There has been evidence provided by Prof Jarman - of Doctor Foster [who have no dog in this fight] that shows Stafford isn't an isolated case.
The Professor Jarman - the man who created the HSMRs you mean?
And your quote just said that Jarman thinks hospitals should pay closer attention to stats like his (one in a dashboard of many that might highlight something going wrong).
Not that there were any so-called "excess deaths".
Just an observation, but the less time I spend reading PB - the more pointless and anoraky 80% of the conversation is, when I do. The same points made and trenches manned.
Now we can't Like a post - I see little point in reading threads that have passed me by either, which kept me a bit tuned in. Not being able to sort by most liked also makes reading a thread for the best bits also impossible.
Roll on GE2015 and Euro2014 - only black swans are going to pull me into debates at this rate - no wonder Joe Public doesn't give a toss.
The low point for me was the fauxfuss about Cameron's short break in Ibiza - FFS what Polly Filla nonsense and its not even August.
On topic, so the problem is: The two main parties barely make a majority between them, but they have nearly all the seats. So they'll only fix the voting system to let the other guys in if: a) There is some kind of overwhelming public pressure. b) They think it's in their interests.
(a) doesn't work without actual pitchforks, which the voters won't wield over constitutional reform.
The interesting one is (b). FPTP with four parties will be very volatile. Maybe the upper tiers of the parties would prefer a nearly certain 30% of seats to the risk or 5% of seats, especially if they're in the intermediate 25%.
There has been evidence provided by Prof Jarman - of Doctor Foster [who have no dog in this fight] that shows Stafford isn't an isolated case.
The Professor Jarman - the man who created the HSMRs you mean?
And your quote just said that Jarman thinks hospitals should pay closer attention to stats like his (one in a dashboard of many that might highlight something going wrong).
Not that there were any so-called "excess deaths".
Senior official at our local hospital was quite cross when she spoke at a meeting locally recently. In their catchment area is an extremely disadvantaged ward ...... one of the worst in the country ..... and both there and in neighbouring wards, a very high percentage of pensioners. However, apparently, these factors were not factored in when the number of deaths was assessed.
On topic, so the problem is: The two main parties barely make a majority between them, but they have nearly all the seats. So they'll only fix the voting system to let the other guys in if: a) There is some kind of overwhelming public pressure. b) They think it's in their interests.
(a) doesn't work without actual pitchforks, which the voters won't wield over constitutional reform.
The interesting one is (b). FPTP with four parties will be very volatile. Maybe the upper tiers of the parties would prefer a nearly certain 30% of seats to the risk or 5% of seats, especially if they're in the intermediate 25%.
The Tories really missed a trick with AV. They could have cleaned up. Possibly the biggest strategic mistake Cameron has made.
Much better relations with LDs and their voters. Clear second pref from UKIP voters.
On topic, so the problem is: The two main parties barely make a majority between them, but they have nearly all the seats. So they'll only fix the voting system to let the other guys in if: a) There is some kind of overwhelming public pressure. b) They think it's in their interests.
(a) doesn't work without actual pitchforks, which the voters won't wield over constitutional reform.
The interesting one is (b). FPTP with four parties will be very volatile. Maybe the upper tiers of the parties would prefer a nearly certain 30% of seats to the risk or 5% of seats, especially if they're in the intermediate 25%.
The Tories really missed a trick with AV. They could have cleaned up. Possibly the biggest strategic mistake Cameron has made.
Much better relations with LDs and their voters. Clear second pref from UKIP voters.
And boundary changes to boot.
The 1919 election doesn't make very happy reading, on first sight. However, the subsequent Speakers Conference recommended PR!
Roll on GE2015 and Euro2014 - only black swans are going to pull me into debates at this rate - no wonder Joe Public doesn't give a toss.
Aye, it's way too early... there's not really any point in reading political blogs until Next April, when something's actually about to happen. The only thing that's about to happen at the moment, is summer... then the recess... then the pre-crimbo shadow-boxing... then the new year piffle... then finally we get to the only part of the political year that matters... April and May, everything else is just banter and blather... and the only thing that's about to happen at the moment, is that I'm about to put the kettle on...
There has been evidence provided by Prof Jarman - of Doctor Foster [who have no dog in this fight] that shows Stafford isn't an isolated case.
The Professor Jarman - the man who created the HSMRs you mean?
And your quote just said that Jarman thinks hospitals should pay closer attention to stats like his (one in a dashboard of many that might highlight something going wrong).
Not that there were any so-called "excess deaths".
'Not that there were any so-called "excess deaths".'
Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel comfortable. Stay in bed and pull the covers of a statistically inane blog post over your head. Covers which, I guess, would be removed if it had happened under a Conservative government.
In the meantime the rest of us will hope that they get to the bottom of what went wrong at Stafford to try to prevent it happening again.
Read the reports and answer one question honestly: do you really believe that, given the catalogue of malpractice that went on at Stafford, that there would have been no excess deaths? That somehow the terrible practices harmed no-one?
As a matter of interest, did you read my reply in the last thread?
Golly - as someone who endured the alternative Disney experience at Mercury Comms [known as Imagine] - I can't believe its still being peddled as a model to copy. IIRC its never been replicated successfully in any other business. I've tried to find the consultants who offered this back in the 90s - I think it was something like Perre Roche but my Google Ninja skills are poor.
I can only describe the experience as a form of corporate brainwashing terror where the equivalent of party spies roamed the office corridors outing non-believers. Every employee was forced to attend 10hrs immersion sessions in giant plastic igloos in the NEC carpark where we role-played being the ideal employee and were critiqued by our peers - hundreds of them - it was bizarre and Mike Harris who was CEO at the time had drunk deeply from the Kool-Aid well... and forked out tens of millions on it. He was escorted off the HQ premises by Security when it became clear that he wasn't the man to be running the show.
"A supermarket boss who took 800 workers on a dream trip to Disneyworld in Florida is facing a £2.5million bill because the taxman ruled it was a perk.
Iceland founder Malcolm Walker paid for a five-day 'conference' that included day-trips and shows at the world-famous theme park.
He argued that the £5,000-a-head tour was a business expense designed to give his senior staff an insight into the 'world-class' customer service at Disneyworld.
HMRC officials say the trip was actually a 'benefit in kind' and must be taxed as such.
Can I suggest a thread topic of immigrants and MMR so that the lefties can have a proper debate on rEds polling numbers and lack of economic policies ?
Just an observation, but the less time I spend reading PB - the more pointless and anoraky 80% of the conversation is, when I do. The same points made and trenches manned.
Now we can't Like a post - I see little point in reading threads that have passed me by either, which kept me a bit tuned in. Not being able to sort by most liked also makes reading a thread for the best bits also impossible.
I'm.thinking we may be able to come up with a solution to this problem along the lines of you reading sites you're actually interested in instead of this one.
Blimey - not a storyline I expected to read - benefit cheat, lesbian s, Swansea City and Star Trek weddings...
A benefits cheat who fiddled £16,000 was caught because she married her lesbian lover in a Star Trek-themed civil ceremony.
Anita Wood, 48, of Swansea, South Wales, hid the fact that Margaret Wood, 50, was her live-in lover when she claimed benefits as an unemployed single person.
But fraud investigators swooped when the couple were photographed at their ceremony in the Star Trek-themed celebration at the Liberty Stadium, home to Premier League football club Swansea City.
Ms Plato, the retail company of which I was at one time CEO belonged to a buying group. The group offered us a choice; either a reasonable annual discount on all purchases or a reduced discount, with the difference being credited to a "travel account" whereby we could send someone to the "annual conference", which, while I was involved .... in the late 70's/early 80's.... , was in such places as Corfu and the Algarve.
I always suspected that one day it would be "caught up with"!
@DavidL - surely the best way to reassure the public about welfare spending is to tell the truth about it and the people who receive it.
◦Average public perception: 41% of Britain’s welfare budget goes on benefits to unemployed people. Reality: just 3% does. ◦Perception: 27% of the welfare budget is claimed fraudulently. Reality (according to the Government): 0.7%. ◦Perception: an unemployed couple with two school-age children receive £147 a week in jobseeker’s allowance. Reality: £111.45p. ◦Perception: only 21% think this family would be better off if one of them got a 30-hour-a-week job on the minimum wage; and this 21% thinks, on average, the gain would be £59 a week. Reality: the family would be £138 a week better off.
There is plainly a link between the perceptions of scrounging, and the lack of public knowledge about the financial advantages of working, even for 30 hours a week on the minimum wage, compared with life on the dole.
Not all of the recipients of IS are looking for work of course but I simply do not believe that percentage. If you added pensions and welfare and even health care (being generous) together you would have £471bn of which 3% would be £14bn. Do you really believe that? With 2.5m unemployed?
Just an observation, but the less time I spend reading PB - the more pointless and anoraky 80% of the conversation is, when I do. The same points made and trenches manned.
Now we can't Like a post - I see little point in reading threads that have passed me by either, which kept me a bit tuned in. Not being able to sort by most liked also makes reading a thread for the best bits also impossible.
I'm.thinking we may be able to come up with a solution to this problem along the lines of you reading sites you're actually interested in instead of this one.
Dear Mr Tokyo - as a very long time reader of PB, I was offering feedback re the loss of interaction - your response to this just reinforces what I'd already observed, but your post managed to be graceless which I didn't expect from you.
There is plainly a link between the perceptions of scrounging, and the lack of public knowledge about the financial advantages of working, even for 30 hours a week on the minimum wage, compared with life on the dole.
OK, but the public also knows that there are 3.7 million workless households, more than 15% of the total.
Given that a proportion of these households could conceivably get SOMEBODY employed, there do seem to be an awful lot of people choosing a life of grinding poverty rather than the sunlit uplands of working for 30 hours a week on minimum wage.
Unless of course a life on the dole is somewhat better than you contend - for whatever reason (and I'm sure there are a variety of these...)....
@DavidL - surely the best way to reassure the public about welfare spending is to tell the truth about it and the people who receive it.
◦Average public perception: 41% of Britain’s welfare budget goes on benefits to unemployed people. Reality: just 3% does. ◦Perception: 27% of the welfare budget is claimed fraudulently. Reality (according to the Government): 0.7%. ◦Perception: an unemployed couple with two school-age children receive £147 a week in jobseeker’s allowance. Reality: £111.45p. ◦Perception: only 21% think this family would be better off if one of them got a 30-hour-a-week job on the minimum wage; and this 21% thinks, on average, the gain would be £59 a week. Reality: the family would be £138 a week better off.
There is plainly a link between the perceptions of scrounging, and the lack of public knowledge about the financial advantages of working, even for 30 hours a week on the minimum wage, compared with life on the dole.
Not all of the recipients of IS are looking for work of course but I simply do not believe that percentage. If you added pensions and welfare and even health care (being generous) together you would have £471bn of which 3% would be £14bn. Do you really believe that? With 2.5m unemployed?
In SO world, middle class people should whip themselves nightly for having bad thoughts about those that claim welfare.
Miss Plato, it may be that a relative lack of difference between parties on most subjects and their leaders means that there's little of substance to actually discuss. Two parties are in coalition and the third's got a blank piece of paper for a policy platform.
◦Perception: 27% of the welfare budget is claimed fraudulently. Reality (according to the Government): 0.7%.
Most members of the public would trust their own judgement over that of the government on this particular point. Undetected fraudulent claims by definition won't show up in official statistics.
Miss Plato, it may be that a relative lack of difference between parties on most subjects and their leaders means that there's little of substance to actually discuss. Two parties are in coalition and the third's got a blank piece of paper for a policy platform.
I think you're right - its the tyranny of small differences right now, bar the odd policy wotsit between the Tories and LDs.
OT for any TV series watchers - you may find IMDb forums interesting re views, trivia and feedback on virtually every series or film broadcast.
http://www.imdb.com/boards/ - if you type in the prog name you're after in the Search box - it'll bring up the show, and on the lower right hand side will show a link to the message board about it. I had a wander about the other day and there are thousands of them.
As with Paul Elliott, left wingers will be sure that this mother & daughter are not racist, coming to this conclusion by arbitarily judging them on the colour of their skin.
"As for Merkel, sometimes she looks placid, sometimes she looks cross and disappointed, sometimes she smiles politely at foreigners over coffee and cakes. So she reminds people of Mum, and those who want to keep holding her hand think they know what she wants. Others, in despair, confess they have no idea what she wants. These days, she seems to have no policy of her own. Instead, after a suitable delay, she takes on opposition policies in a diluted form. Intellectual critics complain that she has no ‘idea’, no ‘concept’. And to describe what she does, or rather doesn’t, they have coined a frightful new German word: Entinhaltlichung. ‘It means what it says,’ a Berlin friend tells me: ‘Decontentification.’"
Entinhaltlichung - Decontentification
That's my political word of the day. Or week, or month, or year...
Remarkably good, evocative article, worth reading in full for anyone interested in European dynamics - Neal Acherson really knows Germany, though I think he slightly overestimates the Green head of steam.
◦Perception: 27% of the welfare budget is claimed fraudulently. Reality (according to the Government): 0.7%.
Most members of the public would trust their own judgement over that of the government on this particular point. Undetected fraudulent claims by definition won't show up in official statistics.
I think a stat like that can only come from those who are actually convicted of fraud. There are enough "errors" in WTC alone to produce a much higher figure. This is why I was saying that it was important that Ministers show that they are doing their best to keep on top of this. If they don't people lose faith in the system.
I am afraid that Mr Kellner has been somewhat selective in his figures which rather takes away the point he was trying to make.
Useless observation: it's interesting how the word "ironical" seems to have been mostly replaced by "ironic". I was reading a book published in 1987 the other day which used "ironical" a lot and it seemed a bit odd because hardly anyone uses it these days.
Most members of the public would trust their own judgement over that of the government on this particular point. Undetected fraudulent claims by definition won't show up in official statistics.
Dunno where the 0.7 number comes from, but you'd think you could get a reasonable idea by taking a sample and looking into a small number of cases really closely.
Miss Plato, it may be that a relative lack of difference between parties on most subjects and their leaders means that there's little of substance to actually discuss. Two parties are in coalition and the third's got a blank piece of paper for a policy platform.
I think you're right - its the tyranny of small differences right now, bar the odd policy wotsit between the Tories and LDs.
OT for any TV series watchers - you may find IMDb forums interesting re views, trivia and feedback on virtually every series or film broadcast.
http://www.imdb.com/boards/ - if you type in the prog name you're after in the Search box - it'll bring up the show, and on the lower right hand side will show a link to the message board about it. I had a wander about the other day and there are thousands of them.
TV nerds are just as anoraky as political ones.
The tyranny of small differences! Exactly!
How boring are the pedantic nitpickers who harp on and on and on about these minute details while unfunnily pretending they dont understand the bigger picture because of it?
Useless observation: it's interesting how the word "ironical" seems to have been mostly replaced by "ironic". I was reading a book published in 1987 the other day which used "ironical" a lot and it seemed a bit odd because hardly anyone uses it these days.
I hadn't noticed - but will now... I've been watching a lot of late 80s/early 90s TV recently and the absence of mobile phones/internet is really noticeable and weird - the characters don't look that different/the plots ditto - but the change in how we access info and use it is remarkable.
I can't recall a change so big in how we live our lives during my time on Planet Earth - supermarkets is probably the closest...
@AndyJS Language changes quickly. I recently had to read a law case from the end of the 19th century which referred to an "employé".
The phrases "gone pear-shaped" and "life's rich tapestry" are both apparently extremely recent, despite both of them sounding almost archaic. The OED records the first use of "gone pear-shaped" to 1983 and "life's rich tapestry" seems to date from the 1970s.
We need a by-election methinks. Will Hancock oblige us ?
Why wouldn't it be a LD hold anyway ?
They won after Huhne - why would Hancock be any different ?
Might well be. But the campaign would be tremendous fun: could be a genuine four-way. Unfortunately, however, I think Hancock will survive until 2015 - unless they can come up with something truly criminal, or his health gets a lot worse ...
Miss Plato, it may be that a relative lack of difference between parties on most subjects and their leaders means that there's little of substance to actually discuss. Two parties are in coalition and the third's got a blank piece of paper for a policy platform.
I think you're right - its the tyranny of small differences right now, bar the odd policy wotsit between the Tories and LDs.
OT for any TV series watchers - you may find IMDb forums interesting re views, trivia and feedback on virtually every series or film broadcast.
http://www.imdb.com/boards/ - if you type in the prog name you're after in the Search box - it'll bring up the show, and on the lower right hand side will show a link to the message board about it. I had a wander about the other day and there are thousands of them.
TV nerds are just as anoraky as political ones.
The tyranny of small differences! Exactly!
How boring are the pedantic nitpickers who harp on and on and on about these minute details while unfunnily pretending they dont understand the bigger picture because of it?
I always recall @JohnLoony talking about his time as a participant at debates between Marxist-Leninists and Leninist-Marxists who could always find things to fight over in the absence of anything meaningful - but when the right policy turned up, they'd forget their differences and man the barricades.
I feel the righties are suffering from the same issues now and the lefties are just standing around watching them.
There is plainly a link between the perceptions of scrounging, and the lack of public knowledge about the financial advantages of working, even for 30 hours a week on the minimum wage, compared with life on the dole.
OK, but the public also knows that there are 3.7 million workless households, more than 15% of the total.
Given that a proportion of these households could conceivably get SOMEBODY employed, there do seem to be an awful lot of people choosing a life of grinding poverty rather than the sunlit uplands of working for 30 hours a week on minimum wage.
Unless of course a life on the dole is somewhat better than you contend - for whatever reason (and I'm sure there are a variety of these...)....
How do you conflate the number of workless households with people claiming benefits and the unemployed who may or may not be receiving benefits? I've no doubt some households do claim benefits and are registered unemployed but I suspect as much as half of those households do not. If they are not registered unemployed or claiming benefits what business is it of anyone what they are doing?
I think a stat like that can only come from those who are actually convicted of fraud. There are enough "errors" in WTC alone to produce a much higher figure.
So it's a sample, based on a total of 36,300 cases where they go to see people in their homes and question them, and if they find anything suspicious they get a fraud investigator in to do some more poking around. They also talk about doing a load of "statistical analysis of data" - I'm not sure whether that would stretch to assuming that there must be some fraud going on that the investigators didn't find, or whether the 0.7% number is the lowest possible end of the range and assumes their investigators have found everything there is to find.
But it does look like it's based on a detailed look at a sample, rather than just taking the number of convictions.
Re. ironic, maybe its popularity is something to do with the Alanis Morissette song which seemed to be played about a billion times in the late 1990s.
You're probably right there - speaking of the 90s I tripped over this and couldn't agree more with the comment that it'd make a super Bond movie theme song.
@AndyJS Language changes quickly. I recently had to read a law case from the end of the 19th century which referred to an "employé".
The phrases "gone pear-shaped" and "life's rich tapestry" are both apparently extremely recent, despite both of them sounding almost archaic. The OED records the first use of "gone pear-shaped" to 1983 and "life's rich tapestry" seems to date from the 1970s.
Euphemisms also change and disappear. A couple of years ago I was reading the transcript of an Old Bailey court case from their excellent website. In 1827, a young girl, a victim in a case, said:
I sometimes take walks at night to maintain myself.
(Incidentally, there was also a description of how to carry a sheep: "...he had hold of the two fore-feet, the head hung before and the legs behind" Not that I'd find that useful. Ahem).
◦Perception: 27% of the welfare budget is claimed fraudulently. Reality (according to the Government): 0.7%.
Most members of the public would trust their own judgement over that of the government on this particular point. Undetected fraudulent claims by definition won't show up in official statistics.
And I suspect that the public conflates "fraud" and "trying it on" into one category - the latter, while it may not be technical illegal, irritates as much as the former
But is there lots of gratuitous soft lesbian porn?
"I’m almost embarrassed by how great I think this is. It’s a video of Frans Timmermans, the Dutch foreign minister, speaking at a recent Google Zeitgeist conference about contemporary Europe.
So far, so dull. But Mr Timmermans isn’t just talking about Europe, he’s talking about Game of Thrones. George RR Martin’s zillion-page, multi-season stabbing-and-shagging epic, he says, is a key text for understanding political, economic and social issues in the Old World today.
I won’t attempt to summarise his entire argument, and I don’t agree with all of it. Probably the most important point is telling Europe: winter is coming, so you can either lie down and accept change, or you can fight.
There are two reasons for highlighting this. Partly, I admire the attempt to explain big, important issues in terms of books and TV that real people, people not obsessed with politics, might actually recognise. It’s a refreshing change from the normal attempts to “connect”, which usually come down to politicians bolting clunky references to football or boxsets onto their stump speeches and lines-to-take.
I think a stat like that can only come from those who are actually convicted of fraud. There are enough "errors" in WTC alone to produce a much higher figure.
So it's a sample, based on a total of 36,300 cases where they go to see people in their homes and question them, and if they find anything suspicious they get a fraud investigator in to do some more poking around. They also talk about doing a load of "statistical analysis of data" - I'm not sure whether that would stretch to assuming that there must be some fraud going on that the investigators didn't find, or whether the 0.7% number is the lowest possible end of the range and assumes their investigators have found everything there is to find.
But it does look like it's based on a detailed look at a sample, rather than just taking the number of convictions.
Thanks for the source which is interesting but it states in the executive summary at the start that overpayments are 2% of payments. This still sounds very low but it is more than 6 times Mr Kellner's figures.
There is then a figure of 0.7% for fraud but this does not include overpayments made as a result of "customer error". I have edited this substantially because I had not read the source carefully enough.
I think a stat like that can only come from those who are actually convicted of fraud. There are enough "errors" in WTC alone to produce a much higher figure.
So it's a sample, based on a total of 36,300 cases where they go to see people in their homes and question them, and if they find anything suspicious they get a fraud investigator in to do some more poking around. They also talk about doing a load of "statistical analysis of data" - I'm not sure whether that would stretch to assuming that there must be some fraud going on that the investigators didn't find, or whether the 0.7% number is the lowest possible end of the range and assumes their investigators have found everything there is to find.
But it does look like it's based on a detailed look at a sample, rather than just taking the number of convictions.
Thanks for the source which is interesting but it states in the executive summary at the start that fraud is 2% of payments. This still sounds very low but it is more than 6 times Mr Kellner's figures. Do you think he was seeking to make a political point?
No, it says fraud and error were 2% of payments. Error is a different thing to fraud. And a chunk of the errors are by the staff administering the thing. At 0.5% the amount cost by staff at the DWP or wherever cocking things up is nearly as big as the amount cost by fraud. (Although luckily for the taxpayer much of that is offset by cock-ups in the opposite direction.)
Careful, Russia. With accounting standards like that you might get invited to join the EU.
There's also a potential F1 angle. There's meant to be a Sochi circuit next year (I think) but Russians are getting a bit pissed at how hugely over budget the Olympics are, so the funding required *might* not turn up.
Careful, Russia. With accounting standards like that you might get invited to join the EU.
There's also a potential F1 angle. There's meant to be a Sochi circuit next year (I think) but Russians are getting a bit pissed at how hugely over budget the Olympics are, so the funding required *might* not turn up.
Have Sochi not put a big lump of this years snow in storage for next year ?
Careful, Russia. With accounting standards like that you might get invited to join the EU.
There's also a potential F1 angle. There's meant to be a Sochi circuit next year (I think) but Russians are getting a bit pissed at how hugely over budget the Olympics are, so the funding required *might* not turn up.
Careful, Russia. With accounting standards like that you might get invited to join the EU.
There's also a potential F1 angle. There's meant to be a Sochi circuit next year (I think) but Russians are getting a bit pissed at how hugely over budget the Olympics are, so the funding required *might* not turn up.
But is there lots of gratuitous soft lesbian porn?
"I’m almost embarrassed by how great I think this is. It’s a video of Frans Timmermans, the Dutch foreign minister, speaking at a recent Google Zeitgeist conference about contemporary Europe.
So far, so dull. But Mr Timmermans isn’t just talking about Europe, he’s talking about Game of Thrones. George RR Martin’s zillion-page, multi-season stabbing-and-shagging epic, he says, is a key text for understanding political, economic and social issues in the Old World today.
I won’t attempt to summarise his entire argument, and I don’t agree with all of it. Probably the most important point is telling Europe: winter is coming, so you can either lie down and accept change, or you can fight.
There are two reasons for highlighting this. Partly, I admire the attempt to explain big, important issues in terms of books and TV that real people, people not obsessed with politics, might actually recognise. It’s a refreshing change from the normal attempts to “connect”, which usually come down to politicians bolting clunky references to football or boxsets onto their stump speeches and lines-to-take.
I think a stat like that can only come from those who are actually convicted of fraud. There are enough "errors" in WTC alone to produce a much higher figure.
So it's a sample, based on a total of 36,300 cases where they go to see people in their homes and question them, and if they find anything suspicious they get a fraud investigator in to do some more poking around. They also talk about doing a load of "statistical analysis of data" - I'm not sure whether that would stretch to assuming that there must be some fraud going on that the investigators didn't find, or whether the 0.7% number is the lowest possible end of the range and assumes their investigators have found everything there is to find.
But it does look like it's based on a detailed look at a sample, rather than just taking the number of convictions.
Thanks for the source which is interesting but it states in the executive summary at the start that overpayments are 2% of payments. This still sounds very low but it is more than 6 times Mr Kellner's figures.
There is then a figure of 0.7% for fraud but this does not include overpayments made as a result of "customer error". I have edited this substantially because I had not read the source carefully enough.
Overpayments are not the same as fraud. Contributors to PB may be astounded to know that Government Departments don't always get it right!
'How do you conflate the number of workless households with people claiming benefits and the unemployed who may or may not be receiving benefits?'
Its interesting. unemployment is 2.5m so how can the number of workless households be 3.7m??
People of working age on incapacity benefit are not counted.
Also some workless households are students living with retired people.
Stripping the latter out there are just under 3m households where nobody of working age is working.
So what? What is it you are trying (and failing) to imply? As I repeat if a workless household is neither registered unemployed or claiming benefits what business is it to anyone?
Silly game being played at the telegraph about comparing characters in GoT to modern day politicans. Quite liked this one: "John Bercow - Tyrion Lannister but without his wit, intelligence and good looks"
I think a stat like that can only come from those who are actually convicted of fraud. There are enough "errors" in WTC alone to produce a much higher figure.
So it's a sample, based on a total of 36,300 cases where they go to see people in their homes and question them, and if they find anything suspicious they get a fraud investigator in to do some more poking around. They also talk about doing a load of "statistical analysis of data" - I'm not sure whether that would stretch to assuming that there must be some fraud going on that the investigators didn't find, or whether the 0.7% number is the lowest possible end of the range and assumes their investigators have found everything there is to find.
But it does look like it's based on a detailed look at a sample, rather than just taking the number of convictions.
Thanks for the source which is interesting but it states in the executive summary at the start that overpayments are 2% of payments. This still sounds very low but it is more than 6 times Mr Kellner's figures.
There is then a figure of 0.7% for fraud but this does not include overpayments made as a result of "customer error". I have edited this substantially because I had not read the source carefully enough.
Overpayments are not the same as fraud. Contributors to PB may be astounded to know that Government Departments don't always get it right!
The report indicates that over recent years overpayments have fallen from 2.2%, 2.1% then 2%. I think that determines its reliability fairly definitively. We are making progress comrades, bonuses all round.
Mr. Flashman (deceased), I remember reading something like that. I think they have several snow storage sites, and may have imported quite a lot.
Mainly because Sochi doesn't get a lot of snow...
If you think the Olympics in Russia is a hoot - just wait for the football world cup.
Trebles all round - paid for in part by the BBC licence fee..
I am tempted to comment thank goodness we were not stupid enough to spend an insane amount of money on a one off Olympic event that has come and gone but I just can't because I loved every minute of it and will remember that summer for the rest of my life.
As we slip down the international competitiveness league again, the auditors tell us where we are going wrong.
"In the end, the golden rules of competitiveness are simple: manufacture, diversify, export, invest in infrastructure, educate, support SMEs, enforce fiscal discipline, and above all maintain social cohesion."
Mr. Flashman (deceased), I remember reading something like that. I think they have several snow storage sites, and may have imported quite a lot.
Mainly because Sochi doesn't get a lot of snow...
If you think the Olympics in Russia is a hoot - just wait for the football world cup.
Trebles all round - paid for in part by the BBC licence fee..
I am tempted to comment thank goodness we were not stupid enough to spend an insane amount of money on a one off Olympic event that has come and gone but I just can't because I loved every minute of it and will remember that summer for the rest of my life.
Poor TGoHF was involved in the five day whinathon about the opening ceremony which was one of PB's most remarkable performances.
Speaking of that, and by elections, what happened to the investigation into Aidan Burley by the French police and the Tory party?
Re Sochi: "The expenses for the Winter Olympics in Sochi turned out to be more than all expenses for all the sports structures at the previous 21 Winter Olympics put together," the report says.
I think a stat like that can only come from those who are actually convicted of fraud. There are enough "errors" in WTC alone to produce a much higher figure.
So it's a sample, based on a total of 36,300 cases where they go to see people in their homes and question them, and if they find anything suspicious they get a fraud investigator in to do some more poking around. They also talk about doing a load of "statistical analysis of data" - I'm not sure whether that would stretch to assuming that there must be some fraud going on that the investigators didn't find, or whether the 0.7% number is the lowest possible end of the range and assumes their investigators have found everything there is to find.
But it does look like it's based on a detailed look at a sample, rather than just taking the number of convictions.
Thanks for the source which is interesting but it states in the executive summary at the start that overpayments are 2% of payments. This still sounds very low but it is more than 6 times Mr Kellner's figures.
There is then a figure of 0.7% for fraud but this does not include overpayments made as a result of "customer error". I have edited this substantially because I had not read the source carefully enough.
Overpayments are not the same as fraud. Contributors to PB may be astounded to know that Government Departments don't always get it right!
The report indicates that over recent years overpayments have fallen from 2.2%, 2.1% then 2%. I think that determines its reliability fairly definitively. We are making progress comrades, bonuses all round.
While I accept, of course that the trend is downwards, there is an issue around MoE.
Just reading about US oil production, and I came across this startling revision on production from the Texas's Eagle Ford: "February output was revised to 511,434 barrels a day from the preliminary report of 471,258, the commission said."
That's astonishing: total output was 10% higher than they thought. At current rates of growth, the US will exceed Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer within the next four years. (Actually, I would expect the growth rate to slow a bit, so it might take until 2018 or so, but still.)
Of interest might be some forecasts for 2015, including the one we discussed last night.
MODS: Would it be presumptuous to request adding the link to the sidebar? "RodCrosby's Resources" or somesuch...
A question - If one were to aggregate say ten polls is there a case to be made for using the raw unweighted data from each and then using THAT over and above simply using the headline (weighted) outcomes of each poll ?
As we slip down the international competitiveness league again, the auditors tell us where we are going wrong.
"In the end, the golden rules of competitiveness are simple: manufacture, diversify, export, invest in infrastructure, educate, support SMEs, enforce fiscal discipline, and above all maintain social cohesion."
Why don't our politicians get it ?
Good list.
The political class are aiming for a third world economy competing entirely on low wages.
@RodCrosby Thanks for the link Rod - Most interesting. I don't know yet whether I agree with all or any of it yet, but it's a meaty resource, and good to have it all in one place.
The worst thing about the London olympics was the opening ceremony nhs section. By some margin.
FACT.
I'm sorry but I liked even that. It was delightfully, quixotically, eccentrically silly and no doubt completely bemused people all around the world (with the possible exception of some of the older population of the former soviet bloc who will have had flashbacks).
Opening ceremonies are supposed to be ridiculous. They are not something to get worked up about. And the cauldron was just brilliant showmanship.
Daves stoking of irrational immigration fears still impacting on older Tory voters.
53% of Tories now citing it, 23% Labour 27% Lib Dems. With huge regional and age differences Younger people and people in London fairly immune to the rabble rousing, Dave is pushing Tories to UKiP very effectively.
What a sad scared pathetic country the ageing right want us to be
As someone now in the second half of his 70's, I despair for my contemporaries. We used to march against the bomb, we used to REALLY want something better.
I'm sorry but I liked even that. It was delightfully, quixotically, eccentrically silly and no doubt completely bemused people all around the world (with the possible exception of some of the older population of the former soviet bloc who will have had flashbacks).
Opening ceremonies are supposed to be ridiculous. They are not something to get worked up about. And the cauldron was just brilliant showmanship.
Agreed. After all the doom-sayers before the games started, I was pleasantly surprised by the whole thing.
Comments
And your quote just said that Jarman thinks hospitals should pay closer attention to stats like his (one in a dashboard of many that might highlight something going wrong).
Not that there were any so-called "excess deaths".
Now we can't Like a post - I see little point in reading threads that have passed me by either, which kept me a bit tuned in. Not being able to sort by most liked also makes reading a thread for the best bits also impossible.
Roll on GE2015 and Euro2014 - only black swans are going to pull me into debates at this rate - no wonder Joe Public doesn't give a toss.
The low point for me was the fauxfuss about Cameron's short break in Ibiza - FFS what Polly Filla nonsense and its not even August.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gRkQwmVKoU
(No need to zip up whilst you're watching - she can't see you...)
a) There is some kind of overwhelming public pressure.
b) They think it's in their interests.
(a) doesn't work without actual pitchforks, which the voters won't wield over constitutional reform.
The interesting one is (b). FPTP with four parties will be very volatile. Maybe the upper tiers of the parties would prefer a nearly certain 30% of seats to the risk or 5% of seats, especially if they're in the intermediate 25%.
"Just an observation, but the less time I spend reading PB - the more pointless and anoraky 80% of the conversation is, when I do."
1409 posts since the introduction of Vanilla - and you've mainly been away?
The Tories really missed a trick with AV. They could have cleaned up. Possibly the biggest strategic mistake Cameron has made.
Much better relations with LDs and their voters.
Clear second pref from UKIP voters.
And boundary changes to boot.
"Just curious, James."
But why? What on Earth put that thought in your mind?
Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel comfortable. Stay in bed and pull the covers of a statistically inane blog post over your head. Covers which, I guess, would be removed if it had happened under a Conservative government.
In the meantime the rest of us will hope that they get to the bottom of what went wrong at Stafford to try to prevent it happening again.
Read the reports and answer one question honestly: do you really believe that, given the catalogue of malpractice that went on at Stafford, that there would have been no excess deaths? That somehow the terrible practices harmed no-one?
As a matter of interest, did you read my reply in the last thread?
I can only describe the experience as a form of corporate brainwashing terror where the equivalent of party spies roamed the office corridors outing non-believers. Every employee was forced to attend 10hrs immersion sessions in giant plastic igloos in the NEC carpark where we role-played being the ideal employee and were critiqued by our peers - hundreds of them - it was bizarre and Mike Harris who was CEO at the time had drunk deeply from the Kool-Aid well... and forked out tens of millions on it. He was escorted off the HQ premises by Security when it became clear that he wasn't the man to be running the show.
And he wrote a book about how he's still a believer... read excerpts here... http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9UX8xougdZMC&pg=PT37&lpg=PT37&dq=Mercury+communications+imagine&source=bl&ots=3WkARS-Chu&sig=S0NEUB9ArbREGslc7Uw6p0o7kKI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RmenUdiKJ4Gc0QXekoHgCQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ
"A supermarket boss who took 800 workers on a dream trip to Disneyworld in Florida is facing a £2.5million bill because the taxman ruled it was a perk.
Iceland founder Malcolm Walker paid for a five-day 'conference' that included day-trips and shows at the world-famous theme park.
He argued that the £5,000-a-head tour was a business expense designed to give his senior staff an insight into the 'world-class' customer service at Disneyworld.
HMRC officials say the trip was actually a 'benefit in kind' and must be taxed as such.
But Mr Walker, 66, is refusing to pay up.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333248/Iceland-boss-took-800-managers-dream-trip-Disneyworld-sent-2-5MILLION-tax-counts-perk.html#ixzz2UmsZ4ixZ
Can I suggest a thread topic of immigrants and MMR so that the lefties can have a proper debate on rEds polling numbers and lack of economic policies ?
A benefits cheat who fiddled £16,000 was caught because she married her lesbian lover in a Star Trek-themed civil ceremony.
Anita Wood, 48, of Swansea, South Wales, hid the fact that Margaret Wood, 50, was her live-in lover when she claimed benefits as an unemployed single person.
But fraud investigators swooped when the couple were photographed at their ceremony in the Star Trek-themed celebration at the Liberty Stadium, home to Premier League football club Swansea City.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333303/Benefits-cheat-boldy-goes-court-Star-Trek-themed-civil-ceremony-used-expose-fraud.html#ixzz2Un1xAS8E
The comments are cruel but amusing...
I always suspected that one day it would be "caught up with"!
Not all of the recipients of IS are looking for work of course but I simply do not believe that percentage. If you added pensions and welfare and even health care (being generous) together you would have £471bn of which 3% would be £14bn. Do you really believe that? With 2.5m unemployed?
Hey ho.
OK, but the public also knows that there are 3.7 million workless households, more than 15% of the total.
Given that a proportion of these households could conceivably get SOMEBODY employed, there do seem to be an awful lot of people choosing a life of grinding poverty rather than the sunlit uplands of working for 30 hours a week on minimum wage.
Unless of course a life on the dole is somewhat better than you contend - for whatever reason (and I'm sure there are a variety of these...)....
Oh the guilt...
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/selenagray/100219364/im-in-shock-ive-just-discovered-that-my-mother-and-sister-are-ukip-supporters/?fb
OT for any TV series watchers - you may find IMDb forums interesting re views, trivia and feedback on virtually every series or film broadcast.
http://www.imdb.com/boards/ - if you type in the prog name you're after in the Search box - it'll bring up the show, and on the lower right hand side will show a link to the message board about it. I had a wander about the other day and there are thousands of them.
TV nerds are just as anoraky as political ones.
Why wouldn't it be a LD hold anyway ?
They won after Huhne - why would Hancock be any different ?
I am afraid that Mr Kellner has been somewhat selective in his figures which rather takes away the point he was trying to make.
Useless observation: it's interesting how the word "ironical" seems to have been mostly replaced by "ironic". I was reading a book published in 1987 the other day which used "ironical" a lot and it seemed a bit odd because hardly anyone uses it these days.
Latest polls:
http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/index.htm
How boring are the pedantic nitpickers who harp on and on and on about these minute details while unfunnily pretending they dont understand the bigger picture because of it?
I can't recall a change so big in how we live our lives during my time on Planet Earth - supermarkets is probably the closest...
The phrases "gone pear-shaped" and "life's rich tapestry" are both apparently extremely recent, despite both of them sounding almost archaic. The OED records the first use of "gone pear-shaped" to 1983 and "life's rich tapestry" seems to date from the 1970s.
He may well have the LibDem whip withdrawn. He will say 'So what! Me, resign, no way'
The chances of a Hancock resignation are, in my opinion nil, zero, zilch. He isn't the resignation for the good of the party type of bloke.
The only way I can see him going is if he is given 6 months or more inside, and it ceases to be his own destiny.
e.g. Should the UK remain within the EU?
(Here's the link again):
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/selenagray/100219364/im-in-shock-ive-just-discovered-that-my-mother-and-sister-are-ukip-supporters/?fb
I feel the righties are suffering from the same issues now and the lefties are just standing around watching them.
How do you conflate the number of workless households with people claiming benefits and the unemployed who may or may not be receiving benefits? I've no doubt some households do claim benefits and are registered unemployed but I suspect as much as half of those households do not. If they are not registered unemployed or claiming benefits what business is it of anyone what they are doing?
http://statistics.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd2/fem/fem_preliminary_1112_revised.pdf
So it's a sample, based on a total of 36,300 cases where they go to see people in their homes and question them, and if they find anything suspicious they get a fraud investigator in to do some more poking around. They also talk about doing a load of "statistical analysis of data" - I'm not sure whether that would stretch to assuming that there must be some fraud going on that the investigators didn't find, or whether the 0.7% number is the lowest possible end of the range and assumes their investigators have found everything there is to find.
But it does look like it's based on a detailed look at a sample, rather than just taking the number of convictions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niIcxMuORco
(Incidentally, there was also a description of how to carry a sheep: "...he had hold of the two fore-feet, the head hung before and the legs behind" Not that I'd find that useful. Ahem).
Star Sports Bet @StarSports_Bet 7m
BEN KEITH has great expectations for Nigel Farage's forthcoming trip to Hove http://bit.ly/17yNOMQ
"I’m almost embarrassed by how great I think this is. It’s a video of Frans Timmermans, the Dutch foreign minister, speaking at a recent Google Zeitgeist conference about contemporary Europe.
So far, so dull. But Mr Timmermans isn’t just talking about Europe, he’s talking about Game of Thrones. George RR Martin’s zillion-page, multi-season stabbing-and-shagging epic, he says, is a key text for understanding political, economic and social issues in the Old World today.
I won’t attempt to summarise his entire argument, and I don’t agree with all of it. Probably the most important point is telling Europe: winter is coming, so you can either lie down and accept change, or you can fight.
There are two reasons for highlighting this. Partly, I admire the attempt to explain big, important issues in terms of books and TV that real people, people not obsessed with politics, might actually recognise. It’s a refreshing change from the normal attempts to “connect”, which usually come down to politicians bolting clunky references to football or boxsets onto their stump speeches and lines-to-take.
There are far too few politicians who do what Mr Timmermans does here and actually weave popular culture references into their arguments and explanations...." http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jameskirkup/100219397/winter-is-coming-politics-and-game-of-thrones/
There is then a figure of 0.7% for fraud but this does not include overpayments made as a result of "customer error".
I have edited this substantially because I had not read the source carefully enough.
Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes 6m
Hancock Meeting Monday Afternoon http://guyfawk.es/15eRSO1
Only a term in the pokey can enforce it.
Go socialism !
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22720228
Careful, Russia. With accounting standards like that you might get invited to join the EU.
There's also a potential F1 angle. There's meant to be a Sochi circuit next year (I think) but Russians are getting a bit pissed at how hugely over budget the Olympics are, so the funding required *might* not turn up.
The noun is irony , the adjective ironic , and the adverb ironically.
Its interesting. unemployment is 2.5m so how can the number of workless households be 3.7m??
People of working age on incapacity benefit are not counted.
Also some workless households are students living with retired people.
Stripping the latter out there are just under 3m households where nobody of working age is working.
If you think the Olympics in Russia is a hoot - just wait for the football world cup.
Trebles all round - paid for in part by the BBC licence fee..
"John Bercow - Tyrion Lannister but without his wit, intelligence and good looks"
Maybe they'll set up a diplomatic room.
"In the end, the golden rules of competitiveness are simple: manufacture, diversify, export, invest in infrastructure, educate, support SMEs, enforce fiscal discipline, and above all maintain social cohesion."
Why don't our politicians get it ?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2211486/The-Nazi-uniform-It-just-laugh-Balls-brushes-university-prank-saying-embarrassed-photo.html
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AswNZWYSW1uvdEJNMlllenV5LXJiX3pPdUFYUF9aSEE&usp=sharing
Of interest might be some forecasts for 2015, including the one we discussed last night.
MODS: Would it be presumptuous to request adding the link to the sidebar? "RodCrosby's Resources" or somesuch...
Graz?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESGTIOw_kaQ
Lowlands....
* After losing jokeW have the trolls seen-off Marquee-Mark also...?
Nice.
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/a-big-day-out-atthe-guardian-data-driven-coffee-shop
I have not yet visited, nor have I any compelling urge to do so.
That's astonishing: total output was 10% higher than they thought. At current rates of growth, the US will exceed Russia and Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer within the next four years. (Actually, I would expect the growth rate to slow a bit, so it might take until 2018 or so, but still.)
FACT.
The political class are aiming for a third world economy competing entirely on low wages.
Thanks for the link Rod - Most interesting.
I don't know yet whether I agree with all or any of it yet, but it's a meaty resource, and good to have it all in one place.
Thanks, I'll wait till he's back from hols...
ETA?
Opening ceremonies are supposed to be ridiculous. They are not something to get worked up about. And the cauldron was just brilliant showmanship.
A man in Florida has reached a rare milestone after donating 100 gallons of blood in the last 35 years.
Harold Mendenhall, 84, started giving blood on July 7, 1977, according to the Palm Beach Post.
Last month, he reached 100 US gallons (83 imperial gallons or 666 pints).
Mr Mendenhall started giving blood when his wife, Frankie, was diagnosed with breast cancer.
When she died seven years later, Mr Mendenhall says he was lost.
He stopped by the blood bank on his way home from work and was soon donating up to 40 pints a year. http://news.sky.com/story/1097483/us-blood-donor-gives-100-gallons-in-35-years