained.
Waiting times in ED have gone up because of shortage of funding (4 hour target was last met in 2015) and working in such an overcrowded department is stressful and leads to burnout. This can breed a certain callouses. I remember myself hardening in such an environment.
This is doing the rounds on social media. How true is this ? If so, why ?
If someone has a visa and the qualification then they are entitled to apply.
As I said the other day , fixing the random allocation to Foundation posts is a quick win to improve Junior doctors morale at little cost.
Call me a Neon Fascist Imperialist Enslaver Of The Oppressed, but why not prioritise UK passport holders, then indefinite leave to remain etc?
The reality is that "the system" has for years turned away thousands of young UK based applicants every year that are easily bright enough to be doctors. It is either stupid incompetence, intellectual snobbery (and probably class snobbery too) combined with what may well be a vested interest to keep supply low and demand high, thereby engineering a shortage of medical professionals when in reality there are masses of bright young people applying.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
We do need to have a better ED, after all private hospitals do not run EDs, indeed often they send their sickest patient to the NHS ones.
When you have your heart attack there is nowhere else to go, so even the rich Alison Pearson needs it to be functional. It's not just about money, but there also needs to be better staff training and leadership.
There's no doubt that her experience, assuming it is broadly accurate, is being used by her to push a general point she makes a lot about migration. She has come across in recent times as basically a Faragist as far as I can see.
But the actual reported experience chimes very well with stories I have heard about A&E from extended family/acquaintances etc.
Twenty hours in A&E is the longest I have heard first hand from a person I know.
On one occasion in A&E, they had a guy doing time & motion on the doctors with a clipboard and a stopwatch.
This kind of thing was known to be a good way to ruin staff morale and provoke industrial unrest before World War Fucking One.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
You think party faithful who go to a political rally are indicative of the wider electorate ???
Whether its a Trump rally or a Harris rally it might be no more than a few dozen fanatics cheering themselves hoarse.
You were talking about the Democrats showing a lack of interest in the rust belt. To which I answered with link showing a Harris rally in a rust belt state.
All that shows is that Harris isn't as arrogant and useless a campaigner as Hilary Clinton.
It might need more than a few rallies in the weeks before the election to convince rust belt voters that they'll be as high on the priority list afterwards.
But, to be fair, it would have been better if I had written:
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states might suggest a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
We do need to have a better ED, after all private hospitals do not run EDs, indeed often they send their sickest patient to the NHS ones.
When you have your heart attack there is nowhere else to go, so even the rich Alison Pearson needs it to be functional. It's not just about money, but there also needs to be better staff training and leadership.
There's no doubt that her experience, assuming it is broadly accurate, is being used by her to push a general point she makes a lot about migration. She has come across in recent times as basically a Faragist as far as I can see.
But the actual reported experience chimes very well with stories I have heard about A&E from extended family/acquaintances etc.
Twenty hours in A&E is the longest I have heard first hand from a person I know.
I had two emergency referrals to A & E in the last 9 months and on the first occasion and despite a serious dvt I waited with my wife overnight in an overcrowded A & E before seeing the on duty doctor 13 hours later who immediately admitted me as a medical emergency
On my second visit I waited 9 hours and on this visit I met a patient who had been there for 48 hours
A & E is in a national crisis but let's not get into blaming the staff who are overworked and under severe pressure, with an extraordinary amount of abuse directed at them from some patients
Totally agree that it should be a given that no one doing their job should be subject to abuse, but to suggest that anyone working for the NHS is beyond reproach is one of the primary reasons for he problem. The archaic working practices that mollycoddle the medical profession is the main problem. Until the politicians have the sense to realise they are one of the most entitled vested interests this will not improve.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
I’ve always said I’m in favour of ID cards, if the following conditions are met:
1) They’re issued for free
2) You don’t have to carry them at all times
3) You can use them chip and pin to access all government services - so they would replace passports and driving licences, not augment them
4) That you had the power to access all information the government holds on you, and amend it where it is wrong
5) That civil servants who access your data are logged, and you can see who they are and why they accessed it
6) That if somebody has accessed your data inappropriately you have the right to take legal action against them, funded by the government.
And numbers 4-6 will not happen while any civil servant breathes air.
So - I oppose them.
You forgot
7) The database backing them contains no more information than needed for them than is necessary to function as an id card...ie no link to tax, medical records etc.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
NC is also in play.
As I noted yesterday, the notion of VP candidates 'delivering' their state is a pretty flawed one. Any difference they're likely to make is fairly marginal; either the Presidential candidate has it, or she doesn't.
The Democrats are pretty fortunate in having a good half dozen strong VP contenders. The Harris campaign will be doing targeted polling over the next week or so to try to see if any of them make a significant impact. That's more likely to decide the pick (along with whether of not she want the guy in question) than any of our strategy notions.
I vaguely recall when Nate Silver used to be a data guy instead of a pundit and he reckoned there was a home state effect, but only for *small* states.
To be fair, data was delivering excess returns over punditry in the mid-late 2000s when Silver came to the fore. By 2016 he was more or less saying that the election was unpredictable on election night - which was accurate! So we have already passed through two eras and the invention of modern social media since many of his more famous statements were evidenced.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
You think party faithful who go to a political rally are indicative of the wider electorate ???
Whether its a Trump rally or a Harris rally it might be no more than a few dozen fanatics cheering themselves hoarse.
You were talking about the Democrats showing a lack of interest in the rust belt. To which I answered with link showing a Harris rally in a rust belt state.
All that shows is that Harris isn't as arrogant and useless a campaigner as Hilary Clinton.
It might need more than a few rallies in the weeks before the election to convince rust belt voters that they'll be as high on the priority list afterwards.
But, to be fair, it would have been better if I had written:
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states might suggest a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
Fair comment. But the reality is that there's no lack of interest - which is why some of those states have Democratic governors. And why one of her first campaign stops was in the region.
FWIW, I'm not convinced that the VP pick is going to say very much at all about where the Democrats think they're competitive; I think both rust and sun belts are in play.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
I’ve always said I’m in favour of ID cards, if the following conditions are met:
1) They’re issued for free
2) You don’t have to carry them at all times
3) You can use them chip and pin to access all government services - so they would replace passports and driving licences, not augment them
4) That you had the power to access all information the government holds on you, and amend it where it is wrong
5) That civil servants who access your data are logged, and you can see who they are and why they accessed it
6) That if somebody has accessed your data inappropriately you have the right to take legal action against them, funded by the government.
And numbers 4-6 will not happen while any civil servant breathes air.
So - I oppose them.
You forgot
7) The database backing them contains no more information than needed for them than is necessary to function as an id card...ie no link to tax, medical records etc.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
I’ve always said I’m in favour of ID cards, if the following conditions are met:
1) They’re issued for free
2) You don’t have to carry them at all times
3) You can use them chip and pin to access all government services - so they would replace passports and driving licences, not augment them
4) That you had the power to access all information the government holds on you, and amend it where it is wrong
5) That civil servants who access your data are logged, and you can see who they are and why they accessed it
6) That if somebody has accessed your data inappropriately you have the right to take legal action against them, funded by the government.
And numbers 4-6 will not happen while any civil servant breathes air.
So - I oppose them.
You forgot
7) The database backing them contains no more information than needed for them than is necessary to function as an id card...ie no link to tax, medical records etc.
As I pointed out before 4 and 7 are mutually exclusive in Government thinking.
And there does need to be a link to Tax records for HMRC and a link to medical records for NHS - the all important thing is that the tax, driving, and health records are kept in separate system...
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The article is paywalled, so I for one couldn't read it.
I work with a lot of immigrant staff. Half my department qualified overseas, and I think it a slur with more than a hint of racism to suggest they do not care as much as British staff. There are bad examples in both groups. Shipman, Allit and Letby were all British trained.
Waiting times in ED have gone up because of shortage of funding (4 hour target was last met in 2015) and working in such an overcrowded department is stressful and leads to burnout. This can breed a certain callouses. I remember myself hardening in such an environment.
This is doing the rounds on social media. How true is this ? If so, why ?
If someone has a visa and the qualification then they are entitled to apply.
As I said the other day , fixing the random allocation to Foundation posts is a quick win to improve Junior doctors morale at little cost.
Call me a Neon Fascist Imperialist Enslaver Of The Oppressed, but why not prioritise UK passport holders, then indefinite leave to remain etc?
Good question but surely the urgent need is to increase the number of training places, an issue which Foxy has raised before. A similar issue is doctors not being able to find GP jobs at the same time as we have a shortage of GPs.
Hopefully, the new Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, will sort these things out for cheap and easy wins before getting back to his day job of tracking down exactly what happened to Boris's 40 new hospitals.
Training places are possibly the hardest thing to increase.
The idea that the system owes no especial priority to UK citizens over others is an interesting one.
Had a hilarious discussion at a city dinner a long while back - a number of people round that table approved of the reported statement, from an Cameron ex-spad, that he didn't see why the government should prioritise UK people over the welfare of foreigners.
The comedy was provided by an HAC guy, who pointed out that he has on duty that weekend, had probably the largest group of armed people in London under his command and that this picking allegiance thing sounded quite interesting.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
We do need to have a better ED, after all private hospitals do not run EDs, indeed often they send their sickest patient to the NHS ones.
When you have your heart attack there is nowhere else to go, so even the rich Alison Pearson needs it to be functional. It's not just about money, but there also needs to be better staff training and leadership.
There's no doubt that her experience, assuming it is broadly accurate, is being used by her to push a general point she makes a lot about migration. She has come across in recent times as basically a Faragist as far as I can see.
But the actual reported experience chimes very well with stories I have heard about A&E from extended family/acquaintances etc.
Twenty hours in A&E is the longest I have heard first hand from a person I know.
On one occasion in A&E, they had a guy doing time & motion on the doctors with a clipboard and a stopwatch.
This kind of thing was known to be a good way to ruin staff morale and provoke industrial unrest before World War Fucking One.
You don't even need to do time and motion tests - just ask Staff how things could be improved and implement them.
I suspect there are many improvements that can be done to A&E but it probably always results in staff being sidetracked into a more critical role as a seriously injured person requires help.
It's mildly ironic that Musk possibly has more in common with Democratic policy - notably the drive to reindutrialise the US - than he does with the GOP, in terms of substantive policy as opposed to culture war.
This is rightly a bipartisan initiative. But with the current party leaderships, it's really only one of the two parties which is serious at a national level about moving the dial.
A new tech alliance looks to reclaim U.S. industrial leadership
Why it matters: Decades of globalization have left U.S. industry dependent on foreign supply chains — and at risk of falling behind China and other countries. The way back is to out-innovate the rest of the world, movement leaders say. Driving the news: At a sold-out "Reindustrialize Summit" last week in Detroit, organizers unveiled the New American Industrial Alliance.
The trade group plans to advocate for bipartisan, growth-oriented industrial policies and investment in advanced manufacturing. The goal is to ensure growth in the U.S. industrial sector, boosting economic prosperity and domestic productivity. The inaugural summit, held at a Detroit tech hub called Newlab, attracted 700 people from manufacturing, finance, military and government sectors across the U.S. Zoom in: Participants included companies like Califorinia-based Divergent 3D, whose patented technology harnesses generative AI, 3D printing and automation to drastically reduce the cost and complexity of manufacturing.
It already has contracts to produce specialty products for six aerospace companies and seven automakers, including Bugatti, Aston Martin and Mercedes-AMG. "If there ever was a Manhattan Project for manufacturing, this is it," Divergent founder and CEO Kevin Czinger tells Axios of the new alliance. Backstory: The Reindustrialize Summit was the brainchild of a handful of young ideologues, including Aaron Slodov, co-founder and CEO of Atomic Industries, a Toyota-backed startup using software to reimagine the moribund U.S. tool & die industry.
Slodov says we're facing an "existential moment" for American manufacturing. "There's tons of innovation going on right now between AI and robotics, materials and software," he tells Axios. "A lot of people are looking for places to park money and invest in this space."..
At one point I backed Harris at 70 to be POTUS. Only £10. Then I had £200 on Biden at around 3.25. This was pre-debate. Then he drifted a bit and I got cold feet and cashed out - losing my Harris bet in the process! Then the debate happened and I backed Harris at 12/1 and shorter. Then came the Trump assassination attempt and I reversed a lot of my Harris position and backed Biden.Then Harris drifted to 16 and I nearly backed her - but didn't. Then Biden withdrew from the race and I backed Harris at 3.7 down to 3.35. I've also got £15 on Vance at 150.
Overall my book is now
Trump -£815 Harris +£1788
Not bad given all my bad calls and the many twists and turns in the race. I'm hoping the odds between the two continue to narrow and I can get level on Trump and close to +£1k Harris.
Current odds
Trump 1.7 Harris 2.64
This sounds a bit like my own tale lol. I am +730 Harris / -54 Trump at Markets and +390 Trump/ +198 Harris at Betfair (Less premium charge)
The annoying bit is I was +1600 Biden or so at the end 😂
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
I’ve always said I’m in favour of ID cards, if the following conditions are met:
1) They’re issued for free
2) You don’t have to carry them at all times
3) You can use them chip and pin to access all government services - so they would replace passports and driving licences, not augment them
4) That you had the power to access all information the government holds on you, and amend it where it is wrong
5) That civil servants who access your data are logged, and you can see who they are and why they accessed it
6) That if somebody has accessed your data inappropriately you have the right to take legal action against them, funded by the government.
And numbers 4-6 will not happen while any civil servant breathes air.
So - I oppose them.
You forgot
7) The database backing them contains no more information than needed for them than is necessary to function as an id card...ie no link to tax, medical records etc.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage. It would help if authors could be identified imo, as that is really now the only way to evaluate the likely quality of a piece.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The article is paywalled, so I for one couldn't read it.
I work with a lot of immigrant staff. Half my department qualified overseas, and I think it a slur with more than a hint of racism to suggest they do not care as much as British staff. There are bad examples in both groups. Shipman, Allit and Letby were all British trained.
Waiting times in ED have gone up because of shortage of funding (4 hour target was last met in 2015) and working in such an overcrowded department is stressful and leads to burnout. This can breed a certain callouses. I remember myself hardening in such an environment.
This is doing the rounds on social media. How true is this ? If so, why ?
For many years now the Government treats people like things, only pretending to care when votes are required, instead pursuing arbitrary goals. If Labour can overcome this they will win, although I suspect their authoritarianism will prevent them.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
Forgive my ignorance but has any presidential candidate changed running mates mid race? If not, depending on the next month I think there’s a non zero chance that Trump might be the first.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
We do need to have a better ED, after all private hospitals do not run EDs, indeed often they send their sickest patient to the NHS ones.
When you have your heart attack there is nowhere else to go, so even the rich Alison Pearson needs it to be functional. It's not just about money, but there also needs to be better staff training and leadership.
Yes - that's fair.
However it's a highly abusive article, without knowing the circumstances of the people she is abusing. Having read all 2300 words, I think she's well out of order.
She even dismissed "patients treated in order of acuity" (FFS):
"You’ll be treated in order of acuity,” she said. Acuity? Which tier of useless NHS management came up with that buzzword to fob off the folk they are paid to care for?"
I'm happy to accept her views of her personal experience. But utterly clueless about the rest.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
I’ve always said I’m in favour of ID cards, if the following conditions are met:
1) They’re issued for free
2) You don’t have to carry them at all times
3) You can use them chip and pin to access all government services - so they would replace passports and driving licences, not augment them
4) That you had the power to access all information the government holds on you, and amend it where it is wrong
5) That civil servants who access your data are logged, and you can see who they are and why they accessed it
6) That if somebody has accessed your data inappropriately you have the right to take legal action against them, funded by the government.
And numbers 4-6 will not happen while any civil servant breathes air.
So - I oppose them.
You forgot
7) The database backing them contains no more information than needed for them than is necessary to function as an id card...ie no link to tax, medical records etc.
And it's the number 7 which makes them pointless.
No, it doesn't
I've designed bank counter systems across Europe and ID cards make customer authentication a 2 second process. Take ID check photo against person at counter and enter the ID number - job done.
The steps you need to do in the UK are entertaining in comparison...
Nothing I saw in her speech last night screamed radical left to me. Indeed a big part of the economic messaging was around supporting the middle classes.
Forgive my ignorance but has any presidential candidate changed running mates mid race? If not, depending on the next month I think there’s a non zero chance that Trump might be the first.
No.
He could be the first.
Although, we should perhaps remember Pence was picked to shore up evangelical support. Vance was picked to suck Trump's undersized cock.
So far, it looks like panning out as Trump would wish. Nobody's going to suggest ditching him for Vance.
Forgive my ignorance but has any presidential candidate changed running mates mid race? If not, depending on the next month I think there’s a non zero chance that Trump might be the first.
Nope. Eagleton/Shriver, 1972.
..After the convention ended, it was discovered that Eagleton had undergone psychiatric electroshock therapy for depression and had concealed this information from McGovern. A Time magazine poll taken at the time found that 77 percent of the respondents said, "Eagleton's medical record would not affect their vote." Nonetheless, the press made frequent references to his "shock therapy", and McGovern feared that this would detract from his campaign platform. McGovern subsequently consulted confidentially with pre-eminent psychiatrists, including Eagleton's own doctors, who advised him that a recurrence of Eagleton's depression was possible and could endanger the country, should Eagleton become president. McGovern had initially claimed that he would back Eagleton "1000 percent", only to ask Eagleton to withdraw three days later. This perceived lack of conviction in sticking with his running mate was disastrous for the McGovern campaign...
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
Subtle change of tone. Illegal migration now defined as something more benign, irregular migration.
I said before the election labour had an open door policy on the issue. Rather like the Tories. Let’s just make sure we have the infrastructure to support it as it’s going to happen anyway.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
Nothing I saw in her speech last night screamed radical left to me. Indeed a big part of the economic messaging was around supporting the middle classes.
That is radical left to the billionaire class! If you don't agree with the top 1% taking 90% of the growth you are a dangerous socialist.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
10 hours? My wife finally got a ward bed after 47 hours in an A&E cubicle at Notts Queen's Med yesterday afternoon. She'd have gladly taken 10 hours!
The lack of a ward bed isn't an A&E issue - it's likely to be a lack of social care resulting in a bed being blocked as a patient could not be discharged issue...
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage. It would help if authors could be identified imo, as that is really now the only way to evaluate the likely quality of a piece.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
The headline seasonally adjusted S&P Global Flash UK PMI Composite Output Index rose from 52.3 in June to 52.7 in July, signalling a solid upturn in private sector activity. Expansions have now been recorded in each of the past nine months, with the index having averaged 53.0 in 2024 so far.
Once again, the manufacturing sector posted the sharper increase in activity, as production levels rose for the third month running following a lengthy downturn. Companies mainly increased output due to stronger order book volumes, whilst also maintaining efforts to reduce outstanding workloads.
Activity growth among services firms quickened slightly in July, supported by a much faster increase in new work compared to June. That said, the pace of activity expansion was still among the softest recorded in 2024 to date.
Sales growth across both manufacturing and services accelerated in July, leading to the strongest increase in total new business since April 2023. Companies often commented on an improvement in market confidence and the securing of new contracts, following some reports of a pause in client spending decisions prior to the general election. Demand from overseas also improved, with firms indicating the fastest uplift in new export orders for 16 months. This was centred on the services sector, though the drop in manufacturing exports was the joint-weakest in two-and-a-half years.
The latest survey data also pointed to a strengthening of employment growth at the start of the third quarter, as staffing numbers rose at a solid rate that was the fastest observed in just over a year. Recruitment at services firms was often linked to a greater uplift in demand, outweighing some mentions of redundancies and budget cuts. Notably, job numbers at manufacturing firms were stable in July, ending a 21-month sequence of decline.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
10 hours? My wife finally got a ward bed after 47 hours in an A&E cubicle at Notts Queen's Med yesterday afternoon. She'd have gladly taken 10 hours!
She didn't get a bed, they let her sit there for hours without painkillers and having ruled out a heart attack chucked her out and told her to come back in a few days if the condition was no better (severe chest pains) without thinking referrals for the cardiac tests, upper endoscopy and colonoscopy to be necessary.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The article is paywalled, so I for one couldn't read it.
I work with a lot of immigrant staff. Half my department qualified overseas, and I think it a slur with more than a hint of racism to suggest they do not care as much as British staff. There are bad examples in both groups. Shipman, Allit and Letby were all British trained.
Waiting times in ED have gone up because of shortage of funding (4 hour target was last met in 2015) and working in such an overcrowded department is stressful and leads to burnout. This can breed a certain callouses. I remember myself hardening in such an environment.
This is doing the rounds on social media. How true is this ? If so, why ?
For many years now the Government treats people like things, only pretending to care when votes are required, instead pursuing arbitrary goals. If Labour can overcome this they will win, although I suspect their authoritarianism will prevent them.
Personally, I think that "events" will have a far greater impact on the election result than Harris's VP pick.
The headline seasonally adjusted S&P Global Flash UK PMI Composite Output Index rose from 52.3 in June to 52.7 in July, signalling a solid upturn in private sector activity. Expansions have now been recorded in each of the past nine months, with the index having averaged 53.0 in 2024 so far.
Once again, the manufacturing sector posted the sharper increase in activity, as production levels rose for the third month running following a lengthy downturn. Companies mainly increased output due to stronger order book volumes, whilst also maintaining efforts to reduce outstanding workloads.
Activity growth among services firms quickened slightly in July, supported by a much faster increase in new work compared to June. That said, the pace of activity expansion was still among the softest recorded in 2024 to date.
Sales growth across both manufacturing and services accelerated in July, leading to the strongest increase in total new business since April 2023. Companies often commented on an improvement in market confidence and the securing of new contracts, following some reports of a pause in client spending decisions prior to the general election. Demand from overseas also improved, with firms indicating the fastest uplift in new export orders for 16 months. This was centred on the services sector, though the drop in manufacturing exports was the joint-weakest in two-and-a-half years.
The latest survey data also pointed to a strengthening of employment growth at the start of the third quarter, as staffing numbers rose at a solid rate that was the fastest observed in just over a year. Recruitment at services firms was often linked to a greater uplift in demand, outweighing some mentions of redundancies and budget cuts. Notably, job numbers at manufacturing firms were stable in July, ending a 21-month sequence of decline.
Silly old Tories. If they hadn't given the public so many unwanted distractions - Boris, Truss, Rwanda etc. - they could now be selling a pleasant economic message.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
We do need to have a better ED, after all private hospitals do not run EDs, indeed often they send their sickest patient to the NHS ones.
When you have your heart attack there is nowhere else to go, so even the rich Alison Pearson needs it to be functional. It's not just about money, but there also needs to be better staff training and leadership.
Yes - that's fair.
However it's a highly abusive article, without knowing the circumstances of the people she is abusing. Having read all 2300 words, I think she's well out of order.
She even dismissed "patients treated in order of acuity" (FFS):
"You’ll be treated in order of acuity,” she said. Acuity? Which tier of useless NHS management came up with that buzzword to fob off the folk they are paid to care for?"
I'm happy to accept her views of her personal experience. But utterly clueless about the rest.
Instructions on french bins tell you to trier your rubbish (glass tins non recyclable). So triage turns out to be one of those french words which mean what we think.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The article is paywalled, so I for one couldn't read it.
I work with a lot of immigrant staff. Half my department qualified overseas, and I think it a slur with more than a hint of racism to suggest they do not care as much as British staff. There are bad examples in both groups. Shipman, Allit and Letby were all British trained.
Waiting times in ED have gone up because of shortage of funding (4 hour target was last met in 2015) and working in such an overcrowded department is stressful and leads to burnout. This can breed a certain callouses. I remember myself hardening in such an environment.
This is doing the rounds on social media. How true is this ? If so, why ?
For many years now the Government treats people like things, only pretending to care when votes are required, instead pursuing arbitrary goals. If Labour can overcome this they will win, although I suspect their authoritarianism will prevent them.
Personally, I think that "events" will have a far greater impact on the election result than Harris's VP pick.
The biggest potential one being if the tulip tech/AI speculative bubble pops before rather than after the election
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The article is paywalled, so I for one couldn't read it.
I work with a lot of immigrant staff. Half my department qualified overseas, and I think it a slur with more than a hint of racism to suggest they do not care as much as British staff. There are bad examples in both groups. Shipman, Allit and Letby were all British trained.
Waiting times in ED have gone up because of shortage of funding (4 hour target was last met in 2015) and working in such an overcrowded department is stressful and leads to burnout. This can breed a certain callouses. I remember myself hardening in such an environment.
This is doing the rounds on social media. How true is this ? If so, why ?
For many years now the Government treats people like things, only pretending to care when votes are required, instead pursuing arbitrary goals. If Labour can overcome this they will win, although I suspect their authoritarianism will prevent them.
Personally, I think that "events" will have a far greater impact on the election result than Harris's VP pick.
Just read Allison Pearson's piece on her experience at A&E. It's a nasty, vindictive piece. I'd have more sympathy were it not for the not-very-thinly-disguised racism at the heart of it - overseas workers are just not interested in their patients, apparently - I mean, they can't even say the word 'colleague' properly.
I'd gently point out that 15-20 years ago, when A&E was functioning pretty well, our hospitals were full of overseas workers.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
We do need to have a better ED, after all private hospitals do not run EDs, indeed often they send their sickest patient to the NHS ones.
When you have your heart attack there is nowhere else to go, so even the rich Alison Pearson needs it to be functional. It's not just about money, but there also needs to be better staff training and leadership.
You tell me if I’m a million miles off, but on all my recent visits to A&E, with assorted sick or broken family members in tow, it has seemed to me that they were staffed by dedicated and skilled people; but managed poorly. Like six year olds playing football, they were drawn to the new, sickest person, and failing to do things like discharge a now diagnosed person to make space. It seemed to me that that was a priority too, but wasn’t actioned as one. The place was full of people part way through a process.
The clear solution? More NHS managers! In this case, proper shop floor type lean process merchants.
You mean a Hattie Jaques type Matron?
Recently, my father was in hospital. He would have died, except for the family pushing and asking questions. The issue was joined up care - a procession of different doctors would come by and read the notes. And ask questions. But missed the bleeding obvious.
In the end, we pushed hard enough that a senior consultant arrived (a cloud of juniors in his train) and announced that the patient was in his personal care - he talked of the old style where his name would have been written on a chalk board above the patients bed.
He visited most mornings thereafter.
Now this is something that chimes with my experiences with the NHS. This isn’t a new thing, being something that was taught to me by my mother who worked in the NHS decades ago.
Unfortunately when it comes to the healthcare system you can unfairly lose out if you don’t make a (polite but firm) nuisance of yourself. I have seen first hand how actually asking questions and following up yields better outcomes and results. That doesn’t mean you should have to. But that has always been my experience.
Private sector output across France came close to stabilising in July, although a sharper contraction in factory production did slightly offset a renewed expansion in business activity at services firms. As a result, the combined level of output across both sectors decreased marginally at the start of the third quarter. The latest HCOB survey data also showed demand for French goods and services falling further, although employment growth was sustained. Notably, business confidence slipped for a fourth month in a row, down to its lowest level in the year-to-date. As for prices, rates of inflation in both input costs and output prices quickened.
The headline HCOB Flash France Composite PMI Output Index posted 49.5 in July. While indicative of a contraction in private sector output across France, it was one that was only marginal overall. Notably, the latest reading of the headline index was its highest in three months, having risen from 48.2 in June, and only just beneath the 50.0 threshold which marks stabilisation.
Germany’s private sector economy slipped back into contraction at the start of the third quarter, weighed down by a worsening performance across the country’s manufacturing sector, the latest HCOB ‘flash’ PMI® survey compiled by S&P Global showed. There was also a further weakening of the labour market amid a broad-based decrease in employment.
On the inflation front, latest data showed a softening of the rate of increase in service sector output prices to the weakest since April 2021. Input costs and output prices in manufacturing meanwhile continued to fall, but at slower rates.
July saw the headline HCOB Flash Germany Composite PMI Output Index move below the 50.0 no-change threshold for the first time in four months. At 48.7, down from June’s 50.4, the latest reading signalled a modest rate of decline in private sector business activity. The return to contraction reflected a combination of a deeper decline in manufacturing production and slower growth of services business activity. Factory output levels fell sharply and at the quickest rate for nine months (index at 42.2), while growth of services activity eased to a modest pace that was the weakest since March and just below the long-run average (index at 52.0).
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
10 hours? My wife finally got a ward bed after 47 hours in an A&E cubicle at Notts Queen's Med yesterday afternoon. She'd have gladly taken 10 hours!
Hope she's okay. I had viral meningitis eight years ago, and it was a right bu**er. I know bacterial is generally much worse, so I can only imagine how she's feeling. Best wishes.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I have a vague memory of the then vice-president jokingly boasting that he had delivered the (very small in electoral college terms and reliably Republican) Great State of Wyoming for the Bush-Cheney ticket.
Can Trump win the popular vote? He lost to Hillary by 3 million in an election he won.
The headline seasonally adjusted S&P Global Flash UK PMI Composite Output Index rose from 52.3 in June to 52.7 in July, signalling a solid upturn in private sector activity. Expansions have now been recorded in each of the past nine months, with the index having averaged 53.0 in 2024 so far.
Once again, the manufacturing sector posted the sharper increase in activity, as production levels rose for the third month running following a lengthy downturn. Companies mainly increased output due to stronger order book volumes, whilst also maintaining efforts to reduce outstanding workloads.
Activity growth among services firms quickened slightly in July, supported by a much faster increase in new work compared to June. That said, the pace of activity expansion was still among the softest recorded in 2024 to date.
Sales growth across both manufacturing and services accelerated in July, leading to the strongest increase in total new business since April 2023. Companies often commented on an improvement in market confidence and the securing of new contracts, following some reports of a pause in client spending decisions prior to the general election. Demand from overseas also improved, with firms indicating the fastest uplift in new export orders for 16 months. This was centred on the services sector, though the drop in manufacturing exports was the joint-weakest in two-and-a-half years.
The latest survey data also pointed to a strengthening of employment growth at the start of the third quarter, as staffing numbers rose at a solid rate that was the fastest observed in just over a year. Recruitment at services firms was often linked to a greater uplift in demand, outweighing some mentions of redundancies and budget cuts. Notably, job numbers at manufacturing firms were stable in July, ending a 21-month sequence of decline.
Silly old Tories. If they hadn't given the public so many unwanted distractions - Boris, Truss, Rwanda etc. - they could now be selling a pleasant economic message.
They were loud about things which had gone badly and quiet about things which had gone well.
Either they weren't very good at the politics of being in government or they preferred to be in opposition. Or both.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
We do need to have a better ED, after all private hospitals do not run EDs, indeed often they send their sickest patient to the NHS ones.
When you have your heart attack there is nowhere else to go, so even the rich Alison Pearson needs it to be functional. It's not just about money, but there also needs to be better staff training and leadership.
You tell me if I’m a million miles off, but on all my recent visits to A&E, with assorted sick or broken family members in tow, it has seemed to me that they were staffed by dedicated and skilled people; but managed poorly. Like six year olds playing football, they were drawn to the new, sickest person, and failing to do things like discharge a now diagnosed person to make space. It seemed to me that that was a priority too, but wasn’t actioned as one. The place was full of people part way through a process.
The clear solution? More NHS managers! In this case, proper shop floor type lean process merchants.
You mean a Hattie Jaques type Matron?
Recently, my father was in hospital. He would have died, except for the family pushing and asking questions. The issue was joined up care - a procession of different doctors would come by and read the notes. And ask questions. But missed the bleeding obvious.
In the end, we pushed hard enough that a senior consultant arrived (a cloud of juniors in his train) and announced that the patient was in his personal care - he talked of the old style where his name would have been written on a chalk board above the patients bed.
He visited most mornings thereafter.
Now this is something that chimes with my experiences with the NHS. This isn’t a new thing, being something that was taught to me by my mother who worked in the NHS decades ago.
Unfortunately when it comes to the healthcare system you can unfairly lose out if you don’t make a (polite but firm) nuisance of yourself. I have seen first hand how actually asking questions and following up yields better outcomes and results. That doesn’t mean you should have to. But that has always been my experience.
From what I was told after I recovered, I'm only here today because about 40 years ago my father (a GP at the time) refused to be fobbed off by the nonsense the doctors were telling him and basically bullied them into operating, and if they'd waited 12 hours longer I might not have made it.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The article is paywalled, so I for one couldn't read it.
I work with a lot of immigrant staff. Half my department qualified overseas, and I think it a slur with more than a hint of racism to suggest they do not care as much as British staff. There are bad examples in both groups. Shipman, Allit and Letby were all British trained.
Waiting times in ED have gone up because of shortage of funding (4 hour target was last met in 2015) and working in such an overcrowded department is stressful and leads to burnout. This can breed a certain callouses. I remember myself hardening in such an environment.
This is doing the rounds on social media. How true is this ? If so, why ?
For many years now the Government treats people like things, only pretending to care when votes are required, instead pursuing arbitrary goals. If Labour can overcome this they will win, although I suspect their authoritarianism will prevent them.
Personally, I think that "events" will have a far greater impact on the election result than Harris's VP pick.
The biggest potential one being if the tulip tech/AI speculative bubble pops before rather than after the election
Old stock exchange saying, a bubble is just a bull market in which you haven't been fully invested since - checks notes - October 2022.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The article is paywalled, so I for one couldn't read it.
I work with a lot of immigrant staff. Half my department qualified overseas, and I think it a slur with more than a hint of racism to suggest they do not care as much as British staff. There are bad examples in both groups. Shipman, Allit and Letby were all British trained.
Waiting times in ED have gone up because of shortage of funding (4 hour target was last met in 2015) and working in such an overcrowded department is stressful and leads to burnout. This can breed a certain callouses. I remember myself hardening in such an environment.
This is doing the rounds on social media. How true is this ? If so, why ?
For many years now the Government treats people like things, only pretending to care when votes are required, instead pursuing arbitrary goals. If Labour can overcome this they will win, although I suspect their authoritarianism will prevent them.
Personally, I think that "events" will have a far greater impact on the election result than Harris's VP pick.
The biggest potential one being if the tulip tech/AI speculative bubble pops before rather than after the election
Old stock exchange saying, a bubble is just a bull market in which you haven't been fully invested since - checks notes - October 2022.
The amount of money being spent on GPUs is way bigger than the amount of money being made on AI services.
Now there are definitely use cases where AI is beneficial but there aren't enough yet to justify the money being spent..
Joe Biden? Was the President playing 4-d chess in waiting until after the RNC, where Trump committed to Vance, before announcing his retirement, or was that a lucky coincidence?
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
We do need to have a better ED, after all private hospitals do not run EDs, indeed often they send their sickest patient to the NHS ones.
When you have your heart attack there is nowhere else to go, so even the rich Alison Pearson needs it to be functional. It's not just about money, but there also needs to be better staff training and leadership.
You tell me if I’m a million miles off, but on all my recent visits to A&E, with assorted sick or broken family members in tow, it has seemed to me that they were staffed by dedicated and skilled people; but managed poorly. Like six year olds playing football, they were drawn to the new, sickest person, and failing to do things like discharge a now diagnosed person to make space. It seemed to me that that was a priority too, but wasn’t actioned as one. The place was full of people part way through a process.
The clear solution? More NHS managers! In this case, proper shop floor type lean process merchants.
You mean a Hattie Jaques type Matron?
Recently, my father was in hospital. He would have died, except for the family pushing and asking questions. The issue was joined up care - a procession of different doctors would come by and read the notes. And ask questions. But missed the bleeding obvious.
In the end, we pushed hard enough that a senior consultant arrived (a cloud of juniors in his train) and announced that the patient was in his personal care - he talked of the old style where his name would have been written on a chalk board above the patients bed.
He visited most mornings thereafter.
Now this is something that chimes with my experiences with the NHS. This isn’t a new thing, being something that was taught to me by my mother who worked in the NHS decades ago.
Unfortunately when it comes to the healthcare system you can unfairly lose out if you don’t make a (polite but firm) nuisance of yourself. I have seen first hand how actually asking questions and following up yields better outcomes and results. That doesn’t mean you should have to. But that has always been my experience.
The likely prognosis for the sick elderly who have concerned family, is also likely to be better than that for those who don't, after any medical intervention.
Cabinet Secretary Simon Case to stand down amid health problems
Hmmmm.
I know he's been ill, but this seems suspiciously convenient. He was Cummings' creature and the removal of the Cummings ally Sunak was never likely to end well for him.
Guessing Sue Gray is mysteriously going to emerge as the replacement. Well, at least she knows her arse from her elbow.
Cabinet Secretary Simon Case to stand down amid health problems
Hmmmm.
I know he's been ill, but this seems suspiciously convenient. He was Cummings' creature and the removal of the Cummings ally Sunak was never likely to end well for him.
Guessing Sue Gray is mysteriously going to emerge as the replacement. Well, at least she knows her arse from her elbow.
Harris is clearly not AOC or Bernie Sanders so I don't think the attack line works in the slightest.
That razor sharp mind of his is no doubt working on a nickname. The pivot from "laughin" to "lyin", I sense this is merely a place-holder until the inspiration strikes. When it does, and he unveils it, that is going to be a big big moment in the campaign. Will it be witty and devastating? Or will it be incredibly infantile and crass? We just don't know - so maybe best to hold off on the betting for now.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
10 hours? My wife finally got a ward bed after 47 hours in an A&E cubicle at Notts Queen's Med yesterday afternoon. She'd have gladly taken 10 hours!
The lack of a ward bed isn't an A&E issue - it's likely to be a lack of social care resulting in a bed being blocked as a patient could not be discharged issue...
I never said it was an A&E issue, merely commenting that 10 hours is a blink of an eye compared to what we had this week. The average wait was something like 14 hours for a bed, and 7 hours for treatment after triage this weekend. It was chaos, more police in A&E than I've ever seen outside of incidents before I retired.
Cabinet Secretary Simon Case to stand down amid health problems
Hmmmm.
I know he's been ill, but this seems suspiciously convenient. He was Cummings' creature and the removal of the Cummings ally Sunak was never likely to end well for him.
Guessing Sue Gray is mysteriously going to emerge as the replacement. Well, at least she knows her arse from her elbow.
Which new cabinet member is the arse ?
Case was the arse, and her report gave him the elbow.
Harris is clearly not AOC or Bernie Sanders so I don't think the attack line works in the slightest.
That razor sharp mind of his is no doubt working on a nickname. The pivot from "laughin" to "lyin", I sense this is merely a place-holder until the inspiration strikes. When it does, and he unveils it, that is going to be a big big moment in the campaign. Will it be witty and devastating? Or will it be incredibly infantile and crass? We just don't know - so maybe best to hold off on the betting for now.
Crossover poll on or before 19 August EDIT sorry crossover odds. Already got the poll.
Sunak to do incredibly weak Now he is pm he has to answer questions gag
BTW I suspect sks keeping the ridiculous you can't smoke if you're under 86 law is evidence of him being a nice guy and giving Sunak an incredibly thin "legacy" to boast about. Rishi's Law.
Just read Allison Pearson's piece on her experience at A&E. It's a nasty, vindictive piece. I'd have more sympathy were it not for the not-very-thinly-disguised racism at the heart of it - overseas workers are just not interested in their patients, apparently - I mean, they can't even say the word 'colleague' properly.
I'd gently point out that 15-20 years ago, when A&E was functioning pretty well, our hospitals were full of overseas workers.
The person who made a mess of my treatment a couple of years ago was a white Scottish bloke - he was fundamentally unsuited to his job and treated patients as idiots.
I ended up back at my GPs (a west African immigrant) who realised I had been misdiagnosed, and sent me quickly to a consultant neurologist (a South African immigrant), who was absolutely brilliant and got me the treatment I needed. After a lot of physio, I am almost back to normal...
Just read Allison Pearson's piece on her experience at A&E. It's a nasty, vindictive piece. I'd have more sympathy were it not for the not-very-thinly-disguised racism at the heart of it - overseas workers are just not interested in their patients, apparently - I mean, they can't even say the word 'colleague' properly.
I'd gently point out that 15-20 years ago, when A&E was functioning pretty well, our hospitals were full of overseas workers.
I can't fault the staff at Queen's Med. Kind, compassionate and competent, from the cleaners to consultants. The majority were not white British. There had been something like 15 assaults on staff over the weekend and it was hellishly busy, but they just grafted away, getting the job done.
Joe Biden? Was the President playing 4-d chess in waiting until after the RNC, where Trump committed to Vance, before announcing his retirement, or was that a lucky coincidence?
If it was a plan it was a good one, and Biden pulled off an utterly convincing performance as an infirm but stubborn old codger hanging onto his position for grim death.
Can we please remember, reading that article, that Gavin Newsom cannot be Harris' running mate unless one of them switches registration from California.
I'm not quite sure why people are still considering him as a possibility.
If Harris is hedging on the Gaza conflict that probably also reduces Shapiro's chances, given how stridently pro-Israel he is.
The North Carolina and Kentucky governors are fine politicians and hopefully have big futures, but are unlikely to deliver their states.
Whitmer, ditto the first, but has ruled herself out.
The obvious pick therefore is Kelly from Arizona. And Harris isn't exactly known for aggressive risk-taking.
Even if Harris holds AZ, NV and GA she still needs either MI or PA.
And Kelly offers nothing there.
I'm aware of that, but there's no pick that offers everything. Kelly probably offers as much as anyone else in terms of wide appeal and a real shot at Arizona's votes.
AZ appears to be trending Dem in any case.
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states shows a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
I would be interested in people’s views on whether the VP can deliver a swing state in any event.
I think I’m of the view it can, and can help with voter coalitions, but I suspect the individual in question really needs a strong personal following in their state. Eg, I hear Shapiro is very well liked, is that the case? Kelly seems decent but is there any card he holds that really makes him appeal to the people of Arizona (beyond the fact he’s won an election there?) is there an affinity with voters there?
VP choices aren’t always very reliable at delivering swing states and I think I’m right in saying the majority of them don’t really seek to exploit a personal vote. Paul Ryan was from Wisconsin which I suppose was a swing state (which Romney lost). Kaine was from Virginia but if Clinton was losing Virginia she was going to lose the election anyway.
All the others I can think of in this century haven’t been from swing states.
LBJ certainly delivered Texas for JFK and would have delivered the election for him too as Nixon would have won Illinois without Mayor Daley finding lots of dead bodies.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
I agree that Shapiro seems the obvious choice: 1. He is a well regarded Governor even amongst Republicans in his state, with unusually high approval ratings from them, which would surely help deliver some extra votes for Harris. 2. There are more electoral college votes there (18) so winning Pennysylvania opens up more paths to winning the electoral college than do other swing states. 3. Appointing a retiring Governor and not a Senator wouldn't create a Senate vacancy that might be lost in a subsequent by election.
He is also retiring as Governor after two terms, so will be open to accepting.
Given all that, I'm surprised that Kelly is currently the betting favourite.
Just read Allison Pearson's piece on her experience at A&E. It's a nasty, vindictive piece. I'd have more sympathy were it not for the not-very-thinly-disguised racism at the heart of it - overseas workers are just not interested in their patients, apparently - I mean, they can't even say the word 'colleague' properly.
I'd gently point out that 15-20 years ago, when A&E was functioning pretty well, our hospitals were full of overseas workers.
I can't fault the staff at Queen's Med. Kind, compassionate and competent, from the cleaners to consultants. The majority were not white British. There had been something like 15 assaults on staff over the weekend and it was hellishly busy, but they just grafted away, getting the job done.
Best wishes for Mrs TFS. The wait at the LRI is pretty often of similar duration.
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
Yes and 100% to do with staff indolence and 0% to do with funding.
Evidence for that?
Perhaps "Lazy Sunday Afternoon" by the Small Faces.
Suggest you read the article. Extract:
"Back at home, I texted my friend, a senior doctor at the hospital I had just left. “A vision of hell,” I wrote, “Hard to believe we live in a First World country.”
“I share your assessment of A&E,” my friend replied, “and it is the same on the wards. Lack of empathy and concern for a fellow human being. Partly cultural. For some people it is just a job, a means to come to the UK and get more money than they can make at home. Language and cultural barriers don’t help.”
"My doctor friend, a first-generation immigrant who has built a brilliant medical career here over 30 years, points out that the UK has failed to train enough of our own high-calibre doctors and nurses and so the NHS is hugely dependent on healthcare migrants from 214 countries, some of whom barely scrape the English language requirement (“I will ask my colleg”) and don’t relate to the patients"
The article is paywalled, so I for one couldn't read it.
I work with a lot of immigrant staff. Half my department qualified overseas, and I think it a slur with more than a hint of racism to suggest they do not care as much as British staff. There are bad examples in both groups. Shipman, Allit and Letby were all British trained.
Waiting times in ED have gone up because of shortage of funding (4 hour target was last met in 2015) and working in such an overcrowded department is stressful and leads to burnout. This can breed a certain callouses. I remember myself hardening in such an environment.
This is doing the rounds on social media. How true is this ? If so, why ?
For many years now the Government treats people like things, only pretending to care when votes are required, instead pursuing arbitrary goals. If Labour can overcome this they will win, although I suspect their authoritarianism will prevent them.
Personally, I think that "events" will have a far greater impact on the election result than Harris's VP pick.
Dow above 40k is a significant psychological factor. If it holds I'd suspect its worth a couple of percent. The only significant group of swing voters are household finance based, otherwise its just who can motivate their base better.
"After more than 10 hours of agony, I finally lay back in a big padded chair and felt the iron corset loosen as intravenous paracetamol entered my veins. In a place called, without apparent irony, the Rapid Treatment Room. "
"The NHS is now the biggest reason to leave Britain; it’s scary. You would find better treatment almost anywhere else. How can we call ourselves a civilised country while people are left in pain? We can’t go on like this. We just can’t."
I think we need to note that that is from Allison Pearson, who is somewhere between the Right of the Conservative Party, and the politics of Nigel Farage.
I've listened to quite a few of the Telegraph's "Planet Normal" podcasts, and to me (others may differ) she comes across as a bit of a rantaloon.
I'm not going to comment on the detailed events as I don't know enough detail of the whats and the whys, especially around other patients who may have been at different types of risk or the reasons for decisions made.
However I don't think she is well placed to write this sort of extended philippic.
We do need to have a better ED, after all private hospitals do not run EDs, indeed often they send their sickest patient to the NHS ones.
When you have your heart attack there is nowhere else to go, so even the rich Alison Pearson needs it to be functional. It's not just about money, but there also needs to be better staff training and leadership.
You tell me if I’m a million miles off, but on all my recent visits to A&E, with assorted sick or broken family members in tow, it has seemed to me that they were staffed by dedicated and skilled people; but managed poorly. Like six year olds playing football, they were drawn to the new, sickest person, and failing to do things like discharge a now diagnosed person to make space. It seemed to me that that was a priority too, but wasn’t actioned as one. The place was full of people part way through a process.
The clear solution? More NHS managers! In this case, proper shop floor type lean process merchants.
You mean a Hattie Jaques type Matron?
Recently, my father was in hospital. He would have died, except for the family pushing and asking questions. The issue was joined up care - a procession of different doctors would come by and read the notes. And ask questions. But missed the bleeding obvious.
In the end, we pushed hard enough that a senior consultant arrived (a cloud of juniors in his train) and announced that the patient was in his personal care - he talked of the old style where his name would have been written on a chalk board above the patients bed.
He visited most mornings thereafter.
Now this is something that chimes with my experiences with the NHS. This isn’t a new thing, being something that was taught to me by my mother who worked in the NHS decades ago.
Unfortunately when it comes to the healthcare system you can unfairly lose out if you don’t make a (polite but firm) nuisance of yourself. I have seen first hand how actually asking questions and following up yields better outcomes and results. That doesn’t mean you should have to. But that has always been my experience.
Yes, it's definitely the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.
It's part of the reason that health outcomes are worse with social deprivation, poor language skills, lack of education etc.
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
Labour find things worse than expected especially after offering a wish list of spending to all departments.
Comments
But the absurd Rwandan scheme cost us something like £750m. It arose because our government sold the idea of "illegal migration" as some sort of threat, reflecting, in fairness, many peoples' views on the matter.
More than 80% of the small boat people are not "illegal" at all. They are people who want to seek asylum here and are qualified to do so. Labour's answer, rather than pointing this out, is that they are going to "smash the gangs". A policy that has worked so well in drugs that our country is of course free of illegal drugs. Or something.
What we need is a realistic conversation about both immigration and asylum. In my view if we are to sell that we will need to have control of the process. In other words we choose who has the right to seek asylum here, whether that is Ukrainians, Hong Kong Chinese, those that helped us in Afghanistan, a set number from Syria or wherever. I don't think any government will ever sell uncontrolled immigration which is what we currently have given our rules on asylum.
It also quite nicely lands a visitor straight in the "paste URL here" box.
So copy the web address of the article, drop it in the box at https://archive.ph/, and it will either archive it (sometimes a short queue), or give you the link to the last time it did so.
To which I answered with link showing a Harris rally in a rust belt state.
And it only takes so long to process asylum claims because the tories cut back the service is 2017 and a long backlog has been created because you no one can do the work of 2-5 people which is what is currently required.
https://x.com/forecasterenten/status/1815905253793095967?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Trump's decision to contest the 2020 result was absurd.
The idea The Last Jedi is worth watching is absurd.
'Absurd' just doesn't do justice to the Rwanda scheme.
At one point I backed Harris at 70 to be POTUS. Only £10. Then I had £200 on Biden at around 3.25. This was pre-debate. Then he drifted a bit and I got cold feet and cashed out - losing my Harris bet in the process! Then the debate happened and I backed Harris at 12/1 and shorter. Then came the Trump assassination attempt and I reversed a lot of my Harris position and backed Biden.Then Harris drifted to 16 and I nearly backed her - but didn't. Then Biden withdrew from the race and I backed Harris at 3.7 down to 3.35. I've also got £15 on Vance at 150.
Overall my book is now
Trump -£815
Harris +£1788
Not bad given all my bad calls and the many twists and turns in the race. I'm hoping the odds between the two continue to narrow and I can get level on Trump and close to +£1k Harris.
Current odds
Trump 1.7
Harris 2.64
In the end, we pushed hard enough that a senior consultant arrived (a cloud of juniors in his train) and announced that the patient was in his personal care - he talked of the old style where his name would have been written on a chalk board above the patients bed.
He visited most mornings thereafter.
I don’t deny the fact that the journo in question in the Telegraph article looks to have had a terrible experience, but I do wonder how widespread that is. I would have thought someone presenting with chest pains would almost always be seen as a high priority? Certainly that has been the case when I recently had a relative who needed to go for that reason.
There are many things wrong with the NHS. I’m not sure staff dedication in the A&E or some nebulous concept of a lack of caring culture* is the right target.
*and a quick note on that one. In all medical professionals and staff I have interacted with, both public and private, in hospital settings, I think it’s fair to say that some people’s bedside manner has been much better than others. There is no discernible pattern that marks one person out as being more likely to be better at it than another, that I can see.
On my second visit I waited 9 hours and on this visit I met a patient who had been there for 48 hours
A & E is in a national crisis but let's not get into blaming the staff who are overworked and under severe pressure, with an extraordinary amount of abuse directed at them from some patients
This kind of thing was known to be a good way to ruin staff morale and provoke industrial unrest before World War Fucking One.
It might need more than a few rallies in the weeks before the election to convince rust belt voters that they'll be as high on the priority list afterwards.
But, to be fair, it would have been better if I had written:
The battleground continues to be the rust belt and a Dem ticket from the south-west sunshine states might suggest a lack of interest which Trump and Vance will exploit.
7) The database backing them contains no more information than needed for them than is necessary to function as an id card...ie no link to tax, medical records etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qZDkXNgbwQ
But the reality is that there's no lack of interest - which is why some of those states have Democratic governors. And why one of her first campaign stops was in the region.
FWIW, I'm not convinced that the VP pick is going to say very much at all about where the Democrats think they're competitive; I think both rust and sun belts are in play.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/1875485/#Comment_1875485
Bunco predicting Liz Truss as PM.
The Apocalypse saying she'd be worse than May.
Me predicting she'd be worse not just than May but than Boris.
I think we were all vindicated!
And there does need to be a link to Tax records for HMRC and a link to medical records for NHS - the all important thing is that the tax, driving, and health records are kept in separate system...
"Kamala Harris slams Trump over 'fear and hate' at first rally - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn053pnv0k1o
The idea that the system owes no especial priority to UK citizens over others is an interesting one.
Had a hilarious discussion at a city dinner a long while back - a number of people round that table approved of the reported statement, from an Cameron ex-spad, that he didn't see why the government should prioritise UK people over the welfare of foreigners.
The comedy was provided by an HAC guy, who pointed out that he has on duty that weekend, had probably the largest group of armed people in London under his command and that this picking allegiance thing sounded quite interesting.
I suspect there are many improvements that can be done to A&E but it probably always results in staff being sidetracked into a more critical role as a seriously injured person requires help.
But with the current party leaderships, it's really only one of the two parties which is serious at a national level about moving the dial.
A new tech alliance looks to reclaim U.S. industrial leadership
https://www.axios.com/2024/07/01/us-industry-leadership-summit-detroit
A new grassroots effort to propel innovation in American manufacturing is flexing its muscle across the Rust Belt and the Beltway.
Why it matters: Decades of globalization have left U.S. industry dependent on foreign supply chains — and at risk of falling behind China and other countries.
The way back is to out-innovate the rest of the world, movement leaders say.
Driving the news: At a sold-out "Reindustrialize Summit" last week in Detroit, organizers unveiled the New American Industrial Alliance.
The trade group plans to advocate for bipartisan, growth-oriented industrial policies and investment in advanced manufacturing.
The goal is to ensure growth in the U.S. industrial sector, boosting economic prosperity and domestic productivity.
The inaugural summit, held at a Detroit tech hub called Newlab, attracted 700 people from manufacturing, finance, military and government sectors across the U.S.
Zoom in: Participants included companies like Califorinia-based Divergent 3D, whose patented technology harnesses generative AI, 3D printing and automation to drastically reduce the cost and complexity of manufacturing.
It already has contracts to produce specialty products for six aerospace companies and seven automakers, including Bugatti, Aston Martin and Mercedes-AMG.
"If there ever was a Manhattan Project for manufacturing, this is it," Divergent founder and CEO Kevin Czinger tells Axios of the new alliance.
Backstory: The Reindustrialize Summit was the brainchild of a handful of young ideologues, including Aaron Slodov, co-founder and CEO of Atomic Industries, a Toyota-backed startup using software to reimagine the moribund U.S. tool & die industry.
Slodov says we're facing an "existential moment" for American manufacturing.
"There's tons of innovation going on right now between AI and robotics, materials and software," he tells Axios. "A lot of people are looking for places to park money and invest in this space."..
The annoying bit is I was +1600 Biden or so at the end 😂
Harris is clearly not AOC or Bernie Sanders so I don't think the attack line works in the slightest.
But boy oh boy, is that show hard work. Aside from the shallowness of the views, the lack of self-awareness is almost painful.
Personally I think Harris' only chance of beating Trump is to pick PA governor Shapiro as VP who can then deliver Pennsylvania for her ticket. She can then aim to get the black vote in Atlanta and Detroit to turn out in big numbers and keep Georgia and Michigan Democrat. She could then narrowly win the EC even if Trump narrowly wins the popular vote
Wisconsin and Arizona and probably Nevada look to be going for Trump this time.
The steps you need to do in the UK are entertaining in comparison...
Nothing I saw in her speech last night screamed radical left to me. Indeed a big part of the economic messaging was around supporting the middle classes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVV3ZfzAnls
He could be the first.
Although, we should perhaps remember Pence was picked to shore up evangelical support. Vance was picked to suck Trump's undersized cock.
So far, it looks like panning out as Trump would wish. Nobody's going to suggest ditching him for Vance.
Eagleton/Shriver, 1972.
..After the convention ended, it was discovered that Eagleton had undergone psychiatric electroshock therapy for depression and had concealed this information from McGovern. A Time magazine poll taken at the time found that 77 percent of the respondents said, "Eagleton's medical record would not affect their vote." Nonetheless, the press made frequent references to his "shock therapy", and McGovern feared that this would detract from his campaign platform. McGovern subsequently consulted confidentially with pre-eminent psychiatrists, including Eagleton's own doctors, who advised him that a recurrence of Eagleton's depression was possible and could endanger the country, should Eagleton become president. McGovern had initially claimed that he would back Eagleton "1000 percent", only to ask Eagleton to withdraw three days later. This perceived lack of conviction in sticking with his running mate was disastrous for the McGovern campaign...
See - Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1814387731335950646?t=gcEzWvjj2jK2HmUgvmbNOA&s=19
The headline seasonally adjusted S&P Global Flash UK PMI Composite Output Index rose from 52.3 in June to
52.7 in July, signalling a solid upturn in private sector activity. Expansions have now been recorded in each of
the past nine months, with the index having averaged 53.0 in 2024 so far.
Once again, the manufacturing sector posted the sharper increase in activity, as production levels rose for the third
month running following a lengthy downturn. Companies mainly increased output due to stronger order book
volumes, whilst also maintaining efforts to reduce outstanding workloads.
Activity growth among services firms quickened slightly in July, supported by a much faster increase in new work
compared to June. That said, the pace of activity expansion was still among the softest recorded in 2024 to date.
Sales growth across both manufacturing and services accelerated in July, leading to the strongest increase in
total new business since April 2023. Companies often commented on an improvement in market confidence and
the securing of new contracts, following some reports of a pause in client spending decisions prior to the general
election. Demand from overseas also improved, with firms indicating the fastest uplift in new export orders for 16
months. This was centred on the services sector, though the drop in manufacturing exports was the joint-weakest in
two-and-a-half years.
The latest survey data also pointed to a strengthening of employment growth at the start of the third quarter, as
staffing numbers rose at a solid rate that was the fastest observed in just over a year. Recruitment at services firms
was often linked to a greater uplift in demand, outweighing some mentions of redundancies and budget cuts. Notably,
job numbers at manufacturing firms were stable in July, ending a 21-month sequence of decline.
https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Release/PressReleases
I'd gently point out that 15-20 years ago, when A&E was functioning pretty well, our hospitals were full of overseas workers.
Unfortunately when it comes to the healthcare system you can unfairly lose out if you don’t make a (polite but firm) nuisance of yourself. I have seen first hand how actually asking questions and following up yields better outcomes and results. That doesn’t mean you should have to. But that has always been my experience.
Private sector output across France came close to stabilising in July, although a sharper contraction in factory production did slightly offset a renewed expansion in business activity at services firms. As a result, the combined level of output across both sectors decreased marginally at the start of the third quarter. The latest HCOB survey data also showed demand for French goods and services falling further, although employment growth was sustained. Notably, business confidence slipped for a fourth month in a row, down to its lowest level in the year-to-date. As for prices, rates of inflation in both input costs and output prices quickened.
The headline HCOB Flash France Composite PMI Output Index posted 49.5 in July. While indicative of a contraction in
private sector output across France, it was one that was only marginal overall. Notably, the latest reading of the headline index was its highest in three months, having risen from 48.2 in June, and only just beneath the 50.0 threshold which marks stabilisation.
https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/f76e80d260744f51a09d2276a1f13887
Germany’s private sector economy slipped back into contraction at the start of the third quarter, weighed down by a worsening performance across the country’s manufacturing sector, the latest HCOB ‘flash’ PMI® survey compiled by S&P Global showed. There was also a further weakening of the labour market amid a broad-based decrease in employment.
On the inflation front, latest data showed a softening of the rate of increase in service sector output prices to the weakest since April 2021. Input costs and output prices in manufacturing meanwhile continued to fall, but at slower rates.
July saw the headline HCOB Flash Germany Composite PMI Output Index move below the 50.0 no-change threshold for the first time in four months. At 48.7, down from June’s 50.4, the latest reading signalled a modest rate of decline in private sector business activity. The return to contraction reflected a combination of a deeper decline in manufacturing production and slower growth of services business activity. Factory output levels fell sharply and at the quickest rate for nine months (index at 42.2), while growth of services activity eased to a modest pace that was the weakest since March and just below the long-run average (index at 52.0).
https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/393e17289afb49f1a30ff530cae08134
Can Trump win the popular vote? He lost to Hillary by 3 million in an election he won.
Either they weren't very good at the politics of being in government or they preferred to be in opposition. Or both.
So yeah, I absolutely believe both of you.
Now there are definitely use cases where AI is beneficial but there aren't enough yet to justify the money being spent..
I know he's been ill, but this seems suspiciously convenient. He was Cummings' creature and the removal of the Cummings ally Sunak was never likely to end well for him.
Guessing Sue Gray is mysteriously going to emerge as the replacement. Well, at least she knows her arse from her elbow.
https://x.com/Morning_Joe/status/1815724045817806972
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xc5M4r_Mo
Sue Gray to replace Simon Case, or someone new? That might not be a blessing.
Crossover poll on or before 19 August EDIT sorry crossover odds. Already got the poll.
Sunak to do incredibly weak Now he is pm he has to answer questions gag
BTW I suspect sks keeping the ridiculous you can't smoke if you're under 86 law is evidence of him being a nice guy and giving Sunak an incredibly thin "legacy" to boast about. Rishi's Law.
I ended up back at my GPs (a west African immigrant) who realised I had been misdiagnosed, and sent me quickly to a consultant neurologist (a South African immigrant), who was absolutely brilliant and got me the treatment I needed. After a lot of physio, I am almost back to normal...
Thanks, immigrants.
1. He is a well regarded Governor even amongst Republicans in his state, with unusually high approval ratings from them, which would surely help deliver some extra votes for Harris.
2. There are more electoral college votes there (18) so winning Pennysylvania opens up more paths to winning the electoral college than do other swing states.
3. Appointing a retiring Governor and not a Senator wouldn't create a Senate vacancy that might be lost in a subsequent by election.
He is also retiring as Governor after two terms, so will be open to accepting.
Given all that, I'm surprised that Kelly is currently the betting favourite.
"Next week Rachel Reeves will reveal an enormous funding deficit for core public services, having instructed Treasury officials to ask each department to list services that aren’t being financed adequately or are in danger of collapse or where there is some other hidden liability.
Just the liabilities we know about run to untold billions - from the NHS workforce plan, to infected blood and post office compensation, to public pay sector pay awards, to the advanced manufacturing plan, to our creaking nuclear defence capability, to more mainstream defence requirements, to commitments on education and overseas development, to the welfare costs of an epidemic of physical and mental disability, and so on and so on.
It is easy to get to a financing hole of well over £50bn without even taking up the public sector equivalent of the floorboards, or worrying how many of our failing privatised services, water in particular, will end up as taxpayer costs.
None of this is a surprise. I have been banging on for countless weeks that the new government would inherit a fiscal disaster.
So with a face that looks as though she has chewed through a crate of lemons, Reeves is doing a George Osborne: just as in 2010 he built a political and economic strategy for an entire parliament around the charge that the previous Labour government had been spending money it didn’t have, she is blaming Johnson, Truss and Sunak for her toxic fiscal legacy. .....
But what on earth is Reeves’s plan?
Austerity is not available to her - partly because the mess she has inherited was caused in part by that very austerity, and because even the most Starmerite of the hundreds of Labour MPs won’t wear it.
Also she has closed off the option of letting the national debt rise for longer, and mending the fabric through additional borrowing: her fiscal rules are never to be tweaked or re-interpreted, her colleagues tell me; it is as if she went up the mountain and a deity she calls Stability dictated them as permanent commandments.
So obviously she has to increase taxes. There’s nothing else for it. Her autumn budget will have to be a massive reset of the tax system to generate those colossal sums needed to fix the foundations of the state.
Except that approach too looks almost impossible - because Starmer promised in the election he wouldn’t raise money from the biggest available pools, namely income taxes on people, or VAT or corporation tax.
Reeves could increase taxes on capital, but that would alienate the investors and creditors she desperately needs to finance all those wind farms, and new homes and assorted infrastructure projects she and Starmer have promised.
What she’s left with is - possibly - reducing tax breaks on saving for a pension, taxing land and increasing the yield from council tax.
There are arguments for doing all or any of these. But quite how they would raise enough defeats me. "
It's part of the reason that health outcomes are worse with social deprivation, poor language skills, lack of education etc.
Stunned !!