My daughter recently divorced her husband and has bought a home nearby
It is extraordinary how bad most everyone has been in the process from the divorce lawyers, to the conveyancers, to the utility services, to the local council, and to Welsh Water who knew her water meter had been buried in road works two years previously and have not exposed it since
I do not like the word broken Britain but sadly it is and I see little prospects of any improvement soon
The prisons still use paper with no computerised records as WIfi is not available apparently
Of course the collapse of the prison and courts happened under successive governments alongside so much more, but ultimately we expect to pour countless billions into a failing NHS with little or no reform, pensions and benefits are out of control, paying interest on our debt of £100 billion pa, etc and we wonder why we are where we are
Labour's answer is to tax and tax everything in sight, hand out billions more on WFP, triple lock, and now abolitioning the 2 child cap.
This has to stop and radical action is required to change the direction of the economy but nobody is brave enough as they perceive the public will not elect them
Ultimately this only ends up one way and that is the IMF intervening
And to those who blame the 'other lot' each lot is to blame and no political party is any better than the other at facing realism
Of course Labour axed the WFP which precipitated its poll collapse and even now has not kept it for higher earners. Reform would also abolish the 2 child cap and when Kemi proposed means testing the triple lock the media and other parties pounced on her. Even when Reeves proposed welfare cuts Labour MPs voted them down.
However the IMF won't intervene provided she increases tax enough in the budget to fund her spending, which it seems she will.
Though that may come at the expense of high earners and the very wealthy looking to Singapore, Monaco, Abu Dhabi and Geneva
My daughter recently divorced her husband and has bought a home nearby
It is extraordinary how bad most everyone has been in the process from the divorce lawyers, to the conveyancers, to the utility services, to the local council, and to Welsh Water who knew her water meter had been buried in road works two years previously and have not exposed it since
I do not like the word broken Britain but sadly it is and I see little prospects of any improvement soon
The prisons still use paper with no computerised records as WIfi is not available apparently
Of course the collapse of the prison and courts happened under successive governments alongside so much more, but ultimately we expect to pour countless billions into a failing NHS with little or no reform, pensions and benefits are out of control, paying interest on our debt of £100 billion pa, etc and we wonder why we are where we are
Labour's answer is to tax and tax everything in sight, hand out billions more on WFP, triple lock, and now abolitioning the 2 child cap.
This has to stop and radical action is required to change the direction of the economy but nobody is brave enough as they perceive the public will not elect them
Ultimately this only ends up one way and that is the IMF intervening
And to those who blame the 'other lot' each lot is to blame and no political party is any better than the other at facing realism
We have to modernise, reform and invest. That will take money upfront with savings to come later. Businesses do this all the time. So yes, tax rises are necessary, even if they go against voter preferences and many peoples ideology.
We passed the limit of what we could cut first and then reform successfully several years or more ago.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
The prison service appears to be totally broken. They literally have one job to do, and that’s to keep the dangerous people away from the rest of us.
How can they possibly lose half a dozen people every week?
Because prisons are overcrowded, guards are undertrained with few entry requirements snd administrative systems archaic. We have neglected our prisons as much as anywhere else in the public estate so shouldn't be surprised that they work badly. The Probation service is pretty hopeless too. At £60 000 per prisoner per year it is very much as Douglas Hurd described 30 years ago "an expensive way of making bad people worse".
On a recent inspection at Leicester Prison* the governor didn't know how many prisoners he had that day. A pretty core figure I would have thought.
*Leicester Prison is opposite my hospital and particularly chaotic, as it is short term with lots of remand prisoners and newly sentenced who are awaiting moves to longer term prisons.
I’ve not worked in a prison but I have worked in an hotel - how many customers are in beds tonight is kinda a key metric. Much easier with a prison too, guests can’t just bring a friend in with them and there’s supposed to be paperwork of comings and goings.
As others have said, it does appear that a lot of money is being spent with poor value achieved, yet prison officers are not particularly well paid, and every month or two there’s a scandal involving a young woman working in a men’s prison with predictable results.
The building themselves are often in poor condition too, they should probably look at selling off a lot of the estate that’s in urban areas (the old prison in Oxford city centre is now a funky hotel) and build new facilities on military land.
Public sector pay is one of those magic bullets I very much wish we could use. In a perfect world I would very much like that our public servants were paid much better than they are and payscales significantly reformed so that progression is encouraged. We should as part of that be reforming public sector pensions.
Of course the unions would hate absolutely everything I’ve just typed so it’s pie in the sky, but I can dream. I think there’s a lot of great people in the public sector but they are trapped by overbearing bureaucracy and static pay and progression structures.
They probably need fewer people paid more money, and yes get rid of the archaic systems of work and pensions.
It’s really obvious in my trade, IT, when you see ads for senior IT managers on £50k in the public sector in London, with a long list of formal qualifications as prerequisites and a five-stage application process.
The helpdesk Level 2 in the private sector is making that salary in London.
And then because they can't fill those £50k manager posts, they fill them instead with people like me (and I assume, you) paying £1000 a day to an IT Consultancy who skim off much of that so it costs twice as much as it would do to employ someone directly at the market rate.
(And £50k has to be the absolute minimum salary for anything in London, as you will pay most of that in rent and travel)
As I already pointed out to you, £50k is ABOVE the median salary in London so most Londoners are already paying most of their salaries in rent and travel. Hence most London residents almost always vote Labour and more live in social homes and most rent.
The most sensible London workers by middle age have moved out to the home counties, here in Essex for example you can earn a London salary with half the living costs and buy a property far cheaper in most areas. Hence even in 2024 most of Essex did not vote Labour
To be pedantic in 2024 the overwhelming majority of the country did not vote for Labour.
In seat terms though the overwhelming majority of the country did vote Labour, with Labour winning 411 MPs out of 650.
In Essex though Labour still only won 5 out of 18 MPs
In seat terms yes. But when quantifying “who voted Labour in 2024” - that was 33.7% of those who voted. So of those who voted 66.3% did not vote Labour.
In London in 2024 43% voted Labour and 10% voted Green, making 53% for left of centre parties overall.
In Essex by contrast Labour did not even win most seats let alone Labour and the Greens winning most votes. That was my main comparison, Essex v London.
My main point being far more home owners in Essex, far lower cost of living, far more rightwing voters, whereas in London the housing costs and cost of living are exorbitant hence far more vote for leftwing parties
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
The prison service appears to be totally broken. They literally have one job to do, and that’s to keep the dangerous people away from the rest of us.
How can they possibly lose half a dozen people every week?
Because prisons are overcrowded, guards are undertrained with few entry requirements snd administrative systems archaic. We have neglected our prisons as much as anywhere else in the public estate so shouldn't be surprised that they work badly. The Probation service is pretty hopeless too. At £60 000 per prisoner per year it is very much as Douglas Hurd described 30 years ago "an expensive way of making bad people worse".
On a recent inspection at Leicester Prison* the governor didn't know how many prisoners he had that day. A pretty core figure I would have thought.
*Leicester Prison is opposite my hospital and particularly chaotic, as it is short term with lots of remand prisoners and newly sentenced who are awaiting moves to longer term prisons.
I’ve not worked in a prison but I have worked in an hotel - how many customers are in beds tonight is kinda a key metric. Much easier with a prison too, guests can’t just bring a friend in with them and there’s supposed to be paperwork of comings and goings.
As others have said, it does appear that a lot of money is being spent with poor value achieved, yet prison officers are not particularly well paid, and every month or two there’s a scandal involving a young woman working in a men’s prison with predictable results.
The building themselves are often in poor condition too, they should probably look at selling off a lot of the estate that’s in urban areas (the old prison in Oxford city centre is now a funky hotel) and build new facilities on military land.
Public sector pay is one of those magic bullets I very much wish we could use. In a perfect world I would very much like that our public servants were paid much better than they are and payscales significantly reformed so that progression is encouraged. We should as part of that be reforming public sector pensions.
Of course the unions would hate absolutely everything I’ve just typed so it’s pie in the sky, but I can dream. I think there’s a lot of great people in the public sector but they are trapped by overbearing bureaucracy and static pay and progression structures.
They probably need fewer people paid more money, and yes get rid of the archaic systems of work and pensions.
It’s really obvious in my trade, IT, when you see ads for senior IT managers on £50k in the public sector in London, with a long list of formal qualifications as prerequisites and a five-stage application process.
The helpdesk Level 2 in the private sector is making that salary in London.
Why any public sector is based in London is beyond me.
All public sector work, beyond frontline services, should be moved out of overheated and overexpensive London. Move all civil servants elsewhere.
I'd move Parliament and the PM's office too while we're at it.
I think the experience of the ONS, based in Newport, offers a cautionary tale. It's hard to get good people to move to Newport, where there are few other employers of graduates with advanced skills in the area of data and statistics. Once you're there and have kids in school and put down roots you have no other job to go to. Your spouse might not find good work either. The ONS has been bedeviled by problems and mistakes, and staffing I suspect is a big part of their problem. There are other places outside London that might have the labour market to support a public body that wants a deep pool of talent, like Manchester or Leeds or Edinburgh. But they also have expensive housing markets. If you want good people you need a deep labour market which implies good private sector employers which implies high competitor salaries and expensive housing, sorry.
Manchester etc are expensive but not London prices, particularly commuter ville for those cities compared to London commuter ville. We would get more bang for our buck sending more out from London to the major cities especially those with good universities. This also helps dampen demand in London which is good for mobility here as well.
Newport is a red herring as that is a different strategy compared to bigger cities.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
Except that the NHS is remarkably efficient (or as another poster put it frugal) compared to other equivalent nations healthcare systems. The idea that the NHS is somehow drowning in admin is ridiculous. And giving patients a choice of hospitals doesn't require a shiny new admin building.
People often accuse reform voters/supporters of harking back to the past. In a way your version of the NHS is doing the same thing. People get frustrated with how GP surgeries run. I think they fail to understand the pressures on primary care. The huge increase in people over 65 in the last quarter century. The ever increase in things that we can do (hip, knee replacement seen as commonplace). Back in the 80's you would probably have walked into the GP surgery, collected a number (like the old delicounter in the supermarket) and waited your turn. I think a lot of people still want to do that. But is it the best way to run a surgery?
I don't actually disagree re hospitals, but what is really needed is the older cottage hospitals. Essentially well but infirm elderly patients evicted from the main surgical hospitals and out to their own home towns, near their families and friends. Less care needed, but still need looking after.
My question then is if the NHS is remarkably efficient, why is it so catastrophically inefficient? If giving people choice doesn't require a shiny new admin building, why does it always require one in practice?
I'm not harking back to the past at all - I've said that we could have booking systems that work as another poster asked for. But you can't have that at the moment because of the absurd structure.
One example. Where I used to live. Two separate GP practices in the same health centre. Each with its own management team, its own contracts with other parts of the NHS, its own preferred treatment routes. Duplication. Complication. Cost. And for what choice? You get a GP at the one with capacity - there's no choice. You get sent where they send you. Teesside has a choice of ageing hospitals short on capacity. Work in Newcastle and an appointment there would suit you better? Tough.
Radical idea. Scrap the GP practices managing contracts to compete with each other. Scrap the market structure completely. Procure centrally. Your choice of hospital is almost certainly your closest one because thats what people want, but if you want to drop an appointment into the one near where you work or you have family its click click. Centralised.
GPs in 1945 didn't like the idea of the NHS, so when the NHS was introduced, GPs got to stay private businesses that contracted for NHS work. This decision has had longterm repercussions that have contributed to today's situation.
The more I think about it, the worse this is from Jenrick. Kids are being bullied on social media/WhatsApp by others creating deepfakes of them, and it makes their lives hell. Politicians should know better, they should be setting the standards, not lowering them.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
Except that the NHS is remarkably efficient (or as another poster put it frugal) compared to other equivalent nations healthcare systems. The idea that the NHS is somehow drowning in admin is ridiculous. And giving patients a choice of hospitals doesn't require a shiny new admin building.
People often accuse reform voters/supporters of harking back to the past. In a way your version of the NHS is doing the same thing. People get frustrated with how GP surgeries run. I think they fail to understand the pressures on primary care. The huge increase in people over 65 in the last quarter century. The ever increase in things that we can do (hip, knee replacement seen as commonplace). Back in the 80's you would probably have walked into the GP surgery, collected a number (like the old delicounter in the supermarket) and waited your turn. I think a lot of people still want to do that. But is it the best way to run a surgery?
I don't actually disagree re hospitals, but what is really needed is the older cottage hospitals. Essentially well but infirm elderly patients evicted from the main surgical hospitals and out to their own home towns, near their families and friends. Less care needed, but still need looking after.
My question then is if the NHS is remarkably efficient, why is it so catastrophically inefficient? If giving people choice doesn't require a shiny new admin building, why does it always require one in practice?
I'm not harking back to the past at all - I've said that we could have booking systems that work as another poster asked for. But you can't have that at the moment because of the absurd structure.
One example. Where I used to live. Two separate GP practices in the same health centre. Each with its own management team, its own contracts with other parts of the NHS, its own preferred treatment routes. Duplication. Complication. Cost. And for what choice? You get a GP at the one with capacity - there's no choice. You get sent where they send you. Teesside has a choice of ageing hospitals short on capacity. Work in Newcastle and an appointment there would suit you better? Tough.
Radical idea. Scrap the GP practices managing contracts to compete with each other. Scrap the market structure completely. Procure centrally. Your choice of hospital is almost certainly your closest one because thats what people want, but if you want to drop an appointment into the one near where you work or you have family its click click. Centralised.
I think a situation you describe re competing GP surgeries is the anomaly. Certainly not the case for my town nor my dads village nor my sisters village. Can you give me other examples that you see as catastrophically inefficient? I think the NHS suffers a lot because it has to deal with patients. People who by their very nature are unwell, anxious, scared, angry, annoyed, fed up etc. Its important to remember that the NHS isn't running a hotel. Things happen. You may have an appointment at 9.15 and be annoyed that the appointment doesn't happen until 9.45 - how can they be that far behind so early in the day? But perhaps a patient needed more then 7 minutes with the doctor.
Totally agree. The sooner we junk that pile of crap X from UK servers the better.
I never use it. I hate it. Any link with an X prefix I just ignore. My life is none the poorer for it.
X has a clear use. Matt cartoons free. PB posters linking to X, used selectively, is the best filter available to me. Are there other uses?
I still gain a lot of specalist knowledge from posts on X. But my follower list is carefully curated and I stay well clear of any politic type posters, and thus doesn't contain ragebaity stuff.
That’s the key, don’t actually follow a lot of people who comment on politics. My feed is all IT/aviation/motorsport/space/technology/Ukraine stuff unless I go looking for UK or US politics.
We can tell by your level-headed analyses of US politics that don't suggest, in any way, that you've fallen down a MAGA social media hole.
This always seems to happen when I hear someone saying, "yes, twitter is full of ragebait and propaganda but I am a very sophisticated social media user and I am able to use it in a way that makes it informative". Talk to them for a while and it turns out they believe some absolutely deranged propaganda about Biden rigging elections or the CPI being fake or whatever.
The people still on Twitter are the people whose brains are poisoned enough that they're unable to tell that their brains are being poisoned.
The more I think about it, the worse this is from Jenrick. Kids are being bullied on social media/WhatsApp by others creating deepfakes of them, and it makes their lives hell. Politicians should know better, they should be setting the standards, not lowering them.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
Except that the NHS is remarkably efficient (or as another poster put it frugal) compared to other equivalent nations healthcare systems. The idea that the NHS is somehow drowning in admin is ridiculous. And giving patients a choice of hospitals doesn't require a shiny new admin building.
People often accuse reform voters/supporters of harking back to the past. In a way your version of the NHS is doing the same thing. People get frustrated with how GP surgeries run. I think they fail to understand the pressures on primary care. The huge increase in people over 65 in the last quarter century. The ever increase in things that we can do (hip, knee replacement seen as commonplace). Back in the 80's you would probably have walked into the GP surgery, collected a number (like the old delicounter in the supermarket) and waited your turn. I think a lot of people still want to do that. But is it the best way to run a surgery?
I don't actually disagree re hospitals, but what is really needed is the older cottage hospitals. Essentially well but infirm elderly patients evicted from the main surgical hospitals and out to their own home towns, near their families and friends. Less care needed, but still need looking after.
My question then is if the NHS is remarkably efficient, why is it so catastrophically inefficient? If giving people choice doesn't require a shiny new admin building, why does it always require one in practice?
I'm not harking back to the past at all - I've said that we could have booking systems that work as another poster asked for. But you can't have that at the moment because of the absurd structure.
One example. Where I used to live. Two separate GP practices in the same health centre. Each with its own management team, its own contracts with other parts of the NHS, its own preferred treatment routes. Duplication. Complication. Cost. And for what choice? You get a GP at the one with capacity - there's no choice. You get sent where they send you. Teesside has a choice of ageing hospitals short on capacity. Work in Newcastle and an appointment there would suit you better? Tough.
Radical idea. Scrap the GP practices managing contracts to compete with each other. Scrap the market structure completely. Procure centrally. Your choice of hospital is almost certainly your closest one because thats what people want, but if you want to drop an appointment into the one near where you work or you have family its click click. Centralised.
I think a situation you describe re competing GP surgeries is the anomaly. Certainly not the case for my town nor my dads village nor my sisters village. Can you give me other examples that you see as catastrophically inefficient? I think the NHS suffers a lot because it has to deal with patients. People who by their very nature are unwell, anxious, scared, angry, annoyed, fed up etc. Its important to remember that the NHS isn't running a hotel. Things happen. You may have an appointment at 9.15 and be annoyed that the appointment doesn't happen until 9.45 - how can they be that far behind so early in the day? But perhaps a patient needed more then 7 minutes with the doctor.
In fact, since the beginning of the NHS, GPs have fought to prevent practises having any overlap. The modern occurrence of multiple GP practises in the same building is generally caused by practices with *different* catchment zones, cutting costs by sharing a building, rather than each having their own, badly converted, large house.
The more I think about it, the worse this is from Jenrick. Kids are being bullied on social media/WhatsApp by others creating deepfakes of them, and it makes their lives hell. Politicians should know better, they should be setting the standards, not lowering them.
Not sure I'd call it a deep fake. I'd say its in the same category as the Blair demon eyes poster just with modern capability so for me it is not evidence standards are lowering.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
Except that the NHS is remarkably efficient (or as another poster put it frugal) compared to other equivalent nations healthcare systems. The idea that the NHS is somehow drowning in admin is ridiculous. And giving patients a choice of hospitals doesn't require a shiny new admin building.
People often accuse reform voters/supporters of harking back to the past. In a way your version of the NHS is doing the same thing. People get frustrated with how GP surgeries run. I think they fail to understand the pressures on primary care. The huge increase in people over 65 in the last quarter century. The ever increase in things that we can do (hip, knee replacement seen as commonplace). Back in the 80's you would probably have walked into the GP surgery, collected a number (like the old delicounter in the supermarket) and waited your turn. I think a lot of people still want to do that. But is it the best way to run a surgery?
I don't actually disagree re hospitals, but what is really needed is the older cottage hospitals. Essentially well but infirm elderly patients evicted from the main surgical hospitals and out to their own home towns, near their families and friends. Less care needed, but still need looking after.
My question then is if the NHS is remarkably efficient, why is it so catastrophically inefficient? If giving people choice doesn't require a shiny new admin building, why does it always require one in practice?
I'm not harking back to the past at all - I've said that we could have booking systems that work as another poster asked for. But you can't have that at the moment because of the absurd structure.
One example. Where I used to live. Two separate GP practices in the same health centre. Each with its own management team, its own contracts with other parts of the NHS, its own preferred treatment routes. Duplication. Complication. Cost. And for what choice? You get a GP at the one with capacity - there's no choice. You get sent where they send you. Teesside has a choice of ageing hospitals short on capacity. Work in Newcastle and an appointment there would suit you better? Tough.
Radical idea. Scrap the GP practices managing contracts to compete with each other. Scrap the market structure completely. Procure centrally. Your choice of hospital is almost certainly your closest one because thats what people want, but if you want to drop an appointment into the one near where you work or you have family its click click. Centralised.
I think a situation you describe re competing GP surgeries is the anomaly. Certainly not the case for my town nor my dads village nor my sisters village. Can you give me other examples that you see as catastrophically inefficient? I think the NHS suffers a lot because it has to deal with patients. People who by their very nature are unwell, anxious, scared, angry, annoyed, fed up etc. Its important to remember that the NHS isn't running a hotel. Things happen. You may have an appointment at 9.15 and be annoyed that the appointment doesn't happen until 9.45 - how can they be that far behind so early in the day? But perhaps a patient needed more then 7 minutes with the doctor.
NHS England? I listened to an interview yesterday where Wes Streeting said that the government shouldn't get trapped into defending the status quo. And to be fair to him a significant restructure is happening, including with the way GP services are provided.
Have I realised, before Mr @TheScreamingEagles, that the Man City v Liverpool match on Sunday clashes with the Brazilian Grand Prix?
Footy kicks off at 16:30 UK time and the F1 cars start racing at 17:00.
I am aware, I am moving a second TV into the living room in preparation.
I also have a major clash on the evening Saturday the 20th of December.
Spurs v Liverpool clashes with the final of Strictly.
Why don't you just use your laptop to watch the second event?
I struggle to watch sports on a small screen.
I embarrassed to admit this, but we have seven TVs in the house, and the smallest one is 65 inches.
My eyes struggle to watch stuff that isn’t on s big screen in 4k/HDR with Dolby Atmos.
Rather sadly, I need to ask: how many rooms do you have?
Downstairs, inter alia, 2 reception rooms, a living room, a dining room, a second kitchen with dining area, a man cave for me, and a games room for my kids.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
Except that the NHS is remarkably efficient (or as another poster put it frugal) compared to other equivalent nations healthcare systems. The idea that the NHS is somehow drowning in admin is ridiculous. And giving patients a choice of hospitals doesn't require a shiny new admin building.
People often accuse reform voters/supporters of harking back to the past. In a way your version of the NHS is doing the same thing. People get frustrated with how GP surgeries run. I think they fail to understand the pressures on primary care. The huge increase in people over 65 in the last quarter century. The ever increase in things that we can do (hip, knee replacement seen as commonplace). Back in the 80's you would probably have walked into the GP surgery, collected a number (like the old delicounter in the supermarket) and waited your turn. I think a lot of people still want to do that. But is it the best way to run a surgery?
I don't actually disagree re hospitals, but what is really needed is the older cottage hospitals. Essentially well but infirm elderly patients evicted from the main surgical hospitals and out to their own home towns, near their families and friends. Less care needed, but still need looking after.
My question then is if the NHS is remarkably efficient, why is it so catastrophically inefficient? If giving people choice doesn't require a shiny new admin building, why does it always require one in practice?
I'm not harking back to the past at all - I've said that we could have booking systems that work as another poster asked for. But you can't have that at the moment because of the absurd structure.
One example. Where I used to live. Two separate GP practices in the same health centre. Each with its own management team, its own contracts with other parts of the NHS, its own preferred treatment routes. Duplication. Complication. Cost. And for what choice? You get a GP at the one with capacity - there's no choice. You get sent where they send you. Teesside has a choice of ageing hospitals short on capacity. Work in Newcastle and an appointment there would suit you better? Tough.
Radical idea. Scrap the GP practices managing contracts to compete with each other. Scrap the market structure completely. Procure centrally. Your choice of hospital is almost certainly your closest one because thats what people want, but if you want to drop an appointment into the one near where you work or you have family its click click. Centralised.
I think a situation you describe re competing GP surgeries is the anomaly. Certainly not the case for my town nor my dads village nor my sisters village. Can you give me other examples that you see as catastrophically inefficient? I think the NHS suffers a lot because it has to deal with patients. People who by their very nature are unwell, anxious, scared, angry, annoyed, fed up etc. Its important to remember that the NHS isn't running a hotel. Things happen. You may have an appointment at 9.15 and be annoyed that the appointment doesn't happen until 9.45 - how can they be that far behind so early in the day? But perhaps a patient needed more then 7 minutes with the doctor.
NHS England? I listened to an interview yesterday where Wes Streeting said that the government shouldn't get trapped into defending the status quo. And to be fair to him a significant restructure is happening, including with the way GP services are provided.
Do you know what NHS England does? And what will replace it?
Have I realised, before Mr @TheScreamingEagles, that the Man City v Liverpool match on Sunday clashes with the Brazilian Grand Prix?
Footy kicks off at 16:30 UK time and the F1 cars start racing at 17:00.
I am aware, I am moving a second TV into the living room in preparation.
I also have a major clash on the evening Saturday the 20th of December.
Spurs v Liverpool clashes with the final of Strictly.
Why don't you just use your laptop to watch the second event?
I struggle to watch sports on a small screen.
I embarrassed to admit this, but we have seven TVs in the house, and the smallest one is 65 inches.
My eyes struggle to watch stuff that isn’t on s big screen in 4k/HDR with Dolby Atmos.
We have two TVs, the largest is 40" and is almost 15 years old but still does the job as well as it did when we bought it!
When I upgraded to Sky Glass they were pushing me towards the 55 inch, but I had to insist on the smaller one or the wife would have been very cross. Does the job. I like having all the apps on one device. Sound is ok to my very non-expert ear. Its just telly, after all...
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
As you probably know yourself, it is extraordinarily hard to change anything significantly, as an elected politician. Firstly, political roles with any influence come with a stack of work just to keep plates spinning (the extent to which officials are adept at keeping their politicians 'busy' with the minor stuff, per Yes Minister, one can debate). Then, you have to have the influence within your own political party - assuming it has a majority - to persuade your colleagues both of the need for change and to give it political priority, when there are always more things to do than capacity to do them. Any change of significance will come with up front costs, risks, and political consequences, with the benefits often way downstream - quite possibly when you're out of office and some other guy or gal will be in your chair, which makes it hard to sell politically, both to colleagues and then to the wider world. Your staff are already overworked and highly skilled, as an understandable self-protection, at putting obstacles in the way of anything that will be time-consuming and risky, since their careers as well as your own are likely on the line if anything goes really tits up. Anyone in a senior position, especially in the public sector, knows that the 'power' such roles appear to have is largely illusory, given the array of stakeholders and vested interests that need to be got on board and the lack of resources, human, physical and financial. It takes exceptional drive to push through all of this, and it's almost a golden rule that any politician can only push one such project at a time, the delivery of which could easily take years. You need a firm ally among senior staff, since as a politician - whether minister or councillor - you don't have much formal power to manage or issue direct orders to staff yourself. And you're doing all this in a world where many of your colleagues are risk-averse time-servers who just want to stay in their big chairs, with others supposedly on your side actually hoping you'll mess up so they can take your job, and surrounded by political opponents whose principal interest is in seeing you fail.
This is a very good picture of the reality in a multi party democratic large country with big institutions, huge civil admin and a free press. In many ways none of it is new. It is the basic condition of what being the government is like.
None of it justifies an absence of basic competence in running what the state has taken on itself to run and requires us to pay for. By far the biggest change needed is to run what there already is really well. HMRC answering the phone within two minutes and dealing with queries properly. Not releasing prisoners wrongly. Following up knife stabbings properly. Attending shop lifting and burglaries and prosecuting offenders. No change required, just competence.
No, it can't be done on the cheap. But incompetence costs as much.
For sure. And the private sector has people who can do much of this, if in a much simpler context, who for some reason - despite all the moaning about the cushy life and luxurious retirement on offer from the public sector - don't often make the move (and often crash and burn, when they do).
The extent to which any politician is surrounded by people who have an active interest in their failure - ambitious junior colleagues, hungry rivals for the next job up, all of the opposition, much of the media sniffing around for a story, threatened vested interests, voters who would lose out from any change, staff and unions defending the status quo, even some of your officials who would rather you went away - is under-analysed.
The more I think about it, the worse this is from Jenrick. Kids are being bullied on social media/WhatsApp by others creating deepfakes of them, and it makes their lives hell. Politicians should know better, they should be setting the standards, not lowering them.
Agree. I think Kemi should assert her authority and instruct Jenrick to remove the childish tweet.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
Except that the NHS is remarkably efficient (or as another poster put it frugal) compared to other equivalent nations healthcare systems. The idea that the NHS is somehow drowning in admin is ridiculous. And giving patients a choice of hospitals doesn't require a shiny new admin building.
People often accuse reform voters/supporters of harking back to the past. In a way your version of the NHS is doing the same thing. People get frustrated with how GP surgeries run. I think they fail to understand the pressures on primary care. The huge increase in people over 65 in the last quarter century. The ever increase in things that we can do (hip, knee replacement seen as commonplace). Back in the 80's you would probably have walked into the GP surgery, collected a number (like the old delicounter in the supermarket) and waited your turn. I think a lot of people still want to do that. But is it the best way to run a surgery?
I don't actually disagree re hospitals, but what is really needed is the older cottage hospitals. Essentially well but infirm elderly patients evicted from the main surgical hospitals and out to their own home towns, near their families and friends. Less care needed, but still need looking after.
My question then is if the NHS is remarkably efficient, why is it so catastrophically inefficient? If giving people choice doesn't require a shiny new admin building, why does it always require one in practice?
I'm not harking back to the past at all - I've said that we could have booking systems that work as another poster asked for. But you can't have that at the moment because of the absurd structure.
One example. Where I used to live. Two separate GP practices in the same health centre. Each with its own management team, its own contracts with other parts of the NHS, its own preferred treatment routes. Duplication. Complication. Cost. And for what choice? You get a GP at the one with capacity - there's no choice. You get sent where they send you. Teesside has a choice of ageing hospitals short on capacity. Work in Newcastle and an appointment there would suit you better? Tough.
Radical idea. Scrap the GP practices managing contracts to compete with each other. Scrap the market structure completely. Procure centrally. Your choice of hospital is almost certainly your closest one because thats what people want, but if you want to drop an appointment into the one near where you work or you have family its click click. Centralised.
I think a situation you describe re competing GP surgeries is the anomaly. Certainly not the case for my town nor my dads village nor my sisters village. Can you give me other examples that you see as catastrophically inefficient? I think the NHS suffers a lot because it has to deal with patients. People who by their very nature are unwell, anxious, scared, angry, annoyed, fed up etc. Its important to remember that the NHS isn't running a hotel. Things happen. You may have an appointment at 9.15 and be annoyed that the appointment doesn't happen until 9.45 - how can they be that far behind so early in the day? But perhaps a patient needed more then 7 minutes with the doctor.
In fact, since the beginning of the NHS, GPs have fought to prevent practises having any overlap. The modern occurrence of multiple GP practises in the same building is generally caused by practices with *different* catchment zones, cutting costs by sharing a building, rather than each having their own, badly converted, large house.
Sure. In the example I gave the different catchment zones were that street vs this street. Teesside is a great example to be fair, on a number of fronts. Stockton and Middlesbrough flow directly into each other, and yet health outcomes on various things is wildly different.
Dr Paul Williams - once the MP for Stockton South - gave a great example, where the time for diagnosis and treatment if you have a kid with suspected autism is months in one and years in the other. That is what the different catchment zones means in reality - a post-code lottery that costs vast amounts to administer.
My daughter recently divorced her husband and has bought a home nearby
It is extraordinary how bad most everyone has been in the process from the divorce lawyers, to the conveyancers, to the utility services, to the local council, and to Welsh Water who knew her water meter had been buried in road works two years previously and have not exposed it since
I do not like the word broken Britain but sadly it is and I see little prospects of any improvement soon
The prisons still use paper with no computerised records as WIfi is not available apparently
Of course the collapse of the prison and courts happened under successive governments alongside so much more, but ultimately we expect to pour countless billions into a failing NHS with little or no reform, pensions and benefits are out of control, paying interest on our debt of £100 billion pa, etc and we wonder why we are where we are
Labour's answer is to tax and tax everything in sight, hand out billions more on WFP, triple lock, and now abolitioning the 2 child cap.
This has to stop and radical action is required to change the direction of the economy but nobody is brave enough as they perceive the public will not elect them
Ultimately this only ends up one way and that is the IMF intervening
And to those who blame the 'other lot' each lot is to blame and no political party is any better than the other at facing realism
My recent experience with a range of public and private sector organisations has similarly been rather poor in many cases. It sometimes fees like bad service has become normalized. I would emphasise this is not just in the public sector by any means. The exception is usually small firms. Are we bad at building a good culture in large organisations in this country?
ITV has said it is in "preliminary" discussions to sell its broadcasting business to Sky for £1.6bn, a move that could reshape the UK's television landscape.
The talks focus on ITV's Media and Entertainment division, which includes its free-to-air TV channels as well as the ITV X streaming service.
The discussions with Sky, which is owned by US-based Comcast, come as the television industry faces fierce competition from streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+.
The deal would not include ITV's production arm - ITV Studios - which makes popular programmes such as Love Island and I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here.
Have I realised, before Mr @TheScreamingEagles, that the Man City v Liverpool match on Sunday clashes with the Brazilian Grand Prix?
Footy kicks off at 16:30 UK time and the F1 cars start racing at 17:00.
I am aware, I am moving a second TV into the living room in preparation.
I also have a major clash on the evening Saturday the 20th of December.
Spurs v Liverpool clashes with the final of Strictly.
Why don't you just use your laptop to watch the second event?
I struggle to watch sports on a small screen.
I embarrassed to admit this, but we have seven TVs in the house, and the smallest one is 65 inches.
My eyes struggle to watch stuff that isn’t on s big screen in 4k/HDR with Dolby Atmos.
Ah, if I were remotely a class warrior fool I'd mock you so much for that.
But I'm not.
Important question, though, as someone who doesn't watch football: is the commentary there even worse than F1? Which one are you going to mute?
Brundle's fine but Croft is somewhere between tedious and seriously aggravating.
Some football commentators are more annoying than James Allen.
You leave Crofty alone.
So says someone who’s not watching F1TV Pro. Can’t you get their alternative commentary on Sky, it’s way better than Crofty?
Not available in the UK unless you have a VPN and pay extra but I get F1 in my Sky package.
Overall the Sky presentation is better for the following reasons
1) 4K picture quality with Dolby Atmos 2) Martin Brundle 3) The wider Sky analysis team such as Karun Chandhok, Anthony Davidson, Ted Kravitz, Bernie Collins, Nico Rosberg, et al. 4) The F1 in house commentary are afraid to call-out the FIA bellendry/idiocy in way Sky aren’t 5) Danica Patrick (but that’s me speaking as a red blooded male, I can ignore her MAGA stuff.)
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
Except that the NHS is remarkably efficient (or as another poster put it frugal) compared to other equivalent nations healthcare systems. The idea that the NHS is somehow drowning in admin is ridiculous. And giving patients a choice of hospitals doesn't require a shiny new admin building.
People often accuse reform voters/supporters of harking back to the past. In a way your version of the NHS is doing the same thing. People get frustrated with how GP surgeries run. I think they fail to understand the pressures on primary care. The huge increase in people over 65 in the last quarter century. The ever increase in things that we can do (hip, knee replacement seen as commonplace). Back in the 80's you would probably have walked into the GP surgery, collected a number (like the old delicounter in the supermarket) and waited your turn. I think a lot of people still want to do that. But is it the best way to run a surgery?
I don't actually disagree re hospitals, but what is really needed is the older cottage hospitals. Essentially well but infirm elderly patients evicted from the main surgical hospitals and out to their own home towns, near their families and friends. Less care needed, but still need looking after.
My question then is if the NHS is remarkably efficient, why is it so catastrophically inefficient? If giving people choice doesn't require a shiny new admin building, why does it always require one in practice?
I'm not harking back to the past at all - I've said that we could have booking systems that work as another poster asked for. But you can't have that at the moment because of the absurd structure.
One example. Where I used to live. Two separate GP practices in the same health centre. Each with its own management team, its own contracts with other parts of the NHS, its own preferred treatment routes. Duplication. Complication. Cost. And for what choice? You get a GP at the one with capacity - there's no choice. You get sent where they send you. Teesside has a choice of ageing hospitals short on capacity. Work in Newcastle and an appointment there would suit you better? Tough.
Radical idea. Scrap the GP practices managing contracts to compete with each other. Scrap the market structure completely. Procure centrally. Your choice of hospital is almost certainly your closest one because thats what people want, but if you want to drop an appointment into the one near where you work or you have family its click click. Centralised.
I think a situation you describe re competing GP surgeries is the anomaly. Certainly not the case for my town nor my dads village nor my sisters village. Can you give me other examples that you see as catastrophically inefficient? I think the NHS suffers a lot because it has to deal with patients. People who by their very nature are unwell, anxious, scared, angry, annoyed, fed up etc. Its important to remember that the NHS isn't running a hotel. Things happen. You may have an appointment at 9.15 and be annoyed that the appointment doesn't happen until 9.45 - how can they be that far behind so early in the day? But perhaps a patient needed more then 7 minutes with the doctor.
NHS England? I listened to an interview yesterday where Wes Streeting said that the government shouldn't get trapped into defending the status quo. And to be fair to him a significant restructure is happening, including with the way GP services are provided.
Do you know what NHS England does? And what will replace it?
No and no. I am not the expert here. But I have three markers: Never ending increases in money spent Never ending cash crises at the point of delivery Repeated wholesale restructures to change from this version of the internal market to that version
If the NHS is so efficient we wouldn't burn most of the money in the cost of running it or need to keep restructuring it at a fundamental level. And yes, I propose a restructure, but one that removes most of the 90s / 00s / 10s / 20s market structures and asks what people actually need.
The more I think about it, the worse this is from Jenrick. Kids are being bullied on social media/WhatsApp by others creating deepfakes of them, and it makes their lives hell. Politicians should know better, they should be setting the standards, not lowering them.
I can't bear Jenrick, but give over, the comedy element of the clip is brilliant, and Lammy was so poor on Wednesday the clown image summed up his performance.
I would jump at any opportunity to dump all over Jenrick's political opportunism and his performative cruelty, but that is funny and is a wholly different proposition to the worrying uses of AI you suggest.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
I quite agree and the inertia on the big issues by this disappointing administration is mind numbing. That said even when they have achieved minor victories their comms are so bad they don't even announce them, not that the press would be interested.
I do get frustrated when Shadow Ministers lie and explain everything was hunky dory on their watch. There are Tories who acknowledge reality, Alex Chalke was on yesterday suggesting the prison system has been in crisis for years if not decades. Contrast that with Jenrick on Ferrari yesterday, who with a half truth blamed not only the current but the previous government for the collapse in asylum policy and the related collapse in prison management. But along with that half truth he distanced himself from the previous government by saying he resigned because they were all incompetent, ignoring the reality that he was front and centre of that incompetence.
Incumbency brings with it the reality of government and this lot need to pull their finger out or hand the show over to Farage sooner rather than later. But Kemi, Cartridge and Jenrick pretending they weren't in government as the whole edifice collapsed does stick in the craw.
Their sneering hypocrisy is one of the reasons the polls show them heading for minibus numbers at the next election. People hate it, and it reminds them of why they voted them out.
Anyway, the problem is simple. We need to change the systems and simplify the structures. Which costs more as you do it, and we're "broke" supposedly.
In the business world this is called investment. My shop had very inefficient florescent light fittings. Cost a LOT in electricity. So I invested in LED panels. Spend more up front, to then save a lot every month that follows. Borrow. Invest. Gain a return on the investment. CAPITALISM - that thing the Tories used to represent before they got bought by the banks and the spivs.
Will it cost a little more to scrap these structures and cut the now redundant workforce? Sure. With huge savings delivered afterwards. Will it cost more to hire more cops and run the courts more and create prison space? Absolutely - with a big drop in the cost of crime afterwards. Will it cost money to invest in our towns and cities so that the streets aren't full of weeds and potholes? Sure - but look at the economic growth in places like Manchester.
Borrow. Invest. ROI.
Thanks to the Tories all we ever get - from Labour as well who were forced to adopt the same language - is "how will you pay for that", not "what benefits do we get from that". And at the moment absurd political / treasury orthodoxy has it that cuts save money with no cost. Which is laughably untrue.
Also, we have had successive governments apparently unable to distinguish investment which provides a real return, from that which does not. You rightly point at Manchester, IMO, as I suspect it's entirely possible that sustained capital investment in regional cities would provide a greater return than that in London, which has taken the lion's share since forever.
I hadn't appreciated that we've also just cancelled electrification of railway lines outside of London, yet again, to pay for London infrastructure.
UK transport secretary says full electrification of railways ‘not affordable (sic) right now’ Heidi Alexander says focus will be on other projects such as HS2 https://www.ft.com/content/5ecda1f8-b624-4e86-bb7b-b571bddb8a19 It seems Dr B-Ching Alexander's decision to halt further rail electrification in the UK, citing it as "unaffordable," misses the long-term financial and environmental benefits that electrification brings. Here's a breakdown of why her ignorance will be seen as a gross miscalculation:
1. Initial Costs vs. Long-Term Savings: While the upfront costs of electrification are significant, studies show that electric trains reduce operating costs by 20-30% compared to diesel trains over their lifecycle. This is due to lower maintenance needs and fuel costs, even when factoring in the construction expenses. For instance, the Great Western Electrification Project, despite its high initial cost, was projected to yield substantial savings over time. 2. Capacity and Efficiency Gains: Electrification can increase rail capacity by up to 40%, according to UK studies. This means more passengers and freight can be moved efficiently, potentially generating additional revenue that could offset initial investments. The missed opportunity here is not just financial but also operational, as electric trains are faster and more reliable, improving service quality and customer satisfaction. 3. Environmental and Social Benefits: Electric trains cut emissions by about 90% compared to diesel, aligning with global efforts to combat climate change. The environmental cost of not electrifying, in terms of increased carbon emissions and air pollution, could lead to higher societal costs in health and climate adaptation measures. These indirect costs are often not factored into short-term affordability assessments but are crucial for long-term sustainability. 4. Comparative International Examples: Countries like Germany have managed to electrify their railways at a fraction of the cost per single-track kilometer (STK) compared to the UK, partly due to a steady, skilled workforce and optimized techniques. The UK's historical challenges, like the costly Great Western project, don't necessarily reflect current capabilities or future potential efficiencies... https://x.com/tomcoady/status/1986448982956974538
Totally agree. The sooner we junk that pile of crap X from UK servers the better.
I never use it. I hate it. Any link with an X prefix I just ignore. My life is none the poorer for it.
X has a clear use. Matt cartoons free. PB posters linking to X, used selectively, is the best filter available to me. Are there other uses?
I still gain a lot of specalist knowledge from posts on X. But my follower list is carefully curated and I stay well clear of any politic type posters, and thus doesn't contain ragebaity stuff.
That’s the key, don’t actually follow a lot of people who comment on politics. My feed is all IT/aviation/motorsport/space/technology/Ukraine stuff unless I go looking for UK or US politics.
We can tell by your level-headed analyses of US politics that don't suggest, in any way, that you've fallen down a MAGA social media hole.
This always seems to happen when I hear someone saying, "yes, twitter is full of ragebait and propaganda but I am a very sophisticated social media user and I am able to use it in a way that makes it informative". Talk to them for a while and it turns out they believe some absolutely deranged propaganda about Biden rigging elections or the CPI being fake or whatever.
The people still on Twitter are the people whose brains are poisoned enough that they're unable to tell that their brains are being poisoned.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
Except that the NHS is remarkably efficient (or as another poster put it frugal) compared to other equivalent nations healthcare systems. The idea that the NHS is somehow drowning in admin is ridiculous. And giving patients a choice of hospitals doesn't require a shiny new admin building.
People often accuse reform voters/supporters of harking back to the past. In a way your version of the NHS is doing the same thing. People get frustrated with how GP surgeries run. I think they fail to understand the pressures on primary care. The huge increase in people over 65 in the last quarter century. The ever increase in things that we can do (hip, knee replacement seen as commonplace). Back in the 80's you would probably have walked into the GP surgery, collected a number (like the old delicounter in the supermarket) and waited your turn. I think a lot of people still want to do that. But is it the best way to run a surgery?
I don't actually disagree re hospitals, but what is really needed is the older cottage hospitals. Essentially well but infirm elderly patients evicted from the main surgical hospitals and out to their own home towns, near their families and friends. Less care needed, but still need looking after.
My question then is if the NHS is remarkably efficient, why is it so catastrophically inefficient? If giving people choice doesn't require a shiny new admin building, why does it always require one in practice?
I'm not harking back to the past at all - I've said that we could have booking systems that work as another poster asked for. But you can't have that at the moment because of the absurd structure.
One example. Where I used to live. Two separate GP practices in the same health centre. Each with its own management team, its own contracts with other parts of the NHS, its own preferred treatment routes. Duplication. Complication. Cost. And for what choice? You get a GP at the one with capacity - there's no choice. You get sent where they send you. Teesside has a choice of ageing hospitals short on capacity. Work in Newcastle and an appointment there would suit you better? Tough.
Radical idea. Scrap the GP practices managing contracts to compete with each other. Scrap the market structure completely. Procure centrally. Your choice of hospital is almost certainly your closest one because thats what people want, but if you want to drop an appointment into the one near where you work or you have family its click click. Centralised.
I used to have to work with a Heath Centre with 4 GP practices, all single handed. None of the GP's would work with each for disparate and often (to me) footling reasons. Quite often they wouldn't even talk to one another.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
I quite agree and the inertia on the big issues by this disappointing administration is mind numbing. That said even when they have achieved minor victories their comms are so bad they don't even announce them, not that the press would be interested.
I do get frustrated when Shadow Ministers lie and explain everything was hunky dory on their watch. There are Tories who acknowledge reality, Alex Chalke was on yesterday suggesting the prison system has been in crisis for years if not decades. Contrast that with Jenrick on Ferrari yesterday, who with a half truth blamed not only the current but the previous government for the collapse in asylum policy and the related collapse in prison management. But along with that half truth he distanced himself from the previous government by saying he resigned because they were all incompetent, ignoring the reality that he was front and centre of that incompetence.
Incumbency brings with it the reality of government and this lot need to pull their finger out or hand the show over to Farage sooner rather than later. But Kemi, Cartridge and Jenrick pretending they weren't in government as the whole edifice collapsed does stick in the craw.
Their sneering hypocrisy is one of the reasons the polls show them heading for minibus numbers at the next election. People hate it, and it reminds them of why they voted them out.
Anyway, the problem is simple. We need to change the systems and simplify the structures. Which costs more as you do it, and we're "broke" supposedly.
In the business world this is called investment. My shop had very inefficient florescent light fittings. Cost a LOT in electricity. So I invested in LED panels. Spend more up front, to then save a lot every month that follows. Borrow. Invest. Gain a return on the investment. CAPITALISM - that thing the Tories used to represent before they got bought by the banks and the spivs.
Will it cost a little more to scrap these structures and cut the now redundant workforce? Sure. With huge savings delivered afterwards. Will it cost more to hire more cops and run the courts more and create prison space? Absolutely - with a big drop in the cost of crime afterwards. Will it cost money to invest in our towns and cities so that the streets aren't full of weeds and potholes? Sure - but look at the economic growth in places like Manchester.
Borrow. Invest. ROI.
Thanks to the Tories all we ever get - from Labour as well who were forced to adopt the same language - is "how will you pay for that", not "what benefits do we get from that". And at the moment absurd political / treasury orthodoxy has it that cuts save money with no cost. Which is laughably untrue.
Also, we have had successive governments apparently unable to distinguish investment which provides a real return, from that which does not. You rightly point at Manchester, IMO, as I suspect it's entirely possible that sustained capital investment in regional cities would provide a greater return than that in London, which has taken the lion's share since forever.
I hadn't appreciated that we've also just cancelled electrification of railway lines outside of London, yet again, to pay for London infrastructure.
UK transport secretary says full electrification of railways ‘not affordable (sic) right now’ Heidi Alexander says focus will be on other projects such as HS2 https://www.ft.com/content/5ecda1f8-b624-4e86-bb7b-b571bddb8a19 It seems Dr B-Ching Alexander's decision to halt further rail electrification in the UK, citing it as "unaffordable," misses the long-term financial and environmental benefits that electrification brings. Here's a breakdown of why her ignorance will be seen as a gross miscalculation:
1. Initial Costs vs. Long-Term Savings: While the upfront costs of electrification are significant, studies show that electric trains reduce operating costs by 20-30% compared to diesel trains over their lifecycle. This is due to lower maintenance needs and fuel costs, even when factoring in the construction expenses. For instance, the Great Western Electrification Project, despite its high initial cost, was projected to yield substantial savings over time. 2. Capacity and Efficiency Gains: Electrification can increase rail capacity by up to 40%, according to UK studies. This means more passengers and freight can be moved efficiently, potentially generating additional revenue that could offset initial investments. The missed opportunity here is not just financial but also operational, as electric trains are faster and more reliable, improving service quality and customer satisfaction. 3. Environmental and Social Benefits: Electric trains cut emissions by about 90% compared to diesel, aligning with global efforts to combat climate change. The environmental cost of not electrifying, in terms of increased carbon emissions and air pollution, could lead to higher societal costs in health and climate adaptation measures. These indirect costs are often not factored into short-term affordability assessments but are crucial for long-term sustainability. 4. Comparative International Examples: Countries like Germany have managed to electrify their railways at a fraction of the cost per single-track kilometer (STK) compared to the UK, partly due to a steady, skilled workforce and optimized techniques. The UK's historical challenges, like the costly Great Western project, don't necessarily reflect current capabilities or future potential efficiencies... https://x.com/tomcoady/status/1986448982956974538
Have I realised, before Mr @TheScreamingEagles, that the Man City v Liverpool match on Sunday clashes with the Brazilian Grand Prix?
Footy kicks off at 16:30 UK time and the F1 cars start racing at 17:00.
I am aware, I am moving a second TV into the living room in preparation.
I also have a major clash on the evening Saturday the 20th of December.
Spurs v Liverpool clashes with the final of Strictly.
Why don't you just use your laptop to watch the second event?
I struggle to watch sports on a small screen.
I embarrassed to admit this, but we have seven TVs in the house, and the smallest one is 65 inches.
My eyes struggle to watch stuff that isn’t on s big screen in 4k/HDR with Dolby Atmos.
Ah, if I were remotely a class warrior fool I'd mock you so much for that.
But I'm not.
Important question, though, as someone who doesn't watch football: is the commentary there even worse than F1? Which one are you going to mute?
Brundle's fine but Croft is somewhere between tedious and seriously aggravating.
Some football commentators are more annoying than James Allen.
You leave Crofty alone.
So says someone who’s not watching F1TV Pro. Can’t you get their alternative commentary on Sky, it’s way better than Crofty?
Not available in the UK unless you have a VPN and pay extra but I get F1 in my Sky package.
Overall the Sky presentation is better for the following reasons
1) 4K picture quality with Dolby Atmos 2) Martin Brundle 3) The wider Sky analysis team such as Karun Chandhok, Anthony Davidson, Ted Kravitz, Bernie Collins, Nico Rosberg, et al. 4) The F1 in house commentary are afraid to call-out the FIA bellendry/idiocy in way Sky aren’t 5) Danica Patrick (but that’s me speaking as a red blooded male, I can ignore her MAGA stuff.)
I am working my notice with Sky, planning to replace the bits of it I watch with Now TV. Which at least on paper gives me all of that.
What makes me giggle is how Sky just seem to be pulling random numbers out of the air for what I should pay. I can get what I want for £70 a month. Having ended my contract its £103 a month about to go up to £116 a month. They offered me £77 a month to get less than I can get for £70 a month. Cancelled. Now had the first call back with a new lower offer - £83 a month.
"Erm, £83 a month is higher than the offer I already turned down". "well this is the offer we are giving you to stay which is lower than your current offer".
How much of the Sky money goes onto filling call centres with these people?
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
Except that the NHS is remarkably efficient (or as another poster put it frugal) compared to other equivalent nations healthcare systems. The idea that the NHS is somehow drowning in admin is ridiculous. And giving patients a choice of hospitals doesn't require a shiny new admin building.
People often accuse reform voters/supporters of harking back to the past. In a way your version of the NHS is doing the same thing. People get frustrated with how GP surgeries run. I think they fail to understand the pressures on primary care. The huge increase in people over 65 in the last quarter century. The ever increase in things that we can do (hip, knee replacement seen as commonplace). Back in the 80's you would probably have walked into the GP surgery, collected a number (like the old delicounter in the supermarket) and waited your turn. I think a lot of people still want to do that. But is it the best way to run a surgery?
I don't actually disagree re hospitals, but what is really needed is the older cottage hospitals. Essentially well but infirm elderly patients evicted from the main surgical hospitals and out to their own home towns, near their families and friends. Less care needed, but still need looking after.
My question then is if the NHS is remarkably efficient, why is it so catastrophically inefficient? If giving people choice doesn't require a shiny new admin building, why does it always require one in practice?
I'm not harking back to the past at all - I've said that we could have booking systems that work as another poster asked for. But you can't have that at the moment because of the absurd structure.
One example. Where I used to live. Two separate GP practices in the same health centre. Each with its own management team, its own contracts with other parts of the NHS, its own preferred treatment routes. Duplication. Complication. Cost. And for what choice? You get a GP at the one with capacity - there's no choice. You get sent where they send you. Teesside has a choice of ageing hospitals short on capacity. Work in Newcastle and an appointment there would suit you better? Tough.
Radical idea. Scrap the GP practices managing contracts to compete with each other. Scrap the market structure completely. Procure centrally. Your choice of hospital is almost certainly your closest one because thats what people want, but if you want to drop an appointment into the one near where you work or you have family its click click. Centralised.
I think a situation you describe re competing GP surgeries is the anomaly. Certainly not the case for my town nor my dads village nor my sisters village. Can you give me other examples that you see as catastrophically inefficient? I think the NHS suffers a lot because it has to deal with patients. People who by their very nature are unwell, anxious, scared, angry, annoyed, fed up etc. Its important to remember that the NHS isn't running a hotel. Things happen. You may have an appointment at 9.15 and be annoyed that the appointment doesn't happen until 9.45 - how can they be that far behind so early in the day? But perhaps a patient needed more then 7 minutes with the doctor.
NHS England? I listened to an interview yesterday where Wes Streeting said that the government shouldn't get trapped into defending the status quo. And to be fair to him a significant restructure is happening, including with the way GP services are provided.
Do you know what NHS England does? And what will replace it?
No and no. I am not the expert here. But I have three markers: Never ending increases in money spent Never ending cash crises at the point of delivery Repeated wholesale restructures to change from this version of the internal market to that version
If the NHS is so efficient we wouldn't burn most of the money in the cost of running it or need to keep restructuring it at a fundamental level. And yes, I propose a restructure, but one that removes most of the 90s / 00s / 10s / 20s market structures and asks what people actually need.
We spend less in GDP terms than competitor nations such as Germany and France. Increases in money are partly because inflation (we've all had that over the last few years) - the stuff you need for healthcare also goes up in price, and partly because we are doing so much more healthcare. They are far more elderly people in the UK than there were in 2000. Elderly people need more care.
There will never be enough money because you can always spend more. Take treating cancer. There are some excellent MAB based treatment and biologics coming through but for many cancers the backbone of treatment will be the classics that we've used for decades. Because they work and are cheap. When they don't work, we move onto 2nd and 3rd line treatments.
Arguably if money was no object you'd go for the 100 grand a year treatment first up if its the gold standard.
You sound a little bit (just a bit) like Elon's teams going in to find savings in organisations. We all think we know the NHS because we use it but that doesn't mean we know how best to run it.
And also worth noting that the skills that get politicians to the top are less often the ability to deliver major changes successfully and more often the ability to dodge any responsibility for, or to explain away, the things that go wrong.
..and by making friends and allies out of those who will oppose any change, rather than the smaller number willing to turn the world upsidedown (in the same way as you).
Totally agree. The sooner we junk that pile of crap X from UK servers the better.
I never use it. I hate it. Any link with an X prefix I just ignore. My life is none the poorer for it.
X has a clear use. Matt cartoons free. PB posters linking to X, used selectively, is the best filter available to me. Are there other uses?
I still gain a lot of specalist knowledge from posts on X. But my follower list is carefully curated and I stay well clear of any politic type posters, and thus doesn't contain ragebaity stuff.
That’s the key, don’t actually follow a lot of people who comment on politics. My feed is all IT/aviation/motorsport/space/technology/Ukraine stuff unless I go looking for UK or US politics.
We can tell by your level-headed analyses of US politics that don't suggest, in any way, that you've fallen down a MAGA social media hole.
This always seems to happen when I hear someone saying, "yes, twitter is full of ragebait and propaganda but I am a very sophisticated social media user and I am able to use it in a way that makes it informative". Talk to them for a while and it turns out they believe some absolutely deranged propaganda about Biden rigging elections or the CPI being fake or whatever.
The people still on Twitter are the people whose brains are poisoned enough that they're unable to tell that their brains are being poisoned.
I admit it happened to me. I even told people at work that there has been a multiple stabbing on a road near the office. Retweeted by lots of blue tick accounts, was all over Facebook.
The more I think about it, the worse this is from Jenrick. Kids are being bullied on social media/WhatsApp by others creating deepfakes of them, and it makes their lives hell. Politicians should know better, they should be setting the standards, not lowering them.
I can't bear Jenrick, but give over, the comedy element of the clip is brilliant, and Lammy was so poor on Wednesday the clown image summed up his performance.
I would jump at any opportunity to dump all over Jenrick's political opportunism and his performative cruelty, but that is funny and is a wholly different proposition to the worrying uses of AI you suggest.
How is it different? To me it is the same thing; altering an image of someone to mock, ridicule or embarrass them, and sharing it for the world to see. The parallel with bullies deepfaking images of other kids and sharing them on snapchat/tiktok/whatsApp, or whatever it is the kids use, is striking
It should be beneath Parliament really. Imagine we started allowing it on here, would that raise or lower the standard of debate?
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
I quite agree and the inertia on the big issues by this disappointing administration is mind numbing. That said even when they have achieved minor victories their comms are so bad they don't even announce them, not that the press would be interested.
I do get frustrated when Shadow Ministers lie and explain everything was hunky dory on their watch. There are Tories who acknowledge reality, Alex Chalke was on yesterday suggesting the prison system has been in crisis for years if not decades. Contrast that with Jenrick on Ferrari yesterday, who with a half truth blamed not only the current but the previous government for the collapse in asylum policy and the related collapse in prison management. But along with that half truth he distanced himself from the previous government by saying he resigned because they were all incompetent, ignoring the reality that he was front and centre of that incompetence.
Incumbency brings with it the reality of government and this lot need to pull their finger out or hand the show over to Farage sooner rather than later. But Kemi, Cartridge and Jenrick pretending they weren't in government as the whole edifice collapsed does stick in the craw.
Their sneering hypocrisy is one of the reasons the polls show them heading for minibus numbers at the next election. People hate it, and it reminds them of why they voted them out.
Anyway, the problem is simple. We need to change the systems and simplify the structures. Which costs more as you do it, and we're "broke" supposedly.
In the business world this is called investment. My shop had very inefficient florescent light fittings. Cost a LOT in electricity. So I invested in LED panels. Spend more up front, to then save a lot every month that follows. Borrow. Invest. Gain a return on the investment. CAPITALISM - that thing the Tories used to represent before they got bought by the banks and the spivs.
Will it cost a little more to scrap these structures and cut the now redundant workforce? Sure. With huge savings delivered afterwards. Will it cost more to hire more cops and run the courts more and create prison space? Absolutely - with a big drop in the cost of crime afterwards. Will it cost money to invest in our towns and cities so that the streets aren't full of weeds and potholes? Sure - but look at the economic growth in places like Manchester.
Borrow. Invest. ROI.
Thanks to the Tories all we ever get - from Labour as well who were forced to adopt the same language - is "how will you pay for that", not "what benefits do we get from that". And at the moment absurd political / treasury orthodoxy has it that cuts save money with no cost. Which is laughably untrue.
Also, we have had successive governments apparently unable to distinguish investment which provides a real return, from that which does not. You rightly point at Manchester, IMO, as I suspect it's entirely possible that sustained capital investment in regional cities would provide a greater return than that in London, which has taken the lion's share since forever.
I hadn't appreciated that we've also just cancelled electrification of railway lines outside of London, yet again, to pay for London infrastructure.
UK transport secretary says full electrification of railways ‘not affordable (sic) right now’ Heidi Alexander says focus will be on other projects such as HS2 https://www.ft.com/content/5ecda1f8-b624-4e86-bb7b-b571bddb8a19 It seems Dr B-Ching Alexander's decision to halt further rail electrification in the UK, citing it as "unaffordable," misses the long-term financial and environmental benefits that electrification brings. Here's a breakdown of why her ignorance will be seen as a gross miscalculation:
1. Initial Costs vs. Long-Term Savings: While the upfront costs of electrification are significant, studies show that electric trains reduce operating costs by 20-30% compared to diesel trains over their lifecycle. This is due to lower maintenance needs and fuel costs, even when factoring in the construction expenses. For instance, the Great Western Electrification Project, despite its high initial cost, was projected to yield substantial savings over time. 2. Capacity and Efficiency Gains: Electrification can increase rail capacity by up to 40%, according to UK studies. This means more passengers and freight can be moved efficiently, potentially generating additional revenue that could offset initial investments. The missed opportunity here is not just financial but also operational, as electric trains are faster and more reliable, improving service quality and customer satisfaction. 3. Environmental and Social Benefits: Electric trains cut emissions by about 90% compared to diesel, aligning with global efforts to combat climate change. The environmental cost of not electrifying, in terms of increased carbon emissions and air pollution, could lead to higher societal costs in health and climate adaptation measures. These indirect costs are often not factored into short-term affordability assessments but are crucial for long-term sustainability. 4. Comparative International Examples: Countries like Germany have managed to electrify their railways at a fraction of the cost per single-track kilometer (STK) compared to the UK, partly due to a steady, skilled workforce and optimized techniques. The UK's historical challenges, like the costly Great Western project, don't necessarily reflect current capabilities or future potential efficiencies... https://x.com/tomcoady/status/1986448982956974538
In the marketised structure we contract various companies in to put up the knitting. On short, fixed contracts with gaps. At huuuuuuge cost.
Or - radical idea. Create a GBR Electrification Unit. Set it to work full time wiring the tracks. Much cheaper.
Labour are stuck with two idiotic mindsets: 1. The state can't do anything. Must contract out so its off the books 2. Can't afford the off the books cost, doing nothing saves money, lets do that
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
Except that the NHS is remarkably efficient (or as another poster put it frugal) compared to other equivalent nations healthcare systems. The idea that the NHS is somehow drowning in admin is ridiculous. And giving patients a choice of hospitals doesn't require a shiny new admin building.
People often accuse reform voters/supporters of harking back to the past. In a way your version of the NHS is doing the same thing. People get frustrated with how GP surgeries run. I think they fail to understand the pressures on primary care. The huge increase in people over 65 in the last quarter century. The ever increase in things that we can do (hip, knee replacement seen as commonplace). Back in the 80's you would probably have walked into the GP surgery, collected a number (like the old delicounter in the supermarket) and waited your turn. I think a lot of people still want to do that. But is it the best way to run a surgery?
I don't actually disagree re hospitals, but what is really needed is the older cottage hospitals. Essentially well but infirm elderly patients evicted from the main surgical hospitals and out to their own home towns, near their families and friends. Less care needed, but still need looking after.
My question then is if the NHS is remarkably efficient, why is it so catastrophically inefficient? If giving people choice doesn't require a shiny new admin building, why does it always require one in practice?
I'm not harking back to the past at all - I've said that we could have booking systems that work as another poster asked for. But you can't have that at the moment because of the absurd structure.
One example. Where I used to live. Two separate GP practices in the same health centre. Each with its own management team, its own contracts with other parts of the NHS, its own preferred treatment routes. Duplication. Complication. Cost. And for what choice? You get a GP at the one with capacity - there's no choice. You get sent where they send you. Teesside has a choice of ageing hospitals short on capacity. Work in Newcastle and an appointment there would suit you better? Tough.
Radical idea. Scrap the GP practices managing contracts to compete with each other. Scrap the market structure completely. Procure centrally. Your choice of hospital is almost certainly your closest one because thats what people want, but if you want to drop an appointment into the one near where you work or you have family its click click. Centralised.
I think a situation you describe re competing GP surgeries is the anomaly. Certainly not the case for my town nor my dads village nor my sisters village. Can you give me other examples that you see as catastrophically inefficient? I think the NHS suffers a lot because it has to deal with patients. People who by their very nature are unwell, anxious, scared, angry, annoyed, fed up etc. Its important to remember that the NHS isn't running a hotel. Things happen. You may have an appointment at 9.15 and be annoyed that the appointment doesn't happen until 9.45 - how can they be that far behind so early in the day? But perhaps a patient needed more then 7 minutes with the doctor.
NHS England? I listened to an interview yesterday where Wes Streeting said that the government shouldn't get trapped into defending the status quo. And to be fair to him a significant restructure is happening, including with the way GP services are provided.
Do you know what NHS England does? And what will replace it?
No and no. I am not the expert here. But I have three markers: Never ending increases in money spent Never ending cash crises at the point of delivery Repeated wholesale restructures to change from this version of the internal market to that version
If the NHS is so efficient we wouldn't burn most of the money in the cost of running it or need to keep restructuring it at a fundamental level. And yes, I propose a restructure, but one that removes most of the 90s / 00s / 10s / 20s market structures and asks what people actually need.
Here in Wales and I believe in Scotland prescriptions are free and the pharmacies are ripping the back out of repeat prescriptions much of which goes unused, is a danger to the patient and costs a fortune to dispose of in its unused form.
NHS procurement from big pharma is also ludicrous. If medications such as paracetamol and aspirin were removed from the supply list and patients were obliged to get their supplies from supermarkets at 36p for sixteen tablets, the underspend could be used for expensive medication that is being rationed away from potential cancer survivors.
Totally agree. The sooner we junk that pile of crap X from UK servers the better.
I never use it. I hate it. Any link with an X prefix I just ignore. My life is none the poorer for it.
X has a clear use. Matt cartoons free. PB posters linking to X, used selectively, is the best filter available to me. Are there other uses?
I still gain a lot of specalist knowledge from posts on X. But my follower list is carefully curated and I stay well clear of any politic type posters, and thus doesn't contain ragebaity stuff.
That’s the key, don’t actually follow a lot of people who comment on politics. My feed is all IT/aviation/motorsport/space/technology/Ukraine stuff unless I go looking for UK or US politics.
Ok, I get that, but you guys are kind of like the people who say they only buy the Daily Mail for the crossword, or the fashions, or whatever. You're still supporting a toxic product.
On the contrary - if there were several million more like us, then the toxic stuff would be considerably down-weighted alogrithmically. Musk has put a very large and grubby thumb on the scale, but the site algos still have to respond to its users, or it wouldn't work at all.
Have I realised, before Mr @TheScreamingEagles, that the Man City v Liverpool match on Sunday clashes with the Brazilian Grand Prix?
Footy kicks off at 16:30 UK time and the F1 cars start racing at 17:00.
I am aware, I am moving a second TV into the living room in preparation.
I also have a major clash on the evening Saturday the 20th of December.
Spurs v Liverpool clashes with the final of Strictly.
Why don't you just use your laptop to watch the second event?
I struggle to watch sports on a small screen.
I embarrassed to admit this, but we have seven TVs in the house, and the smallest one is 65 inches.
My eyes struggle to watch stuff that isn’t on s big screen in 4k/HDR with Dolby Atmos.
Ah, if I were remotely a class warrior fool I'd mock you so much for that.
But I'm not.
Important question, though, as someone who doesn't watch football: is the commentary there even worse than F1? Which one are you going to mute?
Brundle's fine but Croft is somewhere between tedious and seriously aggravating.
Some football commentators are more annoying than James Allen.
You leave Crofty alone.
So says someone who’s not watching F1TV Pro. Can’t you get their alternative commentary on Sky, it’s way better than Crofty?
Not available in the UK unless you have a VPN and pay extra but I get F1 in my Sky package.
Overall the Sky presentation is better for the following reasons
1) 4K picture quality with Dolby Atmos 2) Martin Brundle 3) The wider Sky analysis team such as Karun Chandhok, Anthony Davidson, Ted Kravitz, Bernie Collins, Nico Rosberg, et al. 4) The F1 in house commentary are afraid to call-out the FIA bellendry/idiocy in way Sky aren’t 5) Danica Patrick (but that’s me speaking as a red blooded male, I can ignore her MAGA stuff.)
I’ll agree on Martin Brundle and Nico Rosberg, the former having driven more F1 cars than anyone else and a very sharp analyst, and the latter being someone who doesn’t need the money and has no filter whatsoever.
The other roles are all well covered by F1TV, including the strategist lady in Ruth Buscombe.
Danica might be American eye candy but she gives the impression of phoning it in, not sure she even watches the races when she’s not working. F1TV has James Hinchcliffe as the token North American, much more informed.
I still can’t work out if Danica and Jenson Button hate each other’s guts or go back to the same hotel room afterwards…
In completely unrelated "news". I generated £2k of revenue off YouTube last month. Of which half was payment from channel sponsors.
My problem is that sponsors now seem to want to go to scripted, pre-authorised integrations. And my whole style is unscripted. Creating these 90 second inserts takes longer than a 30 minute full video.
I want their money, but hate the way I have to work to get it...
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
I quite agree and the inertia on the big issues by this disappointing administration is mind numbing. That said even when they have achieved minor victories their comms are so bad they don't even announce them, not that the press would be interested.
I do get frustrated when Shadow Ministers lie and explain everything was hunky dory on their watch. There are Tories who acknowledge reality, Alex Chalke was on yesterday suggesting the prison system has been in crisis for years if not decades. Contrast that with Jenrick on Ferrari yesterday, who with a half truth blamed not only the current but the previous government for the collapse in asylum policy and the related collapse in prison management. But along with that half truth he distanced himself from the previous government by saying he resigned because they were all incompetent, ignoring the reality that he was front and centre of that incompetence.
Incumbency brings with it the reality of government and this lot need to pull their finger out or hand the show over to Farage sooner rather than later. But Kemi, Cartridge and Jenrick pretending they weren't in government as the whole edifice collapsed does stick in the craw.
Their sneering hypocrisy is one of the reasons the polls show them heading for minibus numbers at the next election. People hate it, and it reminds them of why they voted them out.
Anyway, the problem is simple. We need to change the systems and simplify the structures. Which costs more as you do it, and we're "broke" supposedly.
In the business world this is called investment. My shop had very inefficient florescent light fittings. Cost a LOT in electricity. So I invested in LED panels. Spend more up front, to then save a lot every month that follows. Borrow. Invest. Gain a return on the investment. CAPITALISM - that thing the Tories used to represent before they got bought by the banks and the spivs.
Will it cost a little more to scrap these structures and cut the now redundant workforce? Sure. With huge savings delivered afterwards. Will it cost more to hire more cops and run the courts more and create prison space? Absolutely - with a big drop in the cost of crime afterwards. Will it cost money to invest in our towns and cities so that the streets aren't full of weeds and potholes? Sure - but look at the economic growth in places like Manchester.
Borrow. Invest. ROI.
Thanks to the Tories all we ever get - from Labour as well who were forced to adopt the same language - is "how will you pay for that", not "what benefits do we get from that". And at the moment absurd political / treasury orthodoxy has it that cuts save money with no cost. Which is laughably untrue.
Also, we have had successive governments apparently unable to distinguish investment which provides a real return, from that which does not. You rightly point at Manchester, IMO, as I suspect it's entirely possible that sustained capital investment in regional cities would provide a greater return than that in London, which has taken the lion's share since forever.
I hadn't appreciated that we've also just cancelled electrification of railway lines outside of London, yet again, to pay for London infrastructure.
UK transport secretary says full electrification of railways ‘not affordable (sic) right now’ Heidi Alexander says focus will be on other projects such as HS2 https://www.ft.com/content/5ecda1f8-b624-4e86-bb7b-b571bddb8a19 It seems Dr B-Ching Alexander's decision to halt further rail electrification in the UK, citing it as "unaffordable," misses the long-term financial and environmental benefits that electrification brings. Here's a breakdown of why her ignorance will be seen as a gross miscalculation:
1. Initial Costs vs. Long-Term Savings: While the upfront costs of electrification are significant, studies show that electric trains reduce operating costs by 20-30% compared to diesel trains over their lifecycle. This is due to lower maintenance needs and fuel costs, even when factoring in the construction expenses. For instance, the Great Western Electrification Project, despite its high initial cost, was projected to yield substantial savings over time. 2. Capacity and Efficiency Gains: Electrification can increase rail capacity by up to 40%, according to UK studies. This means more passengers and freight can be moved efficiently, potentially generating additional revenue that could offset initial investments. The missed opportunity here is not just financial but also operational, as electric trains are faster and more reliable, improving service quality and customer satisfaction. 3. Environmental and Social Benefits: Electric trains cut emissions by about 90% compared to diesel, aligning with global efforts to combat climate change. The environmental cost of not electrifying, in terms of increased carbon emissions and air pollution, could lead to higher societal costs in health and climate adaptation measures. These indirect costs are often not factored into short-term affordability assessments but are crucial for long-term sustainability. 4. Comparative International Examples: Countries like Germany have managed to electrify their railways at a fraction of the cost per single-track kilometer (STK) compared to the UK, partly due to a steady, skilled workforce and optimized techniques. The UK's historical challenges, like the costly Great Western project, don't necessarily reflect current capabilities or future potential efficiencies... https://x.com/tomcoady/status/1986448982956974538
A nice graphical illustration of this stupidity.
Interesting. The Scottish Government try to have a steady output of electrified track per annum, or at least the workload to that aim, precisely to avoid the stop-go (so to speak) nonsense.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
Except that the NHS is remarkably efficient (or as another poster put it frugal) compared to other equivalent nations healthcare systems. The idea that the NHS is somehow drowning in admin is ridiculous. And giving patients a choice of hospitals doesn't require a shiny new admin building.
People often accuse reform voters/supporters of harking back to the past. In a way your version of the NHS is doing the same thing. People get frustrated with how GP surgeries run. I think they fail to understand the pressures on primary care. The huge increase in people over 65 in the last quarter century. The ever increase in things that we can do (hip, knee replacement seen as commonplace). Back in the 80's you would probably have walked into the GP surgery, collected a number (like the old delicounter in the supermarket) and waited your turn. I think a lot of people still want to do that. But is it the best way to run a surgery?
I don't actually disagree re hospitals, but what is really needed is the older cottage hospitals. Essentially well but infirm elderly patients evicted from the main surgical hospitals and out to their own home towns, near their families and friends. Less care needed, but still need looking after.
My question then is if the NHS is remarkably efficient, why is it so catastrophically inefficient? If giving people choice doesn't require a shiny new admin building, why does it always require one in practice?
I'm not harking back to the past at all - I've said that we could have booking systems that work as another poster asked for. But you can't have that at the moment because of the absurd structure.
One example. Where I used to live. Two separate GP practices in the same health centre. Each with its own management team, its own contracts with other parts of the NHS, its own preferred treatment routes. Duplication. Complication. Cost. And for what choice? You get a GP at the one with capacity - there's no choice. You get sent where they send you. Teesside has a choice of ageing hospitals short on capacity. Work in Newcastle and an appointment there would suit you better? Tough.
Radical idea. Scrap the GP practices managing contracts to compete with each other. Scrap the market structure completely. Procure centrally. Your choice of hospital is almost certainly your closest one because thats what people want, but if you want to drop an appointment into the one near where you work or you have family its click click. Centralised.
GPs in 1945 didn't like the idea of the NHS, so when the NHS was introduced, GPs got to stay private businesses that contracted for NHS work. This decision has had longterm repercussions that have contributed to today's situation.
Same with dentists, pharmacists and opticians. That's why private enterprise/big business has moved in.
The more I think about it, the worse this is from Jenrick. Kids are being bullied on social media/WhatsApp by others creating deepfakes of them, and it makes their lives hell. Politicians should know better, they should be setting the standards, not lowering them.
Also seems to flirt with racism to me - playing on the old minstrel trope.
Have I realised, before Mr @TheScreamingEagles, that the Man City v Liverpool match on Sunday clashes with the Brazilian Grand Prix?
Footy kicks off at 16:30 UK time and the F1 cars start racing at 17:00.
I am aware, I am moving a second TV into the living room in preparation.
I also have a major clash on the evening Saturday the 20th of December.
Spurs v Liverpool clashes with the final of Strictly.
Why don't you just use your laptop to watch the second event?
I struggle to watch sports on a small screen.
I embarrassed to admit this, but we have seven TVs in the house, and the smallest one is 65 inches.
My eyes struggle to watch stuff that isn’t on s big screen in 4k/HDR with Dolby Atmos.
Ah, if I were remotely a class warrior fool I'd mock you so much for that.
But I'm not.
Important question, though, as someone who doesn't watch football: is the commentary there even worse than F1? Which one are you going to mute?
Brundle's fine but Croft is somewhere between tedious and seriously aggravating.
Some football commentators are more annoying than James Allen.
You leave Crofty alone.
So says someone who’s not watching F1TV Pro. Can’t you get their alternative commentary on Sky, it’s way better than Crofty?
Not available in the UK unless you have a VPN and pay extra but I get F1 in my Sky package.
Overall the Sky presentation is better for the following reasons
1) 4K picture quality with Dolby Atmos 2) Martin Brundle 3) The wider Sky analysis team such as Karun Chandhok, Anthony Davidson, Ted Kravitz, Bernie Collins, Nico Rosberg, et al. 4) The F1 in house commentary are afraid to call-out the FIA bellendry/idiocy in way Sky aren’t 5) Danica Patrick (but that’s me speaking as a red blooded male, I can ignore her MAGA stuff.)
I am working my notice with Sky, planning to replace the bits of it I watch with Now TV. Which at least on paper gives me all of that.
What makes me giggle is how Sky just seem to be pulling random numbers out of the air for what I should pay. I can get what I want for £70 a month. Having ended my contract its £103 a month about to go up to £116 a month. They offered me £77 a month to get less than I can get for £70 a month. Cancelled. Now had the first call back with a new lower offer - £83 a month.
"Erm, £83 a month is higher than the offer I already turned down". "well this is the offer we are giving you to stay which is lower than your current offer".
How much of the Sky money goes onto filling call centres with these people?
Best thing is to wait for your services to switch off (make sure your communications preferences are set that Sky can contact you) and they’ll contact you.
My friend was paying £90 a month, he was offered a recontract price of £140, when the services went off they offered him £70 a month, if you’ve got Sky Q, they’ll push you to sign up to go on Stream, but stick to your guns.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
I quite agree and the inertia on the big issues by this disappointing administration is mind numbing. That said even when they have achieved minor victories their comms are so bad they don't even announce them, not that the press would be interested.
I do get frustrated when Shadow Ministers lie and explain everything was hunky dory on their watch. There are Tories who acknowledge reality, Alex Chalke was on yesterday suggesting the prison system has been in crisis for years if not decades. Contrast that with Jenrick on Ferrari yesterday, who with a half truth blamed not only the current but the previous government for the collapse in asylum policy and the related collapse in prison management. But along with that half truth he distanced himself from the previous government by saying he resigned because they were all incompetent, ignoring the reality that he was front and centre of that incompetence.
Incumbency brings with it the reality of government and this lot need to pull their finger out or hand the show over to Farage sooner rather than later. But Kemi, Cartridge and Jenrick pretending they weren't in government as the whole edifice collapsed does stick in the craw.
Their sneering hypocrisy is one of the reasons the polls show them heading for minibus numbers at the next election. People hate it, and it reminds them of why they voted them out.
Anyway, the problem is simple. We need to change the systems and simplify the structures. Which costs more as you do it, and we're "broke" supposedly.
In the business world this is called investment. My shop had very inefficient florescent light fittings. Cost a LOT in electricity. So I invested in LED panels. Spend more up front, to then save a lot every month that follows. Borrow. Invest. Gain a return on the investment. CAPITALISM - that thing the Tories used to represent before they got bought by the banks and the spivs.
Will it cost a little more to scrap these structures and cut the now redundant workforce? Sure. With huge savings delivered afterwards. Will it cost more to hire more cops and run the courts more and create prison space? Absolutely - with a big drop in the cost of crime afterwards. Will it cost money to invest in our towns and cities so that the streets aren't full of weeds and potholes? Sure - but look at the economic growth in places like Manchester.
Borrow. Invest. ROI.
Thanks to the Tories all we ever get - from Labour as well who were forced to adopt the same language - is "how will you pay for that", not "what benefits do we get from that". And at the moment absurd political / treasury orthodoxy has it that cuts save money with no cost. Which is laughably untrue.
Also, we have had successive governments apparently unable to distinguish investment which provides a real return, from that which does not. You rightly point at Manchester, IMO, as I suspect it's entirely possible that sustained capital investment in regional cities would provide a greater return than that in London, which has taken the lion's share since forever.
I hadn't appreciated that we've also just cancelled electrification of railway lines outside of London, yet again, to pay for London infrastructure.
UK transport secretary says full electrification of railways ‘not affordable (sic) right now’ Heidi Alexander says focus will be on other projects such as HS2 https://www.ft.com/content/5ecda1f8-b624-4e86-bb7b-b571bddb8a19 It seems Dr B-Ching Alexander's decision to halt further rail electrification in the UK, citing it as "unaffordable," misses the long-term financial and environmental benefits that electrification brings. Here's a breakdown of why her ignorance will be seen as a gross miscalculation:
1. Initial Costs vs. Long-Term Savings: While the upfront costs of electrification are significant, studies show that electric trains reduce operating costs by 20-30% compared to diesel trains over their lifecycle. This is due to lower maintenance needs and fuel costs, even when factoring in the construction expenses. For instance, the Great Western Electrification Project, despite its high initial cost, was projected to yield substantial savings over time. 2. Capacity and Efficiency Gains: Electrification can increase rail capacity by up to 40%, according to UK studies. This means more passengers and freight can be moved efficiently, potentially generating additional revenue that could offset initial investments. The missed opportunity here is not just financial but also operational, as electric trains are faster and more reliable, improving service quality and customer satisfaction. 3. Environmental and Social Benefits: Electric trains cut emissions by about 90% compared to diesel, aligning with global efforts to combat climate change. The environmental cost of not electrifying, in terms of increased carbon emissions and air pollution, could lead to higher societal costs in health and climate adaptation measures. These indirect costs are often not factored into short-term affordability assessments but are crucial for long-term sustainability. 4. Comparative International Examples: Countries like Germany have managed to electrify their railways at a fraction of the cost per single-track kilometer (STK) compared to the UK, partly due to a steady, skilled workforce and optimized techniques. The UK's historical challenges, like the costly Great Western project, don't necessarily reflect current capabilities or future potential efficiencies... https://x.com/tomcoady/status/1986448982956974538
In the marketised structure we contract various companies in to put up the knitting. On short, fixed contracts with gaps. At huuuuuuge cost.
Or - radical idea. Create a GBR Electrification Unit. Set it to work full time wiring the tracks. Much cheaper.
Labour are stuck with two idiotic mindsets: 1. The state can't do anything. Must contract out so its off the books 2. Can't afford the off the books cost, doing nothing saves money, lets do that
You are forgetting
3. Unique British Requirements. This means that things we do in the UK must be special. Specially expensive.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
I quite agree and the inertia on the big issues by this disappointing administration is mind numbing. That said even when they have achieved minor victories their comms are so bad they don't even announce them, not that the press would be interested.
I do get frustrated when Shadow Ministers lie and explain everything was hunky dory on their watch. There are Tories who acknowledge reality, Alex Chalke was on yesterday suggesting the prison system has been in crisis for years if not decades. Contrast that with Jenrick on Ferrari yesterday, who with a half truth blamed not only the current but the previous government for the collapse in asylum policy and the related collapse in prison management. But along with that half truth he distanced himself from the previous government by saying he resigned because they were all incompetent, ignoring the reality that he was front and centre of that incompetence.
Incumbency brings with it the reality of government and this lot need to pull their finger out or hand the show over to Farage sooner rather than later. But Kemi, Cartridge and Jenrick pretending they weren't in government as the whole edifice collapsed does stick in the craw.
Their sneering hypocrisy is one of the reasons the polls show them heading for minibus numbers at the next election. People hate it, and it reminds them of why they voted them out.
Anyway, the problem is simple. We need to change the systems and simplify the structures. Which costs more as you do it, and we're "broke" supposedly.
In the business world this is called investment. My shop had very inefficient florescent light fittings. Cost a LOT in electricity. So I invested in LED panels. Spend more up front, to then save a lot every month that follows. Borrow. Invest. Gain a return on the investment. CAPITALISM - that thing the Tories used to represent before they got bought by the banks and the spivs.
Will it cost a little more to scrap these structures and cut the now redundant workforce? Sure. With huge savings delivered afterwards. Will it cost more to hire more cops and run the courts more and create prison space? Absolutely - with a big drop in the cost of crime afterwards. Will it cost money to invest in our towns and cities so that the streets aren't full of weeds and potholes? Sure - but look at the economic growth in places like Manchester.
Borrow. Invest. ROI.
Thanks to the Tories all we ever get - from Labour as well who were forced to adopt the same language - is "how will you pay for that", not "what benefits do we get from that". And at the moment absurd political / treasury orthodoxy has it that cuts save money with no cost. Which is laughably untrue.
Also, we have had successive governments apparently unable to distinguish investment which provides a real return, from that which does not. You rightly point at Manchester, IMO, as I suspect it's entirely possible that sustained capital investment in regional cities would provide a greater return than that in London, which has taken the lion's share since forever.
I hadn't appreciated that we've also just cancelled electrification of railway lines outside of London, yet again, to pay for London infrastructure.
UK transport secretary says full electrification of railways ‘not affordable (sic) right now’ Heidi Alexander says focus will be on other projects such as HS2 https://www.ft.com/content/5ecda1f8-b624-4e86-bb7b-b571bddb8a19 It seems Dr B-Ching Alexander's decision to halt further rail electrification in the UK, citing it as "unaffordable," misses the long-term financial and environmental benefits that electrification brings. Here's a breakdown of why her ignorance will be seen as a gross miscalculation:
1. Initial Costs vs. Long-Term Savings: While the upfront costs of electrification are significant, studies show that electric trains reduce operating costs by 20-30% compared to diesel trains over their lifecycle. This is due to lower maintenance needs and fuel costs, even when factoring in the construction expenses. For instance, the Great Western Electrification Project, despite its high initial cost, was projected to yield substantial savings over time. 2. Capacity and Efficiency Gains: Electrification can increase rail capacity by up to 40%, according to UK studies. This means more passengers and freight can be moved efficiently, potentially generating additional revenue that could offset initial investments. The missed opportunity here is not just financial but also operational, as electric trains are faster and more reliable, improving service quality and customer satisfaction. 3. Environmental and Social Benefits: Electric trains cut emissions by about 90% compared to diesel, aligning with global efforts to combat climate change. The environmental cost of not electrifying, in terms of increased carbon emissions and air pollution, could lead to higher societal costs in health and climate adaptation measures. These indirect costs are often not factored into short-term affordability assessments but are crucial for long-term sustainability. 4. Comparative International Examples: Countries like Germany have managed to electrify their railways at a fraction of the cost per single-track kilometer (STK) compared to the UK, partly due to a steady, skilled workforce and optimized techniques. The UK's historical challenges, like the costly Great Western project, don't necessarily reflect current capabilities or future potential efficiencies... https://x.com/tomcoady/status/1986448982956974538
A nice graphical illustration of this stupidity.
Have the Germans engaged in the same mass removal of level crossings as we have or is this electrification what they bought with those resources instead?
Have I realised, before Mr @TheScreamingEagles, that the Man City v Liverpool match on Sunday clashes with the Brazilian Grand Prix?
Footy kicks off at 16:30 UK time and the F1 cars start racing at 17:00.
I am aware, I am moving a second TV into the living room in preparation.
I also have a major clash on the evening Saturday the 20th of December.
Spurs v Liverpool clashes with the final of Strictly.
Why don't you just use your laptop to watch the second event?
I struggle to watch sports on a small screen.
I embarrassed to admit this, but we have seven TVs in the house, and the smallest one is 65 inches.
My eyes struggle to watch stuff that isn’t on s big screen in 4k/HDR with Dolby Atmos.
Ah, if I were remotely a class warrior fool I'd mock you so much for that.
But I'm not.
Important question, though, as someone who doesn't watch football: is the commentary there even worse than F1? Which one are you going to mute?
Brundle's fine but Croft is somewhere between tedious and seriously aggravating.
Some football commentators are more annoying than James Allen.
You leave Crofty alone.
So says someone who’s not watching F1TV Pro. Can’t you get their alternative commentary on Sky, it’s way better than Crofty?
Not available in the UK unless you have a VPN and pay extra but I get F1 in my Sky package.
Overall the Sky presentation is better for the following reasons
1) 4K picture quality with Dolby Atmos 2) Martin Brundle 3) The wider Sky analysis team such as Karun Chandhok, Anthony Davidson, Ted Kravitz, Bernie Collins, Nico Rosberg, et al. 4) The F1 in house commentary are afraid to call-out the FIA bellendry/idiocy in way Sky aren’t 5) Danica Patrick (but that’s me speaking as a red blooded male, I can ignore her MAGA stuff.)
I am working my notice with Sky, planning to replace the bits of it I watch with Now TV. Which at least on paper gives me all of that.
What makes me giggle is how Sky just seem to be pulling random numbers out of the air for what I should pay. I can get what I want for £70 a month. Having ended my contract its £103 a month about to go up to £116 a month. They offered me £77 a month to get less than I can get for £70 a month. Cancelled. Now had the first call back with a new lower offer - £83 a month.
"Erm, £83 a month is higher than the offer I already turned down". "well this is the offer we are giving you to stay which is lower than your current offer".
How much of the Sky money goes onto filling call centres with these people?
Best thing is to wait for your services to switch off (make sure your communications preferences are set that Sky can contact you) and they’ll contact you.
My friend was paying £90 a month, he was offered a recontract price of £140, when the services went off they offered him £70 a month, if you’ve got Sky Q, they’ll push you to sign up to go on Stream, but stick to your guns.
I just did switch to stream form Q... It felt wrong, have I goofed?
My daughter recently divorced her husband and has bought a home nearby
It is extraordinary how bad most everyone has been in the process from the divorce lawyers, to the conveyancers, to the utility services, to the local council, and to Welsh Water who knew her water meter had been buried in road works two years previously and have not exposed it since
I do not like the word broken Britain but sadly it is and I see little prospects of any improvement soon
The prisons still use paper with no computerised records as WIfi is not available apparently
Of course the collapse of the prison and courts happened under successive governments alongside so much more, but ultimately we expect to pour countless billions into a failing NHS with little or no reform, pensions and benefits are out of control, paying interest on our debt of £100 billion pa, etc and we wonder why we are where we are
Labour's answer is to tax and tax everything in sight, hand out billions more on WFP, triple lock, and now abolitioning the 2 child cap.
This has to stop and radical action is required to change the direction of the economy but nobody is brave enough as they perceive the public will not elect them
Ultimately this only ends up one way and that is the IMF intervening
And to those who blame the 'other lot' each lot is to blame and no political party is any better than the other at facing realism
My recent experience with a range of public and private sector organisations has similarly been rather poor in many cases. It sometimes fees like bad service has become normalized. I would emphasise this is not just in the public sector by any means. The exception is usually small firms. Are we bad at building a good culture in large organisations in this country?
Our daughter's house sale completed at 12 noon and her furniture van was waiting outside her new home
She couldn't gain access as the money transfers were in the process but at 1.30 she expressed concern to the Estate Agent holding the keys as she would incur delay penalties from her removers if they couldn't move her in by 2.00pm
The estate agents said they would phone the solicitors only to respond that they were closed for lunch until 2.00pm !!!!!!
She did get the OK just after 2.00pm but this is 2025 not 1955
Have I realised, before Mr @TheScreamingEagles, that the Man City v Liverpool match on Sunday clashes with the Brazilian Grand Prix?
Footy kicks off at 16:30 UK time and the F1 cars start racing at 17:00.
I am aware, I am moving a second TV into the living room in preparation.
I also have a major clash on the evening Saturday the 20th of December.
Spurs v Liverpool clashes with the final of Strictly.
Why don't you just use your laptop to watch the second event?
I struggle to watch sports on a small screen.
I embarrassed to admit this, but we have seven TVs in the house, and the smallest one is 65 inches.
My eyes struggle to watch stuff that isn’t on s big screen in 4k/HDR with Dolby Atmos.
Ah, if I were remotely a class warrior fool I'd mock you so much for that.
But I'm not.
Important question, though, as someone who doesn't watch football: is the commentary there even worse than F1? Which one are you going to mute?
Brundle's fine but Croft is somewhere between tedious and seriously aggravating.
Some football commentators are more annoying than James Allen.
You leave Crofty alone.
So says someone who’s not watching F1TV Pro. Can’t you get their alternative commentary on Sky, it’s way better than Crofty?
Not available in the UK unless you have a VPN and pay extra but I get F1 in my Sky package.
Overall the Sky presentation is better for the following reasons
1) 4K picture quality with Dolby Atmos 2) Martin Brundle 3) The wider Sky analysis team such as Karun Chandhok, Anthony Davidson, Ted Kravitz, Bernie Collins, Nico Rosberg, et al. 4) The F1 in house commentary are afraid to call-out the FIA bellendry/idiocy in way Sky aren’t 5) Danica Patrick (but that’s me speaking as a red blooded male, I can ignore her MAGA stuff.)
I’ll agree on Martin Brundle and Nico Rosberg, the former having driven more F1 cars than anyone else and a very sharp analyst, and the latter being someone who doesn’t need the money and has no filter whatsoever.
The other roles are all well covered by F1TV, including the strategist lady in Ruth Buscombe.
Danica might be American eye candy but she gives the impression of phoning it in, not sure she even watches the races when she’s not working. F1TV has James Hinchcliffe as the token North American, much more informed.
I still can’t work out if Danica and Jenson Button hate each other’s guts or go back to the same hotel room afterwards…
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
I quite agree and the inertia on the big issues by this disappointing administration is mind numbing. That said even when they have achieved minor victories their comms are so bad they don't even announce them, not that the press would be interested.
I do get frustrated when Shadow Ministers lie and explain everything was hunky dory on their watch. There are Tories who acknowledge reality, Alex Chalke was on yesterday suggesting the prison system has been in crisis for years if not decades. Contrast that with Jenrick on Ferrari yesterday, who with a half truth blamed not only the current but the previous government for the collapse in asylum policy and the related collapse in prison management. But along with that half truth he distanced himself from the previous government by saying he resigned because they were all incompetent, ignoring the reality that he was front and centre of that incompetence.
Incumbency brings with it the reality of government and this lot need to pull their finger out or hand the show over to Farage sooner rather than later. But Kemi, Cartridge and Jenrick pretending they weren't in government as the whole edifice collapsed does stick in the craw.
Their sneering hypocrisy is one of the reasons the polls show them heading for minibus numbers at the next election. People hate it, and it reminds them of why they voted them out.
Anyway, the problem is simple. We need to change the systems and simplify the structures. Which costs more as you do it, and we're "broke" supposedly.
In the business world this is called investment. My shop had very inefficient florescent light fittings. Cost a LOT in electricity. So I invested in LED panels. Spend more up front, to then save a lot every month that follows. Borrow. Invest. Gain a return on the investment. CAPITALISM - that thing the Tories used to represent before they got bought by the banks and the spivs.
Will it cost a little more to scrap these structures and cut the now redundant workforce? Sure. With huge savings delivered afterwards. Will it cost more to hire more cops and run the courts more and create prison space? Absolutely - with a big drop in the cost of crime afterwards. Will it cost money to invest in our towns and cities so that the streets aren't full of weeds and potholes? Sure - but look at the economic growth in places like Manchester.
Borrow. Invest. ROI.
Thanks to the Tories all we ever get - from Labour as well who were forced to adopt the same language - is "how will you pay for that", not "what benefits do we get from that". And at the moment absurd political / treasury orthodoxy has it that cuts save money with no cost. Which is laughably untrue.
Also, we have had successive governments apparently unable to distinguish investment which provides a real return, from that which does not. You rightly point at Manchester, IMO, as I suspect it's entirely possible that sustained capital investment in regional cities would provide a greater return than that in London, which has taken the lion's share since forever.
I hadn't appreciated that we've also just cancelled electrification of railway lines outside of London, yet again, to pay for London infrastructure.
UK transport secretary says full electrification of railways ‘not affordable (sic) right now’ Heidi Alexander says focus will be on other projects such as HS2 https://www.ft.com/content/5ecda1f8-b624-4e86-bb7b-b571bddb8a19 It seems Dr B-Ching Alexander's decision to halt further rail electrification in the UK, citing it as "unaffordable," misses the long-term financial and environmental benefits that electrification brings. Here's a breakdown of why her ignorance will be seen as a gross miscalculation:
1. Initial Costs vs. Long-Term Savings: While the upfront costs of electrification are significant, studies show that electric trains reduce operating costs by 20-30% compared to diesel trains over their lifecycle. This is due to lower maintenance needs and fuel costs, even when factoring in the construction expenses. For instance, the Great Western Electrification Project, despite its high initial cost, was projected to yield substantial savings over time. 2. Capacity and Efficiency Gains: Electrification can increase rail capacity by up to 40%, according to UK studies. This means more passengers and freight can be moved efficiently, potentially generating additional revenue that could offset initial investments. The missed opportunity here is not just financial but also operational, as electric trains are faster and more reliable, improving service quality and customer satisfaction. 3. Environmental and Social Benefits: Electric trains cut emissions by about 90% compared to diesel, aligning with global efforts to combat climate change. The environmental cost of not electrifying, in terms of increased carbon emissions and air pollution, could lead to higher societal costs in health and climate adaptation measures. These indirect costs are often not factored into short-term affordability assessments but are crucial for long-term sustainability. 4. Comparative International Examples: Countries like Germany have managed to electrify their railways at a fraction of the cost per single-track kilometer (STK) compared to the UK, partly due to a steady, skilled workforce and optimized techniques. The UK's historical challenges, like the costly Great Western project, don't necessarily reflect current capabilities or future potential efficiencies... https://x.com/tomcoady/status/1986448982956974538
A nice graphical illustration of this stupidity.
Have the Germans engaged in the same mass removal of level crossings as we have or is this electrification what they bought with those resources instead?
You would have to ask someone more knowledgeable than me.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
Except that the NHS is remarkably efficient (or as another poster put it frugal) compared to other equivalent nations healthcare systems. The idea that the NHS is somehow drowning in admin is ridiculous. And giving patients a choice of hospitals doesn't require a shiny new admin building.
People often accuse reform voters/supporters of harking back to the past. In a way your version of the NHS is doing the same thing. People get frustrated with how GP surgeries run. I think they fail to understand the pressures on primary care. The huge increase in people over 65 in the last quarter century. The ever increase in things that we can do (hip, knee replacement seen as commonplace). Back in the 80's you would probably have walked into the GP surgery, collected a number (like the old delicounter in the supermarket) and waited your turn. I think a lot of people still want to do that. But is it the best way to run a surgery?
I don't actually disagree re hospitals, but what is really needed is the older cottage hospitals. Essentially well but infirm elderly patients evicted from the main surgical hospitals and out to their own home towns, near their families and friends. Less care needed, but still need looking after.
My question then is if the NHS is remarkably efficient, why is it so catastrophically inefficient? If giving people choice doesn't require a shiny new admin building, why does it always require one in practice?
I'm not harking back to the past at all - I've said that we could have booking systems that work as another poster asked for. But you can't have that at the moment because of the absurd structure.
One example. Where I used to live. Two separate GP practices in the same health centre. Each with its own management team, its own contracts with other parts of the NHS, its own preferred treatment routes. Duplication. Complication. Cost. And for what choice? You get a GP at the one with capacity - there's no choice. You get sent where they send you. Teesside has a choice of ageing hospitals short on capacity. Work in Newcastle and an appointment there would suit you better? Tough.
Radical idea. Scrap the GP practices managing contracts to compete with each other. Scrap the market structure completely. Procure centrally. Your choice of hospital is almost certainly your closest one because thats what people want, but if you want to drop an appointment into the one near where you work or you have family its click click. Centralised.
I think a situation you describe re competing GP surgeries is the anomaly. Certainly not the case for my town nor my dads village nor my sisters village. Can you give me other examples that you see as catastrophically inefficient? I think the NHS suffers a lot because it has to deal with patients. People who by their very nature are unwell, anxious, scared, angry, annoyed, fed up etc. Its important to remember that the NHS isn't running a hotel. Things happen. You may have an appointment at 9.15 and be annoyed that the appointment doesn't happen until 9.45 - how can they be that far behind so early in the day? But perhaps a patient needed more then 7 minutes with the doctor.
NHS England? I listened to an interview yesterday where Wes Streeting said that the government shouldn't get trapped into defending the status quo. And to be fair to him a significant restructure is happening, including with the way GP services are provided.
Do you know what NHS England does? And what will replace it?
No and no. I am not the expert here. But I have three markers: Never ending increases in money spent Never ending cash crises at the point of delivery Repeated wholesale restructures to change from this version of the internal market to that version
If the NHS is so efficient we wouldn't burn most of the money in the cost of running it or need to keep restructuring it at a fundamental level. And yes, I propose a restructure, but one that removes most of the 90s / 00s / 10s / 20s market structures and asks what people actually need.
Here in Wales and I believe in Scotland prescriptions are free and the pharmacies are ripping the back out of repeat prescriptions much of which goes unused, is a danger to the patient and costs a fortune to dispose of in its unused form.
NHS procurement from big pharma is also ludicrous. If medications such as paracetamol and aspirin were removed from the supply list and patients were obliged to get their supplies from supermarkets at 36p for sixteen tablets, the underspend could be used for expensive medication that is being rationed away from potential cancer survivors.
The nain issue with repeat prescribing is that pharmacies are paid per prescription. There is absolutely no incentive, apart from one's own conscience, to reduced numbers of drugs and amounts prescribed. A friend of mine, who owned and ran his own pharmacy offered to reduce the costs of medicines prescribed at a care home he supplied, and asked the relevant health authority how much of the savings he could have. The answer was none. On several occasions I had run-ins with the management of multiple pharmacies on a similar subject.
What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.
I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.
Councils are in a terrible state, some of it cuts, but others by a dramatic increase in costs, obliged on them by the courts moving the line for what they are required to provide. Some costs around children services are extraordinary, there's no cap on looked after children in care costs. A local council to me has a single child in care (one child) costing over £25k a week. A week!!
Like every entitlement, every piece of public spending, they'll be some rationale behind it all. But there needs to be some tough loving going on somewhere.
Let’s say that they require 3 staff members per shift (rare but happens, especially with mentally ill teenagers with violent tendencies). That’s 9 core staff members to provide 24/7 cover. Add in another staff member to account for holiday cover and you will easily be a £400,000 p.a. in staff costs. You’ll also need say 25% of a team coordinator which is around £20k additional.
You will need at least a 3 bedroom property to support them - let’s assume that’s £350,000 of capital cost post adaption which they will rent at a 8% annual rate so probably another £30k per year at least.
So we are at £450k per year before you even start thinking about social charges on staff (probably another £40k per year), any medical interventions or support, education and life enhancement programmes. You could very easily get to £1m per year. You then add a 20% margin on top for the company that is doing all of this work and you easily get to £1.2m - £25k per week.
It's just not sustainable. What would have happened to children in this situation twenty five years ago?
They would have been locked up in an institution and forgotten about.
We have rightly moved on from that approach as it is unconscionable
Have I realised, before Mr @TheScreamingEagles, that the Man City v Liverpool match on Sunday clashes with the Brazilian Grand Prix?
Footy kicks off at 16:30 UK time and the F1 cars start racing at 17:00.
I am aware, I am moving a second TV into the living room in preparation.
I also have a major clash on the evening Saturday the 20th of December.
Spurs v Liverpool clashes with the final of Strictly.
Why don't you just use your laptop to watch the second event?
I struggle to watch sports on a small screen.
I embarrassed to admit this, but we have seven TVs in the house, and the smallest one is 65 inches.
My eyes struggle to watch stuff that isn’t on s big screen in 4k/HDR with Dolby Atmos.
Ah, if I were remotely a class warrior fool I'd mock you so much for that.
But I'm not.
Important question, though, as someone who doesn't watch football: is the commentary there even worse than F1? Which one are you going to mute?
Brundle's fine but Croft is somewhere between tedious and seriously aggravating.
Some football commentators are more annoying than James Allen.
You leave Crofty alone.
So says someone who’s not watching F1TV Pro. Can’t you get their alternative commentary on Sky, it’s way better than Crofty?
Not available in the UK unless you have a VPN and pay extra but I get F1 in my Sky package.
Overall the Sky presentation is better for the following reasons
1) 4K picture quality with Dolby Atmos 2) Martin Brundle 3) The wider Sky analysis team such as Karun Chandhok, Anthony Davidson, Ted Kravitz, Bernie Collins, Nico Rosberg, et al. 4) The F1 in house commentary are afraid to call-out the FIA bellendry/idiocy in way Sky aren’t 5) Danica Patrick (but that’s me speaking as a red blooded male, I can ignore her MAGA stuff.)
I am working my notice with Sky, planning to replace the bits of it I watch with Now TV. Which at least on paper gives me all of that.
What makes me giggle is how Sky just seem to be pulling random numbers out of the air for what I should pay. I can get what I want for £70 a month. Having ended my contract its £103 a month about to go up to £116 a month. They offered me £77 a month to get less than I can get for £70 a month. Cancelled. Now had the first call back with a new lower offer - £83 a month.
"Erm, £83 a month is higher than the offer I already turned down". "well this is the offer we are giving you to stay which is lower than your current offer".
How much of the Sky money goes onto filling call centres with these people?
Best thing is to wait for your services to switch off (make sure your communications preferences are set that Sky can contact you) and they’ll contact you.
My friend was paying £90 a month, he was offered a recontract price of £140, when the services went off they offered him £70 a month, if you’ve got Sky Q, they’ll push you to sign up to go on Stream, but stick to your guns.
I just did switch to stream form Q... It felt wrong, have I goofed?
£70 instead of £120 a month
Streaming is the future, and I stream a lot, but you are buggered if your internet goes down for a long period of time.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
I quite agree and the inertia on the big issues by this disappointing administration is mind numbing. That said even when they have achieved minor victories their comms are so bad they don't even announce them, not that the press would be interested.
I do get frustrated when Shadow Ministers lie and explain everything was hunky dory on their watch. There are Tories who acknowledge reality, Alex Chalke was on yesterday suggesting the prison system has been in crisis for years if not decades. Contrast that with Jenrick on Ferrari yesterday, who with a half truth blamed not only the current but the previous government for the collapse in asylum policy and the related collapse in prison management. But along with that half truth he distanced himself from the previous government by saying he resigned because they were all incompetent, ignoring the reality that he was front and centre of that incompetence.
Incumbency brings with it the reality of government and this lot need to pull their finger out or hand the show over to Farage sooner rather than later. But Kemi, Cartridge and Jenrick pretending they weren't in government as the whole edifice collapsed does stick in the craw.
Their sneering hypocrisy is one of the reasons the polls show them heading for minibus numbers at the next election. People hate it, and it reminds them of why they voted them out.
Anyway, the problem is simple. We need to change the systems and simplify the structures. Which costs more as you do it, and we're "broke" supposedly.
In the business world this is called investment. My shop had very inefficient florescent light fittings. Cost a LOT in electricity. So I invested in LED panels. Spend more up front, to then save a lot every month that follows. Borrow. Invest. Gain a return on the investment. CAPITALISM - that thing the Tories used to represent before they got bought by the banks and the spivs.
Will it cost a little more to scrap these structures and cut the now redundant workforce? Sure. With huge savings delivered afterwards. Will it cost more to hire more cops and run the courts more and create prison space? Absolutely - with a big drop in the cost of crime afterwards. Will it cost money to invest in our towns and cities so that the streets aren't full of weeds and potholes? Sure - but look at the economic growth in places like Manchester.
Borrow. Invest. ROI.
Thanks to the Tories all we ever get - from Labour as well who were forced to adopt the same language - is "how will you pay for that", not "what benefits do we get from that". And at the moment absurd political / treasury orthodoxy has it that cuts save money with no cost. Which is laughably untrue.
Also, we have had successive governments apparently unable to distinguish investment which provides a real return, from that which does not. You rightly point at Manchester, IMO, as I suspect it's entirely possible that sustained capital investment in regional cities would provide a greater return than that in London, which has taken the lion's share since forever.
I hadn't appreciated that we've also just cancelled electrification of railway lines outside of London, yet again, to pay for London infrastructure.
UK transport secretary says full electrification of railways ‘not affordable (sic) right now’ Heidi Alexander says focus will be on other projects such as HS2 https://www.ft.com/content/5ecda1f8-b624-4e86-bb7b-b571bddb8a19 It seems Dr B-Ching Alexander's decision to halt further rail electrification in the UK, citing it as "unaffordable," misses the long-term financial and environmental benefits that electrification brings. Here's a breakdown of why her ignorance will be seen as a gross miscalculation:
1. Initial Costs vs. Long-Term Savings: While the upfront costs of electrification are significant, studies show that electric trains reduce operating costs by 20-30% compared to diesel trains over their lifecycle. This is due to lower maintenance needs and fuel costs, even when factoring in the construction expenses. For instance, the Great Western Electrification Project, despite its high initial cost, was projected to yield substantial savings over time. 2. Capacity and Efficiency Gains: Electrification can increase rail capacity by up to 40%, according to UK studies. This means more passengers and freight can be moved efficiently, potentially generating additional revenue that could offset initial investments. The missed opportunity here is not just financial but also operational, as electric trains are faster and more reliable, improving service quality and customer satisfaction. 3. Environmental and Social Benefits: Electric trains cut emissions by about 90% compared to diesel, aligning with global efforts to combat climate change. The environmental cost of not electrifying, in terms of increased carbon emissions and air pollution, could lead to higher societal costs in health and climate adaptation measures. These indirect costs are often not factored into short-term affordability assessments but are crucial for long-term sustainability. 4. Comparative International Examples: Countries like Germany have managed to electrify their railways at a fraction of the cost per single-track kilometer (STK) compared to the UK, partly due to a steady, skilled workforce and optimized techniques. The UK's historical challenges, like the costly Great Western project, don't necessarily reflect current capabilities or future potential efficiencies... https://x.com/tomcoady/status/1986448982956974538
In the marketised structure we contract various companies in to put up the knitting. On short, fixed contracts with gaps. At huuuuuuge cost.
Or - radical idea. Create a GBR Electrification Unit. Set it to work full time wiring the tracks. Much cheaper.
Labour are stuck with two idiotic mindsets: 1. The state can't do anything. Must contract out so its off the books 2. Can't afford the off the books cost, doing nothing saves money, lets do that
Also (this was in the time of the Tories tbf): 3. Different standards every time some new project begins, e.g. that battleship engineering for the Western main line leccy masts.
Have I realised, before Mr @TheScreamingEagles, that the Man City v Liverpool match on Sunday clashes with the Brazilian Grand Prix?
Footy kicks off at 16:30 UK time and the F1 cars start racing at 17:00.
I am aware, I am moving a second TV into the living room in preparation.
I also have a major clash on the evening Saturday the 20th of December.
Spurs v Liverpool clashes with the final of Strictly.
Why don't you just use your laptop to watch the second event?
I struggle to watch sports on a small screen.
I embarrassed to admit this, but we have seven TVs in the house, and the smallest one is 65 inches.
My eyes struggle to watch stuff that isn’t on s big screen in 4k/HDR with Dolby Atmos.
Ah, if I were remotely a class warrior fool I'd mock you so much for that.
But I'm not.
Important question, though, as someone who doesn't watch football: is the commentary there even worse than F1? Which one are you going to mute?
Brundle's fine but Croft is somewhere between tedious and seriously aggravating.
Some football commentators are more annoying than James Allen.
You leave Crofty alone.
So says someone who’s not watching F1TV Pro. Can’t you get their alternative commentary on Sky, it’s way better than Crofty?
Not available in the UK unless you have a VPN and pay extra but I get F1 in my Sky package.
Overall the Sky presentation is better for the following reasons
1) 4K picture quality with Dolby Atmos 2) Martin Brundle 3) The wider Sky analysis team such as Karun Chandhok, Anthony Davidson, Ted Kravitz, Bernie Collins, Nico Rosberg, et al. 4) The F1 in house commentary are afraid to call-out the FIA bellendry/idiocy in way Sky aren’t 5) Danica Patrick (but that’s me speaking as a red blooded male, I can ignore her MAGA stuff.)
I am working my notice with Sky, planning to replace the bits of it I watch with Now TV. Which at least on paper gives me all of that.
What makes me giggle is how Sky just seem to be pulling random numbers out of the air for what I should pay. I can get what I want for £70 a month. Having ended my contract its £103 a month about to go up to £116 a month. They offered me £77 a month to get less than I can get for £70 a month. Cancelled. Now had the first call back with a new lower offer - £83 a month.
"Erm, £83 a month is higher than the offer I already turned down". "well this is the offer we are giving you to stay which is lower than your current offer".
How much of the Sky money goes onto filling call centres with these people?
Best thing is to wait for your services to switch off (make sure your communications preferences are set that Sky can contact you) and they’ll contact you.
My friend was paying £90 a month, he was offered a recontract price of £140, when the services went off they offered him £70 a month, if you’ve got Sky Q, they’ll push you to sign up to go on Stream, but stick to your guns.
I just did switch to stream form Q... It felt wrong, have I goofed?
£70 instead of £120 a month
Streaming is the future, and I stream a lot, but you are buggered if your internet goes down for a long period of time.
Sky Q will work with no internet.
Not bought it, but I know some are pissed off with the disc of Outer Worlds 2 because it essentially just provides a download of the game via the internet. So if you buy it because your console's got a slow connection then you're out of luck.
My daughter recently divorced her husband and has bought a home nearby
It is extraordinary how bad most everyone has been in the process from the divorce lawyers, to the conveyancers, to the utility services, to the local council, and to Welsh Water who knew her water meter had been buried in road works two years previously and have not exposed it since
I do not like the word broken Britain but sadly it is and I see little prospects of any improvement soon
The prisons still use paper with no computerised records as WIfi is not available apparently
Of course the collapse of the prison and courts happened under successive governments alongside so much more, but ultimately we expect to pour countless billions into a failing NHS with little or no reform, pensions and benefits are out of control, paying interest on our debt of £100 billion pa, etc and we wonder why we are where we are
Labour's answer is to tax and tax everything in sight, hand out billions more on WFP, triple lock, and now abolitioning the 2 child cap.
This has to stop and radical action is required to change the direction of the economy but nobody is brave enough as they perceive the public will not elect them
Ultimately this only ends up one way and that is the IMF intervening
And to those who blame the 'other lot' each lot is to blame and no political party is any better than the other at facing realism
My recent experience with a range of public and private sector organisations has similarly been rather poor in many cases. It sometimes fees like bad service has become normalized. I would emphasise this is not just in the public sector by any means. The exception is usually small firms. Are we bad at building a good culture in large organisations in this country?
Our daughter's house sale completed at 12 noon and her furniture van was waiting outside her new home
She couldn't gain access as the money transfers were in the process but at 1.30 she expressed concern to the Estate Agent holding the keys as she would incur delay penalties from her removers if they couldn't move her in by 2.00pm
The estate agents said they would phone the solicitors only to respond that they were closed for lunch until 2.00pm !!!!!!
She did get the OK just after 2.00pm but this is 2025 not 1955
I created something like fear, by going round to sit in the solicitor's waiting room. They hadn't transferred the money to complete the transaction by 3:3-. The removal men were worried about time... sitting outside the house.
So I went round and sat there. They sent the secretary out to say there was no need. I said I would wait. They gave me a fairly decent espresso. I waited.
They managed to finish the job 10 minutes later...
I was inspired in this, by Lord Fisher. Who, upon being told that changing the gun on a battleship would take a week, he sat on the quarterdeck of the ship, in the morning and watched. He did his paperwork at a desk as they worked. When lunch came, he ate lunch at the desk. They finished changing the gun just after lunch.
What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.
I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.
Councils are in a terrible state, some of it cuts, but others by a dramatic increase in costs, obliged on them by the courts moving the line for what they are required to provide. Some costs around children services are extraordinary, there's no cap on looked after children in care costs. A local council to me has a single child in care (one child) costing over £25k a week. A week!!
Like every entitlement, every piece of public spending, they'll be some rationale behind it all. But there needs to be some tough loving going on somewhere.
Let’s say that they require 3 staff members per shift (rare but happens, especially with mentally ill teenagers with violent tendencies). That’s 9 core staff members to provide 24/7 cover. Add in another staff member to account for holiday cover and you will easily be a £400,000 p.a. in staff costs. You’ll also need say 25% of a team coordinator which is around £20k additional.
You will need at least a 3 bedroom property to support them - let’s assume that’s £350,000 of capital cost post adaption which they will rent at a 8% annual rate so probably another £30k per year at least.
So we are at £450k per year before you even start thinking about social charges on staff (probably another £40k per year), any medical interventions or support, education and life enhancement programmes. You could very easily get to £1m per year. You then add a 20% margin on top for the company that is doing all of this work and you easily get to £1.2m - £25k per week.
It's just not sustainable. What would have happened to children in this situation twenty five years ago?
25 years ago? What, in 2000? Pretty much exactly the same.
But 30 years ago it would have been different so don’t focus on the specific date as it’s not relevant
Have I realised, before Mr @TheScreamingEagles, that the Man City v Liverpool match on Sunday clashes with the Brazilian Grand Prix?
Footy kicks off at 16:30 UK time and the F1 cars start racing at 17:00.
I am aware, I am moving a second TV into the living room in preparation.
I also have a major clash on the evening Saturday the 20th of December.
Spurs v Liverpool clashes with the final of Strictly.
Why don't you just use your laptop to watch the second event?
I struggle to watch sports on a small screen.
I embarrassed to admit this, but we have seven TVs in the house, and the smallest one is 65 inches.
My eyes struggle to watch stuff that isn’t on s big screen in 4k/HDR with Dolby Atmos.
Ah, if I were remotely a class warrior fool I'd mock you so much for that.
But I'm not.
Important question, though, as someone who doesn't watch football: is the commentary there even worse than F1? Which one are you going to mute?
Brundle's fine but Croft is somewhere between tedious and seriously aggravating.
Some football commentators are more annoying than James Allen.
You leave Crofty alone.
So says someone who’s not watching F1TV Pro. Can’t you get their alternative commentary on Sky, it’s way better than Crofty?
Not available in the UK unless you have a VPN and pay extra but I get F1 in my Sky package.
Overall the Sky presentation is better for the following reasons
1) 4K picture quality with Dolby Atmos 2) Martin Brundle 3) The wider Sky analysis team such as Karun Chandhok, Anthony Davidson, Ted Kravitz, Bernie Collins, Nico Rosberg, et al. 4) The F1 in house commentary are afraid to call-out the FIA bellendry/idiocy in way Sky aren’t 5) Danica Patrick (but that’s me speaking as a red blooded male, I can ignore her MAGA stuff.)
I am working my notice with Sky, planning to replace the bits of it I watch with Now TV. Which at least on paper gives me all of that.
What makes me giggle is how Sky just seem to be pulling random numbers out of the air for what I should pay. I can get what I want for £70 a month. Having ended my contract its £103 a month about to go up to £116 a month. They offered me £77 a month to get less than I can get for £70 a month. Cancelled. Now had the first call back with a new lower offer - £83 a month.
"Erm, £83 a month is higher than the offer I already turned down". "well this is the offer we are giving you to stay which is lower than your current offer".
How much of the Sky money goes onto filling call centres with these people?
Best thing is to wait for your services to switch off (make sure your communications preferences are set that Sky can contact you) and they’ll contact you.
My friend was paying £90 a month, he was offered a recontract price of £140, when the services went off they offered him £70 a month, if you’ve got Sky Q, they’ll push you to sign up to go on Stream, but stick to your guns.
I just did switch to stream form Q... It felt wrong, have I goofed?
£70 instead of £120 a month
Streaming is the future, and I stream a lot, but you are buggered if your internet goes down for a long period of time.
Sky Q will work with no internet.
I have had Sky Q for years, but recently our internet (Sky Broadband) is flakey, meaning we can't get reception on the mini boxes, or access to the apps. As I am moving anyway I thought it would be easier to take the Streaming box with me than have to get a dish put up on a rental. Too much to think about at the mo
What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.
I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.
Councils are in a terrible state, some of it cuts, but others by a dramatic increase in costs, obliged on them by the courts moving the line for what they are required to provide. Some costs around children services are extraordinary, there's no cap on looked after children in care costs. A local council to me has a single child in care (one child) costing over £25k a week. A week!!
Like every entitlement, every piece of public spending, they'll be some rationale behind it all. But there needs to be some tough loving going on somewhere.
Let’s say that they require 3 staff members per shift (rare but happens, especially with mentally ill teenagers with violent tendencies). That’s 9 core staff members to provide 24/7 cover. Add in another staff member to account for holiday cover and you will easily be a £400,000 p.a. in staff costs. You’ll also need say 25% of a team coordinator which is around £20k additional.
You will need at least a 3 bedroom property to support them - let’s assume that’s £350,000 of capital cost post adaption which they will rent at a 8% annual rate so probably another £30k per year at least.
So we are at £450k per year before you even start thinking about social charges on staff (probably another £40k per year), any medical interventions or support, education and life enhancement programmes. You could very easily get to £1m per year. You then add a 20% margin on top for the company that is doing all of this work and you easily get to £1.2m - £25k per week.
It's just not sustainable. What would have happened to children in this situation twenty five years ago?
25 years ago? What, in 2000? Pretty much exactly the same.
Not exactly. The service would probably have been run by the local authority; now it's likely a private provider paid by the LA.
I can't find figures for the cost of a child in care back then, but I do know that that cost has nearly doubled in the last five years alone.
A big chunk of that is national minimum wage plus staffing levels
My daughter recently divorced her husband and has bought a home nearby
It is extraordinary how bad most everyone has been in the process from the divorce lawyers, to the conveyancers, to the utility services, to the local council, and to Welsh Water who knew her water meter had been buried in road works two years previously and have not exposed it since
I do not like the word broken Britain but sadly it is and I see little prospects of any improvement soon
The prisons still use paper with no computerised records as WIfi is not available apparently
Of course the collapse of the prison and courts happened under successive governments alongside so much more, but ultimately we expect to pour countless billions into a failing NHS with little or no reform, pensions and benefits are out of control, paying interest on our debt of £100 billion pa, etc and we wonder why we are where we are
Labour's answer is to tax and tax everything in sight, hand out billions more on WFP, triple lock, and now abolitioning the 2 child cap.
This has to stop and radical action is required to change the direction of the economy but nobody is brave enough as they perceive the public will not elect them
Ultimately this only ends up one way and that is the IMF intervening
And to those who blame the 'other lot' each lot is to blame and no political party is any better than the other at facing realism
My recent experience with a range of public and private sector organisations has similarly been rather poor in many cases. It sometimes fees like bad service has become normalized. I would emphasise this is not just in the public sector by any means. The exception is usually small firms. Are we bad at building a good culture in large organisations in this country?
Our daughter's house sale completed at 12 noon and her furniture van was waiting outside her new home
She couldn't gain access as the money transfers were in the process but at 1.30 she expressed concern to the Estate Agent holding the keys as she would incur delay penalties from her removers if they couldn't move her in by 2.00pm
The estate agents said they would phone the solicitors only to respond that they were closed for lunch until 2.00pm !!!!!!
She did get the OK just after 2.00pm but this is 2025 not 1955
You were lucky the lawyers didn't send the money by stagecoach.
When doing probate for elderly relatives, twice now, I've been infuriated by the insistence on the forms being filled in in certain archaic ways - which are not made clear in or constrained by the design of the form itself, or always mentioned in the instructions. My very strong impression was that this was to discourage DIY work, and in so doing make more work for solicitors. Certainly the effect: perhaps the intention.
That was Scotland. Don't know what it is like in England. Though I'm reminded of a friend who did DIY and was congrastulated by the probate office person for doing such a good job. Except that the person didn't mean, by the standards of ordinary DIY members of the public. But the lawyers as well. Most of whom are appallingly sloppy.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
Except that the NHS is remarkably efficient (or as another poster put it frugal) compared to other equivalent nations healthcare systems. The idea that the NHS is somehow drowning in admin is ridiculous. And giving patients a choice of hospitals doesn't require a shiny new admin building.
People often accuse reform voters/supporters of harking back to the past. In a way your version of the NHS is doing the same thing. People get frustrated with how GP surgeries run. I think they fail to understand the pressures on primary care. The huge increase in people over 65 in the last quarter century. The ever increase in things that we can do (hip, knee replacement seen as commonplace). Back in the 80's you would probably have walked into the GP surgery, collected a number (like the old delicounter in the supermarket) and waited your turn. I think a lot of people still want to do that. But is it the best way to run a surgery?
I don't actually disagree re hospitals, but what is really needed is the older cottage hospitals. Essentially well but infirm elderly patients evicted from the main surgical hospitals and out to their own home towns, near their families and friends. Less care needed, but still need looking after.
My question then is if the NHS is remarkably efficient, why is it so catastrophically inefficient? If giving people choice doesn't require a shiny new admin building, why does it always require one in practice?
I'm not harking back to the past at all - I've said that we could have booking systems that work as another poster asked for. But you can't have that at the moment because of the absurd structure.
One example. Where I used to live. Two separate GP practices in the same health centre. Each with its own management team, its own contracts with other parts of the NHS, its own preferred treatment routes. Duplication. Complication. Cost. And for what choice? You get a GP at the one with capacity - there's no choice. You get sent where they send you. Teesside has a choice of ageing hospitals short on capacity. Work in Newcastle and an appointment there would suit you better? Tough.
Radical idea. Scrap the GP practices managing contracts to compete with each other. Scrap the market structure completely. Procure centrally. Your choice of hospital is almost certainly your closest one because thats what people want, but if you want to drop an appointment into the one near where you work or you have family its click click. Centralised.
I think a situation you describe re competing GP surgeries is the anomaly. Certainly not the case for my town nor my dads village nor my sisters village. Can you give me other examples that you see as catastrophically inefficient? I think the NHS suffers a lot because it has to deal with patients. People who by their very nature are unwell, anxious, scared, angry, annoyed, fed up etc. Its important to remember that the NHS isn't running a hotel. Things happen. You may have an appointment at 9.15 and be annoyed that the appointment doesn't happen until 9.45 - how can they be that far behind so early in the day? But perhaps a patient needed more then 7 minutes with the doctor.
NHS England? I listened to an interview yesterday where Wes Streeting said that the government shouldn't get trapped into defending the status quo. And to be fair to him a significant restructure is happening, including with the way GP services are provided.
Do you know what NHS England does? And what will replace it?
No and no. I am not the expert here. But I have three markers: Never ending increases in money spent Never ending cash crises at the point of delivery Repeated wholesale restructures to change from this version of the internal market to that version
If the NHS is so efficient we wouldn't burn most of the money in the cost of running it or need to keep restructuring it at a fundamental level. And yes, I propose a restructure, but one that removes most of the 90s / 00s / 10s / 20s market structures and asks what people actually need.
We spend less in GDP terms than competitor nations such as Germany and France. Increases in money are partly because inflation (we've all had that over the last few years) - the stuff you need for healthcare also goes up in price, and partly because we are doing so much more healthcare. They are far more elderly people in the UK than there were in 2000. Elderly people need more care.
There will never be enough money because you can always spend more. Take treating cancer. There are some excellent MAB based treatment and biologics coming through but for many cancers the backbone of treatment will be the classics that we've used for decades. Because they work and are cheap. When they don't work, we move onto 2nd and 3rd line treatments.
Arguably if money was no object you'd go for the 100 grand a year treatment first up if its the gold standard.
You sound a little bit (just a bit) like Elon's teams going in to find savings in organisations. We all think we know the NHS because we use it but that doesn't mean we know how best to run it.
Indeed.
The way to improve an organisation is to have *internal* consultancy that provides process improvement, IT support etc as a package across the organisation. The employees would be part of the organisation (in the case of the NHS, NHS employees). It would work its way around, doing projects to improve this or that, piece by piece. The critical bit is having backing at the highest levels.
Where external consultancy fails, is in not knowing the geography of the organisation. And having interests not aligned with the organisation.
Where external consultancy succeeds is in breaking down local barriers to change.
A consultancy internal to the NHS, but external to the structures within it, would have a better chance.
Change needs to be a steady, continuous thing. A part of how the organisation exists.
What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.
I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.
Councils are in a terrible state, some of it cuts, but others by a dramatic increase in costs, obliged on them by the courts moving the line for what they are required to provide. Some costs around children services are extraordinary, there's no cap on looked after children in care costs. A local council to me has a single child in care (one child) costing over £25k a week. A week!!
Like every entitlement, every piece of public spending, they'll be some rationale behind it all. But there needs to be some tough loving going on somewhere.
Let’s say that they require 3 staff members per shift (rare but happens, especially with mentally ill teenagers with violent tendencies). That’s 9 core staff members to provide 24/7 cover. Add in another staff member to account for holiday cover and you will easily be a £400,000 p.a. in staff costs. You’ll also need say 25% of a team coordinator which is around £20k additional.
You will need at least a 3 bedroom property to support them - let’s assume that’s £350,000 of capital cost post adaption which they will rent at a 8% annual rate so probably another £30k per year at least.
So we are at £450k per year before you even start thinking about social charges on staff (probably another £40k per year), any medical interventions or support, education and life enhancement programmes. You could very easily get to £1m per year. You then add a 20% margin on top for the company that is doing all of this work and you easily get to £1.2m - £25k per week.
It's just not sustainable. What would have happened to children in this situation twenty five years ago?
25 years ago? What, in 2000? Pretty much exactly the same.
Not exactly. The service would probably have been run by the local authority; now it's likely a private provider paid by the LA.
I can't find figures for the cost of a child in care back then, but I do know that that cost has nearly doubled in the last five years alone.
A big chunk of that is national minimum wage plus staffing levels
The contrast from 25 years ago, is that applying the practise then, would probably result in arrests by the police, today.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
The prison service appears to be totally broken. They literally have one job to do, and that’s to keep the dangerous people away from the rest of us.
How can they possibly lose half a dozen people every week?
A prison system running over capacity (and ditto the courts system), with a demoralised and poorly trained workforce, and no investment in modern IT, so systems are often still paper based... yes, a puzzle to me, too.
That it has been going on for a number of years, and this is the first time we've really heard about it, completes the explanation.
You have to start wondering how accidental some of this is.
a) Complain a lot about insufficient funding b) Do incompetent things c) ???? d) Profit
My daughter recently divorced her husband and has bought a home nearby
It is extraordinary how bad most everyone has been in the process from the divorce lawyers, to the conveyancers, to the utility services, to the local council, and to Welsh Water who knew her water meter had been buried in road works two years previously and have not exposed it since
I do not like the word broken Britain but sadly it is and I see little prospects of any improvement soon
The prisons still use paper with no computerised records as WIfi is not available apparently
Of course the collapse of the prison and courts happened under successive governments alongside so much more, but ultimately we expect to pour countless billions into a failing NHS with little or no reform, pensions and benefits are out of control, paying interest on our debt of £100 billion pa, etc and we wonder why we are where we are
Labour's answer is to tax and tax everything in sight, hand out billions more on WFP, triple lock, and now abolitioning the 2 child cap.
This has to stop and radical action is required to change the direction of the economy but nobody is brave enough as they perceive the public will not elect them
Ultimately this only ends up one way and that is the IMF intervening
And to those who blame the 'other lot' each lot is to blame and no political party is any better than the other at facing realism
My recent experience with a range of public and private sector organisations has similarly been rather poor in many cases. It sometimes fees like bad service has become normalized. I would emphasise this is not just in the public sector by any means. The exception is usually small firms. Are we bad at building a good culture in large organisations in this country?
Our daughter's house sale completed at 12 noon and her furniture van was waiting outside her new home
She couldn't gain access as the money transfers were in the process but at 1.30 she expressed concern to the Estate Agent holding the keys as she would incur delay penalties from her removers if they couldn't move her in by 2.00pm
The estate agents said they would phone the solicitors only to respond that they were closed for lunch until 2.00pm !!!!!!
She did get the OK just after 2.00pm but this is 2025 not 1955
You were lucky the lawyers didn't send the money by stagecoach.
When doing probate for elderly relatives, twice now, I've been infuriated by the insistence on the forms being filled in in certain archaic ways - which are not made clear in or constrained by the design of the form itself, or always mentioned in the instructions. My very strong impression was that this was to discourage DIY work, and in so doing make more work for solicitors. Certainly the effect: perhaps the intention.
That was Scotland. Don't know what it is like in England. Though I'm reminded of a friend who did DIY and was congrastulated by the probate office person for doing such a good job. Except that the person didn't mean, by the standards of ordinary DIY members of the public. But the lawyers as well. Most of whom are appallingly sloppy.
I've done probate for relatives a couple of times in recent years (in England) and I can't say I found the process that onerous; most of it was doable online. Actually I was pleasantly surprised by the helpfulness and cooperation of most of the parties involved. They were both relatively simple cases, though. Each involved a house sale, but neither reached the required threshold for IHT payment.
One thing that did strike me was the amount of information that was taken on trust, and it seemed to me that it wouldn't be that difficult for bad actors to siphon off money or fraudulently claim estates by pretending to be relatives, etc.
First prefs - BUT the previous holder was Labour, second elected on the slate, and removed from office on account of being jailed, so comparison is tricky, even allowing for Reform coming in.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
The prison service appears to be totally broken. They literally have one job to do, and that’s to keep the dangerous people away from the rest of us.
How can they possibly lose half a dozen people every week?
Because prisons are overcrowded, guards are undertrained with few entry requirements snd administrative systems archaic. We have neglected our prisons as much as anywhere else in the public estate so shouldn't be surprised that they work badly. The Probation service is pretty hopeless too. At £60 000 per prisoner per year it is very much as Douglas Hurd described 30 years ago "an expensive way of making bad people worse".
On a recent inspection at Leicester Prison* the governor didn't know how many prisoners he had that day. A pretty core figure I would have thought.
*Leicester Prison is opposite my hospital and particularly chaotic, as it is short term with lots of remand prisoners and newly sentenced who are awaiting moves to longer term prisons.
I’ve not worked in a prison but I have worked in an hotel - how many customers are in beds tonight is kinda a key metric. Much easier with a prison too, guests can’t just bring a friend in with them and there’s supposed to be paperwork of comings and goings.
As others have said, it does appear that a lot of money is being spent with poor value achieved, yet prison officers are not particularly well paid, and every month or two there’s a scandal involving a young woman working in a men’s prison with predictable results.
The building themselves are often in poor condition too, they should probably look at selling off a lot of the estate that’s in urban areas (the old prison in Oxford city centre is now a funky hotel) and build new facilities on military land.
Public sector pay is one of those magic bullets I very much wish we could use. In a perfect world I would very much like that our public servants were paid much better than they are and payscales significantly reformed so that progression is encouraged. We should as part of that be reforming public sector pensions.
Of course the unions would hate absolutely everything I’ve just typed so it’s pie in the sky, but I can dream. I think there’s a lot of great people in the public sector but they are trapped by overbearing bureaucracy and static pay and progression structures.
They probably need fewer people paid more money, and yes get rid of the archaic systems of work and pensions.
It’s really obvious in my trade, IT, when you see ads for senior IT managers on £50k in the public sector in London, with a long list of formal qualifications as prerequisites and a five-stage application process.
The helpdesk Level 2 in the private sector is making that salary in London.
Why any public sector is based in London is beyond me.
All public sector work, beyond frontline services, should be moved out of overheated and overexpensive London. Move all civil servants elsewhere.
I'd move Parliament and the PM's office too while we're at it.
I think the experience of the ONS, based in Newport, offers a cautionary tale. It's hard to get good people to move to Newport, where there are few other employers of graduates with advanced skills in the area of data and statistics. Once you're there and have kids in school and put down roots you have no other job to go to. Your spouse might not find good work either. The ONS has been bedeviled by problems and mistakes, and staffing I suspect is a big part of their problem. There are other places outside London that might have the labour market to support a public body that wants a deep pool of talent, like Manchester or Leeds or Edinburgh. But they also have expensive housing markets. If you want good people you need a deep labour market which implies good private sector employers which implies high competitor salaries and expensive housing, sorry.
The move of the ONS to Newport has indeed been an exercise in how to do relocation badly. Also it is a shithole, so no chance getting people to trade the above for a nice place to live and a bigger house (which actually removes some of the need for career progression)
I was once involved with a move from London to Coventry and was slightly surprised by how many of my colleagues wanted to move. Well, lower living costs, opportunity to buy a big family house without a massive commute, plenty of housing at different price ranges, you can live in Stratford upon Avon if you can afford it. Only an hour from London by train, and it was an education quango so many spouses were teachers, and you can get a job anywhere.
I disagree that Newport is badly sited as a place to work, having worked at the Royal Gwent Hospital from 1986-1992, and then part-time there until 2005, with other commitments in Cardiff and latterly Caerphilly too. It is not far from Cardiff, where I lived and which has many opportunities, and it is within commuting distance of Bristol. There is attractive countryside for rural living to its east. It is much nicer than the upper reaches of the South Wales valleys, which are much higher, wetter and gloomier with very little decent housing.
Have I realised, before Mr @TheScreamingEagles, that the Man City v Liverpool match on Sunday clashes with the Brazilian Grand Prix?
Footy kicks off at 16:30 UK time and the F1 cars start racing at 17:00.
I am aware, I am moving a second TV into the living room in preparation.
I also have a major clash on the evening Saturday the 20th of December.
Spurs v Liverpool clashes with the final of Strictly.
Why don't you just use your laptop to watch the second event?
I struggle to watch sports on a small screen.
I embarrassed to admit this, but we have seven TVs in the house, and the smallest one is 65 inches.
My eyes struggle to watch stuff that isn’t on s big screen in 4k/HDR with Dolby Atmos.
Ah, if I were remotely a class warrior fool I'd mock you so much for that.
But I'm not.
Important question, though, as someone who doesn't watch football: is the commentary there even worse than F1? Which one are you going to mute?
Brundle's fine but Croft is somewhere between tedious and seriously aggravating.
Some football commentators are more annoying than James Allen.
You leave Crofty alone.
So says someone who’s not watching F1TV Pro. Can’t you get their alternative commentary on Sky, it’s way better than Crofty?
Not available in the UK unless you have a VPN and pay extra but I get F1 in my Sky package.
Overall the Sky presentation is better for the following reasons
1) 4K picture quality with Dolby Atmos 2) Martin Brundle 3) The wider Sky analysis team such as Karun Chandhok, Anthony Davidson, Ted Kravitz, Bernie Collins, Nico Rosberg, et al. 4) The F1 in house commentary are afraid to call-out the FIA bellendry/idiocy in way Sky aren’t 5) Danica Patrick (but that’s me speaking as a red blooded male, I can ignore her MAGA stuff.)
I am working my notice with Sky, planning to replace the bits of it I watch with Now TV. Which at least on paper gives me all of that.
What makes me giggle is how Sky just seem to be pulling random numbers out of the air for what I should pay. I can get what I want for £70 a month. Having ended my contract its £103 a month about to go up to £116 a month. They offered me £77 a month to get less than I can get for £70 a month. Cancelled. Now had the first call back with a new lower offer - £83 a month.
"Erm, £83 a month is higher than the offer I already turned down". "well this is the offer we are giving you to stay which is lower than your current offer".
How much of the Sky money goes onto filling call centres with these people?
Best thing is to wait for your services to switch off (make sure your communications preferences are set that Sky can contact you) and they’ll contact you.
My friend was paying £90 a month, he was offered a recontract price of £140, when the services went off they offered him £70 a month, if you’ve got Sky Q, they’ll push you to sign up to go on Stream, but stick to your guns.
I just did switch to stream form Q... It felt wrong, have I goofed?
£70 instead of £120 a month
Streaming is the future, and I stream a lot, but you are buggered if your internet goes down for a long period of time.
Sky Q will work with no internet.
As Sky are exiting satellite broadcasting, Streaming will be the only option. And once you get there, why do you need Sky?
I can stream BBC in UHD. I watch little of ITV / 4 / 5 / Sky "broadcast" content and all that can be streamed. Most watching is Netflix / Youtube / Disney / Paramount. Plus I still want Sky Sports for F1, Darts and bits of football which I can stream in UHD for less than it costs through Sky.
I don't really record stuff on the Q box so won't miss that. Watch minimal amounts of non-sport at the time of broadcast.
Now on hold as after yesterday's please pay more offer they kindly reset my end of contract date. Getting it put back to what it should be.
My daughter recently divorced her husband and has bought a home nearby
It is extraordinary how bad most everyone has been in the process from the divorce lawyers, to the conveyancers, to the utility services, to the local council, and to Welsh Water who knew her water meter had been buried in road works two years previously and have not exposed it since
I do not like the word broken Britain but sadly it is and I see little prospects of any improvement soon
The prisons still use paper with no computerised records as WIfi is not available apparently
Of course the collapse of the prison and courts happened under successive governments alongside so much more, but ultimately we expect to pour countless billions into a failing NHS with little or no reform, pensions and benefits are out of control, paying interest on our debt of £100 billion pa, etc and we wonder why we are where we are
Labour's answer is to tax and tax everything in sight, hand out billions more on WFP, triple lock, and now abolitioning the 2 child cap.
This has to stop and radical action is required to change the direction of the economy but nobody is brave enough as they perceive the public will not elect them
Ultimately this only ends up one way and that is the IMF intervening
And to those who blame the 'other lot' each lot is to blame and no political party is any better than the other at facing realism
My recent experience with a range of public and private sector organisations has similarly been rather poor in many cases. It sometimes fees like bad service has become normalized. I would emphasise this is not just in the public sector by any means. The exception is usually small firms. Are we bad at building a good culture in large organisations in this country?
Our daughter's house sale completed at 12 noon and her furniture van was waiting outside her new home
She couldn't gain access as the money transfers were in the process but at 1.30 she expressed concern to the Estate Agent holding the keys as she would incur delay penalties from her removers if they couldn't move her in by 2.00pm
The estate agents said they would phone the solicitors only to respond that they were closed for lunch until 2.00pm !!!!!!
She did get the OK just after 2.00pm but this is 2025 not 1955
You were lucky the lawyers didn't send the money by stagecoach.
When doing probate for elderly relatives, twice now, I've been infuriated by the insistence on the forms being filled in in certain archaic ways - which are not made clear in or constrained by the design of the form itself, or always mentioned in the instructions. My very strong impression was that this was to discourage DIY work, and in so doing make more work for solicitors. Certainly the effect: perhaps the intention.
That was Scotland. Don't know what it is like in England. Though I'm reminded of a friend who did DIY and was congrastulated by the probate office person for doing such a good job. Except that the person didn't mean, by the standards of ordinary DIY members of the public. But the lawyers as well. Most of whom are appallingly sloppy.
I've done probate for relatives a couple of times in recent years (in England) and I can't say I found the process that onerous. Actually I was pleasantly surprised by the helpfulness and cooperation of most of the parties involved. They were both relatively simple cases, though. Each involved a house sale, but neither reached the required threshold for IHT payment.
One thing that did strike me was the amount of information that was taken on trust, and it seemed to me that it wouldn't be that difficult for bad actors to siphon off money or fraudulently claim estates by pretending to be relatives, etc.
Hmm. I suppose that's left to the families. As for the banks, I have no idea if they take an interest other than checking that the correct bumf with the embossed stamp is provided. But HMRC do take a considerable interest in the ensuing house sales. And the requirement for a valid will does help a bit. OTOH if there is no will ... at least in Scotland the executors do have to pay a whacking great insurance premium - for a 'deed of caution' - in case soething goes wrong. IIRC only one firm will supply this now. So no idea what happens if they give up, or if the law has changed in the last few years.
My daughter recently divorced her husband and has bought a home nearby
It is extraordinary how bad most everyone has been in the process from the divorce lawyers, to the conveyancers, to the utility services, to the local council, and to Welsh Water who knew her water meter had been buried in road works two years previously and have not exposed it since
I do not like the word broken Britain but sadly it is and I see little prospects of any improvement soon
The prisons still use paper with no computerised records as WIfi is not available apparently
Of course the collapse of the prison and courts happened under successive governments alongside so much more, but ultimately we expect to pour countless billions into a failing NHS with little or no reform, pensions and benefits are out of control, paying interest on our debt of £100 billion pa, etc and we wonder why we are where we are
Labour's answer is to tax and tax everything in sight, hand out billions more on WFP, triple lock, and now abolitioning the 2 child cap.
This has to stop and radical action is required to change the direction of the economy but nobody is brave enough as they perceive the public will not elect them
Ultimately this only ends up one way and that is the IMF intervening
And to those who blame the 'other lot' each lot is to blame and no political party is any better than the other at facing realism
My recent experience with a range of public and private sector organisations has similarly been rather poor in many cases. It sometimes fees like bad service has become normalized. I would emphasise this is not just in the public sector by any means. The exception is usually small firms. Are we bad at building a good culture in large organisations in this country?
Our daughter's house sale completed at 12 noon and her furniture van was waiting outside her new home
She couldn't gain access as the money transfers were in the process but at 1.30 she expressed concern to the Estate Agent holding the keys as she would incur delay penalties from her removers if they couldn't move her in by 2.00pm
The estate agents said they would phone the solicitors only to respond that they were closed for lunch until 2.00pm !!!!!!
She did get the OK just after 2.00pm but this is 2025 not 1955
You were lucky the lawyers didn't send the money by stagecoach.
When doing probate for elderly relatives, twice now, I've been infuriated by the insistence on the forms being filled in in certain archaic ways - which are not made clear in or constrained by the design of the form itself, or always mentioned in the instructions. My very strong impression was that this was to discourage DIY work, and in so doing make more work for solicitors. Certainly the effect: perhaps the intention.
That was Scotland. Don't know what it is like in England. Though I'm reminded of a friend who did DIY and was congrastulated by the probate office person for doing such a good job. Except that the person didn't mean, by the standards of ordinary DIY members of the public. But the lawyers as well. Most of whom are appallingly sloppy.
I've done probate for relatives a couple of times in recent years (in England) and I can't say I found the process that onerous; most of it was doable online. Actually I was pleasantly surprised by the helpfulness and cooperation of most of the parties involved. They were both relatively simple cases, though. Each involved a house sale, but neither reached the required threshold for IHT payment.
One thing that did strike me was the amount of information that was taken on trust, and it seemed to me that it wouldn't be that difficult for bad actors to siphon off money or fraudulently claim estates by pretending to be relatives, etc.
Gwyneth Paltrow and Nicolas Cage have probably got better things to do with their time, but we should keep an eye on that Steven Seagal fellow.
Thousands of North Sea oil workers are being told they must lose weight if they are to keep flying offshore - or face losing their jobs.
From November next year, industry body Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) said the maximum clothed weight for a worker heading offshore should be 124.7kg (19.5 st) - so they can be winched to safety in an emergency.
The 249kg (39st) maximum Coastguard rescue helicopter winch load is made up of that figure plus the average 90.3kg (14st) weight of a rescue worker, a 29kg (4.5st) stretcher and the 5kg (0.8st) kit.
OEUK said more than 2,200 workers were currently above the weight limit, and jobs could be lost in the worst case scenario.
The UK construction PMI has shown a historic contraction, with the latest reading in October 2025 at 44.1, marking the tenth consecutive month below the 50-point expansion/contraction threshold. This marks the longest period of continuous decline since the global financial crisis. The sector has been negatively impacted by sluggish demand, a lack of new tender opportunities, and falling employment, with civil engineering activity falling particularly sharply.
Recent performance and key trends
Continuous contraction: The S&P Global UK Construction PMI has been below 50 for ten straight months as of October 2025, indicating a sustained downturn.
Sharpest decline in over five years: The rate of contraction in October 2025 was the sharpest since May 2020.
Weakening demand and new work: Construction firms report poor market conditions and fewer new projects, with civil engineering activity falling at the fastest pace since May 2020 due to a lack of new work to replace completed projects.
Job losses: Employment in the sector has dropped significantly, with the pace of job shedding accelerating to its fastest since November 2020 in some recent months.
Sector-specific performance: While commercial and residential building both declined, civil engineering activity has been the weakest-performing segment.
Cost pressures: Despite weak demand, some periods have seen rising cost pressures from materials and wages.
Looking ahead
Business expectations: Business confidence has fluctuated, sometimes remaining positive due to hopes for future projects despite short-term challenges.
Contributing factors: Reasons cited for the downturn include economic uncertainty, higher borrowing costs, and a shortage of new projects.
Policy impact: The figures have been influenced by fiscal worries and potential tax changes, such as those rumoured for the November 2025 Budget.
When do we get the apologies from Reeves and Rayner ?
Down here in Devon, builders are complaining there is no work. A mass of second homes are up for sale without even being tarted up. No point spending money as they aren't selling regardless of condition.
"They aren't selling regardless of condition" may be missing something out. There is a magical belief about property that there is a proper price it should fetch. With some exceptions property will sell as long as both parties have the same idea about price. That a house is worth exactly what a buyer is prepared to pay is a deep mystery to a lot of people.
All goes out the window when there is a glut on the market. I'm sure they could sell at massive discounts. But they aren't that desperate. Too expensive as first homes for those that can afford first homes is the real issue.
Have I realised, before Mr @TheScreamingEagles, that the Man City v Liverpool match on Sunday clashes with the Brazilian Grand Prix?
Footy kicks off at 16:30 UK time and the F1 cars start racing at 17:00.
I am aware, I am moving a second TV into the living room in preparation.
I also have a major clash on the evening Saturday the 20th of December.
Spurs v Liverpool clashes with the final of Strictly.
Why don't you just use your laptop to watch the second event?
I struggle to watch sports on a small screen.
I embarrassed to admit this, but we have seven TVs in the house, and the smallest one is 65 inches.
My eyes struggle to watch stuff that isn’t on s big screen in 4k/HDR with Dolby Atmos.
Ah, if I were remotely a class warrior fool I'd mock you so much for that.
But I'm not.
Important question, though, as someone who doesn't watch football: is the commentary there even worse than F1? Which one are you going to mute?
Brundle's fine but Croft is somewhere between tedious and seriously aggravating.
Some football commentators are more annoying than James Allen.
You leave Crofty alone.
So says someone who’s not watching F1TV Pro. Can’t you get their alternative commentary on Sky, it’s way better than Crofty?
Not available in the UK unless you have a VPN and pay extra but I get F1 in my Sky package.
Overall the Sky presentation is better for the following reasons
1) 4K picture quality with Dolby Atmos 2) Martin Brundle 3) The wider Sky analysis team such as Karun Chandhok, Anthony Davidson, Ted Kravitz, Bernie Collins, Nico Rosberg, et al. 4) The F1 in house commentary are afraid to call-out the FIA bellendry/idiocy in way Sky aren’t 5) Danica Patrick (but that’s me speaking as a red blooded male, I can ignore her MAGA stuff.)
I am working my notice with Sky, planning to replace the bits of it I watch with Now TV. Which at least on paper gives me all of that.
What makes me giggle is how Sky just seem to be pulling random numbers out of the air for what I should pay. I can get what I want for £70 a month. Having ended my contract its £103 a month about to go up to £116 a month. They offered me £77 a month to get less than I can get for £70 a month. Cancelled. Now had the first call back with a new lower offer - £83 a month.
"Erm, £83 a month is higher than the offer I already turned down". "well this is the offer we are giving you to stay which is lower than your current offer".
How much of the Sky money goes onto filling call centres with these people?
Best thing is to wait for your services to switch off (make sure your communications preferences are set that Sky can contact you) and they’ll contact you.
My friend was paying £90 a month, he was offered a recontract price of £140, when the services went off they offered him £70 a month, if you’ve got Sky Q, they’ll push you to sign up to go on Stream, but stick to your guns.
I just did switch to stream form Q... It felt wrong, have I goofed?
£70 instead of £120 a month
Streaming is the future, and I stream a lot, but you are buggered if your internet goes down for a long period of time.
Sky Q will work with no internet.
For a lot less than £50 you can get enough data for your phone to cover as backup home internet.
My daughter recently divorced her husband and has bought a home nearby
It is extraordinary how bad most everyone has been in the process from the divorce lawyers, to the conveyancers, to the utility services, to the local council, and to Welsh Water who knew her water meter had been buried in road works two years previously and have not exposed it since
I do not like the word broken Britain but sadly it is and I see little prospects of any improvement soon
The prisons still use paper with no computerised records as WIfi is not available apparently
Of course the collapse of the prison and courts happened under successive governments alongside so much more, but ultimately we expect to pour countless billions into a failing NHS with little or no reform, pensions and benefits are out of control, paying interest on our debt of £100 billion pa, etc and we wonder why we are where we are
Labour's answer is to tax and tax everything in sight, hand out billions more on WFP, triple lock, and now abolitioning the 2 child cap.
This has to stop and radical action is required to change the direction of the economy but nobody is brave enough as they perceive the public will not elect them
Ultimately this only ends up one way and that is the IMF intervening
And to those who blame the 'other lot' each lot is to blame and no political party is any better than the other at facing realism
My recent experience with a range of public and private sector organisations has similarly been rather poor in many cases. It sometimes fees like bad service has become normalized. I would emphasise this is not just in the public sector by any means. The exception is usually small firms. Are we bad at building a good culture in large organisations in this country?
Our daughter's house sale completed at 12 noon and her furniture van was waiting outside her new home
She couldn't gain access as the money transfers were in the process but at 1.30 she expressed concern to the Estate Agent holding the keys as she would incur delay penalties from her removers if they couldn't move her in by 2.00pm
The estate agents said they would phone the solicitors only to respond that they were closed for lunch until 2.00pm !!!!!!
She did get the OK just after 2.00pm but this is 2025 not 1955
You were lucky the lawyers didn't send the money by stagecoach.
When doing probate for elderly relatives, twice now, I've been infuriated by the insistence on the forms being filled in in certain archaic ways - which are not made clear in or constrained by the design of the form itself, or always mentioned in the instructions. My very strong impression was that this was to discourage DIY work, and in so doing make more work for solicitors. Certainly the effect: perhaps the intention.
That was Scotland. Don't know what it is like in England. Though I'm reminded of a friend who did DIY and was congrastulated by the probate office person for doing such a good job. Except that the person didn't mean, by the standards of ordinary DIY members of the public. But the lawyers as well. Most of whom are appallingly sloppy.
I've done probate for relatives a couple of times in recent years (in England) and I can't say I found the process that onerous; most of it was doable online. Actually I was pleasantly surprised by the helpfulness and cooperation of most of the parties involved. They were both relatively simple cases, though. Each involved a house sale, but neither reached the required threshold for IHT payment.
One thing that did strike me was the amount of information that was taken on trust, and it seemed to me that it wouldn't be that difficult for bad actors to siphon off money or fraudulently claim estates by pretending to be relatives, etc.
Gwyneth Paltrow and Nicolas Cage have probably got better things to do with their time, but we should keep an eye on that Steven Seagal fellow.
Thousands of North Sea oil workers are being told they must lose weight if they are to keep flying offshore - or face losing their jobs.
From November next year, industry body Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) said the maximum clothed weight for a worker heading offshore should be 124.7kg (19.5 st) - so they can be winched to safety in an emergency.
The 249kg (39st) maximum Coastguard rescue helicopter winch load is made up of that figure plus the average 90.3kg (14st) weight of a rescue worker, a 29kg (4.5st) stretcher and the 5kg (0.8st) kit.
OEUK said more than 2,200 workers were currently above the weight limit, and jobs could be lost in the worst case scenario.
Sky TV's owners might want to buy ITV for good reason - they need to justify their existence. Sky still insistent they have to offer "Sky Signature" - all those channels you don't watch. But I don't watch those...
Alternately they offered "Sky Essentials" which is cheaper and consists of the Free to Air channels. So why should I pay Sky for the FTA stuff again?
Feels like a company living in the past. I won't miss it.
Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,
Your joking, not another one 90....
It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.
Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.
I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.
As fun as the political blame is (and it IS fun pointing out that the Tories fucked the country), we need to get away from being that Spiderman meme and do things differently.
Yes Minister was so funny because it was true. We change the government but not the system. Neither side seems capable of imagining that "choice" is waste.
Offer people the following. You have a local GP. You have an accessible local hospital for basic bits and regional centres of excellence to do the complex / difficult stuff. You get seen quickly and treated and home without being left to suffer in pain for endless months and years.
Nobody cares about GPs being asked to create and administer clinical commissioning. A choice of hospitals. A shiny new admin building full of people telling you that your pain will be with you for another 18 months.
For all the successive governments rightly claim to be spending record amounts on the NHS, they're spending it on admin, not healthcare. Massively simplify the structure to cut much of the admin, and thus more cash spent on fixing your ailment and less on letters passed from pillar to post explaining why they won't treat you until Christmas next year.
I quite agree and the inertia on the big issues by this disappointing administration is mind numbing. That said even when they have achieved minor victories their comms are so bad they don't even announce them, not that the press would be interested.
I do get frustrated when Shadow Ministers lie and explain everything was hunky dory on their watch. There are Tories who acknowledge reality, Alex Chalke was on yesterday suggesting the prison system has been in crisis for years if not decades. Contrast that with Jenrick on Ferrari yesterday, who with a half truth blamed not only the current but the previous government for the collapse in asylum policy and the related collapse in prison management. But along with that half truth he distanced himself from the previous government by saying he resigned because they were all incompetent, ignoring the reality that he was front and centre of that incompetence.
Incumbency brings with it the reality of government and this lot need to pull their finger out or hand the show over to Farage sooner rather than later. But Kemi, Cartridge and Jenrick pretending they weren't in government as the whole edifice collapsed does stick in the craw.
Their sneering hypocrisy is one of the reasons the polls show them heading for minibus numbers at the next election. People hate it, and it reminds them of why they voted them out.
Anyway, the problem is simple. We need to change the systems and simplify the structures. Which costs more as you do it, and we're "broke" supposedly.
In the business world this is called investment. My shop had very inefficient florescent light fittings. Cost a LOT in electricity. So I invested in LED panels. Spend more up front, to then save a lot every month that follows. Borrow. Invest. Gain a return on the investment. CAPITALISM - that thing the Tories used to represent before they got bought by the banks and the spivs.
Will it cost a little more to scrap these structures and cut the now redundant workforce? Sure. With huge savings delivered afterwards. Will it cost more to hire more cops and run the courts more and create prison space? Absolutely - with a big drop in the cost of crime afterwards. Will it cost money to invest in our towns and cities so that the streets aren't full of weeds and potholes? Sure - but look at the economic growth in places like Manchester.
Borrow. Invest. ROI.
Thanks to the Tories all we ever get - from Labour as well who were forced to adopt the same language - is "how will you pay for that", not "what benefits do we get from that". And at the moment absurd political / treasury orthodoxy has it that cuts save money with no cost. Which is laughably untrue.
Also, we have had successive governments apparently unable to distinguish investment which provides a real return, from that which does not. You rightly point at Manchester, IMO, as I suspect it's entirely possible that sustained capital investment in regional cities would provide a greater return than that in London, which has taken the lion's share since forever.
I hadn't appreciated that we've also just cancelled electrification of railway lines outside of London, yet again, to pay for London infrastructure.
UK transport secretary says full electrification of railways ‘not affordable (sic) right now’ Heidi Alexander says focus will be on other projects such as HS2 https://www.ft.com/content/5ecda1f8-b624-4e86-bb7b-b571bddb8a19 It seems Dr B-Ching Alexander's decision to halt further rail electrification in the UK, citing it as "unaffordable," misses the long-term financial and environmental benefits that electrification brings. Here's a breakdown of why her ignorance will be seen as a gross miscalculation:
1. Initial Costs vs. Long-Term Savings: While the upfront costs of electrification are significant, studies show that electric trains reduce operating costs by 20-30% compared to diesel trains over their lifecycle. This is due to lower maintenance needs and fuel costs, even when factoring in the construction expenses. For instance, the Great Western Electrification Project, despite its high initial cost, was projected to yield substantial savings over time. 2. Capacity and Efficiency Gains: Electrification can increase rail capacity by up to 40%, according to UK studies. This means more passengers and freight can be moved efficiently, potentially generating additional revenue that could offset initial investments. The missed opportunity here is not just financial but also operational, as electric trains are faster and more reliable, improving service quality and customer satisfaction. 3. Environmental and Social Benefits: Electric trains cut emissions by about 90% compared to diesel, aligning with global efforts to combat climate change. The environmental cost of not electrifying, in terms of increased carbon emissions and air pollution, could lead to higher societal costs in health and climate adaptation measures. These indirect costs are often not factored into short-term affordability assessments but are crucial for long-term sustainability. 4. Comparative International Examples: Countries like Germany have managed to electrify their railways at a fraction of the cost per single-track kilometer (STK) compared to the UK, partly due to a steady, skilled workforce and optimized techniques. The UK's historical challenges, like the costly Great Western project, don't necessarily reflect current capabilities or future potential efficiencies... https://x.com/tomcoady/status/1986448982956974538
A nice graphical illustration of this stupidity.
Note that very little rail electrification took place when Labour were in power.
The UK construction PMI has shown a historic contraction, with the latest reading in October 2025 at 44.1, marking the tenth consecutive month below the 50-point expansion/contraction threshold. This marks the longest period of continuous decline since the global financial crisis. The sector has been negatively impacted by sluggish demand, a lack of new tender opportunities, and falling employment, with civil engineering activity falling particularly sharply.
Recent performance and key trends
Continuous contraction: The S&P Global UK Construction PMI has been below 50 for ten straight months as of October 2025, indicating a sustained downturn.
Sharpest decline in over five years: The rate of contraction in October 2025 was the sharpest since May 2020.
Weakening demand and new work: Construction firms report poor market conditions and fewer new projects, with civil engineering activity falling at the fastest pace since May 2020 due to a lack of new work to replace completed projects.
Job losses: Employment in the sector has dropped significantly, with the pace of job shedding accelerating to its fastest since November 2020 in some recent months.
Sector-specific performance: While commercial and residential building both declined, civil engineering activity has been the weakest-performing segment.
Cost pressures: Despite weak demand, some periods have seen rising cost pressures from materials and wages.
Looking ahead
Business expectations: Business confidence has fluctuated, sometimes remaining positive due to hopes for future projects despite short-term challenges.
Contributing factors: Reasons cited for the downturn include economic uncertainty, higher borrowing costs, and a shortage of new projects.
Policy impact: The figures have been influenced by fiscal worries and potential tax changes, such as those rumoured for the November 2025 Budget.
When do we get the apologies from Reeves and Rayner ?
Down here in Devon, builders are complaining there is no work. A mass of second homes are up for sale without even being tarted up. No point spending money as they aren't selling regardless of condition.
"They aren't selling regardless of condition" may be missing something out. There is a magical belief about property that there is a proper price it should fetch. With some exceptions property will sell as long as both parties have the same idea about price. That a house is worth exactly what a buyer is prepared to pay is a deep mystery to a lot of people.
All goes out the window when there is a glut on the market. I'm sure they could sell at massive discounts. But they aren't that desperate. Too expensive as first homes for those that can afford first homes is the real issue.
TBF it's cheaper to buy and then tart it up the way one wants.
When we sold my dad's house, the plumbing was on its last legs - we asked our tame plumber if we should get it redone before sale. He said very firmly no - he'd lost count of the number of times he'd installed a new kitchen/bathroom and then was commissioned to rip it out and put a new one in by new buyers a few months later.
Comments
I embarrassed to admit this, but we have seven TVs in the house, and the smallest one is 65 inches.
My eyes struggle to watch stuff that isn’t on s big screen in 4k/HDR with Dolby Atmos.
However the IMF won't intervene provided she increases tax enough in the budget to fund her spending, which it seems she will.
Though that may come at the expense of high earners and the very wealthy looking to Singapore, Monaco, Abu Dhabi and Geneva
We passed the limit of what we could cut first and then reform successfully several years or more ago.
It's been suggested that the King has hung him out to dry because he was heckled, "What did you know about your brother?" etc
In Essex by contrast Labour did not even win most seats let alone Labour and the Greens winning most votes. That was my main comparison, Essex v London.
My main point being far more home owners in Essex, far lower cost of living, far more rightwing voters, whereas in London the housing costs and cost of living are exorbitant hence far more vote for leftwing parties
Newport is a red herring as that is a different strategy compared to bigger cities.
https://www.richersounds.com/hisense-116uxqtuk/
But I'm not.
Important question, though, as someone who doesn't watch football: is the commentary there even worse than F1? Which one are you going to mute?
Brundle's fine but Croft is somewhere between tedious and seriously aggravating.
The people still on Twitter are the people whose brains are poisoned enough that they're unable to tell that their brains are being poisoned.
You leave Crofty alone.
The extent to which any politician is surrounded by people who have an active interest in their failure - ambitious junior colleagues, hungry rivals for the next job up, all of the opposition, much of the media sniffing around for a story, threatened vested interests, voters who would lose out from any change, staff and unions defending the status quo, even some of your officials who would rather you went away - is under-analysed.
Dr Paul Williams - once the MP for Stockton South - gave a great example, where the time for diagnosis and treatment if you have a kid with suspected autism is months in one and years in the other. That is what the different catchment zones means in reality - a post-code lottery that costs vast amounts to administer.
ITV has said it is in "preliminary" discussions to sell its broadcasting business to Sky for £1.6bn, a move that could reshape the UK's television landscape.
The talks focus on ITV's Media and Entertainment division, which includes its free-to-air TV channels as well as the ITV X streaming service.
The discussions with Sky, which is owned by US-based Comcast, come as the television industry faces fierce competition from streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+.
The deal would not include ITV's production arm - ITV Studios - which makes popular programmes such as Love Island and I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czxk7j87xd0o
Overall the Sky presentation is better for the following reasons
1) 4K picture quality with Dolby Atmos
2) Martin Brundle
3) The wider Sky analysis team such as Karun Chandhok, Anthony Davidson, Ted Kravitz, Bernie Collins, Nico Rosberg, et al.
4) The F1 in house commentary are afraid to call-out the FIA bellendry/idiocy in way Sky aren’t
5) Danica Patrick (but that’s me speaking as a red blooded male, I can ignore her MAGA stuff.)
Never ending increases in money spent
Never ending cash crises at the point of delivery
Repeated wholesale restructures to change from this version of the internal market to that version
If the NHS is so efficient we wouldn't burn most of the money in the cost of running it or need to keep restructuring it at a fundamental level. And yes, I propose a restructure, but one that removes most of the 90s / 00s / 10s / 20s market structures and asks what people actually need.
I would jump at any opportunity to dump all over Jenrick's political opportunism and his performative cruelty, but that is funny and is a wholly different proposition to the worrying uses of AI you suggest.
UK transport secretary says full electrification of railways ‘not affordable (sic) right now’
Heidi Alexander says focus will be on other projects such as HS2
https://www.ft.com/content/5ecda1f8-b624-4e86-bb7b-b571bddb8a19
It seems Dr B-Ching Alexander's decision to halt further rail electrification in the UK, citing it as "unaffordable," misses the long-term financial and environmental benefits that electrification brings. Here's a breakdown of why her ignorance will be seen as a gross miscalculation:
1. Initial Costs vs. Long-Term Savings: While the upfront costs of electrification are significant, studies show that electric trains reduce operating costs by 20-30% compared to diesel trains over their lifecycle. This is due to lower maintenance needs and fuel costs, even when factoring in the construction expenses. For instance, the Great Western Electrification Project, despite its high initial cost, was projected to yield substantial savings over time.
2. Capacity and Efficiency Gains: Electrification can increase rail capacity by up to 40%, according to UK studies. This means more passengers and freight can be moved efficiently, potentially generating additional revenue that could offset initial investments. The missed opportunity here is not just financial but also operational, as electric trains are faster and more reliable, improving service quality and customer satisfaction.
3. Environmental and Social Benefits: Electric trains cut emissions by about 90% compared to diesel, aligning with global efforts to combat climate change. The environmental cost of not electrifying, in terms of increased carbon emissions and air pollution, could lead to higher societal costs in health and climate adaptation measures. These indirect costs are often not factored into short-term affordability assessments but are crucial for long-term sustainability.
4. Comparative International Examples: Countries like Germany have managed to electrify their railways at a fraction of the cost per single-track kilometer (STK) compared to the UK, partly due to a steady, skilled workforce and optimized techniques. The UK's historical challenges, like the costly Great Western project, don't necessarily reflect current capabilities or future potential efficiencies...
https://x.com/tomcoady/status/1986448982956974538
What makes me giggle is how Sky just seem to be pulling random numbers out of the air for what I should pay. I can get what I want for £70 a month. Having ended my contract its £103 a month about to go up to £116 a month. They offered me £77 a month to get less than I can get for £70 a month. Cancelled. Now had the first call back with a new lower offer - £83 a month.
"Erm, £83 a month is higher than the offer I already turned down". "well this is the offer we are giving you to stay which is lower than your current offer".
How much of the Sky money goes onto filling call centres with these people?
There will never be enough money because you can always spend more. Take treating cancer. There are some excellent MAB based treatment and biologics coming through but for many cancers the backbone of treatment will be the classics that we've used for decades. Because they work and are cheap. When they don't work, we move onto 2nd and 3rd line treatments.
Arguably if money was no object you'd go for the 100 grand a year treatment first up if its the gold standard.
You sound a little bit (just a bit) like Elon's teams going in to find savings in organisations. We all think we know the NHS because we use it but that doesn't mean we know how best to run it.
..and by making friends and allies out of those who will oppose any change, rather than the smaller number willing to turn the world upsidedown (in the same way as you).
Was completely fake.
It should be beneath Parliament really. Imagine we started allowing it on here, would that raise or lower the standard of debate?
Or - radical idea. Create a GBR Electrification Unit. Set it to work full time wiring the tracks. Much cheaper.
Labour are stuck with two idiotic mindsets:
1. The state can't do anything. Must contract out so its off the books
2. Can't afford the off the books cost, doing nothing saves money, lets do that
Guardian business blog
LOL
NHS procurement from big pharma is also ludicrous. If medications such as paracetamol and aspirin were removed from the supply list and patients were obliged to get their supplies from supermarkets at 36p for sixteen tablets, the underspend could be used for expensive medication that is being rationed away from potential cancer survivors.
Musk has put a very large and grubby thumb on the scale, but the site algos still have to respond to its users, or it wouldn't work at all.
The other roles are all well covered by F1TV, including the strategist lady in Ruth Buscombe.
Danica might be American eye candy but she gives the impression of phoning it in, not sure she even watches the races when she’s not working. F1TV has James Hinchcliffe as the token North American, much more informed.
I still can’t work out if Danica and Jenson Button hate each other’s guts or go back to the same hotel room afterwards…
My problem is that sponsors now seem to want to go to scripted, pre-authorised integrations. And my whole style is unscripted. Creating these 90 second inserts takes longer than a 30 minute full video.
I want their money, but hate the way I have to work to get it...
My friend was paying £90 a month, he was offered a recontract price of £140, when the services went off they offered him £70 a month, if you’ve got Sky Q, they’ll push you to sign up to go on Stream, but stick to your guns.
3. Unique British Requirements. This means that things we do in the UK must be special. Specially expensive.
£70 instead of £120 a month
She couldn't gain access as the money transfers were in the process but at 1.30 she expressed concern to the Estate Agent holding the keys as she would incur delay penalties from her removers if they couldn't move her in by 2.00pm
The estate agents said they would phone the solicitors only to respond that they were closed for lunch until 2.00pm !!!!!!
She did get the OK just after 2.00pm but this is 2025 not 1955
A friend of mine, who owned and ran his own pharmacy offered to reduce the costs of medicines prescribed at a care home he supplied, and asked the relevant health authority how much of the savings he could have.
The answer was none.
On several occasions I had run-ins with the management of multiple pharmacies on a similar subject.
We have rightly moved on from that approach as it is unconscionable
Sky Q will work with no internet.
Perhaps he should get someone to do something about it?
3. Different standards every time some new project begins, e.g. that battleship engineering for the Western main line leccy masts.
So I went round and sat there. They sent the secretary out to say there was no need. I said I would wait. They gave me a fairly decent espresso. I waited.
They managed to finish the job 10 minutes later...
I was inspired in this, by Lord Fisher. Who, upon being told that changing the gun on a battleship would take a week, he sat on the quarterdeck of the ship, in the morning and watched. He did his paperwork at a desk as they worked. When lunch came, he ate lunch at the desk. They finished changing the gun just after lunch.
Given the fact that they are trying to blame the Tories, I presume that is Kemi?
And it’s not a toy…😁
When doing probate for elderly relatives, twice now, I've been infuriated by the insistence on the forms being filled in in certain archaic ways - which are not made clear in or constrained by the design of the form itself, or always mentioned in the instructions. My very strong impression was that this was to discourage DIY work, and in so doing make more work for solicitors. Certainly the effect: perhaps the intention.
That was Scotland. Don't know what it is like in England. Though I'm reminded of a friend who did DIY and was congrastulated by the probate office person for doing such a good job. Except that the person didn't mean, by the standards of ordinary DIY members of the public. But the lawyers as well. Most of whom are appallingly sloppy.
The way to improve an organisation is to have *internal* consultancy that provides process improvement, IT support etc as a package across the organisation. The employees would be part of the organisation (in the case of the NHS, NHS employees). It would work its way around, doing projects to improve this or that, piece by piece. The critical bit is having backing at the highest levels.
Where external consultancy fails, is in not knowing the geography of the organisation. And having interests not aligned with the organisation.
Where external consultancy succeeds is in breaking down local barriers to change.
A consultancy internal to the NHS, but external to the structures within it, would have a better chance.
Change needs to be a steady, continuous thing. A part of how the organisation exists.
Certainly from 50 years ago.
a) Complain a lot about insufficient funding
b) Do incompetent things
c) ????
d) Profit
One thing that did strike me was the amount of information that was taken on trust, and it seemed to me that it wouldn't be that difficult for bad actors to siphon off money or fraudulently claim estates by pretending to be relatives, etc.
https://ballotbox.scot/preview-bmwv/ for background, and see also BBS's Bluesky posts, this and the other relevant ones.
https://bsky.app/profile/ballotbox.scot/post/3m4yt6dhxnc2f
First prefs - BUT the previous holder was Labour, second elected on the slate, and removed from office on account of being jailed, so comparison is tricky, even allowing for Reform coming in.
SNP: 1594 (42.6%, -4.9)
RUK: 1080 (28.9%, new)
Lab: 778 (20.8%, -19.5)
LD: 99 (2.6%, +0.4)
Alba: 83 (2.2%, +0.9)
Con: 64 (1.7%, -4.8)
Sovereignty: 45 (1.2%, new)
(Greens 2.2% in 2022)
I can stream BBC in UHD. I watch little of ITV / 4 / 5 / Sky "broadcast" content and all that can be streamed. Most watching is Netflix / Youtube / Disney / Paramount. Plus I still want Sky Sports for F1, Darts and bits of football which I can stream in UHD for less than it costs through Sky.
I don't really record stuff on the Q box so won't miss that. Watch minimal amounts of non-sport at the time of broadcast.
Now on hold as after yesterday's please pay more offer they kindly reset my end of contract date. Getting it put back to what it should be.
https://youtu.be/8yewNGxzmcU?t=12
(There's apparently an erotic novelist who is suing for defamation in the mix somewhere.)
From November next year, industry body Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) said the maximum clothed weight for a worker heading offshore should be 124.7kg (19.5 st) - so they can be winched to safety in an emergency.
The 249kg (39st) maximum Coastguard rescue helicopter winch load is made up of that figure plus the average 90.3kg (14st) weight of a rescue worker, a 29kg (4.5st) stretcher and the 5kg (0.8st) kit.
OEUK said more than 2,200 workers were currently above the weight limit, and jobs could be lost in the worst case scenario.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx274xp00zxo
Alternately they offered "Sky Essentials" which is cheaper and consists of the Free to Air channels. So why should I pay Sky for the FTA stuff again?
Feels like a company living in the past. I won't miss it.
When we sold my dad's house, the plumbing was on its last legs - we asked our tame plumber if we should get it redone before sale. He said very firmly no - he'd lost count of the number of times he'd installed a new kitchen/bathroom and then was commissioned to rip it out and put a new one in by new buyers a few months later.