It is now well known that Tony Blair et al put into office so many placemen in all sorts of quangos, pseudo-public sector bodies, trusts etc that with the main focus on the economic disaster bequeathed by GB, it would time for all the rotten apples to be revealed.
Any public body that is dominated by one political party to the extent that it can falsify records and suppress effective scrutiny (including whistle blowers) is extremely unhealthy and is not fit for purpose. When those same bodies use nepotism during recruitment the rotting apples start to stink.
The bad smell is now apparent and it is highly likely that more scandals regarding bodies set up by Labour for its own controlling interest and political purposes will be revealed.
It is naive to expect that a new government once in office will detect immediately or quickly these errant (if not corrupt) bodies - it takes time for the rot to stink and be apparent
There certainly is a meme of the NHS being 'safe in Labour's hands' - well, I think their last period in office has managed to hole that one below the water line.
That the regulator was hiding the issues, and filled with the likes of Ms Bower/the culture of cover-ups and Nicholson/gagging clauses...
It'd be hard to make up a worse set of scandals - unflattering reports into the deaths of mothers and their babies deleted on the order of the Ch Ex? The horrors of Stafford and several other trusts?
One wonders what else is about to come out of the woodwork. All the CQC's reports must be reviewed in light of this - and all the inquiries they conducted and never published...
I can't quite see how Labour are holed below the water line.
The structural advantage Labour have on the NHS is their monopoly of its employees whom they always place first before patient concerns. This allows them to run scares when unions and doctors claim the world will come to an end if 2pence is cut from the NHS budget. Parties looking to break this hold have to either get a chunk of NHS employees onside to enable a sensible debate or establish clear blue water between being on the side of patients versus NHS employees.
Surely this "structural advantage" has equal impact on any party that seeks to cut the NHS? The Tories aren't compelled to do that, it's just a choice they frequently make.
Of course there are some hardcore Labour loyalists in the particularly unionised parts of the NHS but most of them are so far to the left of the post-John Smith Labour party that they were as aggressively opposed to the changes of the 1997-2010 Labour government as they are to those of the Coalition. I don't think that there's a co-ordinated, choreographed NHS staff programme of opposing the Tories when in government and supporting Labour when in government. Neither the People's Front of Judea, nor the Judean People's Front are that organised. The strongest thing you can say is that most NHS staff are not-particularly-well-off British citizens, and as NickPalmer points out, most of them are stubbornly enthusiastic about an NHS that runs on roughly the model that has applied for the last few decades. To the extent that's a vested interest it's a consumer interest, not a producer interest.
Any party outside labour will have that structural disadvantage and I don't particularly blame NHS staff for protecting their own interests, it's a fairly natural reaction. However I'd say we get the ding-dong because we have a two party system where Tory = cuts and Labour = cash. The net result is the blues will undertake reforms for efficiency whereas the reds will pretend to but just shovel more cash in. The NHS is Labour's politicised beast and until that link is broken it will always be a political football.
the Tories think it's basically unfit for purpose.
Which I guess is why Jeremy Hunt makes this point:
Would the CQC cover up have been exposed under Andy Burnham?
This is an interesting point.
A commenter on Guardian's CiF made a rather withering observation: that the CQC was just a dressing up exercise meant to promote Labour's management of the NHS rather than regulate the service and expose wrongdoing (echoes of the doomed Financial Services Authority?).
the Tories think it's basically unfit for purpose.
Which I guess is why Jeremy Hunt makes this point:
Would the CQC cover up have been exposed under Andy Burnham?
This is an interesting point.
A commenter on Guardian's CiF made a rather withering observation: that the CQC was just a dressing up exercise meant to promote Labour's management of the NHS rather than regulate the service and expose wrongdoing (echoes of the doomed Financial Services Authority?).
"• Internal emails disclosed that Miss Bower refused to co-operate with police inquiries into the Morecambe Bay scandal, six weeks before attending the meeting where the order was allegedly given to delete critical evidence.
Concerns about Furness General Hospital maternity unit came to light in 2008, but the CQC gave the Morecambe Bay trust, which runs the hospital, the all-clear in 2010.
The deaths of 16 babies at the trust are now being investigated by Cumbria Police. "
the Tories think it's basically unfit for purpose.
Which I guess is why Jeremy Hunt makes this point:
Would the CQC cover up have been exposed under Andy Burnham?
This is an interesting point.
A commenter on Guardian's CiF made a rather withering observation: that the CQC was just a dressing up exercise meant to promote Labour's management of the NHS rather than regulate the service and expose wrongdoing (echoes of the doomed Financial Services Authority?).
I find it impossible to argue against that.
Indeed ben - it is impossible to argue against that. Which is why your fellow travellers are donning the mantle of the 3 mustket-smearers
Given more people in the UK have died from the NHS than from terrorist activity in the last decade, shouldn't we be snooping on all their mails and telephone calls and have CCTV in every hospital ?
Some fantastic deficit reduction figures in May's Public Sector Finances released this morning.
Key figures
• This bulletin contains the third estimates of outturn for the 2012/13 public sector finances and the first estimates for May 2013. These estimates are updated throughout the year as finalised data are received from public sector bodies.
• In 2012/13, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions and also excluding the effects of the transfer of the Royal Mail Pension Plan and the transfers from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund was £118.8 billion. This is similar in level to 2011/12.
• In 2012/13, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions (PSNBex) was £85.0 billion. This is £33.5 billion lower than in 2011/12 when it was £118.5 billion.
• Since last month’s publication, 2012/13 public sector net borrowing has been revised down by £0.1 billion and 2011/12 public sector net borrowing down by £2.4 billion due to methodological and data improvements implemented this month.
• In May 2013, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions and also excluding the effects of the transfers from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund was £12.7 billion. This compares to a public sector net borrowing in May 2012 of £15.6 billion.
• In May 2013, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions (PSNBex) was £8.8 billion. This is £6.9 billion lower than in May 2012 when it was £15.6 billion.
• In May 2013, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions (PSNB ex) has been reduced by £3.9 billion from transfers from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund and by £3.2 billion from retrospective tax payments by Swiss banks.
• Public sector net debt ex temporary effects of financial interventions (PSND ex) was £1,189.2 billion at the end of May 2013, equivalent to 75.2% of gross domestic product (GDP).
Sometimes I do wonder. Didn't he say on R4 yesterday that 'the fish rots from the head down' ?
"David Behan, the chief executive of CQC said last month that the departures of almost all his executives in a restructuring had nothing to do with the failings regarding Morecambe Bay, or any cover-up linked to it.
He made the comments in a legal letter which threatened to sue for libel over criticism of the team, after the Daily Telegraph described how five of the six executives on the team walked away with redundancy payments of up to £200,000 each ahead of the damning report,
In the letter, sent on May 2, Mr Behan lavished praise on the directors, who he said had “given a tremendous amount to the CQC over the past four years. Their guidance and leadership has been crucial in setting our new strategy,” he said.
He said it was “disappointing” that The Telegraph had linked their departure with the then impending report which was published on Wednesday. He added: “That link, which I believe was intentional, cannot be responsible journalism.”
This week’s report into the CQC’s failure to prevent a the Morecambe Bay maternity describes the involvement of several of the directors in orchestrating a cover-up. Among the executives named yesterday were Jill Finney, the organisation’s deputy chief executive, who ordered the destruction of evidence of its failure to prevent the maternity deaths scandal, the report said.
Some fantastic deficit reduction figures in May's Public Sector Finances released this morning.
Key figures
• This bulletin contains the third estimates of outturn for the 2012/13 public sector finances and the first estimates for May 2013. These estimates are updated throughout the year as finalised data are received from public sector bodies.
• In 2012/13, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions and also excluding the effects of the transfer of the Royal Mail Pension Plan and the transfers from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund was £118.8 billion. This is similar in level to 2011/12..........
• Public sector net debt ex temporary effects of financial interventions (PSND ex) was £1,189.2 billion at the end of May 2013, equivalent to 75.2% of gross domestic product (GDP).
Mr Pole there are so many caveats and subclauses in that it's hard to see where the good news is. All I note is debt/GDP ratio of 75.2% which is hardly reassuring.
It is now well known that Tony Blair et al put into office so many placemen in all sorts of quangos, pseudo-public sector bodies, trusts etc that with the main focus on the economic disaster bequeathed by GB, it would time for all the rotten apples to be revealed.
Any public body that is dominated by one political party to the extent that it can falsify records and suppress effective scrutiny (including whistle blowers) is extremely unhealthy and is not fit for purpose. When those same bodies use nepotism during recruitment the rotting apples start to stink.
The bad smell is now apparent and it is highly likely that more scandals regarding bodies set up by Labour for its own controlling interest and political purposes will be revealed.
It is naive to expect that a new government once in office will detect immediately or quickly these errant (if not corrupt) bodies - it takes time for the rot to stink and be apparent
It makes the disentanglement task of EdM much more difficult. With EBalls there it makes it nigh-on impossible.
It's something he and the Labour Party will have to do.
Nick Palmer, for example, I note, is still singing from the TB/GB best of all possible worlds hymnsheet. EdM will have to communicate to his back benchers (and PPCs) that this story will need significant modification.
Sometimes a good chunk of the public and politicians prefer higher death rates to facilities being moved to centres of excellence. The children's heart surgery affair tells us that, let alone the attachment to local A&Es over regional stroke centres etc.
I think you are being a little harsh on the public: they don't have the time to think through the pros and cons - it's why they elect representatives. Unscrupulous politicians find it very easy to campaign on slogans that suggest they care about local issues and communities - they're the people you should blame.
I think we agree that we should have a model of smaller local chronic care / convalesence homes plus centres of expertise in the key specialties. I'm not a fan of polyclincs, though, because in my view the GP-patient relationship is critical (even in a multi-GP practice). Polyclinics seem a little industrialised: to my mind working knowledge of the patient's history / ability to ask the lead GP directly is more important because GP issues are rarely time critical.
A+E I haven't done a proper assessment of. Key issue is time though - I would have thought the answer is to invest in the paramedics (I like first responders) and the ambulance service and then you can possibly create larger and more effective A+E facilities. Arguably, even if co-located, these could/should be independently managed from the hospitals because the managerial requirements are very different
"I used to work for CQC and its predecessor organisations, CSCI and CHI, even for a short period under David Behan in one of his previous incarnations. We used to carry out inspections in big teams including all sorts of medics and allied health professionals. On my first inspection with this outfit I discovered that one of the GPs I interviewed was claiming for 6000 non-existent patients - the practice nurse told me this.
At the same time my colleague couldn't interview a particular GP because he had been arrested for supplying Class A drugs. I thought this information should go in our final report but the inspection leader, a nurse manager from Lincolnshire, said we weren't about "catching people out" and in any case there wasn't a code for it. We were given a code sheet at the beginning of every inspection that included such twaddle as "clinical governance" and other BS terms. For those regular posters that don't believe this see my Flickr pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/2...
There wasn't a box for "fraud", "neglect", or "criminality" so none of that got reported. And people wonder how Harold Shipman got away with it for so long. I am now retired but I genuinely can say "I told you so" and I can prove I did. They should abolish CQC and replace it with the equivalent of Trip Advisor. The nuts and bolts regulation could be carried out by the local authority registration units, fire service and environmental health, as it used to be before all the New Labour "improvements". Far cheaper and more effective at representing the patient voice.
Some fantastic deficit reduction figures in May's Public Sector Finances released this morning.
Key figures
• This bulletin contains the third estimates of outturn for the 2012/13 public sector finances and the first estimates for May 2013. These estimates are updated throughout the year as finalised data are received from public sector bodies.
• In 2012/13, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions and also excluding the effects of the transfer of the Royal Mail Pension Plan and the transfers from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund was £118.8 billion. This is similar in level to 2011/12..........
• Public sector net debt ex temporary effects of financial interventions (PSND ex) was £1,189.2 billion at the end of May 2013, equivalent to 75.2% of gross domestic product (GDP).
Mr Pole there are so many caveats and subclauses in that it's hard to see where the good news is. All I note is debt/GDP ratio of 75.2% which is hardly reassuring.
" In May 2013, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions (PSNBex) was £8.8 billion. This is £6.9 billion lower than in May 2012 when it was £15.6 billion."
@BBCHughPym Embarrassment for George Osborne - borrowing ex special factors actually came in higher for 2012/13 than the previous year -after revisions.
Some fantastic deficit reduction figures in May's Public Sector Finances released this morning.
Key figures
• This bulletin contains the third estimates of outturn for the 2012/13 public sector finances and the first estimates for May 2013. These estimates are updated throughout the year as finalised data are received from public sector bodies.
• In 2012/13, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions and also excluding the effects of the transfer of the Royal Mail Pension Plan and the transfers from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund was £118.8 billion. This is similar in level to 2011/12..........
• Public sector net debt ex temporary effects of financial interventions (PSND ex) was £1,189.2 billion at the end of May 2013, equivalent to 75.2% of gross domestic product (GDP).
Mr Pole there are so many caveats and subclauses in that it's hard to see where the good news is. All I note is debt/GDP ratio of 75.2% which is hardly reassuring.
" In May 2013, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions (PSNBex) was £8.8 billion. This is £6.9 billion lower than in May 2012 when it was £15.6 billion."
Difficult to argue that isn't good news.
It might ,but when you're shuffling numbers as frequently as HMG only a trend can tell you anything meaningful.
There certainly is a meme of the NHS being 'safe in Labour's hands' - well, I think their last period in office has managed to hole that one below the water line.
That the regulator was hiding the issues, and filled with the likes of Ms Bower/the culture of cover-ups and Nicholson/gagging clauses...
It'd be hard to make up a worse set of scandals - unflattering reports into the deaths of mothers and their babies deleted on the order of the Ch Ex? The horrors of Stafford and several other trusts?
One wonders what else is about to come out of the woodwork. All the CQC's reports must be reviewed in light of this - and all the inquiries they conducted and never published...
I can't quite see how Labour are holed below the water line.
The structural advantage Labour have on the NHS is their monopoly of its employees whom they always place first before patient concerns. This allows them to run scares when unions and doctors claim the world will come to an end if 2pence is cut from the NHS budget. Parties looking to break this hold have to either get a chunk of NHS employees onside to enable a sensible debate or establish clear blue water between being on the side of patients versus NHS employees.
Surely this "structural advantage" has equal impact on any party that seeks to cut the NHS? The Tories aren't compelled to do that, it's just a choice they frequently make.
Of course there are some hardcore Labour loyalists in the particularly unionised parts of the NHS but most of them are so far to the left of the post-John Smith Labour party that they were as aggressively opposed to the changes of the 1997-2010 Labour government as they are to those of the Coalition. I don't think that there's a co-ordinated, choreographed NHS staff programme of opposing the Tories when in government and supporting Labour when in government. Neither the People's Front of Judea, nor the Judean People's Front are that organised. The strongest thing you can say is that most NHS staff are not-particularly-well-off British citizens, and as NickPalmer points out, most of them are stubbornly enthusiastic about an NHS that runs on roughly the model that has applied for the last few decades. To the extent that's a vested interest it's a consumer interest, not a producer interest.
Any party outside labour will have that structural disadvantage and I don't particularly blame NHS staff for protecting their own interests, it's a fairly natural reaction. However I'd say we get the ding-dong because we have a two party system where Tory = cuts and Labour = cash. The net result is the blues will undertake reforms for efficiency whereas the reds will pretend to but just shovel more cash in. The NHS is Labour's politicised beast and until that link is broken it will always be a political football.
But there's no necessity about the Tories being the party of cuts to a particular service - at the moment the party is in the grip of a fair number of neolib ideologues but it's not always been the case. As others have pointed out recently, there's a fair argument that the current Conservative party is more of a radical/reform party with a classical Whig bent than anything that can be recognised as Conservative. The only thing that is Conservative about it is the use of establishment/aristocratic power structures to attempt to implement an extreme "democratising" reallocation of power away from the establishment and towards the owners of capital.
There's a better argument for the current Labour party being conservative, given that the agenda seems to be to oppose any change to the current social settlement - "I've seen a lot of changes in my time and I've opposed every one of them"...
Well looks lik different people here are picking different figures from the borrowing to suit 'their' side. Don't look particularly good. Or bad for that matter.
There certainly is a meme of the NHS being 'safe in Labour's hands' - well, I think their last period in office has managed to hole that one below the water line.
That the regulator was hiding the issues, and filled with the likes of Ms Bower/the culture of cover-ups and Nicholson/gagging clauses...
It'd be hard to make up a worse set of scandals - unflattering reports into the deaths of mothers and their babies deleted on the order of the Ch Ex? The horrors of Stafford and several other trusts?
One wonders what else is about to come out of the woodwork. All the CQC's reports must be reviewed in light of this - and all the inquiries they conducted and never published...
I can't quite see how Labour are holed below the water line.
The structural advantage Labour have on the NHS is their monopoly of its employees whom they always place first before patient concerns. This allows them to run scares when unions and doctors claim the world will come to an end if 2pence is cut from the NHS budget. Parties looking to break this hold have to either get a chunk of NHS employees onside to enable a sensible debate or establish clear blue water between being on the side of patients versus NHS employees.
Surely this "structural advantage" has equal impact on any party that seeks to cut the NHS? The Tories aren't compelled to do that, it's just a choice they frequently make.
Of course there are some hardcore Labour loyalists in the particularly unionised parts of the NHS but most of them are so far to the left of the post-John Smith Labour party that they were as aggressively opposed to the changes of the 1997-2010 Labour government as they are to those of the Coalition. I don't think that there's a co-ordinated, choreographed NHS staff programme of opposing the Tories when in government and supporting Labour when in government. Neither the People's Front of Judea, nor the Judean People's Front are that organised. The strongest thing you can say is that most NHS staff are not-particularly-well-off British citizens, and as NickPalmer points out, most of them are stubbornly enthusiastic about an NHS that runs on roughly the model that has applied for the last few decades. To the extent that's a vested interest it's a consumer interest, not a producer interest.
Any party outside labour will have that structural disadvantage and I don't particularly blame NHS staff for protecting their own interests, it's a fairly natural reaction. However I'd say we get the ding-dong because we have a two party system where Tory = cuts and Labour = cash. The net result is the blues will undertake reforms for efficiency whereas the reds will pretend to but just shovel more cash in. The NHS is Labour's politicised beast and until that link is broken it will always be a political football.
But there's no necessity about the Tories being the party of cuts to a particular service - at the moment the party is in the grip of a fair number of neolib ideologues but it's not always been the case. As others have pointed out recently, there's a fair argument that the current Conservative party is more of a radical/reform party with a classical Whig bent than anything that can be recognised as Conservative. The only thing that is Conservative about it is the use of establishment/aristocratic power structures to attempt to implement an extreme "democratising" reallocation of power away from the establishment and towards the owners of capital.
There's a better argument for the current Labour party being conservative, given that the agenda seems to be to oppose any change to the current social settlement - "I've seen a lot of changes in my time and I've opposed every one of them"...
There certainly is a meme of the NHS being 'safe in Labour's hands' - well, I think their last period in office has managed to hole that one below the water line.
That the regulator was hiding the issues, and filled with the likes of Ms Bower/the culture of cover-ups and Nicholson/gagging clauses...
It'd be hard to make up a worse set of scandals - unflattering reports into the deaths of mothers and their babies deleted on the order of the Ch Ex? The horrors of Stafford and several other trusts?
One wonders what else is about to come out of the woodwork. All the CQC's reports must be reviewed in light of this - and all the inquiries they conducted and never published...
I can't quite see how Labour are holed below the water line.
The structural advantage Labour have on the NHS is their monopoly of its employees whom they always place first before patient concerns. This allows them to run scares when unions and doctors claim the world will come to an end if 2pence is cut from the NHS budget. Parties looking to break this hold have to either get a chunk of NHS employees onside to enable a sensible debate or establish clear blue water between being on the side of patients versus NHS employees.
Surely this "structural advantage" has equal impact on any party that seeks to cut the NHS? The Tories aren't compelled to do that, it's just a choice they frequently make.
Of course there are some hardcore Labour loyalists in the particularly unionised parts of the NHS but most of them are so far to the left of the post-John Smith Labour party that they were as aggressively opposed to the changes of the 1997-2010 Labour government as they are to those of the Coalition. I don't think that there's a co-ordinated, choreographed NHS staff programme of opposing the Tories when in government and supporting Labour when in government. Neither the People's Front of Judea, nor the Judean People's Front are that organised. The strongest thing you can say is that most NHS staff are not-particularly-well-off British citizens, and as NickPalmer points out, most of them are stubbornly enthusiastic about an NHS that runs on roughly the model that has applied for the last few decades. To the extent that's a vested interest it's a consumer interest, not a producer interest.
Any party outside labour will have that structural disadvantage and I don't particularly blame NHS staff for protecting their own interests, it's a fairly natural reaction. However I'd say we get the ding-dong because we have a two party system where Tory = cuts and Labour = cash. The net result is the blues will undertake reforms for efficiency whereas the reds will pretend to but just shovel more cash in. The NHS is Labour's politicised beast and until that link is broken it will always be a political football.
But there's no necessity about the Tories being the party of cuts to a particular service - at the moment the party is in the grip of a fair number of neolib ideologues but it's not always been the case. As others have pointed out recently, there's a fair argument that the current Conservative party is more of a radical/reform party with a classical Whig bent than anything that can be recognised as Conservative. The only thing that is Conservative about it is the use of establishment/aristocratic power structures to attempt to implement an extreme "democratising" reallocation of power away from the establishment and towards the owners of capital.
There's a better argument for the current Labour party being conservative, given that the agenda seems to be to oppose any change to the current social settlement - "I've seen a lot of changes in my time and I've opposed every one of them"...
"But there's no necessity about the Tories being the party of cuts to a particular service"
Given the blues have tended to come in to power after Labour's latest financial mess in the the post war period, I think "events" force them in to a position they might not wish to be in. It's actually quite new for the tories to ring fence NHS spending, and in the current circumstances probably a financial mistake made with political benefits.
Some fantastic deficit reduction figures in May's Public Sector Finances released this morning.
Key figures
• This bulletin contains the third estimates of outturn for the 2012/13 public sector finances and the first estimates for May 2013. These estimates are updated throughout the year as finalised data are received from public sector bodies.
• In 2012/13, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions and also excluding the effects of the transfer of the Royal Mail Pension Plan and the transfers from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund was £118.8 billion. This is similar in level to 2011/12..........
• Public sector net debt ex temporary effects of financial interventions (PSND ex) was £1,189.2 billion at the end of May 2013, equivalent to 75.2% of gross domestic product (GDP).
Mr Pole there are so many caveats and subclauses in that it's hard to see where the good news is. All I note is debt/GDP ratio of 75.2% which is hardly reassuring.
Gord blimey, Mr. Brooke. The foul Lincolnshire air has risen from Cleethorpes sands and is now blowing across the West Midlands.
Revisions
2012-13 Net borrowing revised down £0.1 bn
2011-12 Net borrowing revised down £2.4 bn
Confirmations
2012-13 Net borrowing down £33.5 bn on year
2012-13 Net borrowing excluding non-recurring items and financial interventions (bank bailouts) below 2011-12 @ £118.5 bn
May 2013
Net borrowing excluding non-recurring items and financial interventions down £2.9 bn on the month: an annual borrowing reduction rate of circa £35 bn and nearly a billion better than last month.
Actual net borrowing down £6.9 bn on month (i.e. including non-recurring items but excluding financial interventions).
Non recurring net borrowing down £3.9 billion from transfers from the Bank of England and by £3.2 billion from retrospective tax payments by Swiss banks.
Mr. Brooke, only an Olympic medal winner in misanthropy could not fail to agree that these are very, very good deficit reduction figures. At a rate of £6.9 million net borrowing reduction per month, the PSNB ex deficit would be paid off in 13 months!
In March of this year the OBR were forecasting it would take until 2016-17 before this metric of deficit would be paid down.
Unless there were reasons we don't know about, there will be widespread irritation from colleagues with Karl McCartney for failing to turn up to put Bill number 8 (which is, enviably, one of the ones for which there might be Parliamentary time available), so it missed its first reading. The BIll, which would require FOI requests to be named (discouraging fishing trips by interested parties) is non-trivial and follows an interesting debate on the working of FOI (I don't disagree with the idea). I wonder iMcCartney has dropped the idea?
There certainly is a meme of the NHS being 'safe in Labour's hands' - well, I think their last period in office has managed to hole that one below the water line.
That the regulator was hiding the issues, and filled with the likes of Ms Bower/the culture of cover-ups and Nicholson/gagging clauses...
It'd be hard to make up a worse set of scandals - unflattering reports into the deaths of mothers and their babies deleted on the order of the Ch Ex? The horrors of Stafford and several other trusts?
One wonders what else is about to come out of the woodwork. All the CQC's reports must be reviewed in light of this - and all the inquiries they conducted and never published...
I can't quite see how Labour are holed below the water line.
The structural advantage Labour have on the NHS is their monopoly of its employees whom they always place first before patient concerns. This allows them to run scares when unions and doctors claim the world will come to an end if 2pence is cut from the NHS budget. Parties looking to break this hold have to either get a chunk of NHS employees onside to enable a sensible debate or establish clear blue water between being on the side of patients versus NHS employees.
Surely this "structural advantage" has equal impact on any party that seeks to cut the NHS? The Tories aren't compelled to do that, it's just a choice they frequently make.
Of course there are some hardcore Labour loyalists in the particularly unionised parts of the NHS but most of them are so far to the left of the post-John Smith Labour party that they were as aggressively opposed to the changes of the 1997-2010 Labour government as they are to those of the Coalition. I don't think that there's a co-ordinated, choreographed NHS staff programme of opposing the Tories when in government and supporting Labour when in government. Neither the People's Front of Judea, nor the Judean People's Front are that organised. The strongest thing you can say is that most NHS staff are not-particularly-well-off British citizens, and as NickPalmer points out, most of them are stubbornly enthusiastic about an NHS that runs on roughly the model that has applied for the last few decades. To the extent that's a vested interest it's a consumer interest, not a producer interest.
Any party outside labour will have that structural disadvantage and I don't particularly blame NHS staff for protecting their own interests, it's a fairly natural reaction. However I'd say we get the ding-dong because we have a two party system where Tory = cuts and Labour = cash. The net result is the blues will undertake reforms for efficiency whereas the reds will pretend to but just shovel more cash in. The NHS is Labour's politicised beast and until that link is broken it will always be a political football.
But there's no necessity about the Tories being the party of cuts to a particular service - at the moment the party is in the grip of a fair number of neolib ideologues but it's not always been the case. As others have pointed out recently, there's a fair argument that the current Conservative party is more of a radical/reform party with a classical Whig bent than anything that can be recognised as Conservative. The only thing that is Conservative about it is the use of establishment/aristocratic power structures to attempt to implement an extreme "democratising" reallocation of power away from the establishment and towards the owners of capital.
There's a better argument for the current Labour party being conservative, given that the agenda seems to be to oppose any change to the current social settlement - "I've seen a lot of changes in my time and I've opposed every one of them"...
"But there's no necessity about the Tories being the party of cuts to a particular service"
Given the blues have tended to come in to power after Labour's latest financial mess in the the post war period, I think "events" force them in to a position they might not wish to be in. It's actually quite new for the tories to ring fence NHS spending, and in the current circumstances probably a financial mistake made with political benefits.
I probably need to temper my comments in any case following today's figures... it would be a bit unfair to describe the Tories as the party of [deficit] cuts so much as the party that seeks to redistribute a constant level of state spending from public services to private special interests (cf "reform" of student finance).
Before anyone points out the obvious, the Labour party of late has been dedicated to doing much the same thing, just a bit more slowly. Or "conservatively"...
There certainly is a meme of the NHS being 'safe in Labour's hands' - well, I think their last period in office has managed to hole that one below the water line.
That the regulator was hiding the issues, and filled with the likes of Ms Bower/the culture of cover-ups and Nicholson/gagging clauses...
It'd be hard to make up a worse set of scandals - unflattering reports into the deaths of mothers and their babies deleted on the order of the Ch Ex? The horrors of Stafford and several other trusts?
One wonders what else is about to come out of the woodwork. All the CQC's reports must be reviewed in light of this - and all the inquiries they conducted and never published...
I can't quite see how Labour are holed below the water line.
The structural advantage Labour have on the NHS is their monopoly of its employees whom they always place first before patient concerns. This allows them to run scares when unions and doctors claim the world will come to an end if 2pence is cut from the NHS budget. Parties looking to break this hold have to either get a chunk of NHS employees onside to enable a sensible debate or establish clear blue water between being on the side of patients versus NHS employees.
Surely this "structural advantage" has equal impact on any party that seeks to cut the NHS? The Tories aren't compelled to do that, it's just a choice they frequently make.
Of course there are some hardcore Labour loyalists in the particularly unionised parts of the NHS but most of them are so far to the left of the post-John Smith Labour party that they were as aggressively opposed to the changes of the 1997-2010 Labour government as they are to those of the Coalition. I don't think that there's a co-ordinated, choreographed NHS staff programme of opposing the Tories when in government and supporting Labour when in government. Neither the People's Front of Judea, nor the Judean People's Front are that organised. The strongest thing you can say is that most NHS staff are not-particularly-well-off British citizens, and as NickPalmer points out, most of them are stubbornly enthusiastic about an NHS that runs on roughly the model that has applied for the last few decades. To the extent that's a vested interest it's a consumer interest, not a producer interest.
Any party outside labour will have that structural disadvantage and I don't particularly blame NHS staff for protecting their own interests, it's a fairly natural reaction. However I'd say we get the ding-dong because we have a two party system where Tory = cuts and Labour = cash. The net result is the blues will undertake reforms for efficiency whereas the reds will pretend to but just shovel more cash in. The NHS is Labour's politicised beast and until that link is broken it will always be a political football.
But there's no necessity about the Tories being the party of cuts to a particular service - at the moment the party is in the grip of a fair number of neolib ideologues but it's not always been the case. As others have pointed out recently, there's a fair argument that the current Conservative party is more of a radical/reform party with a classical Whig bent than anything that can be recognised as Conservative. The only thing that is Conservative about it is the use of establishment/aristocratic power structures to attempt to implement an extreme "democratising" reallocation of power away from the establishment and towards the owners of capital.
There's a better argument for the current Labour party being conservative, given that the agenda seems to be to oppose any change to the current social settlement - "I've seen a lot of changes in my time and I've opposed every one of them"...
"But there's no necessity about the Tories being the party of cuts to a particular service"
Given the blues have tended to come in to power after Labour's latest financial mess in the the post war period, I think "events" force them in to a position they might not wish to be in. It's actually quite new for the tories to ring fence NHS spending, and in the current circumstances probably a financial mistake made with political benefits.
Whilst not a fan of the NHS as a sacred cow - I think the move to ring-fence it was essential because of changing demographics/pharm costs. That doesn't mean that serious reform and cultural change isn't required in large chunks of it - but cutting without reform is just destructive - and its a third rail in politics that needed to be taken on one battle at a time.
The scandals at Stafford et al have just speeded up the process - and the Tories aren't wasting a crisis to push ahead on tackling the placemen/quangocracy mindset. I've just listened to the R5 phone-in re the CQC and bar one caller who wanted to make a political point re Evil Tories, the rest were genuinely concerned staff, relatives and patients who were worried.
@faisalislam If OBR right, then deficit (excl special stuff) will have increased two years on trot. 2011/12: £118.5bn. 12/13 £118.8bn. 13/14(f): £119.8bn
I suspect OBR will be wrong though and 13-14 deficit will be a good chunk lower than £119.8bn
Net borrowing reduced by £3.2 bn in May due to retrospective tax payments by Swiss Banks
No wonder David Cameron and Jeffrey Osborne led on offshore tax haven transparency at the G8!
Just read the "smallprint" and it appears this figure is an OBR forecast of future receipts rather than banked payments. Still it remains good news if realised.
May 2013 net borrowing includes an estimate of the one-off tax payments due to be received from Swiss banks. These payments are due to be made under a new tax cooperation agreement between the UK government and the Swiss authorities. The payments are currently estimated by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to be £3.2 billion and although the cash is anticipated to arrive over the coming year, under National Accounts rules the full cash amount is being accrued to May 2013 when the liability fell due. It should be noted that the £3.2 billion is the latest estimate and the final value of receipts may differ.
Some fantastic deficit reduction figures in May's Public Sector Finances released this morning.
Key figures
• This bulletin contains the third estimates of outturn for the 2012/13 public sector finances and the first estimates for May 2013. These estimates are updated throughout the year as finalised data are received from public sector bodies.
• In 2012/13, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions and also excluding the effects of the transfer of the Royal Mail Pension Plan and the transfers from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund was £118.8 billion. This is similar in level to 2011/12.
• In 2012/13, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions (PSNBex) was £85.0 billion. This is £33.5 billion lower than in 2011/12 when it was £118.5 billion.
• Since last month’s publication, 2012/13 public sector net borrowing has been revised down by £0.1 billion and 2011/12 public sector net borrowing down by £2.4 billion due to methodological and data improvements implemented this month.
• In May 2013, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions and also excluding the effects of the transfers from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund was £12.7 billion. This compares to a public sector net borrowing in May 2012 of £15.6 billion.
• In May 2013, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions (PSNBex) was £8.8 billion. This is £6.9 billion lower than in May 2012 when it was £15.6 billion.
• In May 2013, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions (PSNB ex) has been reduced by £3.9 billion from transfers from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund and by £3.2 billion from retrospective tax payments by Swiss banks.
• Public sector net debt ex temporary effects of financial interventions (PSND ex) was £1,189.2 billion at the end of May 2013, equivalent to 75.2% of gross domestic product (GDP).
The change in year 11/12 is not particularly helpful to George Osborne but £3.2bn from Swiss banks?? Wow. Looked at in the context of the current cuts that is a huge figure.
That tax agreement with Switzerland has paid off in a massive way. It will be interesting indeed to see if there are similar windfalls from the latest agreements with British Protectorates. I suspect there will be. They will also put downward pressure on the deficit figures.
Hugh Pym (@BBCHughPym) 21/06/2013 09:41 Embarrassment for George Osborne - borrowing ex special factors actually came in higher for 2012/13 than the previous year -after revisions.
"I used to work for CQC and its predecessor organisations, CSCI and CHI, even for a short period under David Behan in one of his previous incarnations. We used to carry out inspections in big teams including all sorts of medics and allied health professionals. On my first inspection with this outfit I discovered that one of the GPs I interviewed was claiming for 6000 non-existent patients - the practice nurse told me this.
At the same time my colleague couldn't interview a particular GP because he had been arrested for supplying Class A drugs. I thought this information should go in our final report but the inspection leader, a nurse manager from Lincolnshire, said we weren't about "catching people out" and in any case there wasn't a code for it. We were given a code sheet at the beginning of every inspection that included such twaddle as "clinical governance" and other BS terms. For those regular posters that don't believe this see my Flickr pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/2...
There wasn't a box for "fraud", "neglect", or "criminality" so none of that got reported. And people wonder how Harold Shipman got away with it for so long. I am now retired but I genuinely can say "I told you so" and I can prove I did. They should abolish CQC and replace it with the equivalent of Trip Advisor. The nuts and bolts regulation could be carried out by the local authority registration units, fire service and environmental health, as it used to be before all the New Labour "improvements". Far cheaper and more effective at representing the patient voice.
I didn't work for CHI, but was contracted by my (NHS) employer to assist with specific aspects of inspections on Care Homes. When I was there we discussed using tick boxes and codes, but the general opinion, in our team at least, was that they weren't appropriate. As the correspondent in the DT indicates, when one is "inspecting" one often turns up something which doesn't fit in the boxes, but which certainly warrants reporting. To be fair, we did feel that the main object of reporting was not to "catch people out", but to put a stop to poor practice and to share good ideas and methods. However, we certainly did carry out unannounced inspections at irregular times just to check that what we were being told was what was happening, and I recall finding a nurse manager in a home with his feet up watching the football on Saturday afternoon, claiming that he was writing up his notes and medication sheets from the morning, which had started at 8.30am! And no, there were no notes from which he was working.
The DT correspondent makes an interesting point about LA inspection teams. These were taken over at some point by the CHI because "all inspection should be carried out by one organisation". I'm not sure where Care Homes sit in the commissioning tree, but if LA's are commissioning services from Homes, the it would make sense for them to audit the services provided.
@faisalislam If OBR right, then deficit (excl special stuff) will have increased two years on trot. 2011/12: £118.5bn. 12/13 £118.8bn. 13/14(f): £119.8bn
I suspect OBR will be wrong though and 13-14 deficit will be a good chunk lower than £119.8bn
Ben,
I have a suspiscion that Blair's Cardiff-Clowns are as good at measurements as EADS. In an open-economy measuring the "real" economy is not as simple as ignoring the death-risks of the NHS (England) nor marry as well as German and French built fuselages. But as long as the right [sic] boxes are ticked nothing-else-matters....
Targets are not in themselves bad things if they were used to assess progress or indicate where there might be a need for more resources. But human nature being what it is, there are two insurmountable problems.
Firstly the figures are nearly always meaningless. they are usually met by whatever means are necessary so don't represent anything. And secondly when introduced by politicians, thEy can be guaranteed to be used purely for political ends, so accuracy is irrelevant anyway.
Targets pervert good practice in the name of headline figures. How can that ever be useful?
In the absence of targets, people follow their personal inclinations over priorities, which may variously be insights into what the situation needs, convenience, personal hobby-horses or what might impress peers. It's as illusory to think that people behave entirely intelligently and selflessly in their absence as it is to suggest that politicians are devoid of self-interest. It's not unreasonable for the Government to set out what it would like a public service to have as its priorities, in more than vague terms that people can acknowledge vaguely and then ignore.
Where it becomes pernicious is when the targets move from ends to means and/or are devoid of fleixibility. Limiting waiting time in A&E so that patients know what to expect seems to me a perfectly reasonable demand. However, if I'd waited 4 hours and was then told there was a life-or-death case that needed to jump ahead of me, I'd understand - so long as I was given the explanation.
Incidentally, when I worked for what is on several measures the most successful multinational pharma company in the world, targets were absolutely pervasive at every level, affecting not just promotion but also salaries, and subject to frequent review and discussion. It's the SOP for large organisations.
I have commented on here on many occasions about Osborne's drive to recover tax from tax havens and to attack aggressive tax avoidance. £3.2bn means that this one agreement alone is one of the biggest single contributions to tax recovery by a UK Chancellor ever.
Why was the last government so bad at this? I find it really strange. Brown was a master of stealth taxes (such as on dividend income in pension funds) and created hundreds of additional pages of tax code but, as with Working tax credits, seemed to have had no interest in recovering what, for the UK, is "free money". Should someone from a leftish background not have been even more morally affronted by this tax evasion than George obviously is?
It may be the desperation of the times. A government still borrowing over £100bn is inevitably going to turn the sofa upside down looking for the change but the figures being recovered here are astonishing.
"I used to work for CQC and its predecessor organisations, CSCI and CHI, even for a short period under David Behan in one of his previous incarnations. We used to carry out inspections in big teams including all sorts of medics and allied health professionals. On my first inspection with this outfit I discovered that one of the GPs I interviewed was claiming for 6000 non-existent patients - the practice nurse told me this.
At the same time my colleague couldn't interview a particular GP because he had been arrested for supplying Class A drugs. I thought this information should go in our final report but the inspection leader, a nurse manager from Lincolnshire, said we weren't about "catching people out" and in any case there wasn't a code for it. We were given a code sheet at the beginning of every inspection that included such twaddle as "clinical governance" and other BS terms. For those regular posters that don't believe this see my Flickr pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/2...
There wasn't a box for "fraud", "neglect", or "criminality" so none of that got reported. And people wonder how Harold Shipman got away with it for so long. I am now retired but I genuinely can say "I told you so" and I can prove I did. They should abolish CQC and replace it with the equivalent of Trip Advisor. The nuts and bolts regulation could be carried out by the local authority registration units, fire service and environmental health, as it used to be before all the New Labour "improvements". Far cheaper and more effective at representing the patient voice.
I didn't work for CHI, but was contracted by my (NHS) employer to assist with specific aspects of inspections on Care Homes. When I was there we discussed using tick boxes and codes, but the general opinion, in our team at least, was that they weren't appropriate. As the correspondent in the DT indicates, when one is "inspecting" one often turns up something which doesn't fit in the boxes, but which certainly warrants reporting. To be fair, we did feel that the main object of reporting was not to "catch people out", but to put a stop to poor practice and to share good ideas and methods. However, we certainly did carry out unannounced inspections at irregular times just to check that what we were being told was what was happening, and I recall finding a nurse manager in a home with his feet up watching the football on Saturday afternoon, claiming that he was writing up his notes and medication sheets from the morning, which had started at 8.30am! And no, there were no notes from which he was working.
The DT correspondent makes an interesting point about LA inspection teams. These were taken over at some point by the CHI because "all inspection should be carried out by one organisation". I'm not sure where Care Homes sit in the commissioning tree, but if LA's are commissioning services from Homes, the it would make sense for them to audit the services provided.
The CQC were responsible for the Winterborne home that ended up as a Panorama scandal and staff prosecuted. The CQC knew about the issues before Panorama exposed them but didn't bother to investigate them and subsequently described it as 'an unforgivable error of judgement".
I'm a conservative - but I wouldn't want to live in a country where even half of those measures were law.
It seems very reactionary - I read it twice to make sure Guido wasn't taking the mick. I still can't quite believe what I read. I'd love to know what Bone & Hollobone's constituents would make of it.
I found this rather counter-intuitive. Surely a DPM is there to do this [though its a paper tiger of a title as VP is to POTUS]
28. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Abolition) Mr Peter Bone Bill to make provision for the abolition of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and its responsibilities to be allocated to other Departments of State.
29. Prime Minister (Replacement) Mr Peter Bone Bill to make provision for the appointment of a Prime Minister in the event that a Prime Minister is temporarily or permanently incapacitated.
I'm a conservative - but I wouldn't want to live in a country where even half of those measures were law.
It seems very reactionary - I read it twice to make sure Guido wasn't taking the mick. I still can't quite believe what I read. I'd love to know what Bone & Hollobone's constituents would make of it.
I found this rather counter-intuitive. Surely a DPM is there to do this [though its a paper tiger of a title as VP is to POTUS]
28. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Abolition) Mr Peter Bone Bill to make provision for the abolition of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and its responsibilities to be allocated to other Departments of State.
29. Prime Minister (Replacement) Mr Peter Bone Bill to make provision for the appointment of a Prime Minister in the event that a Prime Minister is temporarily or permanently incapacitated.
Reading between the lines, I suspect even Guido was a little startled
"Incidentally, when I worked for what is on several measures the most successful multinational pharma company in the world, targets were absolutely pervasive at every level, affecting not just promotion but also salaries, and subject to frequent review and discussion. It's the SOP for large organisations."
I worked for two pharma companies, one being Swiss and rather well-known, where I had fifteen happy years. But targets hadn't yet become pervasive (not at my level anyway), just making up hours worked and assigning them to specific drug candidates didn't take long.
The big difference was in the nineties when I worked in a scientific capacity in the Civil Service. Once Tony arrived, it became the be-all and end-all.
Incidentally, when I were 'lad, I worked in a London teaching hospital for a couple of years without targets. Improvements were possible but I still can't see a target-culture improving things. They're a nice idea in theory but in practice - you give the chance for those pesky people who use the system for their own ends to advance.
And never let gremlins near water or politicians near targets. Yourself excepted, of course.
I'm a conservative - but I wouldn't want to live in a country where even half of those measures were law.
Frankly, as a conservative, I think it's a shocking waste of parliamentary time and resources. How idiotic and out of touch do these 4 MPs have to be to think that a pressing need of the British people is BBC privatisation? Still at least the 40 odd bills put forward largely avoid trivial issues like the economy, health and education.
£3.2bn means that this one agreement alone is one of the biggest single contributions to tax recovery by a UK Chancellor ever.
Why was the last government so bad at this?
Wont the Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility (dating from the time the last Government was in charge) bring in a very similar yield? What was so bad about that?
31. Asylum (Time Limit) Mr Peter Bone, on behalf of Mr Christopher Chope
Bill to require that asylum claims in the United Kingdom be lodged within three months of the claimant’s arrival in the United Kingdom; and that persons who have already entered the United Kingdom and wish to make an asylum claim must do so within three months of the passing of this Act.
Months? Minutes may be too harsh but within three hours of arrival is IMHO very acceptable to all parties....
The proposed legislation - including the stupid DPM/Incapacitated-PM ones - would make an interesting thread. But Our 'Enery is booked for this afternoon, no....?
@faisalislam If OBR right, then deficit (excl special stuff) will have increased two years on trot. 2011/12: £118.5bn. 12/13 £118.8bn. 13/14(f): £119.8bn
I suspect OBR will be wrong though and 13-14 deficit will be a good chunk lower than £119.8bn
Ben
This is a very silly discussion.
The figures being discussed are the "pluperfect subjunctive" deficit: i.e. a calculation of what net debt would have been if a whole stream of non-recurring events either had or had not occurred.
Journalists should focus on the real book values of net debt (PSND ex) and report the figure of £85 bn for 2012-13.
And then the journalists can, if they wish, explain what is non-recurring and what is current borrowing. These non-recurring items are now a very long and growing list and just confuse everyone.
Even if you do account for all of them, this would not lead to a true measurement of current account borrowing. For example PSND ex includes movements in borrowing due to central government capital investments which are properly excluded from the "Cyclically Adjusted Current Budget", The CACB is the metric used to set the Primary Fiscal Mandate and is the main focus of the OBR.
And all the ONS 'ex' measurements exclude most transactions relating to the intervened banks which are going to be highly relevant to the country's net debt position over the next two years.
And on top of all this we are looking a accrued borrowing figures rather than cash borrowing which in the end is what the government pay interest on. The difference between accrued borrowing (what the books tell us) and cash borrowing (what the 'bank balances' tell us is illustrated perfectly by the paragraph I quoted upthread on booking OBR's estimate of receipts from Swiss Banks.
The real story of today's figures are very clear. Net borrowing is being reduced at a much faster rate than expected and last forecast by the OBR. Regardless of one's political party identification, this is good news for the UK especially given the current status of the global economy.
Tory tactical voting should pick up as people realize it's an option. A lot of people won't realize it's an option in their area until after the first time.
global warming article
"If this is true, then the public has been systematically deceived. As it has been presented to the public, the scientific consensus extended precisely to that which is now seems to be in question: the sensitivity of global temperature to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Indeed, if the consensus had been only that greenhouse gases have some warming effect, there would have been no obvious policy implications at all."
Zactly zo. Shame the vote on the economic suicide bill didn't come now rather than five years ago.
" The figures being discussed are the "pluperfect subjunctive" deficit: i.e. a calculation of what net debt would be if a whole stream of non-recurring events either had or had not occurred."
It was Margaret Thatcher Day that had me rolling my eyes - it sounds rather like the sort of thing the Politburo would do for one of their leaders. Naming holidays after politicians is a complete No-No in my book.
" The figures being discussed are the "pluperfect subjunctive" deficit: i.e. a calculation of what net debt would be if a whole stream of non-recurring events either had or had not occurred."
Dear me - that's £30k of money that could be spent elsewhere... on the list of things I want to do before I die - texting a lamp post isn't one of them.
"Pan Studios are using a £30,000 grant to bring Bristol's urban landscape to life with their scheme.
Company boss Ben Barker said: 'We have been developing the game mechanics and finessing conversation styles of the text messages.
'We hope it will inspire Bristolians to converse and play with their street furniture [that's post boxes, lamp posts etc] - and ultimately each other, as they'll get to discover more about other passers-by in their vicinity.
It was Margaret Thatcher Day that had me rolling my eyes - it sounds rather like the sort of thing the Politburo would do for one of their leaders. Naming holidays after politicians is a complete No-No in my book.
Indeed Plato. I consider every day that I work hard and earn an honest living to be Margaret Thatcher Day! The last thing the Iron Lady would want is people remembering her by slacking off on holiday!
" The figures being discussed are the "pluperfect subjunctive" deficit: i.e. a calculation of what net debt would be if a whole stream of non-recurring events either had or had not occurred."
LOL
The Romans, having been about to attack....
Or perhaps as Peter Bone would say...
Centurion: What's this thing? "ROMANES EUNT DOMUS"? "People called Romanes they go the house?"
Brian: It... it says "Romans go home".
Centurion: No it doesn't. What's Latin for "Roman"?
Brian hesitates
Centurion: Come on, come on!
Brian: (uncertain) "ROMANUS".
Centurion: Goes like?
Brian: "-ANUS".
Centurion: Vocative plural of "-ANUS" is?
Brian: "-ANI".
Centurion: (takes paintbrush from Brian and paints over) "RO-MA-NI". "EUNT"? What is "EUNT"?
I think anyone reading that list should review their assessment of how well Cameron has done to keep his government functioning with a sensible program. It also shows, yet again, how the tory leadership found themselves much more comfortable negotiating with the Lib Dems than some of their own party.
The solution to Tim's point is obviously a Conservative government with a large majority, not a small one.
And the Roman's video - I still think its the funniest bit of Python - classical classicist, absurd and the witlessness of the man in uniform. And did everyone have a Latin teacher like that? I did - she was a fearsome battleship called Mrs Sockett.
The funniest - as in weirdest - thing that could happen with UKIP is with Tory tactical votes they win in Labour areas while at the same time Labour win in the leafy areas through UKIP taking half the Tory vote so you get UKIP Rotherham and Labour Surrey.
£3.2bn means that this one agreement alone is one of the biggest single contributions to tax recovery by a UK Chancellor ever.
Why was the last government so bad at this?
Wont the Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility (dating from the time the last Government was in charge) bring in a very similar yield? What was so bad about that?
Although the Liechtenstein disclosure facility was initially agreed in 2009 it was only when the mechanics of double taxation agreements etc were finalised that it could become operative. The details of the dates are on here if you are interested: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/disclosure/liechtenstein-disclosure.htm
Still, I accept that at least the initial work was done under the last government.
Edit. I am not sure what this has realised. It would be interesting to find out if anyone has a handle on it. Further edit, it is on the site and the figures are here:http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/disclosure/ldf-yield.pdf Payments started this year in April and, whilst being very worthwhile are not on the same scale.
The funniest - as in weirdest - thing that could happen with UKIP is with Tory tactical votes they win in Labour areas while at the same time Labour win in the leafy areas through UKIP taking half the Tory vote so you get UKIP Rotherham and Labour Surrey.
The country of my youth where Conservatives had a respectable number of seats in Scotland and Labour had similar representation in the south of England outside London was a much healthier demos, at least in that respect, than we have now. The geographical polarisation of the main parties' support is not in the national interest and has probably been the biggest single factor in driving support for independence in Scotland.
If your scenario came to pass it would be a good thing.
Still, I accept that at least the initial work was done under the last government.
So maybe they werent as bad at this kind of thing as you claimed. And the latest estimates for the yield that I have seen have grown to be the same as the yield just banked for the Swiss deal. So Osborne's contribution maybe not as unique as you claimed.
Actually I think it's ridiculous to try to make party political capital out of this. Tax authorities clamp down on tax avoidance when they can. The idea that Labour refused to do this while George Osborne heroically jumped into the breach is silly.
" Actually I think it's ridiculous to try to make party political capital out of this. Tax authorities clamp down on tax avoidance when they can. The idea that Labour refused to do this while George Osborne heroically jumped into the breach is silly. "
It is neither "silly" nor "ridiculous" , it's a historical and political fact.
The country of my youth where Conservatives had a respectable number of seats in Scotland and Labour had similar representation in the south of England outside London was a much healthier demos, at least in that respect, than we have now.
'Ang-about gov! I think you're ten-or-so years older than me. Your teens were wasted in the late-Seventies/early-'Eighties, no? Why should this English "Thatcher-son" care about those memories considering the pain we have had to endure to fix them?
And your frecking country-men did the same again, with glee, in the 'Naughties! Begone, and do it expediantly: Enough...!
Last week it was the climate loons. This week the Euro knobbers. Excellent! Ridicule is one weapon the tragically self important seem powerless to defend against.
Maybe next week it'll be Obama. Or Clegg. Or ...oh god...the potential list is endless. He has a job for life!
Watching the labour supporters confusion over CQC really is funny. They don't know whether to attack or support what Hunt is doing. They can't decide what the 'line' should be.
The funniest - as in weirdest - thing that could happen with UKIP is with Tory tactical votes they win in Labour areas while at the same time Labour win in the leafy areas through UKIP taking half the Tory vote so you get UKIP Rotherham and Labour Surrey.
Wow, can you imagine the wailing and the gnashing of the teeth if that happened. It would be great fun to listen in on constituency surgeries though.
" Actually I think it's ridiculous to try to make party political capital out of this. Tax authorities clamp down on tax avoidance when they can. The idea that Labour refused to do this while George Osborne heroically jumped into the breach is silly. "
It is neither "silly" nor "ridiculous" , it's a historical and political fact.
The LDF was several years in negotiation and (to pick a random historical doc) was the subject of the August 2009 first joint declaration
It's amazing the influence that Osborne seems to have had over several years as shadow CofE, heroically negotiating the LDF against the opposition of the then Labour CofE and PM.
Obviously the Swiss facility was under negotiation then too.
Apologies for being "silly" and "ridiculous" - I'm sure that document is somehow not a fact, whether historical or political.
As a tax adviser, I've seen no real difference in approaches to avoidance between successive governments. All of them try and implement anti-avoidance policies against egregious schemes, all of them tend to get it a bit wrong and create new opportunities. Of course, one of the most effective measures was the Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes, introduced by one G Brown. A nom de plume of Mr Osborne, no doubt.
The funniest - as in weirdest - thing that could happen with UKIP is with Tory tactical votes they win in Labour areas while at the same time Labour win in the leafy areas through UKIP taking half the Tory vote so you get UKIP Rotherham and Labour Surrey.
Wow, can you imagine the wailing and the gnashing of the teeth if that happened. It would be great fun to listen in on constituency surgeries though.
@ianbirrell Alternative Queen's speech even more tragic when you see full list of bills. What century are these people living in? http://bit.ly/14myI7C
One of the most unsavoury aspects of CQC et al is gagging orders.
ConHome quotes the Mail that an astonishing 28 million pounds has been paid out to buy the silence of more than 1000 whistle blowers since the coalition took power.
Alternative Queen's speech even more tragic when you see full list of bills.
Surely the most tragic thing is the fact they camped out for days in order to clog up Parliament with this nonsense. Like middle-aged women before Boxing Day sales, Henmaniacs at Wimbledon or Beliebers at a concert venue. And all for Margaret Thatcher Day. Sad really.
Still, I accept that at least the initial work was done under the last government.
So maybe they werent as bad at this kind of thing as you claimed. And the latest estimates for the yield that I have seen have grown to be the same as the yield just banked for the Swiss deal. So Osborne's contribution maybe not as unique as you claimed.
Actually I think it's ridiculous to try to make party political capital out of this. Tax authorities clamp down on tax avoidance when they can. The idea that Labour refused to do this while George Osborne heroically jumped into the breach is silly.
I have now given the figures and they are not equivalent. I do think there has been a step change in priorities here as we saw being acknowledged at the G8 by politicians from around the world, not just in this country.
It has also been Osborne who has introduced the GAAR although we will need to see what the effect of that is in practice. This has been combined with a fairly vigorous challenge on the alleged distinction between tax evasion and tax avoidance. In law there is an important difference but this government has been clear that in morality, not so much. Those who manage their affairs to pay less expect others to pick up the baton. It is ultimately selfish.
Not a bad result. 4.8 against the Conservatives 7.7. At the GE UKIP were 3.5% nationally.
Ya think? NF obviously disagrees with you.
'Farage said he expected Ukip to produce its best ever Scottish parliamentary performance by retaining its deposit and also overtaking either the Tories or Liberal Democrats to claim fourth place in the poll, as his party built up momentum in Scottish politics.'
Comments
:eejit-watch:
It is now well known that Tony Blair et al put into office so many placemen in all sorts of quangos, pseudo-public sector bodies, trusts etc that with the main focus on the economic disaster bequeathed by GB, it would time for all the rotten apples to be revealed.
Any public body that is dominated by one political party to the extent that it can falsify records and suppress effective scrutiny (including whistle blowers) is extremely unhealthy and is not fit for purpose. When those same bodies use nepotism during recruitment the rotting apples start to stink.
The bad smell is now apparent and it is highly likely that more scandals regarding bodies set up by Labour for its own controlling interest and political purposes will be revealed.
It is naive to expect that a new government once in office will detect immediately or quickly these errant (if not corrupt) bodies - it takes time for the rot to stink and be apparent
A commenter on Guardian's CiF made a rather withering observation: that the CQC was just a dressing up exercise meant to promote Labour's management of the NHS rather than regulate the service and expose wrongdoing (echoes of the doomed Financial Services Authority?).
I find it impossible to argue against that.
perhaps in the wake of the recent scandals someone will commission new polls.
Do you think the CQC cover up would have come out under Andy Burnham?
"• Internal emails disclosed that Miss Bower refused to co-operate with police inquiries into the Morecambe Bay scandal, six weeks before attending the meeting where the order was allegedly given to delete critical evidence.
Concerns about Furness General Hospital maternity unit came to light in 2008, but the CQC gave the Morecambe Bay trust, which runs the hospital, the all-clear in 2010.
The deaths of 16 babies at the trust are now being investigated by Cumbria Police. "
Some fantastic deficit reduction figures in May's Public Sector Finances released this morning.
Key figures
• This bulletin contains the third estimates of outturn for the 2012/13 public sector finances and the first estimates for May 2013. These estimates are updated throughout the year as finalised data are received from public sector bodies.
• In 2012/13, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions and also excluding the effects of the transfer of the Royal Mail Pension Plan and the transfers from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund was £118.8 billion. This is similar in level to 2011/12.
• In 2012/13, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions (PSNBex) was £85.0 billion. This is £33.5 billion lower than in 2011/12 when it was £118.5 billion.
• Since last month’s publication, 2012/13 public sector net borrowing has been revised down by £0.1 billion and 2011/12 public sector net borrowing down by £2.4 billion due to methodological and data improvements implemented this month.
• In May 2013, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions and also excluding the effects of the transfers from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund was £12.7 billion. This compares to a public sector net borrowing in May 2012 of £15.6 billion.
• In May 2013, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions (PSNBex) was £8.8 billion. This is £6.9 billion lower than in May 2012 when it was £15.6 billion.
• In May 2013, public sector net borrowing excluding temporary effects of financial interventions (PSNB ex) has been reduced by £3.9 billion from transfers from the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund and by £3.2 billion from retrospective tax payments by Swiss banks.
• Public sector net debt ex temporary effects of financial interventions (PSND ex) was £1,189.2 billion at the end of May 2013, equivalent to 75.2% of gross domestic product (GDP).
"David Behan, the chief executive of CQC said last month that the departures of almost all his executives in a restructuring had nothing to do with the failings regarding Morecambe Bay, or any cover-up linked to it.
He made the comments in a legal letter which threatened to sue for libel over criticism of the team, after the Daily Telegraph described how five of the six executives on the team walked away with redundancy payments of up to £200,000 each ahead of the damning report,
In the letter, sent on May 2, Mr Behan lavished praise on the directors, who he said had “given a tremendous amount to the CQC over the past four years. Their guidance and leadership has been crucial in setting our new strategy,” he said.
He said it was “disappointing” that The Telegraph had linked their departure with the then impending report which was published on Wednesday. He added: “That link, which I believe was intentional, cannot be responsible journalism.”
This week’s report into the CQC’s failure to prevent a the Morecambe Bay maternity describes the involvement of several of the directors in orchestrating a cover-up. Among the executives named yesterday were Jill Finney, the organisation’s deputy chief executive, who ordered the destruction of evidence of its failure to prevent the maternity deaths scandal, the report said.
A spokesman for the CQC said: "That letter was sent before we had received the Grant Thornton report which shows that whatever contribution these individuals have made in the past, unacceptable behaviour has now come to light which we cannot condone. " ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10133561/New-CQC-chief-threatened-to-sue-after-we-exposed-failings.html
It's something he and the Labour Party will have to do.
Nick Palmer, for example, I note, is still singing from the TB/GB best of all possible worlds hymnsheet. EdM will have to communicate to his back benchers (and PPCs) that this story will need significant modification.
I think we agree that we should have a model of smaller local chronic care / convalesence homes plus centres of expertise in the key specialties. I'm not a fan of polyclincs, though, because in my view the GP-patient relationship is critical (even in a multi-GP practice). Polyclinics seem a little industrialised: to my mind working knowledge of the patient's history / ability to ask the lead GP directly is more important because GP issues are rarely time critical.
A+E I haven't done a proper assessment of. Key issue is time though - I would have thought the answer is to invest in the paramedics (I like first responders) and the ambulance service and then you can possibly create larger and more effective A+E facilities. Arguably, even if co-located, these could/should be independently managed from the hospitals because the managerial requirements are very different
No wonder David Cameron and Jeffrey Osborne led on offshore tax haven transparency at the G8!
"I used to work for CQC and its predecessor organisations, CSCI and CHI, even for a short period under David Behan in one of his previous incarnations. We used to carry out inspections in big teams including all sorts of medics and allied health professionals. On my first inspection with this outfit I discovered that one of the GPs I interviewed was claiming for 6000 non-existent patients - the practice nurse told me this.
At the same time my colleague couldn't interview a particular GP because he had been arrested for supplying Class A drugs. I thought this information should go in our final report but the inspection leader, a nurse manager from Lincolnshire, said we weren't about "catching people out" and in any case there wasn't a code
for it. We were given a code sheet at the beginning of every inspection that included such twaddle as "clinical governance" and other BS terms. For those regular posters that don't believe this see my Flickr pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/2...
There wasn't a box for "fraud", "neglect", or "criminality" so none of that got reported. And people wonder how Harold Shipman got away with it for so long. I am now retired but I genuinely can say "I told you so" and I can prove I did. They should abolish CQC and replace it with the equivalent of Trip Advisor. The nuts and bolts regulation could be carried out by the local authority registration units, fire service and environmental health, as it used to be before all the New Labour "improvements". Far cheaper and more effective at representing the patient voice.
By the way, if anyone from the Daily Telegraph is reading this you might also ask whether Mrs Anna Jefferson is related to Alan Jefferson, North West Regional manager for CQC who just happens to live in the Morecambe Bay area. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10133561/New-CQC-chief-threatened-to-sue-after-we-exposed-failings.html#comment-937242433
12-13 borrowing was revised down a bit, but so was 11-12 (by more) so it seems borrowing went up last year.
And the month's figure is flattered by APF and retrospective tax receipts from Switzerland.
Difficult to argue that isn't good news.
@BBCHughPym
Embarrassment for George Osborne - borrowing ex special factors actually came in higher for 2012/13 than the previous year -after revisions.
P.S. Nice "rich-text" toolbar. Is this new...?
There's a better argument for the current Labour party being conservative, given that the agenda seems to be to oppose any change to the current social settlement - "I've seen a lot of changes in my time and I've opposed every one of them"...
It's official: deficit in 2012/13 was HIGHER than the previous year. £118.7bn vs £118.5bn in 2011/12. That's after excluding distortions
I'm going to call this as it is. A WASH.
Count underway also in Edinburgh Liberton/Gilmerton ward.
And we are waiting for the Boltons in Allerdale too
http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2013/june/private-members-ballot-bills-first-reading-19-june-2013/
Remember when it was triple dip time ? The double never even happened.
Given the blues have tended to come in to power after Labour's latest financial mess in the the post war period, I think "events" force them in to a position they might not wish to be in. It's actually quite new for the tories to ring fence NHS spending, and in the current circumstances probably a financial mistake made with political benefits.
Revisions
2012-13 Net borrowing revised down £0.1 bn
2011-12 Net borrowing revised down £2.4 bn
Confirmations
2012-13 Net borrowing down £33.5 bn on year
2012-13 Net borrowing excluding non-recurring items and financial interventions (bank bailouts) below 2011-12 @ £118.5 bn
May 2013
Net borrowing excluding non-recurring items and financial interventions down £2.9 bn on the month: an annual borrowing reduction rate of circa £35 bn and nearly a billion better than last month.
Actual net borrowing down £6.9 bn on month (i.e. including non-recurring items but excluding financial interventions).
Non recurring net borrowing down £3.9 billion from transfers from the Bank of England and by £3.2 billion from retrospective tax payments by Swiss banks.
Mr. Brooke, only an Olympic medal winner in misanthropy could not fail to agree that these are very, very good deficit reduction figures. At a rate of £6.9 million net borrowing reduction per month, the PSNB ex deficit would be paid off in 13 months!
In March of this year the OBR were forecasting it would take until 2016-17 before this metric of deficit would be paid down.
Wee-Timmy: Down to you now son....
Before anyone points out the obvious, the Labour party of late has been dedicated to doing much the same thing, just a bit more slowly. Or "conservatively"...
The scandals at Stafford et al have just speeded up the process - and the Tories aren't wasting a crisis to push ahead on tackling the placemen/quangocracy mindset. I've just listened to the R5 phone-in re the CQC and bar one caller who wanted to make a political point re Evil Tories, the rest were genuinely concerned staff, relatives and patients who were worried.
2011-12 Net borrowing revised down £2.4 bn"
GO failed last year because it turns out he was even better the year before.
Timmy-Conway logic.
One off Receipts not in forecast:
- APF 3.9bn
- Swiss 3.2bn
Total 7.1bn
May 13 > May 12 0.2bn
@faisalislam
If OBR right, then deficit (excl special stuff) will have increased two years on trot. 2011/12: £118.5bn. 12/13 £118.8bn. 13/14(f): £119.8bn
I suspect OBR will be wrong though and 13-14 deficit will be a good chunk lower than £119.8bn
May 2013 net borrowing includes an estimate of the one-off tax payments due to be received from Swiss banks. These payments are due to be made under a new tax cooperation agreement between the UK government and the Swiss authorities. The payments are currently estimated by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to be £3.2 billion and although the cash is anticipated to arrive over the coming year, under National Accounts rules the full cash amount is being accrued to May 2013 when the liability fell due. It should be noted that the £3.2 billion is the latest estimate and the final value of receipts may differ.
That tax agreement with Switzerland has paid off in a massive way. It will be interesting indeed to see if there are similar windfalls from the latest agreements with British Protectorates. I suspect there will be. They will also put downward pressure on the deficit figures.
21/06/2013 09:41
Embarrassment for George Osborne - borrowing ex special factors actually came in higher for 2012/13 than the previous year -after revisions.
To be fair, we did feel that the main object of reporting was not to "catch people out", but to put a stop to poor practice and to share good ideas and methods. However, we certainly did carry out unannounced inspections at irregular times just to check that what we were being told was what was happening, and I recall finding a nurse manager in a home with his feet up watching the football on Saturday afternoon, claiming that he was writing up his notes and medication sheets from the morning, which had started at 8.30am! And no, there were no notes from which he was working.
The DT correspondent makes an interesting point about LA inspection teams. These were taken over at some point by the CHI because "all inspection should be carried out by one organisation". I'm not sure where Care Homes sit in the commissioning tree, but if LA's are commissioning services from Homes, the it would make sense for them to audit the services provided.
It'd warm the cockles of DT readers' hearts.
I have a suspiscion that Blair's Cardiff-Clowns are as good at measurements as EADS. In an open-economy measuring the "real" economy is not as simple as ignoring the death-risks of the NHS (England) nor marry as well as German and French built fuselages. But as long as the right [sic] boxes are ticked nothing-else-matters....
Where it becomes pernicious is when the targets move from ends to means and/or are devoid of fleixibility. Limiting waiting time in A&E so that patients know what to expect seems to me a perfectly reasonable demand. However, if I'd waited 4 hours and was then told there was a life-or-death case that needed to jump ahead of me, I'd understand - so long as I was given the explanation.
Incidentally, when I worked for what is on several measures the most successful multinational pharma company in the world, targets were absolutely pervasive at every level, affecting not just promotion but also salaries, and subject to frequent review and discussion. It's the SOP for large organisations.
Why was the last government so bad at this? I find it really strange. Brown was a master of stealth taxes (such as on dividend income in pension funds) and created hundreds of additional pages of tax code but, as with Working tax credits, seemed to have had no interest in recovering what, for the UK, is "free money". Should someone from a leftish background not have been even more morally affronted by this tax evasion than George obviously is?
It may be the desperation of the times. A government still borrowing over £100bn is inevitably going to turn the sofa upside down looking for the change but the figures being recovered here are astonishing.
IIRC that was a private care home paid for by the LA. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-20078999
Pic from Milton Keynes count
https://twitter.com/DavidLewis1952/status/348006394202570753/photo/1
Given the turnout, the total votes cast should be just over 3,200. I assume the bundles allocated so far are made up of 100 votes, right?
I found this rather counter-intuitive. Surely a DPM is there to do this [though its a paper tiger of a title as VP is to POTUS]
28. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Abolition) Mr Peter Bone
Bill to make provision for the abolition of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and its responsibilities to be allocated to other Departments of State.
29. Prime Minister (Replacement) Mr Peter Bone
Bill to make provision for the appointment of a Prime Minister in the event that a Prime Minister is temporarily or permanently incapacitated.
"Incidentally, when I worked for what is on several measures the most successful multinational pharma company in the world, targets were absolutely pervasive at every level, affecting not just promotion but also salaries, and subject to frequent review and discussion. It's the SOP for large organisations."
I worked for two pharma companies, one being Swiss and rather well-known, where I had fifteen happy years. But targets hadn't yet become pervasive (not at my level anyway), just making up hours worked and assigning them to specific drug candidates didn't take long.
The big difference was in the nineties when I worked in a scientific capacity in the Civil Service. Once Tony arrived, it became the be-all and end-all.
Incidentally, when I were 'lad, I worked in a London teaching hospital for a couple of years without targets. Improvements were possible but I still can't see a target-culture improving things. They're a nice idea in theory but in practice - you give the chance for those pesky people who use the system for their own ends to advance.
And never let gremlins near water or politicians near targets. Yourself excepted, of course.
The one I find most offensive is: Months? Minutes may be too harsh but within three hours of arrival is IMHO very acceptable to all parties....
The proposed legislation - including the stupid DPM/Incapacitated-PM ones - would make an interesting thread. But Our 'Enery is booked for this afternoon, no....?
This is a very silly discussion.
The figures being discussed are the "pluperfect subjunctive" deficit: i.e. a calculation of what net debt would have been if a whole stream of non-recurring events either had or had not occurred.
Journalists should focus on the real book values of net debt (PSND ex) and report the figure of £85 bn for 2012-13.
And then the journalists can, if they wish, explain what is non-recurring and what is current borrowing. These non-recurring items are now a very long and growing list and just confuse everyone.
Even if you do account for all of them, this would not lead to a true measurement of current account borrowing. For example PSND ex includes movements in borrowing due to central government capital investments which are properly excluded from the "Cyclically Adjusted Current Budget", The CACB is the metric used to set the Primary Fiscal Mandate and is the main focus of the OBR.
And all the ONS 'ex' measurements exclude most transactions relating to the intervened banks which are going to be highly relevant to the country's net debt position over the next two years.
And on top of all this we are looking a accrued borrowing figures rather than cash borrowing which in the end is what the government pay interest on. The difference between accrued borrowing (what the books tell us) and cash borrowing (what the 'bank balances' tell us is illustrated perfectly by the paragraph I quoted upthread on booking OBR's estimate of receipts from Swiss Banks.
The real story of today's figures are very clear. Net borrowing is being reduced at a much faster rate than expected and last forecast by the OBR. Regardless of one's political party identification, this is good news for the UK especially given the current status of the global economy.
global warming article
"If this is true, then the public has been systematically deceived. As it has been presented to the public, the scientific consensus extended precisely to that which is now seems to be in question: the sensitivity of global temperature to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Indeed, if the consensus had been only that greenhouse gases have some warming effect, there would have been no obvious policy implications at all."
Zactly zo. Shame the vote on the economic suicide bill didn't come now rather than five years ago.
Lab 1356
UKIP 855
Con 779
Green 277
LD 128
"
The figures being discussed are the "pluperfect subjunctive" deficit: i.e. a calculation of what net debt would be if a whole stream of non-recurring events either had or had not occurred."
LOL
It was Margaret Thatcher Day that had me rolling my eyes - it sounds rather like the sort of thing the Politburo would do for one of their leaders. Naming holidays after politicians is a complete No-No in my book.
Allen 277 (Green)
bailey 779, (Con)
khan 1356 (Lab)
peddle 855 (UKIP)
snell 128 (LD)
Awesome for Labour, dire for Tories
"Pan Studios are using a £30,000 grant to bring Bristol's urban landscape to life with their scheme.
Company boss Ben Barker said: 'We have been developing the game mechanics and finessing conversation styles of the text messages.
'We hope it will inspire Bristolians to converse and play with their street furniture [that's post boxes, lamp posts etc] - and ultimately each other, as they'll get to discover more about other passers-by in their vicinity.
'The more people take part the more fun for all.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2345212/Meet-lamp-posts-bus-stops-mind-Company-uses-new-technology-make-city-centre-landmarks-come-alive-chat-people.html#ixzz2WqJcfyjw
Centurion: What's this thing? "ROMANES EUNT DOMUS"? "People called Romanes they go the house?"
Brian: It... it says "Romans go home".
Centurion: No it doesn't. What's Latin for "Roman"?
Brian hesitates
Centurion: Come on, come on!
Brian: (uncertain) "ROMANUS".
Centurion: Goes like?
Brian: "-ANUS".
Centurion: Vocative plural of "-ANUS" is?
Brian: "-ANI".
Centurion: (takes paintbrush from Brian and paints over) "RO-MA-NI". "EUNT"? What is "EUNT"?
Brian: "Go".
Centurion: Conjugate the verb "to go"!
Brian: "IRE"; "EO", "IS", "IT", "IMUS", "ITIS", "EUNT".
Centurion: So "EUNT" is ...?
Brian: Third person plural present indicative, "they go".
Centurion: But "Romans, go home!" is an order, so you must use the ...?
He lifts Brian by his short hairs
Brian: The ... imperative.
Centurion: Which is?
Brian: Um, oh, oh, "I", "I"!
Centurion: How many Romans? (pulls harder)
Brian: Plural, plural! "ITE".
Centurion strikes over "EUNT" and paints "ITE" on the wall
Centurion: "I-TE". "DOMUS"? Nominative? "Go home", this is motion towards, isn't it, boy?
Brian: (very anxious) Dative?
Centurion draws his sword and holds it to Brian's throat
Brian: Ahh! No, ablative, ablative, sir. No, the, accusative, accusative, ah, DOMUM, sir.
Centurion: Except that "DOMUS" takes the ...?
Brian: ... the locative, sir!
Centurion: Which is?
Brian: "DOMUM".
Centurion: (satisfied) "DOMUM"...
He strikes out "DOMUS" and writes "DOMUM"
Centurian: ..."-MUM". Understand?
Brian: Yes sir.
Centurion: Now write it down a hundred times.
Brian: Yes sir, thank you sir, hail Caesar, sir.
Centurion: (saluting) Hail Caesar. If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.
Brian: (very relieved) Oh thank you sir, thank you sir, hail Caesar and everything, sir!
2012: Labour up a bit
2012: Tory 35% and UKIP 11% to 2013 c. 24% each
The solution to Tim's point is obviously a Conservative government with a large majority, not a small one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8
Still, I accept that at least the initial work was done under the last government.
Edit. I am not sure what this has realised. It would be interesting to find out if anyone has a handle on it. Further edit, it is on the site and the figures are here:http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/disclosure/ldf-yield.pdf Payments started this year in April and, whilst being very worthwhile are not on the same scale.
As my holiday expires I have the urge to be chillaxing. I'd even offer a paw of friendship to Lord-Justice LiaMT, Wee-Timmy and W.J. O'Kelly!
Indeed, the unholy alliance of your purrfect-self and that rag-a-bond Sven may choose to join in the furr-ball of cutiness....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp4Rv79gQW0
Well, I'm a generous kinda-guy (and this has nothing to do with me wasting time on YouTube)....
The country of my youth where Conservatives had a respectable number of seats in Scotland and Labour had similar representation in the south of England outside London was a much healthier demos, at least in that respect, than we have now. The geographical polarisation of the main parties' support is not in the national interest and has probably been the biggest single factor in driving support for independence in Scotland.
If your scenario came to pass it would be a good thing.
Actually I think it's ridiculous to try to make party political capital out of this. Tax authorities clamp down on tax avoidance when they can. The idea that Labour refused to do this while George Osborne heroically jumped into the breach is silly.
" Actually I think it's ridiculous to try to make party political capital out of this. Tax authorities clamp down on tax avoidance when they can. The idea that Labour refused to do this while George Osborne heroically jumped into the breach is silly. "
It is neither "silly" nor "ridiculous" , it's a historical and political fact.
And your frecking country-men did the same again, with glee, in the 'Naughties! Begone, and do it expediantly: Enough...!
Edited to add: Scotland :- GFYS!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100221695/wanted-a-new-circle-of-dantes-hell-for-the-fools-who-crippled-half-of-europe-with-their-idiot-currency/
Last week it was the climate loons. This week the Euro knobbers. Excellent! Ridicule is one weapon the tragically self important seem powerless to defend against.
Maybe next week it'll be Obama. Or Clegg. Or ...oh god...the potential list is endless. He has a job for life!
delicious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8Uzikag7Xo
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100222904/a-reminder-of-tory-backbench-rage/
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/international/joint-declaration-lich.pdf
It's amazing the influence that Osborne seems to have had over several years as shadow CofE, heroically negotiating the LDF against the opposition of the then Labour CofE and PM.
Obviously the Swiss facility was under negotiation then too.
Apologies for being "silly" and "ridiculous" - I'm sure that document is somehow not a fact, whether historical or political.
As a tax adviser, I've seen no real difference in approaches to avoidance between successive governments. All of them try and implement anti-avoidance policies against egregious schemes, all of them tend to get it a bit wrong and create new opportunities. Of course, one of the most effective measures was the Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes, introduced by one G Brown. A nom de plume of Mr Osborne, no doubt.
@ianbirrell
Alternative Queen's speech even more tragic when you see full list of bills. What century are these people living in? http://bit.ly/14myI7C
I'd be interested to see the break-down of the postal voting numbers for the Aberdeen Donside by-election.
ConHome quotes the Mail that an astonishing 28 million pounds has been paid out to buy the silence of more than 1000 whistle blowers since the coalition took power.
@Kevin_Maguire
Nigel "man of the people"* Farage and the tax-dodging offshore trust set up by Ukip's leader http://mirr.im/16kQ2v2 *Oh yeah!
It has also been Osborne who has introduced the GAAR although we will need to see what the effect of that is in practice. This has been combined with a fairly vigorous challenge on the alleged distinction between tax evasion and tax avoidance. In law there is an important difference but this government has been clear that in morality, not so much. Those who manage their affairs to pay less expect others to pick up the baton. It is ultimately selfish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=eBpYgpF1bqQ&NR=1
'Farage said he expected Ukip to produce its best ever Scottish parliamentary performance by retaining its deposit and also overtaking either the Tories or Liberal Democrats to claim fourth place in the poll, as his party built up momentum in Scottish politics.'
http://tinyurl.com/ob8vu7h