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Austerity is popular – politicalbetting.com
Austerity is popular – politicalbetting.com
What do Britons think of Labour's proposed changes to public spending?% saying right thing to do:Public sector pay rise: 65%Junior doctor pay rise: 58%Cancelling Stonehenge road tunnel: 53%Means-testing winter fuel allowance: 43%Cancelling long-term care cap: 18%… pic.twitter.com/cSSAqSYnXZ
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People favour cuts for other people shock.
Current spending really needs to be cut to both reduce the deficit and to give headroom for more investment and capital expenditure to drive future growth. Reeves has a hell of a job on her hands trying to balance this and the Labour party membership who were encouraged to think that somehow there was more money to spend on nice things than the Tories would admit.
It's still early days; let Reeves and Labour's policies have time to settle in.
Incidentally, I think SKS would be very wise to follow Cameron's policy of laving ministers in post for long periods, rather than constantly reshuffling them.
There is scope to spend a lot of money better, but very little room to manoeuvre when so many options were ruled out.
Why reward failure ?
If we increased taxation to French levels we could spend 11% of GDP on that kind of investment without touching current spending.
They want more less spending but a whole load of programmes funded, and they want more taxes in general but fewer falling on themselves.
It's odd because this is Streetings policy too! So shouldn't be a hard one to resolve. GP services are patchy and under incredible strain, particularly in the inner cities and does need investment. Better GP services are the core of a preventative health care strategy.
However the people who will determine his fate are the medical profession and at the moment they are a bit militant - probably the UKs best union. Reeves has tried to buy good will and who knows maybe she has, but Streeting has an uphill task to change things and deserves all the support he can muster.
I would choose whoever is going to be best at defending Harris from attacks on her being out of touch Californian liberal elite. Probably Walz.
Are you past the grieving stage now?
Multifunctional clinics, where more can be done as a one stop shop, could be more efficient, quicker and result in better patient outcomes.
Example: Last week my wife went to the GP, GP decided she needed an X-ray. No kit at the surgery, so a follow-up appointment required elsewhere. Then it will be back to the GP to review the results. Could all be done in one place at one time.
Steve
He looked at those results and slashed everything to increase minimum wage and welfare.
Politicians need to leave, not follow
The BMA is a very successful union
That's a miserable record for any union.
Split it into independent verticals (GP, acute, convalescence, social care) and run them separately
But Rachel will be in an impossible situation, she will reform too much for many people yet for the people who understand the scale of the mess nowhere near enough...
It seems to me that introducing even more vertically integrated splits in care provision is not going to improve this situation.
Possibly taking social care away from councils, where it has to fight with everything else for funding, and setting up a dedicated agency might help, if it was funded adequately. But there lies the rub - you can solve most problems with enough money, but is the money going to be there?
All the Social Care and Hospital questions actually reveal is that people want things changed there (a Social care system that works and hospitals that aren't falling down from old age)..
It has encouraged an ugly group of moronic racists who though in a tiny minority with the wrong government could have flourished. I'm confident this government will not give an inch to these vile people and neither should they.
Had we not had an election when we did I have serious doubts that the last government would have have done this. They would at best have eqivocated as was seen by Andrea Jenkins last night.
Though the numbers are tiny make no mistake we have seen blackshirts on our streets. I've never seen cars stopped and people being asked if they're 'White British' or hotels with immigrants being invaded and set alight with immigrants inside and politicians like Andrea Jenkins finding equivalence.
It’s about who pays the tax (the relative weighting between different houses).
What we need is a material increase in taxes - and council tax is the wrong vehicle because of the disconnect between those who raise it (councils) and the fact that the bulk of spending is mandated by central government
Blurred lines of accountability are never good
Every American kid wanted to be an astronaut at some point, the US space programme holds a special place in the psyche of the country.
Bringing all of the verticals into one organisation (I wasn’t clear but was thinking a divisional structure rather than completely separate) would help with that - you can agree policies.
There's already a working prototype:
https://physicsworld.com/a/researchers-build-0-05-t-mri-scanner-that-produces-diagnostic-quality-images/
There are analogous improvements underway in ultrasound scanning.
But not much of that is something that can be rolled out on a large scale immediately.
Regarding the issue of GPs, it's unclear that they are necessary - certainly other health systems operate quite successfully without them.
But such a radical restructuring of the NHS would come with risks matching the potential benefits. Clearly we need to do something, but this government will get only one chance, and they need to get it right; better to muddle on than to get it wrong.
And GPs should be employees
I don't know about X-Rays and what the constraints are on instant review; I do think the Medical Records can be reviewed including X-Rays at both places.
It's a decade since I had a minor op to remove both my big toenails and kill the root (using an acid that I recognised from I think Sherlock Holmes - phenolic acid or prussic acid or something. That was done at my local GP surgery by a variety of nurse.
At present we have 15-20k nurses based in GP surgeries.
Politcially at present I think that much of it is still about recovering from the depredations of Slasher Cameron and Sir Guy of Gosborne. (Sorry, @TSE ) It's only over time that I have realised the damage they and their successors did.
But councils are no different from anywhere else they simply don't have the money to do things and the things they are being asked to do (Social care, emergency housing) is getting stupidly expensive due to demand
Ironically the biggest spending PM since Brown was Johnson. It looks like Boris will still have increased spending more than Sir Keir will too given the cuts Reeves announced
This is as true of the Duke of Westminster (think IHT planning) as it is of benefits junkies.
So governing is about top quality leadership, not trying to produce the square circle demanded by polling.
The Winter Fuel Allowance announcement was clearly only made because Reeves thought, rightly, that October 30 gave too little notice for those affected to budget for it. Everything else will become clearer, but not until the budget.
It's hardly an unalloyed success.
Some successful health services have primary care more closely aligned with, or even attached to hospital services. Others have 'polyclinics', separate from general hospitals, which provide specialist services, but which sometimes blur the line between hospital and clinic.
I'm not 100% convinced that the large scale structure, as opposed to how things are done within it, makes all that much difference.
We need to look at health services which do particularly well (see, for instance, Taiwan), and work out why that is.
We have emergency GP appointments, which I can get same morning or day at normal GP cost which may be phone or visit, or 111 which will give advice / tell me what to do, MIUs for certain things, or a full ED visit, or a 999 call - which is the most expensive for everyone, including me.
The welcome message from my GP tells me in what circs to go direct to 999.
In 2000, another very close election, had Gore picked Florida Senator Nelson rather than Lieberman he would probably have won the state and EC. Whereas if Bush had picked Pennsylvania governor Ridge rather than Cheney he would have won more clearly.
In 1960 too LBJ likely won Texas for JFK
Why?
https://x.com/HenryNewman/status/1820579603208958055
Clearly primary healthcare is a universal requirement; it's just not so clearly separated out as we do.
I don’t think people are really aware of the care cap….. whatever it’s called…… until it affects them. So that’s claimants and, maybe, their immediate family. Mrs C and I are aware of it, because we know we might need care, but I don’t think it ‘worries’ our heirs and assigns much.
I think the top 3 aren't contentious, and will be OK if the NHS service improves, waiting lists down etc.
Stonehenge Road tunnel was a political arse-saving pork barrel exercise which is way down the list of transport schemes that should be done.
Winter-fuel allowance is the tricky one politically, but the newspapers which are always demanding benefits cuts for poor people are suddenly squealing at a modest benefit cut for wealthier people. A surprising reaction? On that one, I think RR has the correct judgement, but has been a little too tight at the low end.
Cancelling the long-term cap is not spending money that had never been spent, since it was part of the financial brick wall the previous Govt had created that was delayed until after the election to try and save their butt. Boris Johnson's Government chose to delay this until after the next Election. I don't like her delaying it, but I can't blame her for not following an agenda laid down by Conservative cynicism.
However in recent months – and following two changes of prime minister – reform has entirely stalled. In its November 2022 Autumn Statement, the government announced that the cap and means test reforms would be postponed until October 2025. With a general election to be held no later than January 2025, there is therefore a significant risk that these reforms are never implemented.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/blogs/reform-social-care-vanishing-over-horizon
Overall, these are really just tinkerings at the edges. Sea changes are still to come.
Labour almost always wins most NHS workers, only those who work in private hospitals or surgeries lean Tory
The eurozone construction sector remained firmly in contraction territory in July as activity fell markedly again, according to the latest HCOB® PMI data. The rate of decrease in output quickened slightly on the month to the strongest for six months, and continued to be driven by substantial contractions in housing activity, which was once again the worst-performing of the three monitored segments. The downturn was led by weak demand conditions as evidenced by a robust decline in new business. Lower new orders sparked a further round of job shedding, as employment fell at a slightly sharper rate. Retrenchment and cost-cutting were also reflected in a steep contraction in input buying and marked reductions in subcontractor use. That said, cost burdens rose only modestly.
The HCOB Eurozone Construction PMI Total Activity Index — a seasonally adjusted index tracking monthly changes in total industry activity — posted 41.4 in July, down slightly from 41.8 in June. The latest data was indicative of a steep decrease in total output at the start of the second half of the year.
The decline in activity was driven by broad-based contractions across the three monitored economies, led by the strongest fall in France since January. Italian firms recorded the steepest decrease in nearly two years, while firms in Germany saw a substantial, albeit slightly softer decline.
The housing sector continued to weigh heavily on total output and was the worst-performing sector, recorded the most marked reduction since April 2020. Commercial activity saw the sharpest fall for six months, while civil engineering firms recorded a slower reduction in activity.
Weak demand conditions across the eurozone construction sector continued to drive the overall downturn, as new orders fell again in July. The rate of decline quickened from June and was the most marked since March. All three monitored countries registered marked falls in new business, led by Germany.
In line with new order inflows, eurozone construction firms cut their workforce numbers at the start of the third quarter. The pace of job shedding quickened slightly from June and was the second-most pronounced in 2024 so far. For the second time in three months all three largest economies saw falling employment, with German firms seeing the steepest reduction.
https://www.pmi.spglobal.com/Public/Home/PressRelease/ab929c1186d2496b99e8a8898ee1a726
Your utter conviction that the VP pick makes any significant difference in their home state is not born out by historical evidence.
And of course the Harris campaign will have polling evidence not available to us. They'll have a far better idea if there's any significant difference between Shapiro and Walz, and in which of the battleground states.
My last experience of the NHS (when Mrs Eek was referred for an emergency, but simple operation) is that both methods work.
And many, many officers in the Army at the election of 1945 were Labour voters. Many of them had come in for the war years.
It would hardly be the worst thing - except for those whose partisanship outweighs all else.
History is essentially certain to repeat itself, so if Shapiro is the Democratic nominee, I expect it all to come down to hanging chads in Florida.
The UK has below-average health spending per person compared to peer countries. Health spending as a share of GDP (gross domestic product) was just below average in 2019 but rose to just above average in 2020 (the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, which of course had a significant impact on the UK’s economic performance and spending on health services). The UK lags behind other countries in its capital investment, and has substantially fewer key physical resources than many of its peers, including CT and MRI scanners and hospital beds. The UK has strikingly low levels of key clinical staff, including doctors and nurses, and is heavily reliant on foreign-trained staff. Remuneration for some clinical staff groups also appears to be less competitive in the UK than in peer countries.
And
For some measures of efficiency, the UK performs better than some other countries. For example, the UK spends less on administration (as a share of total health spending) than comparable countries. This is evidence of efficiency, but it is important to note that good standards of administration are necessary for a health care system to run smoothly.
Another area where the UK performs relatively well is providing universal health coverage with a low level of private spending. This may sound obvious to someone living in the UK who is used to an NHS free at the point of use, but it is worth highlighting, as this protection from cost is not afforded to people in many other countries. Relatively few people in the UK cannot pay medical bills or skipped medical visits because of the cost of care.
Spending on health care increased substantially in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic. But despite this, spending per person remains lower than the average for our basket. This impacts on the patient experience. For example, although there is no objectively ‘ideal’ number of scanners, the UK has fewer CT and MRI scanners than any of the comparator countries, which could be a reason – alongside shortages of imaging staff – for why diagnostic waits in the UK are so high.
Another area where the UK is strikingly different to comparator countries is in staffing. The below chart shows fewer doctors and fewer nurses per 1,000 people than the average in our basket. While some countries do, for example, have fewer nurses, many counterbalance that by having more doctors. The UK is remarkable as it scores low on both. High vacancy rates and staff dissatisfaction show that the current number is insufficient.
The UK has higher avoidable mortality and treatable mortality rates than comparator countries. This is driven by below-average survival rates for many major cancers (including cancer of the breast, cervix, colon, rectum, lung and stomach), and poorer outcomes from heart attacks and strokes.
And, perhaps most interestingly...
There is little evidence that one individual country or model of health care system performs better than another across the board. Countries improve health care for their populations mainly by reforming their existing model of health care rather than adopting an alternative.
I'm not exactly clear where they would find swathes of empty properties.
Growth accelerated in the UK construction sector as the second half of the year got underway, with July seeing much faster increases in both activity and new orders during the month. In turn, firms ramped up purchasing activity and raised staffing levels for the third month running. Higher demand for inputs imparted some pressure on supply chains, and input costs increased at a faster pace.
The headline S&P Global UK Construction Purchasing Managers’ Index™ (PMI®) – a seasonally adjusted index
tracking changes in total industry activity – rose sharply to 55.3 in July from 52.2 in June. The reading signalled a marked monthly expansion in total activity in the construction sector, extending the current sequence of growth to five months. Moreover, the rate of expansion was the fastest since May 2022.
All three categories of construction saw activity increase in July as work on housing projects returned to growth.
Commercial activity increased solidly, but the fastest expansion was seen in civil engineering activity, where the rate of growth quickened to the sharpest in almost two-and-a-half years.
Of course, it would be ironic to see rioters and boat people both get top tier treatment compared to the rest of us.