Every time something happened which we were told would dent Trump's popularity, like 6th January, I thought to myself this isn't going to make much difference to his level of support: because people aren't voting for him for positive reasons. It's almost entirely a protest vote. The only way to reduce his support is by tackling the root causes of the problems in the US.
They dont care that Trumps an a.sehole. They just hate the liberal elites and want to hurt them.
I believe you are correct and they are mainly unhappy people that are unable to do anything about making themselves content and will always play the blame game. They need to look at themselves and see where they can make improvements to their personality and improve their mental health which definitely needs rebalancing.
You are talking about at least 45% of the us population. This isnt some tiny minority.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
Now get the oldies and poor to accept they'll get fewer handouts.
The rich and property owners to accept they'll have to pay higher taxes.
And the workers to accept that they'll have to work longer and increase productivity.
Ministers are to take take a direct role in overseeing the building of the HS2 rail line to try to "get a grip" on the rising cost of the high speed route between London and Birmingham.
The government also confirmed it will not reinstate previous plans to run the high-speed line to Crewe and Manchester, which were scrapped under the previous Conservative government.
I'm having a strong premonition that taking a 'direct role' to 'get a grip' on things will lead to some arbitrary changes and decisions which either increases costs further or causes entirely forseeable problems as a result. Or both.
Is that based on what happens. every single time, politicians decide they are going to intervene to fix things?
NHS IT system waves....
And promptly breaks? I mean, I bet the system has problems with handshaking, never mind waving.
It's gradually evolving into the modern era.
I don't use paper notes anymore, though outpatient prescriptions and pathology requests are still on paper.
All imaging, referrals, clinical notes and inpatient prescribing is electronic, as is communication with GPs.
Admittedly these are on seperate software so need multiple tabs open, but it all works, and these are gradually being merged into one system, so evolution rather than revolution.
Outpatient appointment booking is on a rather archaic HISS system that antedates my time in the NHS I think, but that too is shortly to be integrated into the overall system.
The biggest problem is the slowness of bandwidth on the terminals and hospital WiFi, but these too are gradually improving.
The problems come when the hospital servers fail, as it did for a couple of hours midweek, and we had to down tools for the duration as unable to access any records or imaging.
There is also the assumption that all patients have a smartphone, it seems that the software engineers assume every granny has one. It seems that is Streetings assumption too:
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
Ministers are to take take a direct role in overseeing the building of the HS2 rail line to try to "get a grip" on the rising cost of the high speed route between London and Birmingham.
The government also confirmed it will not reinstate previous plans to run the high-speed line to Crewe and Manchester, which were scrapped under the previous Conservative government.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
If the US is simultaneously backing out of Nato, the financial cost of letting Ukraine go sounds much worse, because now the EU needs an army to keep victorious Russia out of the rest of ex-Soviet Europe, and the Russian side includes the military machine that Ukraine has built as well.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
Exactly. Why exactly would we get heavily involved? It is a scandal that we're as heavily involved as we are. David Lammy lobbing them £600 million without any benefit to even our arms industry was surely the nadir.
Ministers are to take take a direct role in overseeing the building of the HS2 rail line to try to "get a grip" on the rising cost of the high speed route between London and Birmingham.
The government also confirmed it will not reinstate previous plans to run the high-speed line to Crewe and Manchester, which were scrapped under the previous Conservative government.
I'm having a strong premonition that taking a 'direct role' to 'get a grip' on things will lead to some arbitrary changes and decisions which either increases costs further or causes entirely forseeable problems as a result. Or both.
Is that based on what happens. every single time, politicians decide they are going to intervene to fix things?
NHS IT system waves....
And promptly breaks? I mean, I bet the system has problems with handshaking, never mind waving.
It's gradually evolving into the modern era.
I don't use paper notes anymore, though outpatient prescriptions and pathology requests are still on paper.
All imaging, referrals, clinical notes and inpatient prescribing is electronic, as is communication with GPs.
Admittedly these are on seperate software so need multiple tabs open, but it all works, and these are gradually being merged into one system, so evolution rather than revolution.
Outpatient appointment booking is on a rather archaic HISS system that antedates my time in the NHS I think, but that too is shortly to be integrated into the overall system.
The biggest problem is the slowness of bandwidth on the terminals and hospital WiFi, but these too are gradually improving.
The problems come when the hospital servers fail, as it did for a couple of hours midweek, and we had to down tools for the duration as unable to access any records or imaging.
There is also the assumption that all patients have a smartphone, it seems that the software engineers assume every granny has one. It seems that is Streetings assumption too:
That still doesn't exactly sound modern or cutting edge. In the time the NHS IT system has been worked on, 20+ years now, companies have managed to make similar transitions in a few years. Even small businesses can just buy most of that tech stack off the shelf, let alone when you see a big modern organisation not only runs, but speed of development e.g. Amazon. Yes its more complicated with health, but still.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
Pretty damn sure that the Poles and the Baltic states won't feel that way. Don't think we should either. But getting to a Sunday morning is an excellent effort. Don't spoil it now.
Every time something happened which we were told would dent Trump's popularity, like 6th January, I thought to myself this isn't going to make much difference to his level of support: because people aren't voting for him for positive reasons. It's almost entirely a protest vote. The only way to reduce his support is by tackling the root causes of the problems in the US.
They dont care that Trumps an a.sehole. They just hate the liberal elites and want to hurt them.
I believe you are correct and they are mainly unhappy people that are unable to do anything about making themselves content and will always play the blame game. They need to look at themselves and see where they can make improvements to their personality and improve their mental health which definitely needs rebalancing.
You are talking about at least 45% of the us population. This isnt some tiny minority.
We know in the last Trump election 52% of the voters eligible to vote did so. 48% of the electorate did not do. What is their state of mind? Have some of them given up on life and feel nobody will listen to them? America has a very high rate of depression and this benefits the pharmaceutical companies. The solution involves doing what many people in denial refuse to do. Taking a long cold hard look at yourself and being realistic about the state of your personality and making some changes to it which will help live a happier life. Some people are afraid of doing this. Family and having a support network helps people a lot as does exercise and enjoying the simple things. Perhaps we can learn from the communities that live on some Japanese and Greek islands. They also have a healthy diet and no takeaways!
Ministers are to take take a direct role in overseeing the building of the HS2 rail line to try to "get a grip" on the rising cost of the high speed route between London and Birmingham.
The government also confirmed it will not reinstate previous plans to run the high-speed line to Crewe and Manchester, which were scrapped under the previous Conservative government.
I'm having a strong premonition that taking a 'direct role' to 'get a grip' on things will lead to some arbitrary changes and decisions which either increases costs further or causes entirely forseeable problems as a result. Or both.
Is that based on what happens. every single time, politicians decide they are going to intervene to fix things?
NHS IT system waves....
And promptly breaks? I mean, I bet the system has problems with handshaking, never mind waving.
It's gradually evolving into the modern era.
I don't use paper notes anymore, though outpatient prescriptions and pathology requests are still on paper.
All imaging, referrals, clinical notes and inpatient prescribing is electronic, as is communication with GPs.
Admittedly these are on seperate software so need multiple tabs open, but it all works, and these are gradually being merged into one system, so evolution rather than revolution.
Outpatient appointment booking is on a rather archaic HISS system that antedates my time in the NHS I think, but that too is shortly to be integrated into the overall system.
The biggest problem is the slowness of bandwidth on the terminals and hospital WiFi, but these too are gradually improving.
The problems come when the hospital servers fail, as it did for a couple of hours midweek, and we had to down tools for the duration as unable to access any records or imaging.
There is also the assumption that all patients have a smartphone, it seems that the software engineers assume every granny has one. It seems that is Streetings assumption too:
That still doesn't exactly sound modern or cutting edge. In the time the NHS IT system has been worked on, 20+ years now, companies have managed to make similar transitions in a few years. Even small businesses can just buy most of that tech stack off the shelf, let alone when you see a big modern organisation not only runs, but speed of development e.g. Amazon. Yes its more complicated with health, but still.
It's progress, and health systems are very complex, particularly because of the legacy systems that they have to incorporate, as well as all systems being live.
The NHS IT is far better than the systems at either private hospital in Leicester.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
Pretty damn sure that the Poles and the Baltic states won't feel that way. Don't think we should either. But getting to a Sunday morning is an excellent effort. Don't spoil it now.
And the Germans. What is their point of view about this matter?
My eldest son has just received a tax refund from HMRC by cheque
I haven't seen a cheque for ages
Why do they not make a direct payment into the taxpayers bank account
Another outdated idea still beiing used by a government department
We pay the milkman by cheque every week.
I get several cheques per week from private patients, though now the majority transfer directly.
I haven't written a cheque in years but particularly the older generation still do.
Cheques are far, far better than cash. Any decent banking app will let you photograph the cheque and it will go into your account immediately. Can’t do that with cash, which has to be converted to proper digital money at a physical premises. Rubbish!
Ministers are to take take a direct role in overseeing the building of the HS2 rail line to try to "get a grip" on the rising cost of the high speed route between London and Birmingham.
The government also confirmed it will not reinstate previous plans to run the high-speed line to Crewe and Manchester, which were scrapped under the previous Conservative government.
I'm having a strong premonition that taking a 'direct role' to 'get a grip' on things will lead to some arbitrary changes and decisions which either increases costs further or causes entirely forseeable problems as a result. Or both.
Is that based on what happens. every single time, politicians decide they are going to intervene to fix things?
NHS IT system waves....
And promptly breaks? I mean, I bet the system has problems with handshaking, never mind waving.
It's gradually evolving into the modern era.
I don't use paper notes anymore, though outpatient prescriptions and pathology requests are still on paper.
All imaging, referrals, clinical notes and inpatient prescribing is electronic, as is communication with GPs.
Admittedly these are on seperate software so need multiple tabs open, but it all works, and these are gradually being merged into one system, so evolution rather than revolution.
Outpatient appointment booking is on a rather archaic HISS system that antedates my time in the NHS I think, but that too is shortly to be integrated into the overall system.
The biggest problem is the slowness of bandwidth on the terminals and hospital WiFi, but these too are gradually improving.
The problems come when the hospital servers fail, as it did for a couple of hours midweek, and we had to down tools for the duration as unable to access any records or imaging.
There is also the assumption that all patients have a smartphone, it seems that the software engineers assume every granny has one. It seems that is Streetings assumption too:
That still doesn't exactly sound modern or cutting edge. In the time the NHS IT system has been worked on, 20+ years now, companies have managed to make similar transitions in a few years. Even small businesses can just buy most of that tech stack off the shelf, let alone when you see a big modern organisation not only runs, but speed of development e.g. Amazon. Yes its more complicated with health, but still.
It's progress, and health systems are very complex, particularly because of the legacy systems that they have to incorporate, as well as all systems being live.
The NHS IT is far better than the systems at either private hospital in Leicester.
The rate of progress is so slow, you basically never catching up with the curve of progress, if in 25 years still not have a fully digitised system, proper networking, etc. It was a huge missed opportunity as the money was there to do it.
Every time something happened which we were told would dent Trump's popularity, like 6th January, I thought to myself this isn't going to make much difference to his level of support: because people aren't voting for him for positive reasons. It's almost entirely a protest vote. The only way to reduce his support is by tackling the root causes of the problems in the US.
They dont care that Trumps an a.sehole. They just hate the liberal elites and want to hurt them.
I believe you are correct and they are mainly unhappy people that are unable to do anything about making themselves content and will always play the blame game. They need to look at themselves and see where they can make improvements to their personality and improve their mental health which definitely needs rebalancing.
You are talking about at least 45% of the us population. This isnt some tiny minority.
We know in the last Trump election 52% of the voters eligible to vote did so. 48% of the electorate did not do. What is their state of mind? Have some of them given up on life and feel nobody will listen to them? America has a very high rate of depression and this benefits the pharmaceutical companies. The solution involves doing what many people in denial refuse to do. Taking a long cold hard look at yourself and being realistic about the state of your personality and making some changes to it which will help live a happier life. Some people are afraid of doing this. Family and having a support network helps people a lot as does exercise and enjoying the simple things. Perhaps we can learn from the communities that live on some Japanese and Greek islands. They also have a healthy diet and no takeaways!
In many states it isn't worth voting. It's like "safe seats" here.
The low turnout in July was particularly in Labour "safe seats" which no-one expected to flip Tory, so why bother voting?
We have different political opinions but I think that is true.
Take NC and the early voting data - it's a fallacy to read too much into this but the Democrat party registration advantage should be more even at this stage given their huge advantage in mail-in ballots and the percentage of Black voters voting early looks below the state average:
Are we saying that a handful of tyrants who run a few powerful countries have carted blanche to do exactly what they want to do and nothing can be done about it?It sounds like Hitler and Stalin revisited. In their own countries will the masses do nothing about it? I refer to Russia for example or on a different note the rich and powerful. If they decide to replace certain leaders are they incapable of doing do so?
Are we saying that a handful of tyrants who run a few powerful countries have carted blanche to do exactly what they want to do and nothing can be done about it?It sounds like Hitler and Stalin revisited. In their own countries will the masses do nothing about it? I refer to Russia for example or on a different note the rich and powerful. If they decide to replace certain leaders are they incapable of doing do so?
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
Exactly. Why exactly would we get heavily involved? It is a scandal that we're as heavily involved as we are. David Lammy lobbing them £600 million without any benefit to even our arms industry was surely the nadir.
We are doing it because it is right to fight fascism. And if we do not fight it in Ukraine, we will be fighting it elsewhere, when Russia and its allies are stronger.
It is a simple equation: spend less blood and treasure now, or a great deal more blood and treasure later.
First Kamala Harris will be banning cows, now he's obsessed with Arnold Palmer's penis.
It doesn't matter. Elon is buying Pennsylvania for him. This is what happens when the law does not apply and is not enforced on rich people.
If Trump wins then it looks like the USA will be wholly owned by Musk.
It's the next step in his evolution into the ultimate Bond Villain.
Can you imagine the GOP furore if a billionaire Dem supporter was doing what Musk was doing in Pennsylvania.
He’s certainly putting in a full effort to swing PA, rules be damned.
PENNSYLVANIA Voters, this is for you. You will be getting flyers in the mail purporting to be from the Harris campaign promoting her 'Progress 2028' initiative. IT'S A SCAM funded by Elon Musk. Throw the flyer away! Do NOT follow the links or donate. IT'S A SCAM! https://x.com/anarie_whit/status/1847303585014702482
It’s worth considering whether this was the original plan behind buying Twitter, and had nothing to do with making it a profitable business in its own right.
My eldest son has just received a tax refund from HMRC by cheque
I haven't seen a cheque for ages
Why do they not make a direct payment into the taxpayers bank account
Another outdated idea still beiing used by a government department
If you send a cheque - especially for a relatively small amount - a not inconsiderable number of people will just not bother cashing it.
To be fair this was a four figure sum and a one off
That’s annoying but he should be able to cash it by photographing it on his banking app.
Otherwise known on TikTok as the infinite money glitch ;-)
Er, what?
There were all these idiots on TikTok writing cheques for large amounts of money (which they didn't have), paying them in using a banking app or an electronic teller and then immediately withdrawing all the money in cash, because there wasn't a hold to ensure clearance of the cheque (I think it was CHASE bank). And a load of people went and copied them.
Of course that is fraud and the banks just put them all on the hook for the money they withdrew, plus fees, fines etc.
Ministers are to take take a direct role in overseeing the building of the HS2 rail line to try to "get a grip" on the rising cost of the high speed route between London and Birmingham.
The government also confirmed it will not reinstate previous plans to run the high-speed line to Crewe and Manchester, which were scrapped under the previous Conservative government.
I'm having a strong premonition that taking a 'direct role' to 'get a grip' on things will lead to some arbitrary changes and decisions which either increases costs further or causes entirely forseeable problems as a result. Or both.
Is that based on what happens. every single time, politicians decide they are going to intervene to fix things?
NHS IT system waves....
And promptly breaks? I mean, I bet the system has problems with handshaking, never mind waving.
It's gradually evolving into the modern era.
I don't use paper notes anymore, though outpatient prescriptions and pathology requests are still on paper.
All imaging, referrals, clinical notes and inpatient prescribing is electronic, as is communication with GPs.
Admittedly these are on seperate software so need multiple tabs open, but it all works, and these are gradually being merged into one system, so evolution rather than revolution.
Outpatient appointment booking is on a rather archaic HISS system that antedates my time in the NHS I think, but that too is shortly to be integrated into the overall system.
The biggest problem is the slowness of bandwidth on the terminals and hospital WiFi, but these too are gradually improving.
The problems come when the hospital servers fail, as it did for a couple of hours midweek, and we had to down tools for the duration as unable to access any records or imaging.
There is also the assumption that all patients have a smartphone, it seems that the software engineers assume every granny has one. It seems that is Streetings assumption too:
That still doesn't exactly sound modern or cutting edge. In the time the NHS IT system has been worked on, 20+ years now, companies have managed to make similar transitions in a few years. Even small businesses can just buy most of that tech stack off the shelf, let alone when you see a big modern organisation not only runs, but speed of development e.g. Amazon. Yes its more complicated with health, but still.
Couple of years ago I had a fall in the street and an ambulance was summoned. The team had tablets on which were my details, so it's happening.
On the other hand blood tests are done at the nearest hospital, which is a different NHS area to my GP. So results have to taken from the lab and emailed to the surgery. They can't be automatically sent.
My eldest son has just received a tax refund from HMRC by cheque
I haven't seen a cheque for ages
Why do they not make a direct payment into the taxpayers bank account
Another outdated idea still beiing used by a government department
If you send a cheque - especially for a relatively small amount - a not inconsiderable number of people will just not bother cashing it.
To be fair this was a four figure sum and a one off
That’s annoying but he should be able to cash it by photographing it on his banking app.
Otherwise known on TikTok as the infinite money glitch ;-)
Er, what?
There were all these idiots on TikTok writing cheques for large amounts of money (which they didn't have), paying them in using a banking app or an electronic teller and then immediately withdrawing all the money in cash, because there wasn't a hold to ensure clearance of the cheque. And a load of people went and copied them.
Of course that is fraud and the banks just put them all on the hook for the money they withdrew, plus fees, fines etc.
Ah, I see. There truly are many morons in this world of ours!
Every time something happened which we were told would dent Trump's popularity, like 6th January, I thought to myself this isn't going to make much difference to his level of support: because people aren't voting for him for positive reasons. It's almost entirely a protest vote. The only way to reduce his support is by tackling the root causes of the problems in the US.
They dont care that Trumps an a.sehole. They just hate the liberal elites and want to hurt them.
I believe you are correct and they are mainly unhappy people that are unable to do anything about making themselves content and will always play the blame game. They need to look at themselves and see where they can make improvements to their personality and improve their mental health which definitely needs rebalancing.
You are talking about at least 45% of the us population. This isnt some tiny minority.
We know in the last Trump election 52% of the voters eligible to vote did so. 48% of the electorate did not do. What is their state of mind? Have some of them given up on life and feel nobody will listen to them? America has a very high rate of depression and this benefits the pharmaceutical companies. The solution involves doing what many people in denial refuse to do. Taking a long cold hard look at yourself and being realistic about the state of your personality and making some changes to it which will help live a happier life. Some people are afraid of doing this. Family and having a support network helps people a lot as does exercise and enjoying the simple things. Perhaps we can learn from the communities that live on some Japanese and Greek islands. They also have a healthy diet and no takeaways!
In many states it isn't worth voting. It's like "safe seats" here.
The low turnout in July was particularly in Labour "safe seats" which no-one expected to flip Tory, so why bother voting?
I understand. It makes sense. Having the power to vote and not doing so seems extremely sad. Lots of people I speak to in the UK have given up.On a different note to seat make up they tell me there is no point in voting as all politicians are the same and nothing changes. Whether they are right or not I find these people generally ignorant, miserable and depressing.
Ministers are to take take a direct role in overseeing the building of the HS2 rail line to try to "get a grip" on the rising cost of the high speed route between London and Birmingham.
The government also confirmed it will not reinstate previous plans to run the high-speed line to Crewe and Manchester, which were scrapped under the previous Conservative government.
I'm having a strong premonition that taking a 'direct role' to 'get a grip' on things will lead to some arbitrary changes and decisions which either increases costs further or causes entirely forseeable problems as a result. Or both.
Is that based on what happens. every single time, politicians decide they are going to intervene to fix things?
NHS IT system waves....
And promptly breaks? I mean, I bet the system has problems with handshaking, never mind waving.
It's gradually evolving into the modern era.
I don't use paper notes anymore, though outpatient prescriptions and pathology requests are still on paper.
All imaging, referrals, clinical notes and inpatient prescribing is electronic, as is communication with GPs.
Admittedly these are on seperate software so need multiple tabs open, but it all works, and these are gradually being merged into one system, so evolution rather than revolution.
Outpatient appointment booking is on a rather archaic HISS system that antedates my time in the NHS I think, but that too is shortly to be integrated into the overall system.
The biggest problem is the slowness of bandwidth on the terminals and hospital WiFi, but these too are gradually improving.
The problems come when the hospital servers fail, as it did for a couple of hours midweek, and we had to down tools for the duration as unable to access any records or imaging.
There is also the assumption that all patients have a smartphone, it seems that the software engineers assume every granny has one. It seems that is Streetings assumption too:
That still doesn't exactly sound modern or cutting edge. In the time the NHS IT system has been worked on, 20+ years now, companies have managed to make similar transitions in a few years. Even small businesses can just buy most of that tech stack off the shelf, let alone when you see a big modern organisation not only runs, but speed of development e.g. Amazon. Yes its more complicated with health, but still.
Couple of years ago I had a fall in the street and an ambulance was summoned. The team had tablets on which were my details, so it's happening.
On the other hand blood tests are done at the nearest hospital, which is a different NHS area to my GP. So results have to taken from the lab and emailed to the surgery. They can't be automatically sent.
Again, this has been standard for most businesses for ages, its not exactly cutting edge, its more like 2015. The ipad was released 15 years ago. Logging into to get some details is 101 stuff and only now its just starting to happen.
Yes health is complicated, but still needing 27 different tabs open to access all the different disjoint system, poor internet speeds, still requiring paper for a load of things...that is not a modern system.
First Kamala Harris will be banning cows, now he's obsessed with Arnold Palmer's penis.
It doesn't matter. Elon is buying Pennsylvania for him. This is what happens when the law does not apply and is not enforced on rich people.
If you think that’s bad now, imagine what the US will be like if Trump is elected. It’s a coin toss now; we should be contingency planning.
I’m not convinced by the “it won’t be that bad” takes.
It might have been true last time. That was before January 6th, Trump's mental decline, the ousting of any restraining influence, and a blank check to commit crimes from the Supreme Court.
There's still way too much complacency that because the system just about held up to an assault on democratic norms in 2020, that it will in 2024.
The 'we managed last time we will again' argument is just nonsense, as though history is bound to repeat itself exactly and nothing has changed.
The hysteria on here about a second Trump term is bordering on near-comical levels here. Anyone would think we are in Berlin in January 1933.
The US system is exactly set up to ensure that there is no dictatorship. And, yes, that includes the system by which every state get two Senators and you have to ensure a sufficient appeal to enough states to win a Presidential election instead of just going for the Popular Vote. Yes, you know, that system which supporters of one party on here want to get rid because it doesn't suit their candidate.
Trump's second term will be a mixture, although if the Republicans do get control of the Senate and the House this November (very likely in the first, a knife-edge on the second), maybe more will be done. But we are not heading into a Gilead-style dictatorship.
And, yes, it does look like he will win. But don't take the opinion polls for that. Look at what several of the Democrat Senatorial candidates are doing on the ground - basically backing out of even mentioning Harris when it comes to their campaigns.
Comparing a potential second administration with his first completely ignores the massive transformation in the team behind him - and the fact that last time round there were no plans. He didn’t even expect to win until the last few weeks. This time the entire GOP is onside, the old style Washington insiders are replaced by ideologues with an open contempt for democracy, and they’ve had four years to plan.
It’s increasingly evident that the Supreme Court majority is also onside with whatever they decide to do.
Ministers are to take take a direct role in overseeing the building of the HS2 rail line to try to "get a grip" on the rising cost of the high speed route between London and Birmingham.
The government also confirmed it will not reinstate previous plans to run the high-speed line to Crewe and Manchester, which were scrapped under the previous Conservative government.
I'm having a strong premonition that taking a 'direct role' to 'get a grip' on things will lead to some arbitrary changes and decisions which either increases costs further or causes entirely forseeable problems as a result. Or both.
Is that based on what happens. every single time, politicians decide they are going to intervene to fix things?
NHS IT system waves....
And promptly breaks? I mean, I bet the system has problems with handshaking, never mind waving.
It's gradually evolving into the modern era.
I don't use paper notes anymore, though outpatient prescriptions and pathology requests are still on paper.
All imaging, referrals, clinical notes and inpatient prescribing is electronic, as is communication with GPs.
Admittedly these are on seperate software so need multiple tabs open, but it all works, and these are gradually being merged into one system, so evolution rather than revolution.
Outpatient appointment booking is on a rather archaic HISS system that antedates my time in the NHS I think, but that too is shortly to be integrated into the overall system.
The biggest problem is the slowness of bandwidth on the terminals and hospital WiFi, but these too are gradually improving.
The problems come when the hospital servers fail, as it did for a couple of hours midweek, and we had to down tools for the duration as unable to access any records or imaging.
There is also the assumption that all patients have a smartphone, it seems that the software engineers assume every granny has one. It seems that is Streetings assumption too:
That still doesn't exactly sound modern or cutting edge. In the time the NHS IT system has been worked on, 20+ years now, companies have managed to make similar transitions in a few years. Even small businesses can just buy most of that tech stack off the shelf, let alone when you see a big modern organisation not only runs, but speed of development e.g. Amazon. Yes its more complicated with health, but still.
Couple of years ago I had a fall in the street and an ambulance was summoned. The team had tablets on which were my details, so it's happening.
On the other hand blood tests are done at the nearest hospital, which is a different NHS area to my GP. So results have to taken from the lab and emailed to the surgery. They can't be automatically sent.
Again, this has been standard for most businesses for ages, its not exactly cutting edge, its more like 2015. The ipad was released 15 years ago. Logging into to get some details is 101 stuff and only now its just starting to happen.
Quite. I was contrasting it with the blood test...... and X-ray ..... situation.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
If the US is simultaneously backing out of Nato, the financial cost of letting Ukraine go sounds much worse, because now the EU needs an army to keep victorious Russia out of the rest of ex-Soviet Europe, and the Russian side includes the military machine that Ukraine has built as well.
Absolutely. The strategic position of Europe would be far shakier, were Ukraine to be abandoned.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
Exactly. Why exactly would we get heavily involved? It is a scandal that we're as heavily involved as we are. David Lammy lobbing them £600 million without any benefit to even our arms industry was surely the nadir.
We are doing it because it is right to fight fascism. And if we do not fight it in Ukraine, we will be fighting it elsewhere, when Russia and its allies are stronger.
It is a simple equation: spend less blood and treasure now, or a great deal more blood and treasure later.
I would prefer to spend nothing now, and spend nothing later - *except* exploit our own energy sources so we're no longer at the whims of the oil and gas market, bolster our own defences including missile defences and our naval fleet, and reinstate a truly independent nuclear programme so we could *actually* respond to the threat of a nuclear strike. Those things would strengthen us vs. Russia or anyone else.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
If the US is simultaneously backing out of Nato, the financial cost of letting Ukraine go sounds much worse, because now the EU needs an army to keep victorious Russia out of the rest of ex-Soviet Europe, and the Russian side includes the military machine that Ukraine has built as well.
Absolutely. The strategic position of Europe would be far shakier, were Ukraine to be abandoned.
With or Without Trump I doubt the USA will abandon Nato. Their arms industry would not let them do so. We will wait and see. I cannot see it happening. Time will tell.
This BBC article re Letby contains one new (to me) assertion WRT the not calling of Dr Michael Hall; namely that it was Letby's own decision (ie not necessarily on the advice of the defence, and by implication perhaps going against that advice).
These are the words in the longish article:
But the ultimate decision not to call Dr Hall as a witness came from Letby herself – a point that Dr Hall acknowledges.
Why did she not call him? It is one of many questions that only she can answer.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
Exactly. Why exactly would we get heavily involved? It is a scandal that we're as heavily involved as we are. David Lammy lobbing them £600 million without any benefit to even our arms industry was surely the nadir.
We are doing it because it is right to fight fascism. And if we do not fight it in Ukraine, we will be fighting it elsewhere, when Russia and its allies are stronger.
It is a simple equation: spend less blood and treasure now, or a great deal more blood and treasure later.
I would prefer to spend nothing now, and spend nothing later - *except* exploit our own energy sources so we're no longer at the whims of the oil and gas market, bolster our own defences including missile defences and our naval fleet, and reinstate a truly independent nuclear programme so we could *actually* respond to the threat of a nuclear strike. Those things would strengthen us vs. Russia or anyone else.
Is this plan within NATO or outside it? Either way it will cost a bit more than nothing, either now or later.
The story Dominic Cummings told was very insightful. At the start of the pandemic, Simon Stevens had to phone around every NHS trust every day to get the numbers. He then had to write them on a whiteboard and wheel the whiteboard through #10 to the meeting room to show to the eggheads, PM, etc. And these numbers were often inaccurate.
There was no way to collate the data, no way to provide the data to the government and no way for the government to inform all those who needed to know (they apparently used a personal gmail account to use google docs to write some notes down that people could access, because they had no cloud platform to share anything).
They then brought in from outside the guys who wrote the dashboard, but the big task of that wasn't some nice web UI, it was writing the script to ingest all the excel spreadsheets, then do a load of data processing to try and cut out double counting etc. The scripts had to run for several hours just to process the data. The days we got an update late or delayed until the next day is because the script crashed due to some unexpected data inputting into the sheets.
Post-COVID, the team went back to industry and basically all development stopped. Hopefully Patrick Vallance might do something about it.
First Kamala Harris will be banning cows, now he's obsessed with Arnold Palmer's penis.
It doesn't matter. Elon is buying Pennsylvania for him. This is what happens when the law does not apply and is not enforced on rich people.
If you think that’s bad now, imagine what the US will be like if Trump is elected. It’s a coin toss now; we should be contingency planning.
I’m not convinced by the “it won’t be that bad” takes.
It might have been true last time. That was before January 6th, Trump's mental decline, the ousting of any restraining influence, and a blank check to commit crimes from the Supreme Court.
There's still way too much complacency that because the system just about held up to an assault on democratic norms in 2020, that it will in 2024.
The 'we managed last time we will again' argument is just nonsense, as though history is bound to repeat itself exactly and nothing has changed.
The hysteria on here about a second Trump term is bordering on near-comical levels here. Anyone would think we are in Berlin in January 1933.
The US system is exactly set up to ensure that there is no dictatorship. And, yes, that includes the system by which every state get two Senators and you have to ensure a sufficient appeal to enough states to win a Presidential election instead of just going for the Popular Vote. Yes, you know, that system which supporters of one party on here want to get rid because it doesn't suit their candidate.
Trump's second term will be a mixture, although if the Republicans do get control of the Senate and the House this November (very likely in the first, a knife-edge on the second), maybe more will be done. But we are not heading into a Gilead-style dictatorship.
And, yes, it does look like he will win. But don't take the opinion polls for that. Look at what several of the Democrat Senatorial candidates are doing on the ground - basically backing out of even mentioning Harris when it comes to their campaigns.
Comparing a potential second administration with his first completely ignores the massive transformation in the team behind him - and the fact that last time round there were no plans. He didn’t even expect to win until the last few weeks. This time the entire GOP is onside, the old style Washington insiders are replaced by ideologues with an open contempt for democracy, and they’ve had four years to plan.
It’s increasingly evident that the Supreme Court majority is also onside with whatever they decide to do.
I respect your point of view.Do not be sure of anything. Making a accurate prediction is almost impossible in this day and age. Things can and do change quickly. It is a question of a wait and see approach.
First Kamala Harris will be banning cows, now he's obsessed with Arnold Palmer's penis.
It doesn't matter. Elon is buying Pennsylvania for him. This is what happens when the law does not apply and is not enforced on rich people.
If you think that’s bad now, imagine what the US will be like if Trump is elected. It’s a coin toss now; we should be contingency planning.
I’m not convinced by the “it won’t be that bad” takes.
It might have been true last time. That was before January 6th, Trump's mental decline, the ousting of any restraining influence, and a blank check to commit crimes from the Supreme Court.
There's still way too much complacency that because the system just about held up to an assault on democratic norms in 2020, that it will in 2024.
The 'we managed last time we will again' argument is just nonsense, as though history is bound to repeat itself exactly and nothing has changed.
The hysteria on here about a second Trump term is bordering on near-comical levels here. Anyone would think we are in Berlin in January 1933.
The US system is exactly set up to ensure that there is no dictatorship. And, yes, that includes the system by which every state get two Senators and you have to ensure a sufficient appeal to enough states to win a Presidential election instead of just going for the Popular Vote. Yes, you know, that system which supporters of one party on here want to get rid because it doesn't suit their candidate.
Trump's second term will be a mixture, although if the Republicans do get control of the Senate and the House this November (very likely in the first, a knife-edge on the second), maybe more will be done. But we are not heading into a Gilead-style dictatorship.
And, yes, it does look like he will win. But don't take the opinion polls for that. Look at what several of the Democrat Senatorial candidates are doing on the ground - basically backing out of even mentioning Harris when it comes to their campaigns.
Comparing a potential second administration with his first completely ignores the massive transformation in the team behind him - and the fact that last time round there were no plans. He didn’t even expect to win until the last few weeks. This time the entire GOP is onside, the old style Washington insiders are replaced by ideologues with an open contempt for democracy, and they’ve had four years to plan.
It’s increasingly evident that the Supreme Court majority is also onside with whatever they decide to do.
Agreed. The constitutional constraints will be set aside and the future of American democracy is bleak indeed. Even bleaker is that this is what the American people actually want. The question now is if the United States is no longer an ally, what does Britain do? The EU is also being undermined by the anti democratic forces in Hungary, Slovakia and now Austria. Germany and France face the AfD and RN and there are parties in the UK that answer to American and even Russian calls.
First Kamala Harris will be banning cows, now he's obsessed with Arnold Palmer's penis.
It doesn't matter. Elon is buying Pennsylvania for him. This is what happens when the law does not apply and is not enforced on rich people.
If you think that’s bad now, imagine what the US will be like if Trump is elected. It’s a coin toss now; we should be contingency planning.
I’m not convinced by the “it won’t be that bad” takes.
It might have been true last time. That was before January 6th, Trump's mental decline, the ousting of any restraining influence, and a blank check to commit crimes from the Supreme Court.
There's still way too much complacency that because the system just about held up to an assault on democratic norms in 2020, that it will in 2024.
The 'we managed last time we will again' argument is just nonsense, as though history is bound to repeat itself exactly and nothing has changed.
The hysteria on here about a second Trump term is bordering on near-comical levels here. Anyone would think we are in Berlin in January 1933.
The US system is exactly set up to ensure that there is no dictatorship. And, yes, that includes the system by which every state get two Senators and you have to ensure a sufficient appeal to enough states to win a Presidential election instead of just going for the Popular Vote. Yes, you know, that system which supporters of one party on here want to get rid because it doesn't suit their candidate.
Trump's second term will be a mixture, although if the Republicans do get control of the Senate and the House this November (very likely in the first, a knife-edge on the second), maybe more will be done. But we are not heading into a Gilead-style dictatorship.
And, yes, it does look like he will win. But don't take the opinion polls for that. Look at what several of the Democrat Senatorial candidates are doing on the ground - basically backing out of even mentioning Harris when it comes to their campaigns.
Comparing a potential second administration with his first completely ignores the massive transformation in the team behind him - and the fact that last time round there were no plans. He didn’t even expect to win until the last few weeks. This time the entire GOP is onside, the old style Washington insiders are replaced by ideologues with an open contempt for democracy, and they’ve had four years to plan.
It’s increasingly evident that the Supreme Court majority is also onside with whatever they decide to do.
Agreed. The constitutional constraints will be set aside and the future of American democracy is bleak indeed. Even bleaker is that this is what the American people actually want. The question now is if the United States is no longer an ally, what does Britain do? The EU is also being undermined by the anti democratic forces in Hungary, Slovakia and now Austria. Germany and France face the AfD and RN and there are parties in the UK that answer to American and even Russian calls.
Isn't giving people what they want the point of democracy?
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
Now get the oldies and poor to accept they'll get fewer handouts.
The rich and property owners to accept they'll have to pay higher taxes.
And the workers to accept that they'll have to work longer and increase productivity.
Working harder to increase productivity rarely works of itself.
There are some cases where streamlining a system results in people who were underutilised working full time, but those are a side effect.
Productivity improvements come through automation, and aligning processes with the actual goal.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
Exactly. Why exactly would we get heavily involved? It is a scandal that we're as heavily involved as we are. David Lammy lobbing them £600 million without any benefit to even our arms industry was surely the nadir.
We are doing it because it is right to fight fascism. And if we do not fight it in Ukraine, we will be fighting it elsewhere, when Russia and its allies are stronger.
It is a simple equation: spend less blood and treasure now, or a great deal more blood and treasure later.
I would prefer to spend nothing now, and spend nothing later - *except* exploit our own energy sources so we're no longer at the whims of the oil and gas market, bolster our own defences including missile defences and our naval fleet, and reinstate a truly independent nuclear programme so we could *actually* respond to the threat of a nuclear strike. Those things would strengthen us vs. Russia or anyone else.
Is this plan within NATO or outside it? Either way it will cost a bit more than nothing, either now or later.
I think they are achievable within the increases of defence spending envisaged by the Tories, as long as defence spending is treated as spending to defend, not a just a bung to the US.
We had independent tactical nukes (which is what I am talking about) until relatively recently - I am not sure it was a particularly expensive programme.
The story Dominic Cummings told was very insightful. At the start of the pandemic, Simon Stevens had to phone around every NHS trust every day to get the numbers. He then had to write them on a whiteboard and wheel the whiteboard through #10 to the meeting room to show to the eggheads, PM, etc. And these numbers were often inaccurate.
There was no way to collate the data, no way to provide the data to the government and no way for the government to inform all those who needed to know (they apparently used a personal gmail account to use google docs to write some notes down that people could access, because they had no cloud platform to share anything).
They then brought in from outside the guys who wrote the dashboard, but the big task of that wasn't some nice web UI, it was writing the script to ingest all the excel spreadsheets, then do a load of data processing to try and cut out double counting etc. The scripts had to run for several hours just to process the data. The days we got an update late or delayed until the next day is because the script crashed due to some unexpected data inputting into the sheets.
Post-COVID, the team went back to industry and basically all development stopped. Hopefully Patrick Vallance might do something about it.
Post COVID there was talk of applying the same methodology across government. The big wheels in the system made sure that the team was broken up as quickly as possible.
The truth is too important to let everyone see it.
Ministers are to take take a direct role in overseeing the building of the HS2 rail line to try to "get a grip" on the rising cost of the high speed route between London and Birmingham.
The government also confirmed it will not reinstate previous plans to run the high-speed line to Crewe and Manchester, which were scrapped under the previous Conservative government.
I'm having a strong premonition that taking a 'direct role' to 'get a grip' on things will lead to some arbitrary changes and decisions which either increases costs further or causes entirely forseeable problems as a result. Or both.
Is that based on what happens. every single time, politicians decide they are going to intervene to fix things?
NHS IT system waves....
And promptly breaks? I mean, I bet the system has problems with handshaking, never mind waving.
It's gradually evolving into the modern era.
I don't use paper notes anymore, though outpatient prescriptions and pathology requests are still on paper.
All imaging, referrals, clinical notes and inpatient prescribing is electronic, as is communication with GPs.
Admittedly these are on seperate software so need multiple tabs open, but it all works, and these are gradually being merged into one system, so evolution rather than revolution.
Outpatient appointment booking is on a rather archaic HISS system that antedates my time in the NHS I think, but that too is shortly to be integrated into the overall system.
The biggest problem is the slowness of bandwidth on the terminals and hospital WiFi, but these too are gradually improving.
The problems come when the hospital servers fail, as it did for a couple of hours midweek, and we had to down tools for the duration as unable to access any records or imaging.
There is also the assumption that all patients have a smartphone, it seems that the software engineers assume every granny has one. It seems that is Streetings assumption too:
That still doesn't exactly sound modern or cutting edge. In the time the NHS IT system has been worked on, 20+ years now, companies have managed to make similar transitions in a few years. Even small businesses can just buy most of that tech stack off the shelf, let alone when you see a big modern organisation not only runs, but speed of development e.g. Amazon. Yes its more complicated with health, but still.
Couple of years ago I had a fall in the street and an ambulance was summoned. The team had tablets on which were my details, so it's happening.
On the other hand blood tests are done at the nearest hospital, which is a different NHS area to my GP. So results have to taken from the lab and emailed to the surgery. They can't be automatically sent.
Again, this has been standard for most businesses for ages, its not exactly cutting edge, its more like 2015. The ipad was released 15 years ago. Logging into to get some details is 101 stuff and only now its just starting to happen.
Yes health is complicated, but still needing 27 different tabs open to access all the different disjoint system, poor internet speeds, still requiring paper for a load of things...that is not a modern system.
Yep, the NHS’s admin remains utterly shocking. And @Foxy should not seek to excuse it or explain it away. The raging disconnect in the system costs £££ in wasted time each and every day, and quite possibly costs lives too. Paper shouldn’t be a factor. At all.
Again, this has been standard for most businesses for ages, its not exactly cutting edge, its more like 2015. The ipad was released 15 years ago. Logging into to get some details is 101 stuff and only now its just starting to happen.
Yes health is complicated, but still needing 27 different tabs open to access all the different disjoint system, poor internet speeds, still requiring paper for a load of things...that is not a modern system.
Having watched doctors using the IT systems in a large hospital quite a bit recently I'm amazed by how disorganised it is, lacking integration and automation, and requiring far too much manual control. And this was in a hospital where observations go straight into the system by scanning a barcode on the patients wrist, the doctors use PCs on carts with Wi-Fi connections, the ambulances have iPads to get patient records etc.
Put bluntly NHS IT looks like a pile of crap to me.
First Kamala Harris will be banning cows, now he's obsessed with Arnold Palmer's penis.
It doesn't matter. Elon is buying Pennsylvania for him. This is what happens when the law does not apply and is not enforced on rich people.
If you think that’s bad now, imagine what the US will be like if Trump is elected. It’s a coin toss now; we should be contingency planning.
I’m not convinced by the “it won’t be that bad” takes.
It might have been true last time. That was before January 6th, Trump's mental decline, the ousting of any restraining influence, and a blank check to commit crimes from the Supreme Court.
There's still way too much complacency that because the system just about held up to an assault on democratic norms in 2020, that it will in 2024.
The 'we managed last time we will again' argument is just nonsense, as though history is bound to repeat itself exactly and nothing has changed.
The hysteria on here about a second Trump term is bordering on near-comical levels here. Anyone would think we are in Berlin in January 1933.
The US system is exactly set up to ensure that there is no dictatorship. And, yes, that includes the system by which every state get two Senators and you have to ensure a sufficient appeal to enough states to win a Presidential election instead of just going for the Popular Vote. Yes, you know, that system which supporters of one party on here want to get rid because it doesn't suit their candidate.
Trump's second term will be a mixture, although if the Republicans do get control of the Senate and the House this November (very likely in the first, a knife-edge on the second), maybe more will be done. But we are not heading into a Gilead-style dictatorship.
And, yes, it does look like he will win. But don't take the opinion polls for that. Look at what several of the Democrat Senatorial candidates are doing on the ground - basically backing out of even mentioning Harris when it comes to their campaigns.
Comparing a potential second administration with his first completely ignores the massive transformation in the team behind him - and the fact that last time round there were no plans. He didn’t even expect to win until the last few weeks. This time the entire GOP is onside, the old style Washington insiders are replaced by ideologues with an open contempt for democracy, and they’ve had four years to plan.
It’s increasingly evident that the Supreme Court majority is also onside with whatever they decide to do.
Agreed. The constitutional constraints will be set aside and the future of American democracy is bleak indeed. Even bleaker is that this is what the American people actually want. The question now is if the United States is no longer an ally, what does Britain do? The EU is also being undermined by the anti democratic forces in Hungary, Slovakia and now Austria. Germany and France face the AfD and RN and there are parties in the UK that answer to American and even Russian calls.
Isn't giving people what they want the point of democracy?
Even if what they (a minority of ‘people’) want is the end of democracy?
First Kamala Harris will be banning cows, now he's obsessed with Arnold Palmer's penis.
It doesn't matter. Elon is buying Pennsylvania for him. This is what happens when the law does not apply and is not enforced on rich people.
If you think that’s bad now, imagine what the US will be like if Trump is elected. It’s a coin toss now; we should be contingency planning.
I’m not convinced by the “it won’t be that bad” takes.
It might have been true last time. That was before January 6th, Trump's mental decline, the ousting of any restraining influence, and a blank check to commit crimes from the Supreme Court.
There's still way too much complacency that because the system just about held up to an assault on democratic norms in 2020, that it will in 2024.
The 'we managed last time we will again' argument is just nonsense, as though history is bound to repeat itself exactly and nothing has changed.
The hysteria on here about a second Trump term is bordering on near-comical levels here. Anyone would think we are in Berlin in January 1933.
The US system is exactly set up to ensure that there is no dictatorship. And, yes, that includes the system by which every state get two Senators and you have to ensure a sufficient appeal to enough states to win a Presidential election instead of just going for the Popular Vote. Yes, you know, that system which supporters of one party on here want to get rid because it doesn't suit their candidate.
Trump's second term will be a mixture, although if the Republicans do get control of the Senate and the House this November (very likely in the first, a knife-edge on the second), maybe more will be done. But we are not heading into a Gilead-style dictatorship.
And, yes, it does look like he will win. But don't take the opinion polls for that. Look at what several of the Democrat Senatorial candidates are doing on the ground - basically backing out of even mentioning Harris when it comes to their campaigns.
Comparing a potential second administration with his first completely ignores the massive transformation in the team behind him - and the fact that last time round there were no plans. He didn’t even expect to win until the last few weeks. This time the entire GOP is onside, the old style Washington insiders are replaced by ideologues with an open contempt for democracy, and they’ve had four years to plan.
It’s increasingly evident that the Supreme Court majority is also onside with whatever they decide to do.
Agreed. The constitutional constraints will be set aside and the future of American democracy is bleak indeed. Even bleaker is that this is what the American people actually want. The question now is if the United States is no longer an ally, what does Britain do? The EU is also being undermined by the anti democratic forces in Hungary, Slovakia and now Austria. Germany and France face the AfD and RN and there are parties in the UK that answer to American and even Russian calls.
Like my generation I take western democracy for granted, being unable coherently to think of a better way of running a country than by the leaders having to ask the public's permission to do so, and ask the public what they want. I don't know how else you find out.
Except for one thing, which governs Thomas Hobbes's 'Strong Man' theory of government. He is a neglected genius.
I do not need to be asked by any democratic process whether I want my family and me and my city/town/village to be kept safe and defended from invasion, attack, or occupation by land, sea or air. And given a choice between democracy and safety, I and others would choose safety.
(BTW, the EU has many weaknesses but its inability to provide for the military safety of its population is by far the greatest.)
Is this the principle deep reason for the advance of non-democratic ways of thought in the democratic world?
The infrastructure and service in private hospitals is so much better than the NHS, the NHS should just emulate that.
I've been to several different hospitals/clinics (via health insurance my company pays for) and they all have access to each other's notes. I can see scans going back years.
Yep, the NHS’s admin remains utterly shocking. And @Foxy should not seek to excuse it or explain it away. The raging disconnect in the system costs £££ in wasted time each and every day, and quite possibly costs lives too. Paper shouldn’t be a factor. At all.
Forget paper. Recently a letter from a consultant was sent electronically, but "filed" by the staff at the GP without reading it. It was only because a relative also received a copy that they knew to follow up and ask why nothing had been done. i.e. Read the bloody letter and do what it says.
First Kamala Harris will be banning cows, now he's obsessed with Arnold Palmer's penis.
It doesn't matter. Elon is buying Pennsylvania for him. This is what happens when the law does not apply and is not enforced on rich people.
If you think that’s bad now, imagine what the US will be like if Trump is elected. It’s a coin toss now; we should be contingency planning.
I’m not convinced by the “it won’t be that bad” takes.
It might have been true last time. That was before January 6th, Trump's mental decline, the ousting of any restraining influence, and a blank check to commit crimes from the Supreme Court.
There's still way too much complacency that because the system just about held up to an assault on democratic norms in 2020, that it will in 2024.
The 'we managed last time we will again' argument is just nonsense, as though history is bound to repeat itself exactly and nothing has changed.
The hysteria on here about a second Trump term is bordering on near-comical levels here. Anyone would think we are in Berlin in January 1933.
The US system is exactly set up to ensure that there is no dictatorship. And, yes, that includes the system by which every state get two Senators and you have to ensure a sufficient appeal to enough states to win a Presidential election instead of just going for the Popular Vote. Yes, you know, that system which supporters of one party on here want to get rid because it doesn't suit their candidate.
Trump's second term will be a mixture, although if the Republicans do get control of the Senate and the House this November (very likely in the first, a knife-edge on the second), maybe more will be done. But we are not heading into a Gilead-style dictatorship.
And, yes, it does look like he will win. But don't take the opinion polls for that. Look at what several of the Democrat Senatorial candidates are doing on the ground - basically backing out of even mentioning Harris when it comes to their campaigns.
Comparing a potential second administration with his first completely ignores the massive transformation in the team behind him - and the fact that last time round there were no plans. He didn’t even expect to win until the last few weeks. This time the entire GOP is onside, the old style Washington insiders are replaced by ideologues with an open contempt for democracy, and they’ve had four years to plan.
It’s increasingly evident that the Supreme Court majority is also onside with whatever they decide to do.
Agreed. The constitutional constraints will be set aside and the future of American democracy is bleak indeed. Even bleaker is that this is what the American people actually want. The question now is if the United States is no longer an ally, what does Britain do? The EU is also being undermined by the anti democratic forces in Hungary, Slovakia and now Austria. Germany and France face the AfD and RN and there are parties in the UK that answer to American and even Russian calls.
Like my generation I take western democracy for granted, being unable coherently to think of a better way of running a country than by the leaders having to ask the public's permission to do so, and ask the public what they want. I don't know how else you find out.
Except for one thing, which governs Thomas Hobbes's 'Strong Man' theory of government. He is a neglected genius.
I do not need to be asked by any democratic process whether I want my family and me and my city/town/village to be kept safe and defended from invasion, attack, or occupation by land, sea or air. And given a choice between democracy and safety, I and others would choose safety.
(BTW, the EU has many weaknesses but its inability to provide for the military safety of its population is by far the greatest.)
Is this the principle deep reason for the advance of non-democratic ways of thought in the democratic world?
Possibly. Also the complacency thing again, as you say we take things for granted and so have assumed things are more robust to undermining than in fact they are.
The story Dominic Cummings told was very insightful. At the start of the pandemic, Simon Stevens had to phone around every NHS trust every day to get the numbers. He then had to write them on a whiteboard and wheel the whiteboard through #10 to the meeting room to show to the eggheads, PM, etc. And these numbers were often inaccurate.
There was no way to collate the data, no way to provide the data to the government and no way for the government to inform all those who needed to know (they apparently used a personal gmail account to use google docs to write some notes down that people could access, because they had no cloud platform to share anything).
They then brought in from outside the guys who wrote the dashboard, but the big task of that wasn't some nice web UI, it was writing the script to ingest all the excel spreadsheets, then do a load of data processing to try and cut out double counting etc. The scripts had to run for several hours just to process the data. The days we got an update late or delayed until the next day is because the script crashed due to some unexpected data inputting into the sheets.
Post-COVID, the team went back to industry and basically all development stopped. Hopefully Patrick Vallance might do something about it.
It is shambolic. As anyone who has an elderly relative with a chronic illness will attest. One hand rarely if ever knows what the other 3,457 hands are doing. It needs widespread modernisation and reform.
First Kamala Harris will be banning cows, now he's obsessed with Arnold Palmer's penis.
It doesn't matter. Elon is buying Pennsylvania for him. This is what happens when the law does not apply and is not enforced on rich people.
If you think that’s bad now, imagine what the US will be like if Trump is elected. It’s a coin toss now; we should be contingency planning.
I’m not convinced by the “it won’t be that bad” takes.
It might have been true last time. That was before January 6th, Trump's mental decline, the ousting of any restraining influence, and a blank check to commit crimes from the Supreme Court.
There's still way too much complacency that because the system just about held up to an assault on democratic norms in 2020, that it will in 2024.
The 'we managed last time we will again' argument is just nonsense, as though history is bound to repeat itself exactly and nothing has changed.
The hysteria on here about a second Trump term is bordering on near-comical levels here. Anyone would think we are in Berlin in January 1933.
The US system is exactly set up to ensure that there is no dictatorship. And, yes, that includes the system by which every state get two Senators and you have to ensure a sufficient appeal to enough states to win a Presidential election instead of just going for the Popular Vote. Yes, you know, that system which supporters of one party on here want to get rid because it doesn't suit their candidate.
Trump's second term will be a mixture, although if the Republicans do get control of the Senate and the House this November (very likely in the first, a knife-edge on the second), maybe more will be done. But we are not heading into a Gilead-style dictatorship.
And, yes, it does look like he will win. But don't take the opinion polls for that. Look at what several of the Democrat Senatorial candidates are doing on the ground - basically backing out of even mentioning Harris when it comes to their campaigns.
Comparing a potential second administration with his first completely ignores the massive transformation in the team behind him - and the fact that last time round there were no plans. He didn’t even expect to win until the last few weeks. This time the entire GOP is onside, the old style Washington insiders are replaced by ideologues with an open contempt for democracy, and they’ve had four years to plan.
It’s increasingly evident that the Supreme Court majority is also onside with whatever they decide to do.
Agreed. The constitutional constraints will be set aside and the future of American democracy is bleak indeed. Even bleaker is that this is what the American people actually want. The question now is if the United States is no longer an ally, what does Britain do? The EU is also being undermined by the anti democratic forces in Hungary, Slovakia and now Austria. Germany and France face the AfD and RN and there are parties in the UK that answer to American and even Russian calls.
Isn't giving people what they want the point of democracy?
What they want. They are told they will get various things. They vote on the basis of getting what they were promised and get Absolutely zero of what they were told they would get. Or 1 to 2% of it if they are lucky. So they are manipulated and used. If the human race is operating like this it has reached a point that the people who run things at the top of the food chain are rotten to the core so it may be time to clear out the pipes. Having said that the masses in most places I have been in the world seem fine. However another option could be for the human race to go extinct and come back again in a thousand years and have another go with a different mindset.Be a more pleasant and decent race would be a good start. Stop be obsessed with power, greed, dominance would be a good start.
I don't think it's a good idea to put everything online. I'd be happier if my medical records stayed on a paper record in a filing cabinet in the local GP surgery.
I don't think it's a good idea to put everything online. I'd be happier if my medical records stayed on a paper record in a filing cabinet in the local GP surgery.
First Kamala Harris will be banning cows, now he's obsessed with Arnold Palmer's penis.
It doesn't matter. Elon is buying Pennsylvania for him. This is what happens when the law does not apply and is not enforced on rich people.
If you think that’s bad now, imagine what the US will be like if Trump is elected. It’s a coin toss now; we should be contingency planning.
I’m not convinced by the “it won’t be that bad” takes.
It might have been true last time. That was before January 6th, Trump's mental decline, the ousting of any restraining influence, and a blank check to commit crimes from the Supreme Court.
There's still way too much complacency that because the system just about held up to an assault on democratic norms in 2020, that it will in 2024.
The 'we managed last time we will again' argument is just nonsense, as though history is bound to repeat itself exactly and nothing has changed.
The hysteria on here about a second Trump term is bordering on near-comical levels here. Anyone would think we are in Berlin in January 1933.
The US system is exactly set up to ensure that there is no dictatorship. And, yes, that includes the system by which every state get two Senators and you have to ensure a sufficient appeal to enough states to win a Presidential election instead of just going for the Popular Vote. Yes, you know, that system which supporters of one party on here want to get rid because it doesn't suit their candidate.
Trump's second term will be a mixture, although if the Republicans do get control of the Senate and the House this November (very likely in the first, a knife-edge on the second), maybe more will be done. But we are not heading into a Gilead-style dictatorship.
And, yes, it does look like he will win. But don't take the opinion polls for that. Look at what several of the Democrat Senatorial candidates are doing on the ground - basically backing out of even mentioning Harris when it comes to their campaigns.
Comparing a potential second administration with his first completely ignores the massive transformation in the team behind him - and the fact that last time round there were no plans. He didn’t even expect to win until the last few weeks. This time the entire GOP is onside, the old style Washington insiders are replaced by ideologues with an open contempt for democracy, and they’ve had four years to plan.
It’s increasingly evident that the Supreme Court majority is also onside with whatever they decide to do.
Agreed. The constitutional constraints will be set aside and the future of American democracy is bleak indeed. Even bleaker is that this is what the American people actually want. The question now is if the United States is no longer an ally, what does Britain do? The EU is also being undermined by the anti democratic forces in Hungary, Slovakia and now Austria. Germany and France face the AfD and RN and there are parties in the UK that answer to American and even Russian calls.
Isn't giving people what they want the point of democracy?
What they want. They are told they will get various things. They vote on the basis of getting what they were promised and get Absolutely zero of what they were told they would get. Or 1 to 2% of it if they are lucky. So they are manipulated and used. If the human race is operating like this it has reached a point that the people who run things at the top of the food chain are rotten to the core so it may be time to clear out the pipes. Having said that the masses in most places I have been in the world seem fine. However another option could be for the human race to go extinct and come back again in a thousand years and have another go with a different mindset.Be a more pleasant and decent race would be a good start. Stop be obsessed with power, greed, dominance would be a good start.
Would be a good start only meant to be written once!
Yep, the NHS’s admin remains utterly shocking. And @Foxy should not seek to excuse it or explain it away. The raging disconnect in the system costs £££ in wasted time each and every day, and quite possibly costs lives too. Paper shouldn’t be a factor. At all.
Forget paper. Recently a letter from a consultant was sent electronically, but "filed" by the staff at the GP without reading it. It was only because a relative also received a copy that they knew to follow up and ask why nothing had been done. i.e. Read the bloody letter and do what it says.
Scary isn’t it? The amount of times I have had to tell various consultants their own information because of my elderly relative… well I have lost count.
I don't think it's a good idea to put everything online. I'd be happier if my medical records stayed on a paper record in a filing cabinet in the local GP surgery.
But the COVID infection rates, mortality rates etc were all a crock of shit anyway..🤔🧐 Remember when the likes of Leicester were singled out for "special treatment" through the lockdown tiered approach/R number nonsense..🥴
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
Now get the oldies and poor to accept they'll get fewer handouts.
The rich and property owners to accept they'll have to pay higher taxes.
And the workers to accept that they'll have to work longer and increase productivity.
Working harder to increase productivity rarely works of itself.
There are some cases where streamlining a system results in people who were underutilised working full time, but those are a side effect.
Productivity improvements come through automation, and aligning processes with the actual goal.
The biggest requirement for increasing productivity is to want to increase productivity.
So some people ask why they are doing process X when it brings no benefit and merely adds extra time and cost.
While some people happily spend their lives doing X.
My eldest son has just received a tax refund from HMRC by cheque
I haven't seen a cheque for ages
Why do they not make a direct payment into the taxpayers bank account
Another outdated idea still beiing used by a government department
We pay the milkman by cheque every week.
Aren't milkman about as rare as cheques these days? Unicorn experience of having one and them wanting a cheque!
We not only have a milkman, but also a competitor milkman trying to chusel his custom away from him. Payment all done by app though. Never see him in person.
My wife was very keen to order from the milkman on thr basis of use-it-or-lose-it. But I'm not sure I find the arrangement massively satisfactory. The amount of milk I require isn't consistent.
I can't see that working out, as I can't imagine there is much margin in the first place being a milkman. There is a set price on how cheap you can get milk and you can't charge too much of a premium as everywhere sells milk.
My wife was prepared to pay a premium for milk from the milkman because she found supermarket milk in Britain unbearably bad. But not many people grow up next door to their uncle's dairy farm.
First Kamala Harris will be banning cows, now he's obsessed with Arnold Palmer's penis.
It doesn't matter. Elon is buying Pennsylvania for him. This is what happens when the law does not apply and is not enforced on rich people.
If you think that’s bad now, imagine what the US will be like if Trump is elected. It’s a coin toss now; we should be contingency planning.
I’m not convinced by the “it won’t be that bad” takes.
It might have been true last time. That was before January 6th, Trump's mental decline, the ousting of any restraining influence, and a blank check to commit crimes from the Supreme Court.
There's still way too much complacency that because the system just about held up to an assault on democratic norms in 2020, that it will in 2024.
The 'we managed last time we will again' argument is just nonsense, as though history is bound to repeat itself exactly and nothing has changed.
The hysteria on here about a second Trump term is bordering on near-comical levels here. Anyone would think we are in Berlin in January 1933.
The US system is exactly set up to ensure that there is no dictatorship. And, yes, that includes the system by which every state get two Senators and you have to ensure a sufficient appeal to enough states to win a Presidential election instead of just going for the Popular Vote. Yes, you know, that system which supporters of one party on here want to get rid because it doesn't suit their candidate.
Trump's second term will be a mixture, although if the Republicans do get control of the Senate and the House this November (very likely in the first, a knife-edge on the second), maybe more will be done. But we are not heading into a Gilead-style dictatorship.
And, yes, it does look like he will win. But don't take the opinion polls for that. Look at what several of the Democrat Senatorial candidates are doing on the ground - basically backing out of even mentioning Harris when it comes to their campaigns.
Comparing a potential second administration with his first completely ignores the massive transformation in the team behind him - and the fact that last time round there were no plans. He didn’t even expect to win until the last few weeks. This time the entire GOP is onside, the old style Washington insiders are replaced by ideologues with an open contempt for democracy, and they’ve had four years to plan.
It’s increasingly evident that the Supreme Court majority is also onside with whatever they decide to do.
Agreed. The constitutional constraints will be set aside and the future of American democracy is bleak indeed. Even bleaker is that this is what the American people actually want. The question now is if the United States is no longer an ally, what does Britain do? The EU is also being undermined by the anti democratic forces in Hungary, Slovakia and now Austria. Germany and France face the AfD and RN and there are parties in the UK that answer to American and even Russian calls.
Isn't giving people what they want the point of democracy?
We're pretty much all representative democracies, rather than direct ones - so not directly, no. It's to elect the delegates we feel best carry out our wishes within the institutions provided.
Arguably some of the instability in Western governments in recent years has come from the modern desire to move towards a more direct, populist model of democracy over the traditional representative one. As the popular will will often come to decisions that are contradictory or later regretted when the reality becomes clear, which can't be undone nor their consequences wished away.
In the US the problem is rather different though, in that national opinion likely narrowly favours moderate Democrat policies - certainly in several important areas, though not all. Yet thanks to the Supreme Court being a GOP lock for decades and a system that favours the GOP at congressional level by boosting the influence of smaller states, it's always an uphill battle for Democrats to get anything done.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
Now get the oldies and poor to accept they'll get fewer handouts.
The rich and property owners to accept they'll have to pay higher taxes.
And the workers to accept that they'll have to work longer and increase productivity.
Some backbones need to be obtained instead of looking for freebies and their own interests. It is tough at the top, or should be.
But the COVID infection rates, mortality rates etc were all a crock of shit anyway..🤔🧐 Remember when the likes of Leicester were singled out for "special treatment" through the lockdown tiered approach/R number nonsense..🥴
No, the numbers weren’t shit.
The problem was, largely, politicians at various levels pleading that their area be left out of restrictions. This was across all parties. A variant (ha!) on NIMBYism.
I don't think it's a good idea to put everything online. I'd be happier if my medical records stayed on a paper record in a filing cabinet in the local GP surgery.
In general we are placing a lot of reliance on systems that are open to attack. In a similar way the smartphone, if it became a problem, would be a major one.
Mine will be the last generation who realises that this is odd:
A smartphone is: bank, newspaper, magazines, supermarket, multi-retailer and department store, car distributor, postal service, telephone, library and reference library, TV, radio, CD player, work conference, camera, video recorder, church, university of the 3rd and any age, archive, filing cabinet, dating agency.
I don't think it's a good idea to put everything online. I'd be happier if my medical records stayed on a paper record in a filing cabinet in the local GP surgery.
All your personal information is already online.
Or not. When my father was in hospital, recently, they tried hiding the bloodwork - it wasn’t entered into the system. Then the family couldn’t see it - patient confidentiality. Despite the patient actually asking for the data….
When they finally gave it to us - even I could see issues. Classic dehydration, for a start.
I don't think it's a good idea to put everything online. I'd be happier if my medical records stayed on a paper record in a filing cabinet in the local GP surgery.
LOL
So when you get wheeled into A&E, your allergy to an antibiotic is not known….
Oh well, we can always get more posters on PB. Made by unskilled labour in 9 months etc….
The story Dominic Cummings told was very insightful. At the start of the pandemic, Simon Stevens had to phone around every NHS trust every day to get the numbers. He then had to write them on a whiteboard and wheel the whiteboard through #10 to the meeting room to show to the eggheads, PM, etc. And these numbers were often inaccurate.
There was no way to collate the data, no way to provide the data to the government and no way for the government to inform all those who needed to know (they apparently used a personal gmail account to use google docs to write some notes down that people could access, because they had no cloud platform to share anything).
They then brought in from outside the guys who wrote the dashboard, but the big task of that wasn't some nice web UI, it was writing the script to ingest all the excel spreadsheets, then do a load of data processing to try and cut out double counting etc. The scripts had to run for several hours just to process the data. The days we got an update late or delayed until the next day is because the script crashed due to some unexpected data inputting into the sheets.
Post-COVID, the team went back to industry and basically all development stopped. Hopefully Patrick Vallance might do something about it.
Post COVID there was talk of applying the same methodology across government. The big wheels in the system made sure that the team was broken up as quickly as possible.
The truth is too important to let everyone see it.
Big Dom is not always a reliable witness and his solution to problems were often poorly thought out, however on this aspect, I think he is spot on. This was his exact criticism. Many of these good innovations from COVID were broken up ASAP.
I don't think it's a good idea to put everything online. I'd be happier if my medical records stayed on a paper record in a filing cabinet in the local GP surgery.
In general we are placing a lot of reliance on systems that are open to attack. In a similar way the smartphone, if it became a problem, would be a major one.
Mine will be the last generation who realises that this is odd:
A smartphone is: bank, newspaper, magazines, supermarket, multi-retailer and department store, car distributor, postal service, telephone, library and reference library, TV, radio, CD player, work conference, camera, video recorder, church, university of the 3rd and any age, archive, filing cabinet, dating agency.
It’s notable that in depth digitalisation has worked in the Baltic states (for example). Which have been under continuous online attack from Russia. For decades.
I don't think it's a good idea to put everything online. I'd be happier if my medical records stayed on a paper record in a filing cabinet in the local GP surgery.
In general we are placing a lot of reliance on systems that are open to attack. In a similar way the smartphone, if it became a problem, would be a major one.
Mine will be the last generation who realises that this is odd:
A smartphone is: bank, newspaper, magazines, supermarket, multi-retailer and department store, car distributor, postal service, telephone, library and reference library, TV, radio, CD player, work conference, camera, video recorder, church, university of the 3rd and any age, archive, filing cabinet, dating agency.
It’s notable that in depth digitalisation has worked in the Baltic states (for example). Which have been under continuous online attack from Russia. For decades.
Like OGH Jnr, I had a company in Estonia. Its was bloody brilliant, myself and my business partner could do everything electronically from file the taxes / talk to the tax man, to talk directly call into our bank manager. Generally everything was seamless and easy to do.
The infrastructure and service in private hospitals is so much better than the NHS, the NHS should just emulate that.
I've been to several different hospitals/clinics (via health insurance my company pays for) and they all have access to each other's notes. I can see scans going back years.
I have NHS treatment at a local private hospital every six months or so and every time I have to fill in a form about my past hospitalisations, going back to a tonsillectomy almost 80 years ago! Not impressed.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
Now get the oldies and poor to accept they'll get fewer handouts.
The rich and property owners to accept they'll have to pay higher taxes.
And the workers to accept that they'll have to work longer and increase productivity.
Working harder to increase productivity rarely works of itself.
There are some cases where streamlining a system results in people who were underutilised working full time, but those are a side effect.
Productivity improvements come through automation, and aligning processes with the actual goal.
The biggest requirement for increasing productivity is to want to increase productivity.
So some people ask why they are doing process X when it brings no benefit and merely adds extra time and cost.
While some people happily spend their lives doing X.
And they run the team doing X….
Banks are full of this. At Douche Bank, they even resorted to turning off systems, without establishing news data feeds to the customer systems. Literally pull the plugs - so as to orphan systems that are not being decommissioned for political reasons.
I notice Wes Streeting announcement of smart watches (Leon just wet himself) and smart rings. Details of this will be interesting.
guaranteed to b ewasted money , they will all buy different ones that ar enot able to be handled centrally and then it will all be put on paper etc. The NHS needs a root and branch overhaul of it's systems and everyone should eb forced to use similar sytems , etc. It is a fecking shambles and throwing more money at it will do nothing.
My eldest son has just received a tax refund from HMRC by cheque
I haven't seen a cheque for ages
Why do they not make a direct payment into the taxpayers bank account
Another outdated idea still beiing used by a government department
We pay the milkman by cheque every week.
Aren't milkman about as rare as cheques these days? Unicorn experience of having one and them wanting a cheque!
We not only have a milkman, but also a competitor milkman trying to chusel his custom away from him. Payment all done by app though. Never see him in person.
My wife was very keen to order from the milkman on thr basis of use-it-or-lose-it. But I'm not sure I find the arrangement massively satisfactory. The amount of milk I require isn't consistent.
I can't see that working out, as I can't imagine there is much margin in the first place being a milkman. There is a set price on how cheap you can get milk and you can't charge too much of a premium as everywhere sells milk.
My wife was prepared to pay a premium for milk from the milkman because she found supermarket milk in Britain unbearably bad. But not many people grow up next door to their uncle's dairy farm.
Unfortunately the farming industry is being sold a pup on this. Go for the best quality produce so you can charge a premium. Look at the tedious ads we produce. Farm Assured etc etc. But the reality is over 90%, probably 95% of food is bought on price, not quality. Supermarket basic brands outsell the premium Farm Assured, farm to plate equivalent every time. I wish I was wrong, my tenant is very much into the highest quality produce. You can get a premium on steak sold in a restaurant but steak versus Beefburger. The same consumer will always go for the affordable option when they are eating at home. No, a lifetime in agriculture has told me that the counterintuitive speaker I heard when I was starting out at 18 was the one who was right. If a Job's worth doing, it's worth doing badly.
F1: I didn't realise until this morning that Sainz had also been improving, so perhaps the qualifying bet might've come off. Oh well. I had a bucketload of luck all through 2023 so it's to be expected 2024 will be the antithesis of that.
Colapinto to beat Albon at 3.6. He's one place and a hundredth of a second behind in qualifying. Sainz each way at 7.5, hedged at 3. Hard to judge but he's been looking good all weekend.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
If Trump wins, Ukraine will go nuclear.
I think this is right, and it's where the real risk of nuclear war lies.
People are naive if they think the US and Europe have total discretion with respect to Ukraine. They are not simply going to give up in the face of being abandoned, and meekly accept Russian conquest and national annihilation.
Ukraine will reach to whatever tools they can to fight for their independence. If they are capable of making nuclear weapons then they will, and if they are to use them to establish a credible deterrence then they will have to prove that they are functional and detonate one. At that point there's a high risk of a Russian retaliation and a large-scale nuclear exchange, depending on how many operational nukes each side has.
First Kamala Harris will be banning cows, now he's obsessed with Arnold Palmer's penis.
It doesn't matter. Elon is buying Pennsylvania for him. This is what happens when the law does not apply and is not enforced on rich people.
If you think that’s bad now, imagine what the US will be like if Trump is elected. It’s a coin toss now; we should be contingency planning.
I’m not convinced by the “it won’t be that bad” takes.
It might have been true last time. That was before January 6th, Trump's mental decline, the ousting of any restraining influence, and a blank check to commit crimes from the Supreme Court.
There's still way too much complacency that because the system just about held up to an assault on democratic norms in 2020, that it will in 2024.
The 'we managed last time we will again' argument is just nonsense, as though history is bound to repeat itself exactly and nothing has changed.
The hysteria on here about a second Trump term is bordering on near-comical levels here. Anyone would think we are in Berlin in January 1933.
The US system is exactly set up to ensure that there is no dictatorship. And, yes, that includes the system by which every state get two Senators and you have to ensure a sufficient appeal to enough states to win a Presidential election instead of just going for the Popular Vote. Yes, you know, that system which supporters of one party on here want to get rid because it doesn't suit their candidate.
Trump's second term will be a mixture, although if the Republicans do get control of the Senate and the House this November (very likely in the first, a knife-edge on the second), maybe more will be done. But we are not heading into a Gilead-style dictatorship.
And, yes, it does look like he will win. But don't take the opinion polls for that. Look at what several of the Democrat Senatorial candidates are doing on the ground - basically backing out of even mentioning Harris when it comes to their campaigns.
Comparing a potential second administration with his first completely ignores the massive transformation in the team behind him - and the fact that last time round there were no plans. He didn’t even expect to win until the last few weeks. This time the entire GOP is onside, the old style Washington insiders are replaced by ideologues with an open contempt for democracy, and they’ve had four years to plan.
It’s increasingly evident that the Supreme Court majority is also onside with whatever they decide to do.
Agreed. The constitutional constraints will be set aside and the future of American democracy is bleak indeed. Even bleaker is that this is what the American people actually want. The question now is if the United States is no longer an ally, what does Britain do? The EU is also being undermined by the anti democratic forces in Hungary, Slovakia and now Austria. Germany and France face the AfD and RN and there are parties in the UK that answer to American and even Russian calls.
Isn't giving people what they want the point of democracy?
The challenge of democracy is what if people want things, or at least vote for things, that undermine how democracy works, as is the case with Trump, Orban etc.
The story Dominic Cummings told was very insightful. At the start of the pandemic, Simon Stevens had to phone around every NHS trust every day to get the numbers. He then had to write them on a whiteboard and wheel the whiteboard through #10 to the meeting room to show to the eggheads, PM, etc. And these numbers were often inaccurate.
There was no way to collate the data, no way to provide the data to the government and no way for the government to inform all those who needed to know (they apparently used a personal gmail account to use google docs to write some notes down that people could access, because they had no cloud platform to share anything).
They then brought in from outside the guys who wrote the dashboard, but the big task of that wasn't some nice web UI, it was writing the script to ingest all the excel spreadsheets, then do a load of data processing to try and cut out double counting etc. The scripts had to run for several hours just to process the data. The days we got an update late or delayed until the next day is because the script crashed due to some unexpected data inputting into the sheets.
Post-COVID, the team went back to industry and basically all development stopped. Hopefully Patrick Vallance might do something about it.
Post COVID there was talk of applying the same methodology across government. The big wheels in the system made sure that the team was broken up as quickly as possible.
The truth is too important to let everyone see it.
Big Dom is not always a reliable witness and his solution to problems were often poorly thought out, however on this aspect, I think he is spot on. This was his exact criticism. Many of these good innovations from COVID were broken up ASAP.
He tends to be about 99% right on the problems and 99% wrong on the solutions.
His piece on why the Cabinet Room is less functional than in 1914 is spot on.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
Pretty damn sure that the Poles and the Baltic states won't feel that way. Don't think we should either. But getting to a Sunday morning is an excellent effort. Don't spoil it now.
And the Germans. What is their point of view about this matter?
Their leader is pro Putin for cheap gas etc, pathetic.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
Now get the oldies and poor to accept they'll get fewer handouts.
The rich and property owners to accept they'll have to pay higher taxes.
And the workers to accept that they'll have to work longer and increase productivity.
Working harder to increase productivity rarely works of itself.
There are some cases where streamlining a system results in people who were underutilised working full time, but those are a side effect.
Productivity improvements come through automation, and aligning processes with the actual goal.
The biggest requirement for increasing productivity is to want to increase productivity.
So some people ask why they are doing process X when it brings no benefit and merely adds extra time and cost.
While some people happily spend their lives doing X.
Sure, and that’s why the value of X has fallen by 80%.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
Now get the oldies and poor to accept they'll get fewer handouts.
The rich and property owners to accept they'll have to pay higher taxes.
And the workers to accept that they'll have to work longer and increase productivity.
Working harder to increase productivity rarely works of itself.
There are some cases where streamlining a system results in people who were underutilised working full time, but those are a side effect.
Productivity improvements come through automation, and aligning processes with the actual goal.
The biggest requirement for increasing productivity is to want to increase productivity.
So some people ask why they are doing process X when it brings no benefit and merely adds extra time and cost.
While some people happily spend their lives doing X.
Sure, and that’s why the value of X has fallen by 80%.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
If Trump wins, Ukraine will go nuclear.
I think this is right, and it's where the real risk of nuclear war lies.
People are naive if they think the US and Europe have total discretion with respect to Ukraine. They are not simply going to give up in the face of being abandoned, and meekly accept Russian conquest and national annihilation.
Ukraine will reach to whatever tools they can to fight for their independence. If they are capable of making nuclear weapons then they will, and if they are to use them to establish a credible deterrence then they will have to prove that they are functional and detonate one. At that point there's a high risk of a Russian retaliation and a large-scale nuclear exchange, depending on how many operational nukes each side has.
The US acting as the global policeman is the thing that has prevented nuclear proliferation. Any country with an existential fear for its future will look to develop nuclear weapons.
I don't think it's a good idea to put everything online. I'd be happier if my medical records stayed on a paper record in a filing cabinet in the local GP surgery.
In general we are placing a lot of reliance on systems that are open to attack. In a similar way the smartphone, if it became a problem, would be a major one.
Mine will be the last generation who realises that this is odd:
A smartphone is: bank, newspaper, magazines, supermarket, multi-retailer and department store, car distributor, postal service, telephone, library and reference library, TV, radio, CD player, work conference, camera, video recorder, church, university of the 3rd and any age, archive, filing cabinet, dating agency.
It’s notable that in depth digitalisation has worked in the Baltic states (for example). Which have been under continuous online attack from Russia. For decades.
The Baltics (1) went full in and so committed properly to digitisation (2) saw it primarily as a way to make things better not to reduce costs and (3) realised the security aspect and reacted accordingly.
The problem in the UK is that we get the worst of both worlds - digitisation which is done primarily to save costs and, because (unlike the US) there is not a major legal / regulatory punishment for those organisations that fail to maintain sufficient security arrangements, nobody really cares about the protection of information aspect.
I don't think it's a good idea to put everything online. I'd be happier if my medical records stayed on a paper record in a filing cabinet in the local GP surgery.
All your personal information is already online.
Or not. When my father was in hospital, recently, they tried hiding the bloodwork - it wasn’t entered into the system. Then the family couldn’t see it - patient confidentiality. Despite the patient actually asking for the data….
When they finally gave it to us - even I could see issues. Classic dehydration, for a start.
Well I nearly came a cropper with the paperwork being both online and on paper. I reported it here at the time. It was this year that I had a really minor op (local anaesthetic, takes 5 min) for trigger finger. So they wheeled in the computer and paper file and confirmed my name and date of birth. All confirmed ok. Then mentioned I was allergic to penicillin to which I said no. They then said according to the notes I had a severe reaction when I had pancreatitis to which I said I have never had that. At which point I got up to look at the notes. The computer records were me, but the notes were for someone else with the same name, but a completely different date of birth. They had confirm stuff on the computer and then referred to the paper notes.
I joked about the fact that it was a good job I was going to be awake as I didn't want to lose a leg. My name and date of birth were confirmed endlessly after that as per normal, but we managed to pass that test previously by using two sets of records that weren't the same.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
If Trump wins, Ukraine will go nuclear.
I think this is right, and it's where the real risk of nuclear war lies.
People are naive if they think the US and Europe have total discretion with respect to Ukraine. They are not simply going to give up in the face of being abandoned, and meekly accept Russian conquest and national annihilation.
Ukraine will reach to whatever tools they can to fight for their independence. If they are capable of making nuclear weapons then they will, and if they are to use them to establish a credible deterrence then they will have to prove that they are functional and detonate one. At that point there's a high risk of a Russian retaliation and a large-scale nuclear exchange, depending on how many operational nukes each side has.
They have at least high burn up plutonium (lots of Pu240 mixed in with the Pu239)
This supposed to be unusable for a bomb. But isn’t. The Americans tested one in the 60s, using reactor grade plutonium.
The implosion system isn’t a big problem. A two point design was beyond computers in 1945. Today you can run the design simulation on your smart watch. Testing the implosion was barely possible in 1945 - now standard university physics equipment can do it.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
Now get the oldies and poor to accept they'll get fewer handouts.
The rich and property owners to accept they'll have to pay higher taxes.
And the workers to accept that they'll have to work longer and increase productivity.
Working harder to increase productivity rarely works of itself.
There are some cases where streamlining a system results in people who were underutilised working full time, but those are a side effect.
Productivity improvements come through automation, and aligning processes with the actual goal.
The biggest requirement for increasing productivity is to want to increase productivity.
So some people ask why they are doing process X when it brings no benefit and merely adds extra time and cost.
While some people happily spend their lives doing X.
Sure, and that’s why the value of X has fallen by 80%.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
Exactly. Why exactly would we get heavily involved? It is a scandal that we're as heavily involved as we are. David Lammy lobbing them £600 million without any benefit to even our arms industry was surely the nadir.
We are doing it because it is right to fight fascism. And if we do not fight it in Ukraine, we will be fighting it elsewhere, when Russia and its allies are stronger.
It is a simple equation: spend less blood and treasure now, or a great deal more blood and treasure later.
I would prefer to spend nothing now, and spend nothing later - *except* exploit our own energy sources so we're no longer at the whims of the oil and gas market, bolster our own defences including missile defences and our naval fleet, and reinstate a truly independent nuclear programme so we could *actually* respond to the threat of a nuclear strike. Those things would strengthen us vs. Russia or anyone else.
That's the we-are-an-island fallacy.
Well, we obviously are an island, but we are not in terms of resources - and neither can we be. Even if we do without all the plastic tat coming from China, we still need those lovely chips from America and Taiwan, along with food and a million and one other things. If we allow fascism to spread, there will come a time when those resources we need are no longer available.
We cannot pull the drawbridge up against the world. And that means we will eventually need to intervene to protect our interests. And it is better to do that now than later.
Then there's the moral issue: one you routinely ignore.
First Kamala Harris will be banning cows, now he's obsessed with Arnold Palmer's penis.
It doesn't matter. Elon is buying Pennsylvania for him. This is what happens when the law does not apply and is not enforced on rich people.
If you think that’s bad now, imagine what the US will be like if Trump is elected. It’s a coin toss now; we should be contingency planning.
I’m not convinced by the “it won’t be that bad” takes.
It might have been true last time. That was before January 6th, Trump's mental decline, the ousting of any restraining influence, and a blank check to commit crimes from the Supreme Court.
There's still way too much complacency that because the system just about held up to an assault on democratic norms in 2020, that it will in 2024.
The 'we managed last time we will again' argument is just nonsense, as though history is bound to repeat itself exactly and nothing has changed.
The hysteria on here about a second Trump term is bordering on near-comical levels here. Anyone would think we are in Berlin in January 1933.
The US system is exactly set up to ensure that there is no dictatorship. And, yes, that includes the system by which every state get two Senators and you have to ensure a sufficient appeal to enough states to win a Presidential election instead of just going for the Popular Vote. Yes, you know, that system which supporters of one party on here want to get rid because it doesn't suit their candidate.
Trump's second term will be a mixture, although if the Republicans do get control of the Senate and the House this November (very likely in the first, a knife-edge on the second), maybe more will be done. But we are not heading into a Gilead-style dictatorship.
And, yes, it does look like he will win. But don't take the opinion polls for that. Look at what several of the Democrat Senatorial candidates are doing on the ground - basically backing out of even mentioning Harris when it comes to their campaigns.
Comparing a potential second administration with his first completely ignores the massive transformation in the team behind him - and the fact that last time round there were no plans. He didn’t even expect to win until the last few weeks. This time the entire GOP is onside, the old style Washington insiders are replaced by ideologues with an open contempt for democracy, and they’ve had four years to plan.
It’s increasingly evident that the Supreme Court majority is also onside with whatever they decide to do.
I think you are forgetting several major factors here:
(1) The calls for major constitutional 'reform' in the US is not coming from the right, it is coming from the left, whether that is getting rid of the current arrangements for electing the President or expanding the Supreme Court. That also happened previously. The filibuster for Supreme Court appointees went as a tit for tat when Obama decided to push for its elimination for Cabinet / Federal appointees;
(2) Trump - and his acolytes - have not sufficient control over either the military or police forces to enact such a plan;
(3) There is a sufficient block of Republican politicians who would stand in his way. Hard to accept but it is the truth.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
Aside from Poland and France I'm not sure there's a European country that would fight.
We would but we don't want to pay for mass so it'd be tokenistic and the high kinetic nature of a war would probably render us combat ineffective inside 6 weeks.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
Exactly. Why exactly would we get heavily involved? It is a scandal that we're as heavily involved as we are. David Lammy lobbing them £600 million without any benefit to even our arms industry was surely the nadir.
We are doing it because it is right to fight fascism. And if we do not fight it in Ukraine, we will be fighting it elsewhere, when Russia and its allies are stronger.
It is a simple equation: spend less blood and treasure now, or a great deal more blood and treasure later.
I would prefer to spend nothing now, and spend nothing later - *except* exploit our own energy sources so we're no longer at the whims of the oil and gas market, bolster our own defences including missile defences and our naval fleet, and reinstate a truly independent nuclear programme so we could *actually* respond to the threat of a nuclear strike. Those things would strengthen us vs. Russia or anyone else.
That's the we-are-an-island fallacy.
Well, we obviously are an island, but we are not in terms of resources - and neither can we be. Even if we do without all the plastic tat coming from China, we still need those lovely chips from America and Taiwan, along with food and a million and one other things. If we allow fascism to spread, there will come a time when those resources we need are no longer available.
We cannot pull the drawbridge up against the world. And that means we will eventually need to intervene to protect our interests. And it is better to do that now than later.
Then there's the moral issue: one you routinely ignore.
We can do the drawbridge stuff if we accept a basic diet, only a quasi industrial lifestyle and want only 20 million people on these islands.
Otherwise, we need global interconnectivity and trade to subsist at our current population and sophistication levels.
My eldest son has just received a tax refund from HMRC by cheque
I haven't seen a cheque for ages
Why do they not make a direct payment into the taxpayers bank account
Another outdated idea still beiing used by a government department
We pay the milkman by cheque every week.
Aren't milkman about as rare as cheques these days? Unicorn experience of having one and them wanting a cheque!
We not only have a milkman, but also a competitor milkman trying to chusel his custom away from him. Payment all done by app though. Never see him in person.
My wife was very keen to order from the milkman on thr basis of use-it-or-lose-it. But I'm not sure I find the arrangement massively satisfactory. The amount of milk I require isn't consistent.
I can't see that working out, as I can't imagine there is much margin in the first place being a milkman. There is a set price on how cheap you can get milk and you can't charge too much of a premium as everywhere sells milk.
My wife was prepared to pay a premium for milk from the milkman because she found supermarket milk in Britain unbearably bad. But not many people grow up next door to their uncle's dairy farm.
If (when) Trump wins we have some very serious decisions to make.
It has to be doubtful that NATO, the cornerstone of our defence policy since WW2, will survive in its current form.
Western Europe will have to make a decision about whether they are willing to support Ukraine sufficiently in the absence of American support. This would be a major financial effort.
We have to decide how we respond to his absurd Tariff policies. In many respects we are already in a post GATT world given the consistent US blocking of new judges to the court but this would rip away any pretense.
We may have the USA in the same category as China, where we are nervous about having significant parts of our IT infrastructure dependent on them.
Taiwan and SK will, if anything, be even more scared than western Europe.
So massive increases in defence spending for less security than we enjoy now, a much more hands on role in a major European war, a major increase in economic instability and a world where dictators get to do what they want provided they say Donald is a nice guy. Overall, I consider this to be suboptimal.
I think Europe will just let Ukraine go in this instance. The financial cost is too much.
Aside from Poland and France I'm not sure there's a European country that would fight.
We would but we don't want to pay for mass so it'd be tokenistic and the high kinetic nature of a war would probably render us combat ineffective inside 6 weeks.
Given how poorly the Russian military has done so far against Ukraine, I suspect Russian conventional forces would lose a war against Ukraine + Poland. So it doesn’t matter if only Poland and France would fight!
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The rich and property owners to accept they'll have to pay higher taxes.
And the workers to accept that they'll have to work longer and increase productivity.
I don't use paper notes anymore, though outpatient prescriptions and pathology requests are still on paper.
All imaging, referrals, clinical notes and inpatient prescribing is electronic, as is communication with GPs.
Admittedly these are on seperate software so need multiple tabs open, but it all works, and these are gradually being merged into one system, so evolution rather than revolution.
Outpatient appointment booking is on a rather archaic HISS system that antedates my time in the NHS I think, but that too is shortly to be integrated into the overall system.
The biggest problem is the slowness of bandwidth on the terminals and hospital WiFi, but these too are gradually improving.
The problems come when the hospital servers fail, as it did for a couple of hours midweek, and we had to down tools for the duration as unable to access any records or imaging.
There is also the assumption that all patients have a smartphone, it seems that the software engineers assume every granny has one. It seems that is Streetings assumption too:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/19/if-you-let-google-have-your-data-why-not-the-nhs
https://tippinsights.com/tipp-tracking-poll-day-7-trump-surges-past-harris-seizing-2-point-lead/
The NHS IT is far better than the systems at either private hospital in Leicester.
That said both cheques and cash are outdated.
The low turnout in July was particularly in Labour "safe seats" which no-one expected to flip Tory, so why bother voting?
Take NC and the early voting data - it's a fallacy to read too much into this but the Democrat party registration advantage should be more even at this stage given their huge advantage in mail-in ballots and the percentage of Black voters voting early looks below the state average:
https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/2024-general-election-early-vote-north-carolina/
It is a simple equation: spend less blood and treasure now, or a great deal more blood and treasure later.
PENNSYLVANIA Voters, this is for you. You will be getting flyers in the mail purporting to be from the Harris campaign promoting her 'Progress 2028' initiative. IT'S A SCAM funded by Elon Musk. Throw the flyer away! Do NOT follow the links or donate. IT'S A SCAM!
https://x.com/anarie_whit/status/1847303585014702482
It’s worth considering whether this was the original plan behind buying Twitter, and had nothing to do with making it a profitable business in its own right.
A fair proportion of his co-investors, including Thiel, who also bankrolled Vance, and S Arabia, have a very strong interest in electing Trump again.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/twitter-x-shareholders-court-order-diddy-jack-dorsey-1235085804/
Of course that is fraud and the banks just put them all on the hook for the money they withdrew, plus fees, fines etc.
On the other hand blood tests are done at the nearest hospital, which is a different NHS area to my GP. So results have to taken from the lab and emailed to the surgery. They can't be automatically sent.
Yes health is complicated, but still needing 27 different tabs open to access all the different disjoint system, poor internet speeds, still requiring paper for a load of things...that is not a modern system.
Comparing a potential second administration with his first completely ignores the massive transformation in the team behind him - and the fact that last time round there were no plans. He didn’t even expect to win until the last few weeks.
This time the entire GOP is onside, the old style Washington insiders are replaced by ideologues with an open contempt for democracy, and they’ve had four years to plan.
It’s increasingly evident that the Supreme Court majority is also onside with whatever they decide to do.
The strategic position of Europe would be far shakier, were Ukraine to be abandoned.
These are the words in the longish article:
But the ultimate decision not to call Dr Hall as a witness came from Letby herself – a point that Dr Hall acknowledges.
Why did she not call him? It is one of many questions that only she can answer.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgwx9xprwqo
The story Dominic Cummings told was very insightful. At the start of the pandemic, Simon Stevens had to phone around every NHS trust every day to get the numbers. He then had to write them on a whiteboard and wheel the whiteboard through #10 to the meeting room to show to the eggheads, PM, etc. And these numbers were often inaccurate.
There was no way to collate the data, no way to provide the data to the government and no way for the government to inform all those who needed to know (they apparently used a personal gmail account to use google docs to write some notes down that people could access, because they had no cloud platform to share anything).
They then brought in from outside the guys who wrote the dashboard, but the big task of that wasn't some nice web UI, it was writing the script to ingest all the excel spreadsheets, then do a load of data processing to try and cut out double counting etc. The scripts had to run for several hours just to process the data. The days we got an update late or delayed until the next day is because the script crashed due to some unexpected data inputting into the sheets.
Post-COVID, the team went back to industry and basically all development stopped. Hopefully Patrick Vallance might do something about it.
There are some cases where streamlining a system results in people who were underutilised working full time, but those are a side effect.
Productivity improvements come through automation, and aligning processes with the actual goal.
We had independent tactical nukes (which is what I am talking about) until relatively recently - I am not sure it was a particularly expensive programme.
The truth is too important to let everyone see it.
Put bluntly NHS IT looks like a pile of crap to me.
Except for one thing, which governs Thomas Hobbes's 'Strong Man' theory of government. He is a neglected genius.
I do not need to be asked by any democratic process whether I want my family and me and my city/town/village to be kept safe and defended from invasion, attack, or occupation by land, sea or air. And given a choice between democracy and safety, I and others would choose safety.
(BTW, the EU has many weaknesses but its inability to provide for the military safety of its population is by far the greatest.)
Is this the principle deep reason for the advance of non-democratic ways of thought in the democratic world?
I've been to several different hospitals/clinics (via health insurance my company pays for) and they all have access to each other's notes. I can see scans going back years.
So some people ask why they are doing process X when it brings no benefit and merely adds extra time and cost.
While some people happily spend their lives doing X.
Arguably some of the instability in Western governments in recent years has come from the modern desire to move towards a more direct, populist model of democracy over the traditional representative one. As the popular will will often come to decisions that are contradictory or later regretted when the reality becomes clear, which can't be undone nor their consequences wished away.
In the US the problem is rather different though, in that national opinion likely narrowly favours moderate Democrat policies - certainly in several important areas, though not all. Yet thanks to the Supreme Court being a GOP lock for decades and a system that favours the GOP at congressional level by boosting the influence of smaller states, it's always an uphill battle for Democrats to get anything done.
The problem was, largely, politicians at various levels pleading that their area be left out of restrictions. This was across all parties. A variant (ha!) on NIMBYism.
Mine will be the last generation who realises that this is odd:
A smartphone is: bank, newspaper, magazines, supermarket, multi-retailer and department store, car distributor, postal service, telephone, library and reference library, TV, radio, CD player, work conference, camera, video recorder, church, university of the 3rd and any age, archive, filing cabinet, dating agency.
When they finally gave it to us - even I could see issues. Classic dehydration, for a start.
Oh well, we can always get more posters on PB. Made by unskilled labour in 9 months etc….
Not impressed.
Banks are full of this. At Douche Bank, they even resorted to turning off systems, without establishing news data feeds to the customer systems. Literally pull the plugs - so as to orphan systems that are not being decommissioned for political reasons.
The NHS needs a root and branch overhaul of it's systems and everyone should eb forced to use similar sytems , etc. It is a fecking shambles and throwing more money at it will do nothing.
Betting PostF1: I didn't realise until this morning that Sainz had also been improving, so perhaps the qualifying bet might've come off. Oh well. I had a bucketload of luck all through 2023 so it's to be expected 2024 will be the antithesis of that.
Couple of bets on the race today: https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2024/10/america-pre-race-2024.html
Colapinto to beat Albon at 3.6. He's one place and a hundredth of a second behind in qualifying. Sainz each way at 7.5, hedged at 3. Hard to judge but he's been looking good all weekend.
People are naive if they think the US and Europe have total discretion with respect to Ukraine. They are not simply going to give up in the face of being abandoned, and meekly accept Russian conquest and national annihilation.
Ukraine will reach to whatever tools they can to fight for their independence. If they are capable of making nuclear weapons then they will, and if they are to use them to establish a credible deterrence then they will have to prove that they are functional and detonate one. At that point there's a high risk of a Russian retaliation and a large-scale nuclear exchange, depending on how many operational nukes each side has.
His piece on why the Cabinet Room is less functional than in 1914 is spot on.
The problem in the UK is that we get the worst of both worlds - digitisation which is done primarily to save costs and, because (unlike the US) there is not a major legal / regulatory punishment for those organisations that fail to maintain sufficient security arrangements, nobody really cares about the protection of information aspect.
I joked about the fact that it was a good job I was going to be awake as I didn't want to lose a leg. My name and date of birth were confirmed endlessly after that as per normal, but we managed to pass that test previously by using two sets of records that weren't the same.
This supposed to be unusable for a bomb. But isn’t. The Americans tested one in the 60s, using reactor grade plutonium.
The implosion system isn’t a big problem. A two point design was beyond computers in 1945. Today you can run the design simulation on your smart watch. Testing the implosion was barely possible in 1945 - now standard university physics equipment can do it.
Well, we obviously are an island, but we are not in terms of resources - and neither can we be. Even if we do without all the plastic tat coming from China, we still need those lovely chips from America and Taiwan, along with food and a million and one other things. If we allow fascism to spread, there will come a time when those resources we need are no longer available.
We cannot pull the drawbridge up against the world. And that means we will eventually need to intervene to protect our interests. And it is better to do that now than later.
Then there's the moral issue: one you routinely ignore.
Hope they don't entirely die out.
(1) The calls for major constitutional 'reform' in the US is not coming from the right, it is coming from the left, whether that is getting rid of the current arrangements for electing the President or expanding the Supreme Court. That also happened previously. The filibuster for Supreme Court appointees went as a tit for tat when Obama decided to push for its elimination for Cabinet / Federal appointees;
(2) Trump - and his acolytes - have not sufficient control over either the military or police forces to enact such a plan;
(3) There is a sufficient block of Republican politicians who would stand in his way. Hard to accept but it is the truth.
We would but we don't want to pay for mass so it'd be tokenistic and the high kinetic nature of a war would probably render us combat ineffective inside 6 weeks.
Otherwise, we need global interconnectivity and trade to subsist at our current population and sophistication levels.
Milk's never been the same since.