Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
The story is utter trash - I've heard more believable and less convoluted tales from Vicki Pollard.
Got to say your denial tells me that the story is valid...
You can say what you like; if you want to believe farfetched drivel and you're simple-minded enough to be persuaded or dissuaded in an opinion because of what someone else thinks, you do you.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
Good for her but the only skill involved in tandem skydiving is complying with the law of gravity. Also not fouling oneself with terror but we don't know if she passed that one.
I agree with him about the pointlessness of changing to a hemicycle, it's one of those ideas which is floated as leading to some grand change which is just nonsense, but his final response is definitely only one an ex-MP would make.
Very odd, has he forgotten Mr Heseltine and the Mace?
The Houses of Parliament need serious money spent - I've seen £10 billion quoted - on repair and refurbishment. This could mean MPs decamping for up to six years to Richmond House but there is an opportunity to try something different. Many other legislative chambers are less adversarial in shape than the House of Commons.
Could political culture be affected by environment?
Having enough seats for all the legislators (HoC anyway) would be a considerable improvement.
Mr Cameron proposed easing the seat shortage by 8%, but it was never enacted.
I agree with him about the pointlessness of changing to a hemicycle, it's one of those ideas which is floated as leading to some grand change which is just nonsense, but his final response is definitely only one an ex-MP would make.
Very odd, has he forgotten Mr Heseltine and the Mace?
The Houses of Parliament need serious money spent - I've seen £10 billion quoted - on repair and refurbishment. This could mean MPs decamping for up to six years to Richmond House but there is an opportunity to try something different. Many other legislative chambers are less adversarial in shape than the House of Commons.
Could political culture be affected by environment?
That's precisely why they haven't moved yet.
MPs and Peers fear the consequences, and that they won't get back in again.
FWIW, I think the idea that the "shape" of the chamber makes a difference to how adversarial or not your politics is to be rather barking.
The comment earlier that the fights occur in hemispheres was right though.
Two adversarial groups divided by a clear pair of lines on the floor, understand that their line isn’t one to be crossed. Physically as well as metaphorically.
Haven't noticed any fights at Holyrood - it's at Westminster where Scottish (and other) MPs have fights. Especially in the bar. As we all remember, or do we?
Nobody has much of a clue what Harris policies are - she's Starmer 2.0
We know she's in favour of industrial strategy; support for Ukraine; encouraging states to reform planning laws for housing; pro choice; against blanket tariffs; doesn't wish to renew the Trump tax cuts for billionaires.
And she's only a third of the way through her campaign.
Trump's one tenths through his campaign, and has yet to outline anything coherent.
But sure, she's Starmer 2.0.
You seem to be conceding that being Starmer 2.0 would be a bad thing.
He may have a landslide majority in the Commons, but the party he led received only 33.7% of the vote. The only concession is to reality - Starmer is clearly not a colossus of electoral politics.
Also 20% of registered voters, which is probably about 18-19% of the adult population.
All that means is a larger minority voted for Labour than voted Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Reform, Green or whatever.
It doesn't invalidate or reduce Starmer's mandate one iota - if we're looking at actual votes, why not call the 1951 Conservative Government illegitimate? After all, Labour got more votes.
No, July 4th illustrated the bankruptcy and absurdity of FPTP for those who hadn't realised it in the past. That's not the question, however, or the fact. The fact is Starmer won a majority in the Commons and has a mandate to govern. Whether he does so well or badly time will tell and we can pass judgement both on that and on the credibility of any of the alternative offerings at the next General Election.
Obviously it doesn't affect his mandate.
By comparison, John Major got 33% of the electorate in 1992.
Ending strikes was one of very few immediately operable levers to pull with a direct effect of getting Britain working better under Labour.
After that, it is all slower and harder. Starmer can remind people from time to time that his inheritance was grim, but at some point that starts to sound like an excuse for failure. If he is lucky, the Conservatives will help renew Labour’s licence to clear up a Tory mess by choosing an unrepentant leader who can’t offer a sincere account of why the party deserved to be defeated. Currently, all of the candidates fit that template.
But the official opposition is not the prime minister’s main adversary. For now, he is racing the clock. He has promised tangible change to voters whose readiness to believe him will degrade while they experience life as more of the same. And there is no way of knowing how much time he has. There is no measuring patience. You only find out how much there was once it has gone.
I think that's right. Spending cuts might be necessary but they shouldn't be the North Star of any government. The goal should always be to make people's lives better, however you achieve that. The previous Conservative government made this mistake during its more sensible phase. Starmer risks doing the same.
Starmer doesn't have an original thought in him.
He's trying to replay what the coalition did after they won in 2010. Firstly, because he's been told it worked, and, secondly, for the lolz but it won't because the circumstances are entirely different this time.
We don't have a 11%+ budget deficit coming in with an overspend of over £150bn per year with sovereign debt crises kicking off all over Europe, needing an emergency budget, nor a previous administration who gave every impression the problem would sort itself out - including with a comedy note. Virtually the first thing he did is expand his "black hole" by spunking cash on public sector pay deals, no questions asked, so it doesn't pass the sniff test. The public know it.
Everyone can see this for what it is: Starmer kept quiet about his true plans during the election campaign and now plans to try and blame the Conservatives for the tax rises and spending he'd secretly planned all along.
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
Err, did the Tory government ever try to implement impossible policies that sounded like prank calls and were stopped by the lawyers. Unfortunately on a monthly basis.......
You could cut the NHS budget by 5% and leave trusts to sort out what to cut, there would be zero need or indeed mechanism by which you could target 'cancer treatment', and the only reason such a bizarre concept has been dreamed up is to smear the Truss Government. The fact the Independent published it, and that avowedly intelligent people have given it airtime on PB is proof that Truss derangement syndrome is real and dangerous.
Love to know where you think there is 5% spare space in an NHS Trust's budget?
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
Err, did the Tory government ever try to implement impossible policies that sounded like prank calls and were stopped by the lawyers. Unfortunately on a monthly basis.......
You could cut the NHS budget by 5% and leave trusts to sort out what to cut, there would be zero need or indeed mechanism by which you could target 'cancer treatment', and the only reason such a bizarre concept has been dreamed up is to smear the Truss Government. The fact the Independent published it, and that avowedly intelligent people have given it airtime on PB is proof that Truss derangement syndrome is real and dangerous.
The only person who avowedly declares their intelligence on pb is taking a break.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
I agree with him about the pointlessness of changing to a hemicycle, it's one of those ideas which is floated as leading to some grand change which is just nonsense, but his final response is definitely only one an ex-MP would make.
Very odd, has he forgotten Mr Heseltine and the Mace?
The Houses of Parliament need serious money spent - I've seen £10 billion quoted - on repair and refurbishment. This could mean MPs decamping for up to six years to Richmond House but there is an opportunity to try something different. Many other legislative chambers are less adversarial in shape than the House of Commons.
Could political culture be affected by environment?
That's precisely why they haven't moved yet.
MPs and Peers fear the consequences, and that they won't get back in again.
FWIW, I think the idea that the "shape" of the chamber makes a difference to how adversarial or not your politics is to be rather barking.
The comment earlier that the fights occur in hemispheres was right though.
Two adversarial groups divided by a clear pair of lines on the floor, understand that their line isn’t one to be crossed. Physically as well as metaphorically.
Haven't noticed any fights at Holyrood - it's at Westminster where Scottish (and other) MPs have fights. Especially in the bar. As we all remember, or do we?
Oh there’s a whole alternate history to be written that starts with Eric Joyce not getting in a fight in a Commons bar. We’d likely never had Corbyn, and possibly not Johnson either. The EU referendum could have gone the other way, as could the Scottish referendum.
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
Kwarteng is enjoying his revenge, served as cold as an iceberg at the North Pole.
Possible, but Kwarteng all but confirms the story is true, but he doesn't come out of it well.
Truss - We need to find savings! Civil service - We could cut cancer treatment? Truss - Have you lost your mind?
Headline: TRUSS CONSIDERED CUTTING CANCER TREATMENT
I am against poster childing cancer. There's other diseases as deadly and nasty which don't get guaranteed treatment deadlines because people have not heard of them. But it's the merest fantasy to think that anyone in public life would suggest even as a joke ceasing to treat or allocating less money to treating cancer.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
I'm only just over half way and the decline started a long, long time ago!
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
Err, did the Tory government ever try to implement impossible policies that sounded like prank calls and were stopped by the lawyers. Unfortunately on a monthly basis.......
You could cut the NHS budget by 5% and leave trusts to sort out what to cut, there would be zero need or indeed mechanism by which you could target 'cancer treatment', and the only reason such a bizarre concept has been dreamed up is to smear the Truss Government. The fact the Independent published it, and that avowedly intelligent people have given it airtime on PB is proof that Truss derangement syndrome is real and dangerous.
Love to know where you think there is 5% spare space in an NHS Trust's budget?
Good grief, I DON'T THINK THAT. I was suggesting that if you were planning swingeing cuts to the NHS you could just do so - there is no means or mechanism within a budget or finance bill to 'stop cancer treatment'.
Ending strikes was one of very few immediately operable levers to pull with a direct effect of getting Britain working better under Labour.
After that, it is all slower and harder. Starmer can remind people from time to time that his inheritance was grim, but at some point that starts to sound like an excuse for failure. If he is lucky, the Conservatives will help renew Labour’s licence to clear up a Tory mess by choosing an unrepentant leader who can’t offer a sincere account of why the party deserved to be defeated. Currently, all of the candidates fit that template.
But the official opposition is not the prime minister’s main adversary. For now, he is racing the clock. He has promised tangible change to voters whose readiness to believe him will degrade while they experience life as more of the same. And there is no way of knowing how much time he has. There is no measuring patience. You only find out how much there was once it has gone.
I think that's right. Spending cuts might be necessary but they shouldn't be the North Star of any government. The goal should always be to make people's lives better, however you achieve that. The previous Conservative government made this mistake during its more sensible phase. Starmer risks doing the same.
Starmer doesn't have an original thought in him.
He's trying to replay what the coalition did after they won in 2010. Firstly, because he's been told it worked, and, secondly, for the lolz but it won't because the circumstances are entirely different this time.
We don't have a 11%+ budget deficit coming in with an overspend of over £150bn per year with sovereign debt crises kicking off all over Europe, needing an emergency budget, nor a previous administration who gave every impression the problem would sort itself out - including with a comedy note. Virtually the first thing he did is expand his "black hole" by spunking cash on public sector pay deals, no questions asked, so it doesn't pass the sniff test. The public know it.
Everyone can see this for what it is: Starmer kept quiet about his true plans during the election campaign and now plans to try and blame the Conservatives for the tax rises and spending he'd secretly planned all along.
It won't wash. And it won't be popular.
My problem is that he is cutting things which will actually only make things worse.
We need growth which means identifying how on earth to grow an economy (via productivity improvements???) while not spending too much doing so...
But if we are talking public sector pay increases - remember my viewpoint is that it was that (unavoidably) pay rise which is why the election ended up being in July. Because not implementing the pay rises would have had a significant political cost and implementing them would have made the Autumn even harder for Rishi / Hunt to prepare for an election.
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
Err, did the Tory government ever try to implement impossible policies that sounded like prank calls and were stopped by the lawyers. Unfortunately on a monthly basis.......
You could cut the NHS budget by 5% and leave trusts to sort out what to cut, there would be zero need or indeed mechanism by which you could target 'cancer treatment', and the only reason such a bizarre concept has been dreamed up is to smear the Truss Government. The fact the Independent published it, and that avowedly intelligent people have given it airtime on PB is proof that Truss derangement syndrome is real and dangerous.
The only person who avowedly declares their intelligence on pb is taking a break.
Those who remain are a modest bunch, with (judging by responses to this story) much to be modest about.
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
Err, did the Tory government ever try to implement impossible policies that sounded like prank calls and were stopped by the lawyers. Unfortunately on a monthly basis.......
You could cut the NHS budget by 5% and leave trusts to sort out what to cut, there would be zero need or indeed mechanism by which you could target 'cancer treatment', and the only reason such a bizarre concept has been dreamed up is to smear the Truss Government. The fact the Independent published it, and that avowedly intelligent people have given it airtime on PB is proof that Truss derangement syndrome is real and dangerous.
There is only one here with Truss Deranged Syndrome that is the only one here defending her time as PM which is regarded by nearly all as being disastrous, even most Tories. If the cap fits.
The longest steel span in the western hemisphere, and third highest bridge in the US. Plus one of National Geographic's twenty coolest places to visit in 2024, apparently - although not today as it is super hot already and a heatwave is arriving...
On topic - One candidate offers tax cuts to billionaires and to abolish social security to pay for it and the other offers tax cuts for working people. I wonder whose ideas are more popular?
Meanwhile, good news for Trump 2024 watchers. This morning he is denouncing the then Govt for rigging the 2020 election - which means he thinks that he himself rigged the election against himself! Frankly given how he ran the US Govt in 2017-21 he might be right - they were that bad!
Check out his Detroit speech yesterday - even Gabbard turning up couldn't lift his energy after the first few minutes. I wondered how long this 78-year old could sustain his campaign blitz and it seems the answer was just less than one day. However, I shall keep an eye open for any new developments
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
Err, did the Tory government ever try to implement impossible policies that sounded like prank calls and were stopped by the lawyers. Unfortunately on a monthly basis.......
You could cut the NHS budget by 5% and leave trusts to sort out what to cut, there would be zero need or indeed mechanism by which you could target 'cancer treatment', and the only reason such a bizarre concept has been dreamed up is to smear the Truss Government. The fact the Independent published it, and that avowedly intelligent people have given it airtime on PB is proof that Truss derangement syndrome is real and dangerous.
Love to know where you think there is 5% spare space in an NHS Trust's budget?
Good grief, I DON'T THINK THAT. I was suggesting that if you were planning swingeing cuts to the NHS you could just do so - there is no means or mechanism within a budget or finance bill to 'stop cancer treatment'.
That is the exact opposite of the post above where you said "You could cut the NHS budget by 5% "
This sounds like the sort of stupid statements you would hear as soon as you ask how could you cut the NHS budget by 5%. If it was alongside a news story that week of an expensive new cancer treatment you can see stupid ideas being mentioned..
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
Err, did the Tory government ever try to implement impossible policies that sounded like prank calls and were stopped by the lawyers. Unfortunately on a monthly basis.......
You could cut the NHS budget by 5% and leave trusts to sort out what to cut, there would be zero need or indeed mechanism by which you could target 'cancer treatment', and the only reason such a bizarre concept has been dreamed up is to smear the Truss Government. The fact the Independent published it, and that avowedly intelligent people have given it airtime on PB is proof that Truss derangement syndrome is real and dangerous.
Love to know where you think there is 5% spare space in an NHS Trust's budget?
Good grief, I DON'T THINK THAT. I was suggesting that if you were planning swingeing cuts to the NHS you could just do so - there is no means or mechanism within a budget or finance bill to 'stop cancer treatment'.
That is the exact opposite of the post above where you said "You could cut the NHS budget by 5% "...
I really don't want to call you stupid. We can all have an evening when we're a bit off the boil. I suggest you re-read my posts when you're a bit perkier.
BTW - So you have a choice for Veep of Vance or Kennedy and that might be tricky for Trump but why wouldn't you have Gabbard as your Veep. She is probably more loyal than any GOP and she might bring some votes with her. Not many - but any is more than Vance will.
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
It would be possible to save on expensive chemotherapy by announcing restrictions. Political suicide probably, but possible if one wanted to specifically to cut cancer treatments that would be the way.
The simple truth is that there isn't much fat left to cut. Cut the admin staff and make me the worlds most expensive clinic coordinator if you like, but not financially sensible.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
Oh indeed, which is exactly why it’s so difficult. But sadly most can end up becoming a danger to themselves and others.
I hope the police investigating the 96-year-old subject of the above article interviewed the doctor who signed her off as fit to drive.
The longest steel span in the western hemisphere, and third highest bridge in the US. Plus one of National Geographic's twenty coolest places to visit in 2024, apparently - although not today as it is super hot already and a heatwave is arriving...
Looks a bit rusty.
Apparently it was built to look rusty
They succeeded then. It also looks wonky. Hopefully that is the camera angle. Still not a bad picture for the dog to take. He did well.
On topic - One candidate offers tax cuts to billionaires and to abolish social security to pay for it and the other offers tax cuts for working people. I wonder whose ideas are more popular?
Meanwhile, good news for Trump 2024 watchers. This morning he is denouncing the then Govt for rigging the 2020 election - which means he thinks that he himself rigged the election against himself! Frankly given how he ran the US Govt in 2017-21 he might be right - they were that bad!
Check out his Detroit speech yesterday - even Gabbard turning up couldn't lift his energy after the first few minutes. I wondered how long this 78-year old could sustain his campaign blitz and it seems the answer was just less than one day. However, I shall keep an eye open for any new developments
Tax cuts for Billionaires are popular with tech-bro Billionaires, and with their minions at work then the wool can be pulled over many of the sheeple.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
BTW - So you have a choice for Veep of Vance or Kennedy and that might be tricky for Trump but why wouldn't you have Gabbard as your Veep. She is probably more loyal than any GOP and she might bring some votes with her. Not many - but any is more than Vance will.
IF DJT really does have choice between JDV & RFKjr, then the window of opportunity is closing fast, given deadline & practicalities of printing ballots in 50 states & DC, or in reality by thousands of local election jurisdictions from sea to shining sea.
Already past deadline for some "submarine ballots" going out to, for example, crews of Trident subs crusing the Seven Seas.
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
It would be possible to save on expensive chemotherapy by announcing restrictions. Political suicide probably, but possible if one wanted to specifically to cut cancer treatments that would be the way.
The simple truth is that there isn't much fat left to cut. Cut the admin staff and make me the worlds most expensive clinic coordinator if you like, but not financially sensible.
Make NHS hospitals responsible for earning their keep from the patient rather than the Government (either on the open market, or via a patient passport scheme) and I suspect soon see some fat trimmed off.
The longest steel span in the western hemisphere, and third highest bridge in the US. Plus one of National Geographic's twenty coolest places to visit in 2024, apparently - although not today as it is super hot already and a heatwave is arriving...
Very beautiful, but how are you finding Appalachia generally? I like the idea of small town America, but are you finding more charming little towns with recognisable main streets, enticing cafes and independently owned stores - or more towns which are all edge of town parking lots and no recognisable downtown? Is there anywhere, in short, you can think life there might be quite pleasant?
There’s a mix of both. I’ve just been to the ‘centre’ of my current town and it looks like a cross between an industrial estate and Lakeside shopping centre. There are plenty of places like that.
I’ve visited North Carolinian Appalachia before, and will be returning that way this trip, and also stayed in the Virginia mountains. This is the first time in WV. The scenery and interplay between physical and human geography in Appalachia is probably the most attractive in the US; you can see that these areas have been settled for a relatively long time. But they’ve still spoiled all the ‘urban’ bits. Rural WV is very photogenic. But there are also a lot of people living in caravans, trailers, or small wooden or tin shacks, so the poverty is also evident. People are friendly and welcoming but not minded to do anything in any sort of a hurry. The only way to buy water is to go pick it off the shelf yourself; asking for it in a British accent just receives blank looks of complete incomprehension, however many times you repeat yourself.
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
It would be possible to save on expensive chemotherapy by announcing restrictions. Political suicide probably, but possible if one wanted to specifically to cut cancer treatments that would be the way.
The simple truth is that there isn't much fat left to cut. Cut the admin staff and make me the worlds most expensive clinic coordinator if you like, but not financially sensible.
Make NHS hospitals responsible for earning their keep from the patient rather than the Government (either on the open market, or via a patient passport scheme) and I suspect soon see some fat trimmed off.
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
Kwarteng is enjoying his revenge, served as cold as an iceberg at the North Pole.
Possible, but Kwarteng all but confirms the story is true, but he doesn't come out of it well.
Truss - We need to find savings! Civil service - We could cut cancer treatment? Truss - Have you lost your mind?
Headline: TRUSS CONSIDERED CUTTING CANCER TREATMENT
I am against poster childing cancer. There's other diseases as deadly and nasty which don't get guaranteed treatment deadlines because people have not heard of them. But it's the merest fantasy to think that anyone in public life would suggest even as a joke ceasing to treat or allocating less money to treating cancer.
The media (and collective public consciousness) really need to get beyond this idea that 'cancer' is a single illness. It is a convenient all-inclusive term for a very large, diverse family of different conditions of differing levels of seriousness that respond in vastly different ways to myriad different treatment regimes (at various price points).dddd
Some treatments for certain types of cancer are very cost-effective and typically offer an excellent prognosis.
Other treatments for other cancers are experimental, unproven, generally ineffective and hugely expensive.
And others fall somewhere in between the two extremes.
If one were to look at the NHS budget objectively (without giving too much weight to 'optics') there will almost certainly be certain cancer treatments that should be cut, just as there will be others that it would be abject madness to scrap, and still others that probably justify an increased share of the funding pie.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
Good for her but the only skill involved in tandem skydiving is complying with the law of gravity. Also not fouling oneself with terror but we don't know if she passed that one.
Also, Curved Ridge should be soloed. Anchors are for wimps.
Election officials and (especially) workers in Washington State are currently conducting a statewide mandatory hand recount in the August 2024 "Top Two" Primary in race for state Commissioner of Public Lands, between current 2nd and 3rd place candidates, Democrat Dave Upthegrove and Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson, with DU ahead of SKP by just +51 votes out of 1.9 million ballots cast statewide.
Note that 1st-place finisher, Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, is already certified for the 2024 general election ballot; thus a recount victory by Pederson would mean two GOPers for CPL versus zero Democrats. Freezing out the Libtards would be a major success for the otherwise beleagured WA State GOP; happened because Reps fielded two candidats versus FIVE by the Democrats (the party having no control over who files, and the enviros failing to clear the field sufficiently).
NOTE that yesterday, yours truly personally observed the first day of the recount in King County, which is were about one-third of the statewide vote was cast in the primary.
Below is an overview of the status of King County’s portion of the recount for Commissioner of Public Lands.
Day 1 (8/26/2024)
Ballots counted (total): 86,108 Ballots left to count (total): 473,266 Updated projected completion date: September 3, 2024
Total variances from original machine count = 3 changes on three ballots (error rate = 0.000035%) Variance 1: went from vote for Jaime Herrera Beutler > to undervote (no selection made) Variance 2: went from vote for Kevin Van De Wege > to vote for Patrick DePoe Variance 3: went from undervote > to vote for Jaime Herrera Beutler
SSI - Not too bad for government work. My semi-educated guess, is that rate of variance will remain at current level or thereabouts, yielding around 20 vote changes.
FURTHER NOTE that in 2020 general election, King County did manatory hand recount of 97k ballots in a legislative race, which yielded 23 variences (much higher than current recount so far) of which 6 resulted in zero change between the two candidates (like yesterday) and the rest where divided between gains and losses for both candidates, resulting in a net difference of ONE vote when all was said & done.
Something similar looks likely in King Co this recount. HOWEVER with a 51-vote margin statewide, even the slightest change in any of 39 counties, could have a BIG impact!
The last UK Parliamentary election for which there’s data, managed to count more than 32,000,000 votes in under 17 hours. All paper ballots with a cross in the box, counted by hand.
As someone who’s never observed an American election in person, it’s utterly astonishing how drawn-out the process becomes. One could possibly understand it when they were sending delegates to Washington on horseback, but in 2024 there’s really no excuse for not having the results final within a couple of days.
"A couple of days" for a race now separated by just 51 votes statewide?
You're out of your cotton-picking mind unless you think ANY recount is stupid by definition.
Struggling to understand your insistance that speed! speed! speed! trumps (ahem) accuracy. Am assuming your point is far more ideological and/or retorical, than factual and/or logical.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
Good for her but the only skill involved in tandem skydiving is complying with the law of gravity. Also not fouling oneself with terror but we don't know if she passed that one.
Also, Curved Ridge should be soloed. Anchors are for wimps.
At 90 I thought fair enough. I'll take a rope up in case someone has a wobble.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
Election officials and (especially) workers in Washington State are currently conducting a statewide mandatory hand recount in the August 2024 "Top Two" Primary in race for state Commissioner of Public Lands, between current 2nd and 3rd place candidates, Democrat Dave Upthegrove and Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson, with DU ahead of SKP by just +51 votes out of 1.9 million ballots cast statewide.
Note that 1st-place finisher, Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, is already certified for the 2024 general election ballot; thus a recount victory by Pederson would mean two GOPers for CPL versus zero Democrats. Freezing out the Libtards would be a major success for the otherwise beleagured WA State GOP; happened because Reps fielded two candidats versus FIVE by the Democrats (the party having no control over who files, and the enviros failing to clear the field sufficiently).
NOTE that yesterday, yours truly personally observed the first day of the recount in King County, which is were about one-third of the statewide vote was cast in the primary.
Below is an overview of the status of King County’s portion of the recount for Commissioner of Public Lands.
Day 1 (8/26/2024)
Ballots counted (total): 86,108 Ballots left to count (total): 473,266 Updated projected completion date: September 3, 2024
Total variances from original machine count = 3 changes on three ballots (error rate = 0.000035%) Variance 1: went from vote for Jaime Herrera Beutler > to undervote (no selection made) Variance 2: went from vote for Kevin Van De Wege > to vote for Patrick DePoe Variance 3: went from undervote > to vote for Jaime Herrera Beutler
SSI - Not too bad for government work. My semi-educated guess, is that rate of variance will remain at current level or thereabouts, yielding around 20 vote changes.
FURTHER NOTE that in 2020 general election, King County did manatory hand recount of 97k ballots in a legislative race, which yielded 23 variences (much higher than current recount so far) of which 6 resulted in zero change between the two candidates (like yesterday) and the rest where divided between gains and losses for both candidates, resulting in a net difference of ONE vote when all was said & done.
Something similar looks likely in King Co this recount. HOWEVER with a 51-vote margin statewide, even the slightest change in any of 39 counties, could have a BIG impact!
The last UK Parliamentary election for which there’s data, managed to count more than 32,000,000 votes in under 17 hours. All paper ballots with a cross in the box, counted by hand.
As someone who’s never observed an American election in person, it’s utterly astonishing how drawn-out the process becomes. One could possibly understand it when they were sending delegates to Washington on horseback, but in 2024 there’s really no excuse for not having the results final within a couple of days.
"A couple of days" for a race now separated by just 51 votes statewide?
You're out of your cotton-picking mind unless you think ANY recount is stupid by definition.
Struggling to understand your insistance that speed! speed! speed! trumps (ahem) accuracy. Am assuming your point is far more ideological and/or retorical, that factual and/or logical.
The problem with many States is that they seem to be engineering a situation where a tight run race will require weeks before the final vote is counted and the winner declared.
During which 1000s of court cases could be triggered arguing over almost individual votes..
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
Kwarteng is enjoying his revenge, served as cold as an iceberg at the North Pole.
Possible, but Kwarteng all but confirms the story is true, but he doesn't come out of it well.
Truss - We need to find savings! Civil service - We could cut cancer treatment? Truss - Have you lost your mind?
Headline: TRUSS CONSIDERED CUTTING CANCER TREATMENT
I am against poster childing cancer. There's other diseases as deadly and nasty which don't get guaranteed treatment deadlines because people have not heard of them. But it's the merest fantasy to think that anyone in public life would suggest even as a joke ceasing to treat or allocating less money to treating cancer.
The media (and collective public consciousness) really need to get beyond this idea that 'cancer' is a single illness. It is a convenient all-inclusive term for a very large, diverse family of different conditions of differing levels of seriousness that respond in vastly different ways to myriad different treatment regimes (at various price points).dddd
Some treatments for certain types of cancer are very cost-effective and typically offer an excellent prognosis.
Other treatments for other cancers are experimental, unproven, generally ineffective and hugely expensive.
And others fall somewhere in between the two extremes.
If one were to look at the NHS budget objectively (without giving too much weight to 'optics') there will almost certainly be certain cancer treatments that should be cut, just as there will be others that it would be abject madness to scrap, and still others that probably justify an increased share of the funding pie.
But that's not a good headline, is it?
The treatment for that particular cancer was a new leader.
The longest steel span in the western hemisphere, and third highest bridge in the US. Plus one of National Geographic's twenty coolest places to visit in 2024, apparently - although not today as it is super hot already and a heatwave is arriving...
Very beautiful, but how are you finding Appalachia generally? I like the idea of small town America, but are you finding more charming little towns with recognisable main streets, enticing cafes and independently owned stores - or more towns which are all edge of town parking lots and no recognisable downtown? Is there anywhere, in short, you can think life there might be quite pleasant?
There’s a mix of both. I’ve just been to the ‘centre’ of my current town and it looks like a cross between an industrial estate and Lakeside shopping centre. There are plenty of places like that.
I’ve visited North Carolinian Appalachia before, and will be returning that way this trip, and also stayed in the Virginia mountains. This is the first time in WV. The scenery and interplay between physical and human geography in Appalachia is probably the most attractive in the US; you can see that these areas have been settled for a relatively long time. But they’ve still spoiled all the ‘urban’ bits. Rural WV is very photogenic. But there are also a lot of people living in caravans, trailers, or small wooden or tin shacks, so the poverty is also evident. People are friendly and welcoming but not minded to do anything in any sort of a hurry. The only way to buy water is to go pick it off the shelf yourself; asking for it in a British accent just receives blank looks of complete incomprehension, however many times you repeat yourself.
Re: your last sentence, how else does one buy water in a store?
OR do you mean via a water dispensor for a container? Think that's less available in many rural and small town locations throughout USA.
ADDENDUM - BTW the New River Gorge Bridge has an annual day when bunge jumping is legal.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
When my Grandfather "lost*" his car we just made sure it was never found - at which point we focussed on how much a faff the car was and to just use taxis...
* Turned out it had been sat at the far end of Tesco car park for a month... No one picked it up or sent a fine because the cameras worked on time of departure and the car never departed...
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
It would be possible to save on expensive chemotherapy by announcing restrictions. Political suicide probably, but possible if one wanted to specifically to cut cancer treatments that would be the way.
The simple truth is that there isn't much fat left to cut. Cut the admin staff and make me the worlds most expensive clinic coordinator if you like, but not financially sensible.
Make NHS hospitals responsible for earning their keep from the patient rather than the Government (either on the open market, or via a patient passport scheme) and I suspect soon see some fat trimmed off.
How would that work?
It probably wouldn't.
If we look at private healthcare and private education, they show that people are prepared to pay more for services with the fat left on, thank you.
As for "abolish cancer treatment", it wouldn't surprise me that much if it came out of a "yes and ho" brainstorm, and that everyone was so focused on cutting spending that nobody dared say "but that's nuts".
But Seldon has built up a reputation for telling true stories about Prime Ministers- would he really trash that to include some poorly-researched inaccuracies about Truss?
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
I hope you're recommending @Big_G_NorthWales 's neighbour's son do that.
Election officials and (especially) workers in Washington State are currently conducting a statewide mandatory hand recount in the August 2024 "Top Two" Primary in race for state Commissioner of Public Lands, between current 2nd and 3rd place candidates, Democrat Dave Upthegrove and Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson, with DU ahead of SKP by just +51 votes out of 1.9 million ballots cast statewide.
Note that 1st-place finisher, Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, is already certified for the 2024 general election ballot; thus a recount victory by Pederson would mean two GOPers for CPL versus zero Democrats. Freezing out the Libtards would be a major success for the otherwise beleagured WA State GOP; happened because Reps fielded two candidats versus FIVE by the Democrats (the party having no control over who files, and the enviros failing to clear the field sufficiently).
NOTE that yesterday, yours truly personally observed the first day of the recount in King County, which is were about one-third of the statewide vote was cast in the primary.
Below is an overview of the status of King County’s portion of the recount for Commissioner of Public Lands.
Day 1 (8/26/2024)
Ballots counted (total): 86,108 Ballots left to count (total): 473,266 Updated projected completion date: September 3, 2024
Total variances from original machine count = 3 changes on three ballots (error rate = 0.000035%) Variance 1: went from vote for Jaime Herrera Beutler > to undervote (no selection made) Variance 2: went from vote for Kevin Van De Wege > to vote for Patrick DePoe Variance 3: went from undervote > to vote for Jaime Herrera Beutler
SSI - Not too bad for government work. My semi-educated guess, is that rate of variance will remain at current level or thereabouts, yielding around 20 vote changes.
FURTHER NOTE that in 2020 general election, King County did manatory hand recount of 97k ballots in a legislative race, which yielded 23 variences (much higher than current recount so far) of which 6 resulted in zero change between the two candidates (like yesterday) and the rest where divided between gains and losses for both candidates, resulting in a net difference of ONE vote when all was said & done.
Something similar looks likely in King Co this recount. HOWEVER with a 51-vote margin statewide, even the slightest change in any of 39 counties, could have a BIG impact!
The last UK Parliamentary election for which there’s data, managed to count more than 32,000,000 votes in under 17 hours. All paper ballots with a cross in the box, counted by hand.
As someone who’s never observed an American election in person, it’s utterly astonishing how drawn-out the process becomes. One could possibly understand it when they were sending delegates to Washington on horseback, but in 2024 there’s really no excuse for not having the results final within a couple of days.
"A couple of days" for a race now separated by just 51 votes statewide?
You're out of your cotton-picking mind unless you think ANY recount is stupid by definition.
Struggling to understand your insistance that speed! speed! speed! trumps (ahem) accuracy. Am assuming your point is far more ideological and/or retorical, than factual and/or logical.
Yes, pretty much every other developed nation has election results declared within a couple of days, even the close ones.
The mentality is “we’ve got weeks to do this”, and so it ends up taking weeks, which destroys trust in the result and leads to legal challenges where the outcome is close.
The US is as much of an outlier when it comes to election results, as it is when it comes to healthcare costs or gun ownership.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
My experience is that medics are reluctant to be the ones who say 'no' and refuse to sign DVLA paperwork to continue driving.
Election officials and (especially) workers in Washington State are currently conducting a statewide mandatory hand recount in the August 2024 "Top Two" Primary in race for state Commissioner of Public Lands, between current 2nd and 3rd place candidates, Democrat Dave Upthegrove and Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson, with DU ahead of SKP by just +51 votes out of 1.9 million ballots cast statewide.
Note that 1st-place finisher, Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler, is already certified for the 2024 general election ballot; thus a recount victory by Pederson would mean two GOPers for CPL versus zero Democrats. Freezing out the Libtards would be a major success for the otherwise beleagured WA State GOP; happened because Reps fielded two candidats versus FIVE by the Democrats (the party having no control over who files, and the enviros failing to clear the field sufficiently).
NOTE that yesterday, yours truly personally observed the first day of the recount in King County, which is were about one-third of the statewide vote was cast in the primary.
Below is an overview of the status of King County’s portion of the recount for Commissioner of Public Lands.
Day 1 (8/26/2024)
Ballots counted (total): 86,108 Ballots left to count (total): 473,266 Updated projected completion date: September 3, 2024
Total variances from original machine count = 3 changes on three ballots (error rate = 0.000035%) Variance 1: went from vote for Jaime Herrera Beutler > to undervote (no selection made) Variance 2: went from vote for Kevin Van De Wege > to vote for Patrick DePoe Variance 3: went from undervote > to vote for Jaime Herrera Beutler
SSI - Not too bad for government work. My semi-educated guess, is that rate of variance will remain at current level or thereabouts, yielding around 20 vote changes.
FURTHER NOTE that in 2020 general election, King County did manatory hand recount of 97k ballots in a legislative race, which yielded 23 variences (much higher than current recount so far) of which 6 resulted in zero change between the two candidates (like yesterday) and the rest where divided between gains and losses for both candidates, resulting in a net difference of ONE vote when all was said & done.
Something similar looks likely in King Co this recount. HOWEVER with a 51-vote margin statewide, even the slightest change in any of 39 counties, could have a BIG impact!
The last UK Parliamentary election for which there’s data, managed to count more than 32,000,000 votes in under 17 hours. All paper ballots with a cross in the box, counted by hand.
As someone who’s never observed an American election in person, it’s utterly astonishing how drawn-out the process becomes. One could possibly understand it when they were sending delegates to Washington on horseback, but in 2024 there’s really no excuse for not having the results final within a couple of days.
"A couple of days" for a race now separated by just 51 votes statewide?
You're out of your cotton-picking mind unless you think ANY recount is stupid by definition.
Struggling to understand your insistance that speed! speed! speed! trumps (ahem) accuracy. Am assuming your point is far more ideological and/or retorical, than factual and/or logical.
Yes, pretty much every other developed nation has election results declared within a couple of days, even the close ones.
The US is as much of an outlier when it comes to election results, as it is when it comes to healthcare costs or gun ownership.
Is Venezuela a "developed nation"? They certainly wasted no time (at least) announcing their results!
BTW and FYI, Donald Trump is a BIG fan of Maduro AND his speedy efficiency.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
Easier said than done. I had the same problem with my Dad. Finally he had a minor accident that was his fault and I managed to get him to give up and sold his car to webuyanycar. He was in his 90s.
Capping the rate of food inflation. Lol, was this policy written by a 3 year old?
Price controls always work, didn’t you study economics? 🤡 They’ve never resulted in queues, riots, failed harvests, or mass starvation, they just lower the cost of food for the everyday hard-working family.
Unless you or Max have something more recent, AFAIK this sort of thing is all that's being suggested.
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
Kwarteng is enjoying his revenge, served as cold as an iceberg at the North Pole.
Possible, but Kwarteng all but confirms the story is true, but he doesn't come out of it well.
Truss - We need to find savings! Civil service - We could cut cancer treatment? Truss - Have you lost your mind?
Headline: TRUSS CONSIDERED CUTTING CANCER TREATMENT
Not what the article says, but yeah.
I have no idea if the story stacks up but one named individual, Alex Boyd, was quoted directly and the story was corroborated separately by the Independent with another, Kwasi Kwarteng. More on-the-record than is usual with this kind of gossip.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
My experience is that medics are reluctant to be the ones who say 'no' and refuse to sign DVLA paperwork to continue driving.
Nobody wants to be the one who says "no", which is a large part of why the public finances are how they are.
Conservatives should be quietly grateful that Starmer seems willing to do the dirty work that they have failed to do to bring tax and spend back to some sort of realistic balance.
The longest steel span in the western hemisphere, and third highest bridge in the US. Plus one of National Geographic's twenty coolest places to visit in 2024, apparently - although not today as it is super hot already and a heatwave is arriving...
Very beautiful, but how are you finding Appalachia generally? I like the idea of small town America, but are you finding more charming little towns with recognisable main streets, enticing cafes and independently owned stores - or more towns which are all edge of town parking lots and no recognisable downtown? Is there anywhere, in short, you can think life there might be quite pleasant?
There’s a mix of both. I’ve just been to the ‘centre’ of my current town and it looks like a cross between an industrial estate and Lakeside shopping centre. There are plenty of places like that.
I’ve visited North Carolinian Appalachia before, and will be returning that way this trip, and also stayed in the Virginia mountains. This is the first time in WV. The scenery and interplay between physical and human geography in Appalachia is probably the most attractive in the US; you can see that these areas have been settled for a relatively long time. But they’ve still spoiled all the ‘urban’ bits. Rural WV is very photogenic. But there are also a lot of people living in caravans, trailers, or small wooden or tin shacks, so the poverty is also evident. People are friendly and welcoming but not minded to do anything in any sort of a hurry. The only way to buy water is to go pick it off the shelf yourself; asking for it in a British accent just receives blank looks of complete incomprehension, however many times you repeat yourself.
Re: your last sentence, how else does one buy water in a store?
OR do you mean via a water dispensor for a container? Think that's less available in many rural and small town locations throughout USA.
ADDENDUM - BTW the New River Gorge Bridge has an annual day when bunge jumping is legal.
It does, in October, but sadly pets are still banned from the bridge even that day
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
Kwarteng is enjoying his revenge, served as cold as an iceberg at the North Pole.
Possible, but Kwarteng all but confirms the story is true, but he doesn't come out of it well.
Truss - We need to find savings! Civil service - We could cut cancer treatment? Truss - Have you lost your mind?
Headline: TRUSS CONSIDERED CUTTING CANCER TREATMENT
I am against poster childing cancer. There's other diseases as deadly and nasty which don't get guaranteed treatment deadlines because people have not heard of them. But it's the merest fantasy to think that anyone in public life would suggest even as a joke ceasing to treat or allocating less money to treating cancer.
The media (and collective public consciousness) really need to get beyond this idea that 'cancer' is a single illness. It is a convenient all-inclusive term for a very large, diverse family of different conditions of differing levels of seriousness that respond in vastly different ways to myriad different treatment regimes (at various price points).dddd
Some treatments for certain types of cancer are very cost-effective and typically offer an excellent prognosis.
Other treatments for other cancers are experimental, unproven, generally ineffective and hugely expensive.
And others fall somewhere in between the two extremes.
If one were to look at the NHS budget objectively (without giving too much weight to 'optics') there will almost certainly be certain cancer treatments that should be cut, just as there will be others that it would be abject madness to scrap, and still others that probably justify an increased share of the funding pie.
But that's not a good headline, is it?
I teach the science of many cancer treatments to third year pharmacy students ( and some others). I ALWAYS make the point about the term cancer being sub optimal. We do however have a set of 'hallmarks' of cancer that we use to group the way that the assorted conditions behave. It started as six but has been expanded to around twenty distinct properties of cancer cells. So while you are right about the public awareness of this, and I see it all the time, even with other cancer patients (I have leukemia in 2012 and my very specific treatment is for only one variant of leukaemia -APML) who assume everyone has the same treatment. One of the issues going forward is personalized treatment, such as CAR-T treatments based on the genetics of each case. It looks like this will be transformative, as does cancer immunology, but it's hugely expensive. Far cheaper to throw big standard cus platin at the issue and hope for the best, and keep other treatments for 2nd and 3rd line. It's also easy to say we shouldn't spend say £20000 to give an elderly man 3-6 more months of life, but less easy when it's denying a father the chance to meet his first grandchild, for instance.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
You haven't a clue have you
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
My experience is that medics are reluctant to be the ones who say 'no' and refuse to sign DVLA paperwork to continue driving.
I have the same problem with my father, everyday he thinks he needs to goto plymouth tomorrow because his leave is up...I doubt the rn wants an 84 year old with dementia. However much I think he needs to be in residential the medics wont agree because his 84 year old girl friend says she can manage but she can't. What will happen is she will be taken off to hospital herself oneday soon then I have to deal with getting my father in a home at the same time he is panicing about her
When my parents lived in Surrey, a lady down the road was in early stage of dementia and her children took her car keys away. There was a farm shop a few minutes walk away for her day to day needs. However, she liked to shop in Waitrose and the nearest branch was a mile away. Her family discovered that she had been standing by the Portsmouth Road, hitching a lift to Waitrose. Then after her shop, she would walk round the carpark until she found someone to bring her home. She would then invite them in coffee. She rejected her family' s horrified reaction that she might have been murdered and insisted she had made lots of lovely new friends.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
I hope you're recommending @Big_G_NorthWales 's neighbour's son do that.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
My experience is that medics are reluctant to be the ones who say 'no' and refuse to sign DVLA paperwork to continue driving.
When my parents lived in Surrey, a lady down the road was in early stage of dementia and her children took her car keys away. There was a farm shop a few minutes walk away for her day to day needs. However, she liked to shop in Waitrose and the nearest branch was a mile away. Her family discovered that she had been standing by the Portsmouth Road, hitching a lift to Waitrose. Then after her shop, she would walk round the carpark until she found someone to bring her home. She would then invite them in coffee. She rejected her family' s horrified reaction that she might have been murdered and insisted she had made lots of lovely new friends.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
My experience is that medics are reluctant to be the ones who say 'no' and refuse to sign DVLA paperwork to continue driving.
I have the same problem with my father, everyday he thinks he needs to goto plymouth tomorrow because his leave is up...I doubt the rn wants an 84 year old with dementia. However much I think he needs to be in residential the medics wont agree because his 84 year old girl friend says she can manage but she can't. What will happen is she will be taken off to hospital herself oneday soon then I have to deal with getting my father in a home at the same time he is panicing about her
I feel for you. It's all so stressful dealing with this stuff.
You say "medics" here but I think you mean social services rather than doctors?
Capping the rate of food inflation. Lol, was this policy written by a 3 year old?
Price controls always work, didn’t you study economics? 🤡 They’ve never resulted in queues, riots, failed harvests, or mass starvation, they just lower the cost of food for the everyday hard-working family.
Unless you or Max have something more recent, AFAIK this sort of thing is all that's being suggested.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
Good for her but the only skill involved in tandem skydiving is complying with the law of gravity. Also not fouling oneself with terror but we don't know if she passed that one.
Also, Curved Ridge should be soloed. Anchors are for wimps.
At 90 I thought fair enough. I'll take a rope up in case someone has a wobble.
I was of course joking...
I'd probably want a rope these days and I'm a fair way off 90!
I'm assuming this 90 year old was Creag Dhu and probably did some more "some stuff" in the past. Seriously good going, anyway.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
You haven't a clue have you
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
A family member of mine, who is in the same generation as me i.e. now got parents in their 80s, said to me the other day that when he meets up with his college mates every so often half the conversation over beers is how the hell they stop their parents driving!!
BTW - So you have a choice for Veep of Vance or Kennedy and that might be tricky for Trump but why wouldn't you have Gabbard as your Veep. She is probably more loyal than any GOP and she might bring some votes with her. Not many - but any is more than Vance will.
IF DJT really does have choice between JDV & RFKjr, then the window of opportunity is closing fast, given deadline & practicalities of printing ballots in 50 states & DC, or in reality by thousands of local election jurisdictions from sea to shining sea.
Already past deadline for some "submarine ballots" going out to, for example, crews of Trident subs crusing the Seven Seas.
RFK Jnr is barely coherent. I don't think even the Trump camp are that stupid, but...
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
Err, did the Tory government ever try to implement impossible policies that sounded like prank calls and were stopped by the lawyers. Unfortunately on a monthly basis.......
You could cut the NHS budget by 5% and leave trusts to sort out what to cut, there would be zero need or indeed mechanism by which you could target 'cancer treatment', and the only reason such a bizarre concept has been dreamed up is to smear the Truss Government. The fact the Independent published it, and that avowedly intelligent people have given it airtime on PB is proof that Truss derangement syndrome is real and dangerous.
Love to know where you think there is 5% spare space in an NHS Trust's budget?
To be fair, you could restrict or qualify medical treatments further and/or freeze or cut staff salaries by 5-10% on top and cut staff numbers.
You'd have massively strikes, and lots leaving the profession, but it's a political choice that's available.
Greece didn't do dissimilar in the depths of its crisis.
The Harris Effect - in the 13 states that have updated voter files since July 21st, we are seeing incredible surges in voter registration relative to the same time period in 2024, driven by women, voters of color, and young voters. https://x.com/tbonier/status/1828457890228629534
That suggests current polling might be underestimating the Harris vote.
Ending strikes was one of very few immediately operable levers to pull with a direct effect of getting Britain working better under Labour.
After that, it is all slower and harder. Starmer can remind people from time to time that his inheritance was grim, but at some point that starts to sound like an excuse for failure. If he is lucky, the Conservatives will help renew Labour’s licence to clear up a Tory mess by choosing an unrepentant leader who can’t offer a sincere account of why the party deserved to be defeated. Currently, all of the candidates fit that template.
But the official opposition is not the prime minister’s main adversary. For now, he is racing the clock. He has promised tangible change to voters whose readiness to believe him will degrade while they experience life as more of the same. And there is no way of knowing how much time he has. There is no measuring patience. You only find out how much there was once it has gone.
I think that's right. Spending cuts might be necessary but they shouldn't be the North Star of any government. The goal should always be to make people's lives better, however you achieve that. The previous Conservative government made this mistake during its more sensible phase. Starmer risks doing the same.
Starmer doesn't have an original thought in him.
He's trying to replay what the coalition did after they won in 2010. Firstly, because he's been told it worked, and, secondly, for the lolz but it won't because the circumstances are entirely different this time.
We don't have a 11%+ budget deficit coming in with an overspend of over £150bn per year with sovereign debt crises kicking off all over Europe, needing an emergency budget, nor a previous administration who gave every impression the problem would sort itself out - including with a comedy note. Virtually the first thing he did is expand his "black hole" by spunking cash on public sector pay deals, no questions asked, so it doesn't pass the sniff test. The public know it.
Everyone can see this for what it is: Starmer kept quiet about his true plans during the election campaign and now plans to try and blame the Conservatives for the tax rises and spending he'd secretly planned all along.
It won't wash. And it won't be popular.
My problem is that he is cutting things which will actually only make things worse.
We need growth which means identifying how on earth to grow an economy (via productivity improvements???) while not spending too much doing so...
But if we are talking public sector pay increases - remember my viewpoint is that it was that (unavoidably) pay rise which is why the election ended up being in July. Because not implementing the pay rises would have had a significant political cost and implementing them would have made the Autumn even harder for Rishi / Hunt to prepare for an election.
Sunak thought the Summer and Autumn would be worse for him, and I think events are bearing out to show that was wrong. The bigger challenge was probably that the party had become almost unmanageable.
However, if the Conservatives had been re-elected I don't doubt that a pay settlement would have been reached. But, it would not be at the levels we saw by Starmer in July, and there would have been strings attached on productivity and reform.
Unions and their members cannot strike indefinitely or they will continue to get either no pay or strike pay plus no pay rise at all.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
You haven't a clue have you
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
A family member of mine, who is in the same generation as me i.e. now got parents in their 80s, said to me the other day that when he meets up with his college mates every so often half the conversation over beers is how the hell they stop their parents driving!!
It is a real issue for many children and it certainly is not simple
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
I guess the one thing you could do is quit using the expensive drugs.
That would have been a death sentence for some people - it’s not that long ago that a relative was on a life-saving cancer treatment (a real one that actually worked) that cost ~£40k / year. (It’s since gone off patent, so costs much less these days.)
Imagine telling someone like him that you’re going to let him die because the government had to make savings /this/ year, even when the patent life might only be another two or three years & the lifetime return on keeping a highly paid worker around for the rest of his working life vastly exceeded the short term cost.
It’s astonishing that they ever thought this was a viable policy - if this story is true.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
You haven't a clue have you
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
Tough. You have a responsibility to the rest of your community. It's how people end up dead, including a toddler in Edinburgh.
And I do have a clue - precisely the same battle happened in my family.
I agree with him about the pointlessness of changing to a hemicycle, it's one of those ideas which is floated as leading to some grand change which is just nonsense, but his final response is definitely only one an ex-MP would make.
Very odd, has he forgotten Mr Heseltine and the Mace?
The Houses of Parliament need serious money spent - I've seen £10 billion quoted - on repair and refurbishment. This could mean MPs decamping for up to six years to Richmond House but there is an opportunity to try something different. Many other legislative chambers are less adversarial in shape than the House of Commons.
Could political culture be affected by environment?
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
Kwarteng is enjoying his revenge, served as cold as an iceberg at the North Pole.
Possible, but Kwarteng all but confirms the story is true, but he doesn't come out of it well.
Truss - We need to find savings! Civil service - We could cut cancer treatment? Truss - Have you lost your mind?
Headline: TRUSS CONSIDERED CUTTING CANCER TREATMENT
Not what the article says, but yeah.
I have no idea if the story stacks up but one named individual, Alex Boyd, was quoted directly and the story was corroborated separately by the Independent with another, Kwasi Kwarteng. More on-the-record than is usual with this kind of gossip.
Are you actually trying to embarrass yourself still further? Read the story. Alex Boyd himself 'was told' that 'Truss and Kwarteng were thinking' by an unnamed individual who had him/herself 'been told' about it. The original alleged idea is 3 degrees of separation away from the teller of it, and Kwarteng himself has denied that he and Liz Truss discussed anything of the kind.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
You haven't a clue have you
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
I'm sorry G. The fact she rails against these measures because of her loss of independence counts not a jot when she takes out someone's child, grandchild, parent or grandparent in her out of control one tonne killing machine. When my late father's eye sight became poor I spoke with the optician and his license was revoked.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
You haven't a clue have you
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
Tough. You have a responsibility to the rest of your community. It's how people end up dead, including a toddler in Edinburgh.
And I do have a clue - precisely the same battle happened in my family.
You seem to think it is me in this story
It is not my mother and we with all the neighbours have done everything possible to stop her driving, as has her son but the doctor has not instructed her not to drive
You admit it was a battle in your family and so you prove my point - it is not simple as you put it
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
It would be possible to save on expensive chemotherapy by announcing restrictions. Political suicide probably, but possible if one wanted to specifically to cut cancer treatments that would be the way.
The simple truth is that there isn't much fat left to cut. Cut the admin staff and make me the worlds most expensive clinic coordinator if you like, but not financially sensible.
Make NHS hospitals responsible for earning their keep from the patient rather than the Government (either on the open market, or via a patient passport scheme) and I suspect soon see some fat trimmed off.
How would that work?
It probably wouldn't.
If we look at private healthcare and private education, they show that people are prepared to pay more for services with the fat left on, thank you.
As for "abolish cancer treatment", it wouldn't surprise me that much if it came out of a "yes and ho" brainstorm, and that everyone was so focused on cutting spending that nobody dared say "but that's nuts".
But Seldon has built up a reputation for telling true stories about Prime Ministers- would he really trash that to include some poorly-researched inaccuracies about Truss?
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
You haven't a clue have you
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
In law it is the drivers responsibility to determine if they are fit to drive.
Anyone (including doctors) concerned that someone is driving when unfit can report them here:
It does require the person reporting to fill in their details, but these are not passed onto the driver. The DVLA will assess whether someone is fit, and withdraw their licence. Of course this doesn't stop people driving without a licence.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
You haven't a clue have you
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
I'm sorry G. The fact she rails against these measures because of her loss of independence counts not a jot when she takes out someone's child, grandchild, parent or grandparent in her out of control one tonne killing machine. When my late father's eye sight became poor I spoke with the optician and his license was revoked.
That is the argument we are making but she has passed the eye test and the doctor will not stop her driving and believe me the neighbours want her stopped but she lives alone and her son is abroad though comes to see her regularly
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
So Kwasi says Alex Boyd said that an unnamed advisor said that Truss was considering cutting cancer treatment on the NHS. How would one even go about 'cutting cancer treatment on the NHS'? Loathsome drivel. I really pity Kwarteng that he's reduced to slagging off his former employer and close associate as a some sort of pseudo-career. It's like a poundshop version of Prince Harry.
Yeah.
There’s no NHS Cancer Treatment On/Off stop button.
So you’d have to try and tell all the trusts to stop. The first thing they’d do after making sure it wasn’t a prank call, is say no. And call all the lawyers.
Err, did the Tory government ever try to implement impossible policies that sounded like prank calls and were stopped by the lawyers. Unfortunately on a monthly basis.......
You could cut the NHS budget by 5% and leave trusts to sort out what to cut, there would be zero need or indeed mechanism by which you could target 'cancer treatment', and the only reason such a bizarre concept has been dreamed up is to smear the Truss Government. The fact the Independent published it, and that avowedly intelligent people have given it airtime on PB is proof that Truss derangement syndrome is real and dangerous.
There is only one here with Truss Deranged Syndrome that is the only one here defending her time as PM which is regarded by nearly all as being disastrous, even most Tories. If the cap fits.
She just about managed to hold her own book up to camera with the correct side facing forward, eventually, and only a bit upside down.
I don't know how you can think she was, just possibly, not that great.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
You haven't a clue have you
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
In law it is the drivers responsibility to determine if they are fit to drive.
Anyone (including doctors) concerned that someone is driving when unfit can report them here:
It does require the person reporting to fill in their details, but these are not passed onto the driver. The DVLA will assess whether someone is fit, and withdraw their licence. Of course this doesn't stop people driving without a licence.
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
Kwarteng is enjoying his revenge, served as cold as an iceberg at the North Pole.
Possible, but Kwarteng all but confirms the story is true, but he doesn't come out of it well.
Truss - We need to find savings! Civil service - We could cut cancer treatment? Truss - Have you lost your mind?
Headline: TRUSS CONSIDERED CUTTING CANCER TREATMENT
Not what the article says, but yeah.
I have no idea if the story stacks up but one named individual, Alex Boyd, was quoted directly and the story was corroborated separately by the Independent with another, Kwasi Kwarteng. More on-the-record than is usual with this kind of gossip.
Are you actually trying to embarrass yourself still further? Read the story. Alex Boyd himself 'was told' that 'Truss and Kwarteng were thinking' by an unnamed individual who had him/herself 'been told' about it. The original alleged idea is 3 degrees of separation away from the teller of it, and Kwarteng himself has denied that he and Liz Truss discussed anything of the kind.
It's admirable that nothing you write ever embarrasses you.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
You haven't a clue have you
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
I'm sorry G. The fact she rails against these measures because of her loss of independence counts not a jot when she takes out someone's child, grandchild, parent or grandparent in her out of control one tonne killing machine. When my late father's eye sight became poor I spoke with the optician and his license was revoked.
That is the argument we are making but she has passed the eye test and the doctor will not stop her driving and believe me the neighbours want her stopped but she lives alone and her son is abroad though comes to see her regularly
I wonder how the GP would feel about his child on a zebra crossing as this menace passes?
Sometime you feel like a nut . . . and sometimes you don't. Rogers being a true nutter's nut.
There's sometimes a belief that many in the GOP are not sincere in aping Trump, many might not even like him but they know that they would be destroyed if they did not back him and emulate him, and I'm sure that is true for several of them. But it also means that sometimes people assume some of the crazier representatives or candidates are putting it on, they do not really mean what they say or do that much.
But I think they do. You get extremists on left or right who believe what they say, and you will get nutters who believe what they say, it isn't a strategy - assuming it is may cost the GOP several winnable seats, as the more compromisingly nutter candidates cannot rein it in and lack Trump's unique blend of charisma and bluster that has such a hold on the base.
I agree with him about the pointlessness of changing to a hemicycle, it's one of those ideas which is floated as leading to some grand change which is just nonsense, but his final response is definitely only one an ex-MP would make.
Very odd, has he forgotten Mr Heseltine and the Mace?
The Houses of Parliament need serious money spent - I've seen £10 billion quoted - on repair and refurbishment. This could mean MPs decamping for up to six years to Richmond House but there is an opportunity to try something different. Many other legislative chambers are less adversarial in shape than the House of Commons.
Could political culture be affected by environment?
I have a vague memory of JRM saying it was unacceptable for MPs to move out while the works were done on the building. Which doubled or quadrupled the cost.
It's hard to imagine an effective modern legislature who had to sit in different seats for a bit. Madness to even consider it really.
Imagine the chaos if people had to sit in a different room? Possibly several hundred yards from where they normally sat. I mean, really!
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
You haven't a clue have you
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
I'm sorry G. The fact she rails against these measures because of her loss of independence counts not a jot when she takes out someone's child, grandchild, parent or grandparent in her out of control one tonne killing machine. When my late father's eye sight became poor I spoke with the optician and his license was revoked.
That is the argument we are making but she has passed the eye test and the doctor will not stop her driving and believe me the neighbours want her stopped but she lives alone and her son is abroad though comes to see her regularly
I wonder how the GP would feel about his child on a zebra crossing as this menace passes?
Maybe @Foxy can explain the responsibility of the GP in these circumstances as we are all amazed they have not told her or her son she is unfit to drive
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy, book claims:
Liz Truss considered scrapping all NHS cancer treatment after crashing economy. In the immediate aftermath of the mini-Budget, Ms Truss and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, launched a desperate attempt to find spending cuts in an effort to restore stock-market confidence in their strategy.
A group of Ms Truss’s Tory aides met to discuss the issue. One of her senior advisers, Alex Boyd, “was told that Truss and Kwarteng were thinking they could still sort out the black hole with severe cuts”: “We’ve been told that they’re looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS.” ....
"She’s shouting at everyone that ‘We’ve got to find the money.’ When we tell her it can’t be done, she shouts back: ‘It’s not true. The money is there. You go and find it,’” ...
Speaking to The Independent, Mr Kwarteng said: “I wasn’t involved in any conversations about restricting healthcare, but that doesn’t mean the prime minister and her team didn’t discuss this.”
Kwarteng is enjoying his revenge, served as cold as an iceberg at the North Pole.
Possible, but Kwarteng all but confirms the story is true, but he doesn't come out of it well.
Truss - We need to find savings! Civil service - We could cut cancer treatment? Truss - Have you lost your mind?
Headline: TRUSS CONSIDERED CUTTING CANCER TREATMENT
Not what the article says, but yeah.
I have no idea if the story stacks up but one named individual, Alex Boyd, was quoted directly and the story was corroborated separately by the Independent with another, Kwasi Kwarteng. More on-the-record than is usual with this kind of gossip.
Are you actually trying to embarrass yourself still further? Read the story. Alex Boyd himself 'was told' that 'Truss and Kwarteng were thinking' by an unnamed individual who had him/herself 'been told' about it. The original alleged idea is 3 degrees of separation away from the teller of it, and Kwarteng himself has denied that he and Liz Truss discussed anything of the kind.
It's admirable that nothing you write ever embarrasses you.
I suppose the embarrassment I feel for you ramping this strange - "Alex Boyd told me, that someone told him, that someone told her, that someone was thinking about doing this." brainfart has left the well rather dry.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
You haven't a clue have you
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
Tough. You have a responsibility to the rest of your community. It's how people end up dead, including a toddler in Edinburgh.
And I do have a clue - precisely the same battle happened in my family.
You seem to think it is me in this story
It is not my mother and we with all the neighbours have done everything possible to stop her driving, as has her son but the doctor has not instructed her not to drive
You admit it was a battle in your family and so you prove my point - it is not simple as you put it
I'm not suggesting you do something.
But it is simple. You nick the keys. The police aren't going to make a fuss - saves them hosing down the aftermath of a collision.
I agree with him about the pointlessness of changing to a hemicycle, it's one of those ideas which is floated as leading to some grand change which is just nonsense, but his final response is definitely only one an ex-MP would make.
Very odd, has he forgotten Mr Heseltine and the Mace?
The Houses of Parliament need serious money spent - I've seen £10 billion quoted - on repair and refurbishment. This could mean MPs decamping for up to six years to Richmond House but there is an opportunity to try something different. Many other legislative chambers are less adversarial in shape than the House of Commons.
Could political culture be affected by environment?
I have a vague memory of JRM saying it was unacceptable for MPs to move out while the works were done on the building. Which doubled or quadrupled the cost.
It's hard to imagine an effective modern legislature who had to sit in different seats for a bit. Madness to even consider it really.
Imagine the chaos if people had to sit in a different room? Possibly several hundred yards from where they normally sat. I mean, really!
£20-40bn well spent, I say!
Turns out rich people are amazingly good at spending other people’s money. Who would have thought it?
I agree with him about the pointlessness of changing to a hemicycle, it's one of those ideas which is floated as leading to some grand change which is just nonsense, but his final response is definitely only one an ex-MP would make.
Very odd, has he forgotten Mr Heseltine and the Mace?
The Houses of Parliament need serious money spent - I've seen £10 billion quoted - on repair and refurbishment. This could mean MPs decamping for up to six years to Richmond House but there is an opportunity to try something different. Many other legislative chambers are less adversarial in shape than the House of Commons.
Could political culture be affected by environment?
Having enough seats for all the legislators (HoC anyway) would be a considerable improvement.
Mr Cameron proposed easing the seat shortage by 8%, but it was never enacted.
When the place inevitably burns down because they won't spend money on refurbishing it (it will never be popular and will only get more expensive) they can try many different things I am sure. I wouldn't want to reduce too much, but 500 is plenty.
But I find the premise that the shape of the chamber has that much impact on the political culture to be unlikely, I don't think architecture has that much of an impact over other issues unless there's spikes on all the seats jabbing into everyone's bums making them angry all the time.
Though I do recall an article about what are apparently the just 5 types:
To be fair, I have always thought one reason why he reacted so badly to losing mahoosively in 2020 was because he had been rigging the election and couldn't believe he was so unpopular it had still failed.
A bit like Mugabe in 2008, who rigged the ballot on an epic scale and still came second (although enough to force a runoff during which he literally beat the opposition into submission).
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
You haven't a clue have you
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
Tough. You have a responsibility to the rest of your community. It's how people end up dead, including a toddler in Edinburgh.
And I do have a clue - precisely the same battle happened in my family.
You seem to think it is me in this story
It is not my mother and we with all the neighbours have done everything possible to stop her driving, as has her son but the doctor has not instructed her not to drive
You admit it was a battle in your family and so you prove my point - it is not simple as you put it
I'm not suggesting you do something.
But it is simple. You nick the keys. The police aren't going to make a fuss - saves them housing down the aftermath of a collision.
Are you suggesting I nick her keys.
I would say her son took the keys away and she completely lost it and obtained new keys when he left
Ultimately her GP needs to act and believe you me everyone would be relieved
I agree with him about the pointlessness of changing to a hemicycle, it's one of those ideas which is floated as leading to some grand change which is just nonsense, but his final response is definitely only one an ex-MP would make.
Very odd, has he forgotten Mr Heseltine and the Mace?
The Houses of Parliament need serious money spent - I've seen £10 billion quoted - on repair and refurbishment. This could mean MPs decamping for up to six years to Richmond House but there is an opportunity to try something different. Many other legislative chambers are less adversarial in shape than the House of Commons.
Could political culture be affected by environment?
I have a vague memory of JRM saying it was unacceptable for MPs to move out while the works were done on the building. Which doubled or quadrupled the cost.
It's hard to imagine an effective modern legislature who had to sit in different seats for a bit. Madness to even consider it really.
Imagine the chaos if people had to sit in a different room? Possibly several hundred yards from where they normally sat. I mean, really!
£20-40bn well spent, I say!
Quite. One of the many reasons JRM was a t#£t. Now the new leader of the house can potentially accelerate the process, if the contracts currently signed are flexible enough. If not... then 20 years grind ahead.
"Wheelchair-bound driver, 96, becomes oldest woman in Britain to admit death by dangerous driving after she killed pensioner, 76, and injured pedestrian, 80, with her Vauxhall Corsa"
One benefit of 15-minute cities is they can help with the loss of independence that comes with losing the ability to drive (safely).
Nobody should be driving at 96.
Jeez.
I've met 90-year olds setting up anchors on Curved Ridge. That's the problem - some people keep going fine until they drop dead.
There was a 102-year-old skydiving a few days ago.
As a copilot, with an instructor.
We all need to have that chat with our parents at some point, and it’s really not an easy call to make if they rely on the car for daily life.
For many, driving means independence when they are young, and when they are old. Giving up on that is not easy - and when you are old, I fear it may be the start of, or hasten, the decline.
We have a neighbour in her late 80s who certainly has dementia and her son has tried to take her car keys off her and she absolutely lost it. She lives alone and all her neighbours know she should not be driving but apparently her son is powerless no matter the doctors have recommended she is persuaded not to drive
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Simple - sell the car or hide the keys. Forget her reaction, think about the lives you could save. It would stay with you for life.
You haven't a clue have you
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
Tough. You have a responsibility to the rest of your community. It's how people end up dead, including a toddler in Edinburgh.
And I do have a clue - precisely the same battle happened in my family.
You seem to think it is me in this story
It is not my mother and we with all the neighbours have done everything possible to stop her driving, as has her son but the doctor has not instructed her not to drive
You admit it was a battle in your family and so you prove my point - it is not simple as you put it
I'm not suggesting you do something.
But it is simple. You nick the keys.
Now I'm puzzled. You say you're not suggesting BigG do something, then you suggest he - does something. Moreover, something highly illegal.
To be fair, I have always thought one reason why he reacted so badly to losing mahoosively in 2020 was because he had been rigging the election and couldn't believe he was so unpopular it had still failed.
A bit like Mugabe in 2008, who rigged the ballot on an epic scale and still came second (although enough to force a runoff during which he literally beat the opposition into submission).
I think he was truly broken by not winning 2020, and not being able to bully or bluster his way to winning regardless. His rants on the subject go well beyond what is needed to rally his base, they have long since been persuaded, and he gets fuzzy on the details a lot.
Comments
By comparison, John Major got 33% of the electorate in 1992.
He's trying to replay what the coalition did after they won in 2010. Firstly, because he's been told it worked, and, secondly, for the lolz but it won't because the circumstances are entirely different this time.
We don't have a 11%+ budget deficit coming in with an overspend of over £150bn per year with sovereign debt crises kicking off all over Europe, needing an emergency budget, nor a previous administration who gave every impression the problem would sort itself out - including with a comedy note. Virtually the first thing he did is expand his "black hole" by spunking cash on public sector pay deals, no questions asked, so it doesn't pass the sniff test. The public know it.
Everyone can see this for what it is: Starmer kept quiet about his true plans during the election campaign and now plans to try and blame the Conservatives for the tax rises and spending he'd secretly planned all along.
It won't wash. And it won't be popular.
We need growth which means identifying how on earth to grow an economy (via productivity improvements???) while not spending too much doing so...
But if we are talking public sector pay increases - remember my viewpoint is that it was that (unavoidably) pay rise which is why the election ended up being in July. Because not implementing the pay rises would have had a significant political cost and implementing them would have made the Autumn even harder for Rishi / Hunt to prepare for an election.
Meanwhile, good news for Trump 2024 watchers. This morning he is denouncing the then Govt for rigging the 2020 election - which means he thinks that he himself rigged the election against himself! Frankly given how he ran the US Govt in 2017-21 he might be right - they were that bad!
Check out his Detroit speech yesterday - even Gabbard turning up couldn't lift his energy after the first few minutes. I wondered how long this 78-year old could sustain his campaign blitz and it seems the answer was just less than one day. However, I shall keep an eye open for any new developments
This sounds like the sort of stupid statements you would hear as soon as you ask how could you cut the NHS budget by 5%. If it was alongside a news story that week of an expensive new cancer treatment you can see stupid ideas being mentioned..
The simple truth is that there isn't much fat left to cut. Cut the admin staff and make me the worlds most expensive clinic coordinator if you like, but not financially sensible.
I hope the police investigating the 96-year-old subject of the above article interviewed the doctor who signed her off as fit to drive.
She has been known to park her car in town and forget where it is and come home on the bus and it only came to her sons attention tge first time when the local authority sent a parking penalty fine
He does track it but it is a horrible problem and one that hopefully will end soon with the DVLA withdrawal of her licence on health grounds but goodness only knows how she will react
Already past deadline for some "submarine ballots" going out to, for example, crews of Trident subs crusing the Seven Seas.
I’ve visited North Carolinian Appalachia before, and will be returning that way this trip, and also stayed in the Virginia mountains. This is the first time in WV. The scenery and interplay between physical and human geography in Appalachia is probably the most attractive in the US; you can see that these areas have been settled for a relatively long time. But they’ve still spoiled all the ‘urban’ bits. Rural WV is very photogenic. But there are also a lot of people living in caravans, trailers, or small wooden or tin shacks, so the poverty is also evident. People are friendly and welcoming but not minded to do anything in any sort of a hurry. The only way to buy water is to go pick it off the shelf yourself; asking for it in a British accent just receives blank looks of complete incomprehension, however many times you repeat yourself.
The media (and collective public consciousness) really need to get beyond this idea that 'cancer' is a single illness. It is a convenient all-inclusive term for a very large, diverse family of different conditions of differing levels of seriousness that respond in vastly different ways to myriad different treatment regimes (at various price points).dddd
Some treatments for certain types of cancer are very cost-effective and typically offer an excellent prognosis.
Other treatments for other cancers are experimental, unproven, generally ineffective and hugely expensive.
And others fall somewhere in between the two extremes.
If one were to look at the NHS budget objectively (without giving too much weight to 'optics') there will almost certainly
be certain cancer treatments that should be cut, just as there will be others that it would be abject madness to scrap, and still others that probably justify an increased share of the funding pie.
But that's not a good headline, is it?
You're out of your cotton-picking mind unless you think ANY recount is stupid by definition.
Struggling to understand your insistance that speed! speed! speed! trumps (ahem) accuracy. Am assuming your point is far more ideological and/or retorical, than factual and/or logical.
During which 1000s of court cases could be triggered arguing over almost individual votes..
But the side effects were substantial.
OR do you mean via a water dispensor for a container? Think that's less available in many rural and small town locations throughout USA.
ADDENDUM - BTW the New River Gorge Bridge has an annual day when bunge jumping is legal.
* Turned out it had been sat at the far end of Tesco car park for a month... No one picked it up or sent a fine because the cameras worked on time of departure and the car never departed...
If we look at private healthcare and private education, they show that people are prepared to pay more for services with the fat left on, thank you.
As for "abolish cancer treatment", it wouldn't surprise me that much if it came out of a "yes and ho" brainstorm, and that everyone was so focused on cutting spending that nobody dared say "but that's nuts".
But Seldon has built up a reputation for telling true stories about Prime Ministers- would he really trash that to include some poorly-researched inaccuracies about Truss?
The mentality is “we’ve got weeks to do this”, and so it ends up taking weeks, which destroys trust in the result and leads to legal challenges where the outcome is close.
The US is as much of an outlier when it comes to election results, as it is when it comes to healthcare costs or gun ownership.
BTW and FYI, Donald Trump is a BIG fan of Maduro AND his speedy efficiency.
I have no idea if the story stacks up but one named individual, Alex Boyd, was quoted directly and the story was corroborated separately by the Independent with another, Kwasi Kwarteng. More on-the-record than is usual with this kind of gossip.
Conservatives should be quietly grateful that Starmer seems willing to do the dirty work that they have failed to do to bring tax and spend back to some sort of realistic balance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDyq95F49BQ
It's a shame that a self-proclaimed high-IQ writer could not capture such emotions about his own visits...
So while you are right about the public awareness of this, and I see it all the time, even with other cancer patients (I have leukemia in 2012 and my very specific treatment is for only one variant of leukaemia -APML) who assume everyone has the same treatment.
One of the issues going forward is personalized treatment, such as CAR-T treatments based on the genetics of each case. It looks like this will be transformative, as does cancer immunology, but it's hugely expensive. Far cheaper to throw big standard cus platin at the issue and hope for the best, and keep other treatments for 2nd and 3rd line.
It's also easy to say we shouldn't spend say £20000 to give an elderly man 3-6 more months of life, but less easy when it's denying a father the chance to meet his first grandchild, for instance.
There is nothing simple dealing with a dementia mother living on her own who will have spare keys or will just buy another car
Her son lives away and she is entirely on her own and has been told countless times not to drive but becomes abusive and is tormented by the idea she will lose her independence
It is a matter ultimately for the son and doctors to deal with
You say "medics" here but I think you mean social services rather than doctors?
I'd probably want a rope these days and I'm a fair way off 90!
I'm assuming this 90 year old was Creag Dhu and probably did some more "some stuff" in the past. Seriously good going, anyway.
I don't think even the Trump camp are that stupid, but...
You'd have massively strikes, and lots leaving the profession, but it's a political choice that's available.
Greece didn't do dissimilar in the depths of its crisis.
https://x.com/tbonier/status/1828457890228629534
That suggests current polling might be underestimating the Harris vote.
However, if the Conservatives had been re-elected I don't doubt that a pay settlement would have been reached. But, it would not be at the levels we saw by Starmer in July, and there would have been strings attached on productivity and reform.
Unions and their members cannot strike indefinitely or they will continue to get either no pay or strike pay plus no pay rise at all.
That would have been a death sentence for some people - it’s not that long ago that a relative was on a life-saving cancer treatment (a real one that actually worked) that cost ~£40k / year. (It’s since gone off patent, so costs much less these days.)
Imagine telling someone like him that you’re going to let him die because the government had to make savings /this/ year, even when the patent life might only be another two or three years & the lifetime return on keeping a highly paid worker around for the rest of his working life vastly exceeded the short term cost.
It’s astonishing that they ever thought this was a viable policy - if this story is true.
And I do have a clue - precisely the same battle happened in my family.
(I'm not suggesting you do it, obviously)
https://www.churchhouseconf.co.uk/about-us/history/
grandparent in her out of control one tonne killing machine. When my late father's eye sight became poor I spoke with the optician and his license was revoked.
It is not my mother and we with all the neighbours have done everything possible to stop her driving, as has her son but the doctor has not instructed her not to drive
You admit it was a battle in your family and so you prove my point - it is not simple as you put it
Slalom Sir Keir is sliding all over the shop, and missing a few gates
Anyone (including doctors) concerned that someone is driving when unfit can report them here:
https://contact.dvla.gov.uk/driver/capture-third-party-personal-information?locale=en
It does require the person reporting to fill in their details, but these are not passed onto the driver. The DVLA will assess whether someone is fit, and withdraw their licence. Of course this doesn't stop people driving without a licence.
I don't know how you can think she was, just possibly, not that great.
That means it was your own White House, dumbass. You were president in 2020!
https://x.com/acnewsitics/status/1828439343976919357
Does Trump even know what year it is anymore ?
The idea of this being so strongly paired with Oppenheimer is another out-of-body experience...
But I think they do. You get extremists on left or right who believe what they say, and you will get nutters who believe what they say, it isn't a strategy - assuming it is may cost the GOP several winnable seats, as the more compromisingly nutter candidates cannot rein it in and lack Trump's unique blend of charisma and bluster that has such a hold on the base.
It's hard to imagine an effective modern legislature who had to sit in different seats for a bit. Madness to even consider it really.
Imagine the chaos if people had to sit in a different room? Possibly several hundred yards from where they normally sat. I mean, really!
£20-40bn well spent, I say!
But it is simple. You nick the keys. The police aren't going to make a fuss - saves them hosing down the aftermath of a collision.
But I find the premise that the shape of the chamber has that much impact on the political culture to be unlikely, I don't think architecture has that much of an impact over other issues unless there's spikes on all the seats jabbing into everyone's bums making them angry all the time.
Though I do recall an article about what are apparently the just 5 types:
Semicircle
Opposing
Horsehshow
Circle
Classroom
https://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/blog/parliaments-around-the-world-what-can-architecture-teach-us-about-democracy
Which is how the incumbent got the job in the first place.
A bit like Mugabe in 2008, who rigged the ballot on an epic scale and still came second (although enough to force a runoff during which he literally beat the opposition into submission).
I would say her son took the keys away and she completely lost it and obtained new keys when he left
Ultimately her GP needs to act and believe you me everyone would be relieved