I wonder how much wine and expensive food was wasted at the "summit" in Malta. I don't think it comes as a surprise to anyone that absolutely nothing was achieved today. But at least out of touch bureaucrats and politicians had a good time.
Perhaps you could reveal your simple solution to a complex problem, I am sure sensible solutions are eagerly awaited.
"I would not start from here" is not a useful way to begin!
Large scale enforced repatriation. Refusal to accept any more migrants Increase the number of refugees being taken from the camps in Turkey and Jordan so people know they gave more chance of resettlement if they stay where they are than if they try to make the journey.
None of it is easy nor nice but right now Merkel's policy is killing more people. Just as we said it would.
Repatriation is difficult when countries refuse to take returners.
I am sure with all that "influence" the EU has they will be able to work something out. It would most probably be easier if Mandelson did not embark on a campaign of bullying and intimidating Africa.
While we have
Indeed, for anyone to have influence with a State, there has to be a state.
If there is no state, who is doing the refusing then?
Has any government anywhere successfully deported to these places? I remember a year or so we deported the Libyan army who were training in Cambridge, following sex attacks.
I think only a very brutal approach could reverse the flow. Life is pretty awful in most of these places.
The measures required are not going to be possible in any democratic society.
What do you think is going to happen to our democratic societies if unlimited numbers of desperate people from vastly different cultures and countries ridden with war and extremism are allowed in?
I am not encouraging them to come. You may recall that I have been fairly forthright in my opposition to mass immigration from outside the EU.
I was just annoyed at the asinine comment that the summit hadn't solved the problem in two days.
It is not an easy solution. Repeal of the refugee convention, or at least go back to the pre 67 convention that applied only to refugees from europe itself. Then there needs to be the sort of leverage you describe on african states, perhaps including an australian style off shore system.
What next complaining to the NHS that waiting lists are growing
Well in 2010 Gordon Brown said that the NHS now had enough money to run properly and could even undertake a 20 billion programme of efficiency savings. Since then the NHS budget has increased by 17 billion.
at this difficult time for patients Mr Owls you will doubtless be appalled by recent revelations of the naked greed of many senior NHS bosses.
Well I thought Tories understood market forces as Mr Sox said.
However it is ridiculous that the NHS is paying some bosses excessive sums.
I have had many offers to work at upwards of triple NHS rates including one of £600 a day, never taken them always worked for NHS rates.
Interesting email from the BMA today, they seem to have finally found their backbone.
1st Dec is emergency cover only, 8th Dec and 16th Dec will be all out. There were instructions for us non-striking grades too.
I think that like Scargill Mr Hunt has chosen a poor moment to provoke a strike.
Well, that's cheering. I have been undergoing a number of tests - some of them for possible cancer. I am still waiting for the results and now a new problem has arisen which will likely also need more tests. It is not easy waiting and wondering whether no news is good news or go away and write your will.
Still at least the BMA has found its backbone, even if others lose theirs, eh!
Repatriation is difficult when countries refuse to take returners.
I am sure with all that "influence" the EU has they will be able to work something out. It would most probably be easier if Mandelson did not embark on a campaign of bullying and intimidating Africa.
While we have possible leverage with some african countries we have very little with Libya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Eritrea. These are places where many originate.
Really? We are not paying for any aid to any of those countries. Is that really the case? No-one in Europe has any leverage with any of these countries, despite some of them being ex-colonies? Amazing. Where the hell is the aid budget being spent then?
We may wish to send them to other states instead. Whether that is practical is an open question.
I understand why they want to leave. But just because they want to come here does not mean we are obliged to accept them. We cannot be a refuge for the population of every single shithole country in the world. We simply can't. And if we were, Europe - the very Europe which is the attraction - would be destroyed.
So the question is who is let in and the numbers. And the rest will need to be shut out. That may sound brutal and blunt. But it's no more brutal than encouraging people to risk their lives coming here. And - bluntly - European governments owe their primary duty to their own citizens not to everyone else in the world.
They're entitled to refuge. Whether they get it here is a different matter.
Some of them may be refugees. Others plainly aren't and are entitled to nothing. Though they may want lots of things. "I want doesn't get" as my mother told me.
But if the number of refugees - even within the terms of the 1951 Convention - are overwhelming, then I think we may have to think the unthinkable and simply say that we can no longer operate under that regime. That even for genuine refugees there will have to be a numerical limit.
Or other countries - in Asia, Australasia, the US, South America, China - will have to take them. And how likely is that, do you suppose?
Matthew Parris made all these points 11 years ago, when he asked whether Europe could really take in millions of Middle Eastern people with a well-founded fear of persecution.
at this difficult time for patients Mr Owls you will doubtless be appalled by recent revelations of the naked greed of many senior NHS bosses.
Well I thought Tories understood market forces as Mr Sox said.
However it is ridiculous that the NHS is paying some bosses excessive sums.
I have had many offers to work at upwards of triple NHS rates including one of £600 a day, never taken them always worked for NHS rates.
Interesting email from the BMA today, they seem to have finally found their backbone.
1st Dec is emergency cover only, 8th Dec and 16th Dec will be all out. There were instructions for us non-striking grades too.
I think that like Scargill Mr Hunt has chosen a poor moment to provoke a strike.
Well, that's cheering. I have been undergoing a number of tests - some of them for possible cancer. I am still waiting for the results and now a new problem has arisen which will likely also need more tests. It is not easy waiting and wondering whether no news is good news or go away and write your will.
Still at least the BMA has found its backbone, even if others lose theirs, eh!
Mr Hunt can open negotiations if he wants to do so, but he seems to want a strike.
What next complaining to the NHS that waiting lists are growing
Well in 2010 Gordon Brown said that the NHS now had enough money to run properly and could even undertake a 20 billion programme of efficiency savings. Since then the NHS budget has increased by 17 billion.
So all is well
It's the 'Envy of the World'. Isn't that right?
Except in Wales.
Wales NHS is in a complete mess under Welsh Labour
Perhaps you could reveal your simple solution to a complex problem, I am sure sensible solutions are eagerly awaited.
"I would not start from here" is not a useful way to begin!
Large scale enforced repatriation. Refusal to accept any more migrants Increase the number of refugees being taken from the camps in Turkey and Jordan so people know they gave more chance of resettlement if they stay where they are than if they try to make the journey.
None of it is easy nor nice but right now Merkel's policy is killing more people. Just as we said it would.
Repatriation is difficult when countries refuse to take returners.
I am sure with all that "influence" the EU has they will be able to work something out. It would most probably be easier if Mandelson did not embark on a campaign of bullying and intimidating Africa.
While we have
Indeed, for anyone to have influence with a State, there has to be a state.
If there is no state, who is doing the refusing then?
Has any government anywhere successfully deported to these places? I remember a year or so we deported the Libyan army who were training in Cambridge, following sex attacks.
I think only a very brutal approach could reverse the flow. Life is pretty awful in most of these places.
The measures required are not going to be possible in any democratic society.
What do you think is going to happen to our democratic societies if unlimited numbers of desperate people from vastly different cultures and countries ridden with war and extremism are allowed in?
I am not encouraging them to come. You may recall that I have been fairly forthright in my opposition to mass immigration from outside the EU.
I was just annoyed at the asinine comment that the summit hadn't solved the problem in two days.
It is not an easy solution. Repeal of the refugee convention, or at least go back to the pre 67 convention that applied only to refugees from europe itself. Then there needs to be the sort of leverage you describe on african states, perhaps including an australian style off shore system.
It will be pretty brutal to enforce.
I'm no fan of meetings. They're the practical alternative to work. Same with summits I expect.
I wonder how much wine and expensive food was wasted at the "summit" in Malta. I don't think it comes as a surprise to anyone that absolutely nothing was achieved today. But at least out of touch bureaucrats and politicians had a good time.
Perhaps you could reveal your simple solution to a complex problem, I am sure sensible solutions are eagerly awaited.
"I would not start from here" is not a useful way to begin!
Large scale enforced repatriation. Refusal to accept any more migrants Increase the number of refugees being taken from the camps in Turkey and Jordan so people know they gave more chance of resettlement if they stay where they are than if they try to make the journey.
None of it is easy nor nice but right now Merkel's policy is killing more people. Just as we said it would.
Repatriation is difficult when countries refuse to take returners.
I am sure with all that "influence" the EU has they will be able to work something out. It would most probably be easier if Mandelson did not embark on a campaign of bullying and intimidating Africa.
While we have possible leverage with some african countries we have very little with Libya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Eritrea. These are places where many originate.
Indeed, for anyone to have influence with a State, there has to be a state.
If there is no state, who is doing the refusing then?
Has any government anywhere successfully deported to these places? I remember a year or so we deported the Libyan army who were training in Cambridge, following sex attacks.
I think only a very brutal approach could reverse the flow. Life is pretty awful in most of these places.
The measures required are not going to be possible in any democratic society.
IVSTR that the perpetrators had claimed asylum on the grounds that they would be persecuted. Although I may have misremembered.
I am not encouraging them to come. You may recall that I have been fairly forthright in my opposition to mass immigration from outside the EU.
I was just annoyed at the asinine comment that the summit hadn't solved the problem in two days.
It is not an easy solution. Repeal of the refugee convention, or at least go back to the pre 67 convention that applied only to refugees from europe itself. Then there needs to be the sort of leverage you describe on african states, perhaps including an australian style off shore system.
It will be pretty brutal to enforce.
The crisis has been going on for months now and countless meetings have been held with various politicians. This "summit" is just one meeting in a long list of meetings which have achieved nothing.
I had missed the fact, by the way, that Merkel has called for the reintroduction of the Dublin accords. So now that she has encouraged hundreds of thousands of migrants to come to Europe with the promise they will be welcome in Germany she is saying they should be sent back to the EU countries they pass through to get to Germany.
It is no wonder the Hungarians are so pissed off.
Presumably the other countries could retort by saying that since those migrants are already in a safe country (Germany) they have no need to leave it to come to their countries to claim asylum.
Merkel has behaved very stupidly. She may be supported by Germans but if she wanted to make this a European remedy then she ought to have consulted other European states first before opening her mouth. It serves her right if now they tell her to get stuffed.
I think Merkel will go down in history as one of the worst Western leaders of the earliest 21st Century.
A few months ago almost everyone agreed that she hadn't put a foot wrong in nearly a decade in office. How things can change so quickly.
at this difficult time for patients Mr Owls you will doubtless be appalled by recent revelations of the naked greed of many senior NHS bosses.
Well I thought Tories understood market forces as Mr Sox said.
However it is ridiculous that the NHS is paying some bosses excessive sums.
I have had many offers to work at upwards of triple NHS rates including one of £600 a day, never taken them always worked for NHS rates.
Interesting email from the BMA today, they seem to have finally found their backbone.
1st Dec is emergency cover only, 8th Dec and 16th Dec will be all out. There were instructions for us non-striking grades too.
I think that like Scargill Mr Hunt has chosen a poor moment to provoke a strike.
Well, that's cheering. I have been undergoing a number of tests - some of them for possible cancer. I am still waiting for the results and now a new problem has arisen which will likely also need more tests. It is not easy waiting and wondering whether no news is good news or go away and write your will.
Still at least the BMA has found its backbone, even if others lose theirs, eh!
Mr Hunt can open negotiations if he wants to do so, but he seems to want a strike.
That is rubbish. No one wants a strike but wait until the press identify the first death directly from the strike and see public sympathy disappear overnight.
at this difficult time for patients Mr Owls you will doubtless be appalled by recent revelations of the naked greed of many senior NHS bosses.
Well I thought Tories understood market forces as Mr Sox said.
However it is ridiculous that the NHS is paying some bosses excessive sums.
I have had many offers to work at upwards of triple NHS rates including one of £600 a day, never taken them always worked for NHS rates.
Interesting email from the BMA today, they seem to have finally found their backbone.
1st Dec is emergency cover only, 8th Dec and 16th Dec will be all out. There were instructions for us non-striking grades too.
I think that like Scargill Mr Hunt has chosen a poor moment to provoke a strike.
Well, that's cheering. I have been undergoing a number of tests - some of them for possible cancer. I am still waiting for the results and now a new problem has arisen which will likely also need more tests. It is not easy waiting and wondering whether no news is good news or go away and write your will.
Still at least the BMA has found its backbone, even if others lose theirs, eh!
Mr Hunt can open negotiations if he wants to do so, but he seems to want a strike.
It's not Mr Hunt who has to analyse the tests, give a diagnosis and come up with some solutions for me. It's the doctors. And if they're not working, then I have to wait longer. I have to hope that the delay will not matter.
I know that sometimes it can matter a great deal because, as I have said before (and apologies for saying it again but I feel strongly about the matter) when the junior doctors went on strike before (a long time ago) the effect was that my father's treatment for cancer was fatally delayed and he died, long before he should have.
And, frankly, with children still at home - the same age as I was when my father became ill, I'd really rather not go through this again.
I don't give two hoots about who started it, who's playing silly buggers about meetings or whatever. Lives are at stake and doctors have professional obligations. My father was a doctor and he would never have dreamt of doing anything to harm his patients.
Sorry: am probably too involved to comment sensibly. This is not a game and pointing fingers at Mr Hunt, however justified, does not really cut it with me. Some things are real.
"How Sweden, the most open country in the world, was overwhelmed by migrants Sweden used to pride itself on giving a warm welcome to outsiders. But as the refugee crisis grows, so too does its sense of injustice"
I had missed the fact, by the way, that Merkel has called for the reintroduction of the Dublin accords. So now that she has encouraged hundreds of thousands of migrants to come to Europe with the promise they will be welcome in Germany she is saying they should be sent back to the EU countries they pass through to get to Germany.
It is no wonder the Hungarians are so pissed off.
Presumably the other countries could retort by saying that since those migrants are already in a safe country (Germany) they have no need to leave it to come to their countries to claim asylum.
Merkel has behaved very stupidly. She may be supported by Germans but if she wanted to make this a European remedy then she ought to have consulted other European states first before opening her mouth. It serves her right if now they tell her to get stuffed.
I think Merkel will go down in history as one of the worst Western leaders of the earliest 21st Century.
A few months ago almost everyone agreed that she hadn't put a foot wrong in nearly a decade in office. How things can change so quickly.
at this difficult time for patients Mr Owls you will doubtless be appalled by recent revelations of the naked greed of many senior NHS bosses.
Well I thought Tories understood market forces as Mr Sox said.
However it is ridiculous that the NHS is paying some bosses excessive sums.
I have had many offers to work at upwards of triple NHS rates including one of £600 a day, never taken them always worked for NHS rates.
Interesting email from the BMA today, they seem to have finally found their backbone.
1st Dec is emergency cover only, 8th Dec and 16th Dec will be all out. There were instructions for us non-striking grades too.
I think that like Scargill Mr Hunt has chosen a poor moment to provoke a strike.
Well, that's cheering. I have been undergoing a number of tests - some of them for possible cancer. I am still waiting for the results and now a new problem has arisen which will likely also need more tests. It is not easy waiting and wondering whether no news is good news or go away and write your will.
Still at least the BMA has found its backbone, even if others lose theirs, eh!
Mr Hunt can open negotiations if he wants to do so, but he seems to want a strike.
That is rubbish. No one wants a strike but wait until the press identify the first death directly from the strike and see public sympathy disappear overnight.
The public will look at the extra cash poured into the NHS and the Ring Fencing, and then watch as people die whilst doctors strike. And any support will melt away.
Euro ref market has Remain at 7/2 55-60% band and 6-1 60-65% producing a dutch with a74% profit covering either side of 60.That's where my money is going. Also,I had a little more of WH's 16-1 about Keir Starmer for next Lab leader and Michael Gove at 28-1 for next Tory leader.Even though he does look like a fish,he could impress as a justice minister or he could,of course,cock up his implementation as he did at education.Compared to Osborne who unbelievably has come in to 6-4,28-1 about Gove is a value bet.
I wonder how much wine and expensive food was wasted at the "summit" in Malta. I don't think it comes as a surprise to anyone that absolutely nothing was achieved today. But at least out of touch bureaucrats and politicians had a good time.
Perhaps you
"I would not start from here" is not a useful way to begin!
Large scale enforced repatriation. Refusal to accept any more migrants Increase the number of refugees being taken from the camps in Turkey and Jordan so people know they gave more chance of resettlement if they stay where they are than if they try to make the journey.
None of it is easy nor nice but right now Merkel's policy is killing more people. Just as we said it would.
Repatriation is difficult when countries refuse to take returners.
I am sure with all that "influence" the EU has they will be able to work something out. It would most probably be easier if Mandelson did not embark on a campaign of bullying and intimidating Africa.
While we have possible leverage with some african countries we have very little with Libya, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan and Eritrea. These are places where many originate.
Really? We are not paying for any aid to any of those countries. Is that really the case? No-one in Europe has any leverage with any of these countries, despite some of them being ex-colonies? Amazing. Where the hell is the aid budget being spent then?
There are reasons why people are leaving many of these states in large numbers. We would not want to send people back to them.
We may wish to send them to other states instead. Whether that is practical is an open question.
I understand why they want to leave. But just because they want to come here does not mean we are obliged to accept them. We cannot be a refuge for the population of every single shithole country in the world. We simply can't. And if we were, Europe - the very Europe which is the attraction - would be destroyed.
So the question is who is let in and the numbers. And the rest will need to be shut out. That may sound brutal and blunt. But it's no more brutal than encouraging people to risk their lives coming here. And - bluntly - European governments owe their primary duty to their own citizens not to everyone else in the world.
it's the equivalent of being on a lifeboat, with room for 10 more people, but there are 200 people wanting to get into the lifeboat.
I had missed the fact, by the way, that Merkel has called for the reintroduction of the Dublin accords. So now that she has encouraged hundreds of thousands of migrants to come to Europe with the promise they will be welcome in Germany she is saying they should be sent back to the EU countries they pass through to get to Germany.
It is no wonder the Hungarians are so pissed off.
Presumably the other countries could retort by saying that since those migrants are already in a safe country (Germany) they have no need to leave it to come to their countries to claim asylum.
Merkel has behaved very stupidly. She may be supported by Germans but if she wanted to make this a European remedy then she ought to have consulted other European states first before opening her mouth. It serves her right if now they tell her to get stuffed.
I think Merkel will go down in history as one of the worst Western leaders of the earliest 21st Century.
Merkel is a bungler who has benefitted from weak opponents.
I had missed the fact, by the way, that Merkel has called for the reintroduction of the Dublin accords. So now that she has encouraged hundreds of thousands of migrants to come to Europe with the promise they will be welcome in Germany she is saying they should be sent back to the EU countries they pass through to get to Germany.
It is no wonder the Hungarians are so pissed off.
Presumably the other countries could retort by saying that since those migrants are already in a safe country (Germany) they have no need to leave it to come to their countries to claim asylum.
Merkel has behaved very stupidly. She may be supported by Germans but if she wanted to make this a European remedy then she ought to have consulted other European states first before opening her mouth. It serves her right if now they tell her to get stuffed.
I think Merkel will go down in history as one of the worst Western leaders of the earliest 21st Century.
Germany has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the western world, a higher gdp per capita than we do and weathered the global economic crisis comparatively well, it also has generally sound finances, strong manufacturing and an excellent education system. She may have gone a bit overboard on this refugee issue but that comment is ridiculous, most countries would gladly swap Obama, Hollande, Cameron etc for Merkel
I wonder how much wine and expensive food was wasted at the "summit" in Malta. I don't think it comes as a surprise to anyone that absolutely nothing was achieved today. But at least out of touch bureaucrats and politicians had a good time.
Perhaps you
"I would not start from here" is not a useful way to begin!
Large scale enforced repatriation. Refusal to accept any more migrants Increase the number of refugees being taken from the camps in Turkey and Jordan so people know they gave more chance of resettlement if they stay where they are than if they try to make the journey.
None of it is easy nor nice but right now Merkel's policy is killing more people. Just as we said it would.
Repatriation is difficult when countries refuse to take returners.
I am sure with all that "influence" the EU has they will be able to work something out. It would most probably be easier if Mandelson did not embark on a campaign of bullying and intimidating Africa.
(snipped)
I understand why they want to leave. But just because they want to come here does not mean we are obliged to accept them. We cannot be a refuge for the population of every single shithole country in the world. We simply can't. And if we were, Europe - the very Europe which is the attraction - would be destroyed.
So the question is who is let in and the numbers. And the rest will need to be shut out. That may sound brutal and blunt. But it's no more brutal than encouraging people to risk their lives coming here. And - bluntly - European governments owe their primary duty to their own citizens not to everyone else in the world.
it's the equivalent of being on a lifeboat, with room for 10 more people, but there are 200 people wanting to get into the lifeboat.
at this difficult time for patients Mr Owls you will doubtless be appalled by recent revelations of the naked greed of many senior NHS bosses.
Well I thought Tories understood market forces as Mr Sox said.
However it is ridiculous that the NHS is paying some bosses excessive sums.
I have had many offers to work at upwards of triple NHS rates including one of £600 a day, never taken them always worked for NHS rates.
Interesting email from the BMA today, they seem to have finally found their backbone.
1st Dec is emergency cover only, 8th Dec and 16th Dec will be all out. There were instructions for us non-striking grades too.
I think that like Scargill Mr Hunt has chosen a poor moment to provoke a strike.
Well, that's cheering. I have been undergoing a number of tests - some of them for possible cancer. I am still waiting for the results and now a new problem has arisen which will likely also need more tests. It is not easy waiting and wondering whether no news is good news or go away and write your will.
Still at least the BMA has found its backbone, even if others lose theirs, eh!
Mr Hunt can open negotiations if he wants to do so, but he seems to want a strike.
It's not Mr Hunt who has to analyse the tests, give a diagnosis and come up with some solutions for me. It's the doctors. And if they're not working, then I have to wait longer. I have to hope that the delay will not matter.
I know that sometimes it can matter a great deal because, as I have said before (and apologies for saying it again but I feel strongly about the matter) when the junior doctors went on strike before (a long time ago) the effect was that my father's treatment for cancer was fatally delayed and he died, long before he should have.
And, frankly, with children still at home - the same age as I was when my father became ill, I'd really rather not go through this again.
I don't give two hoots about who started it, who's playing silly buggers about meetings or whatever. Lives are at stake and doctors have professional obligations. My father was a doctor and he would never have dreamt of doing anything to harm his patients.
Sorry: am probably too involved to comment sensibly. This is not a game and pointing fingers at Mr Hunt, however justified, does not really cut it with me. Some things are real.
Your post should be read by every doctor. I completely understand the worry waiting for tests involves having been closely involved with my sister over the last three years. I wish you well
I had missed the fact, by the way, that Merkel has called for the reintroduction of the Dublin accords. So now that she has encouraged hundreds of thousands of migrants to come to Europe with the promise they will be welcome in Germany she is saying they should be sent back to the EU countries they pass through to get to Germany.
It is no wonder the Hungarians are so pissed off.
Presumably the other countries could retort by saying that since those migrants are already in a safe country (Germany) they have no need to leave it to come to their countries to claim asylum.
Merkel has behaved very stupidly. She may be supported by Germans but if she wanted to make this a European remedy then she ought to have consulted other European states first before opening her mouth. It serves her right if now they tell her to get stuffed.
I think Merkel will go down in history as one of the worst Western leaders of the earliest 21st Century.
Germany has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the western world, a higher gdp per capita than we do and weathered the global economic crisis comparatively well, it also has generally sound finances and an excellent education system. She may have gone a bit overboard on this refugee issue but that comment is ridiculous, most countries would gladly swap Obama, Hollande, Cameron etc for Merkel
Scrapping nuclear power, screwing up the Greek economy, overwhelming her country with migrants aren't obvious achievements.
Poles demonstrating and burning the EU flag, chaos in Malta, Portugal shifting to left anti-austerity, Sweden introducing border controls, razor wire going up across the Balkans, and UK referendum. Does anyone agree that the EU will comprehensively fail long before the UK referendum creating an unstoppable move by all the EU countries for their own sovereignty.
Looking very difficult to envision how Schengen survives in anything like its current form. Germany can unilaterally invite in 5 million if it wants. But it cannot then insist that after x years, those same 5 million have freedom to travel and work anywhere they choose in the EU.
I still think the Referendum will turn out to be less about Cameron's weak-as-piss "hard won victories" - and more about the fundamental question of whether the UK still has control of its borders - or whether Brussels does. Because a first world country that has lost control of its borders is at grave risk of no longer being a viable first world country. And News International has the means to steer the Referendum in that direction....
I had missed the fact, by the way, that Merkel has called for the reintroduction of the Dublin accords. So now that she has encouraged hundreds of thousands of migrants to come to Europe with the promise they will be welcome in Germany she is saying they should be sent back to the EU countries they pass through to get to Germany.
It is no wonder the Hungarians are so pissed off.
Presumably the other countries could retort by saying that since those migrants are already in a safe country (Germany) they have no need to leave it to come to their countries to claim asylum.
Merkel has behaved very stupidly. She may be supported by Germans but if she wanted to make this a European remedy then she ought to have consulted other European states first before opening her mouth. It serves her right if now they tell her to get stuffed.
I think Merkel will go down in history as one of the worst Western leaders of the earliest 21st Century.
Merkel is a bungler who has benefitted from weak opponents.
The German Social Democrats have been marooned on about 25% for nearly a decade. As you say Merkel hasn't had any meaningful opposition for most of that time.
I had missed the fact, by the way, that Merkel has called for the reintroduction of the Dublin accords. So now that she has encouraged hundreds of thousands of migrants to come to Europe with the promise they will be welcome in Germany she is saying they should be sent back to the EU countries they pass through to get to Germany.
It is no wonder the Hungarians are so pissed off.
Presumably the other countries could retort by saying that since those migrants are already in a safe country (Germany) they have no need to leave it to come to their countries to claim asylum.
Merkel has behaved very stupidly. She may be supported by Germans but if she wanted to make this a European remedy then she ought to have consulted other European states first before opening her mouth. It serves her right if now they tell her to get stuffed.
I think Merkel will go down in history as one of the worst Western leaders of the earliest 21st Century.
Merkel is a bungler who has benefitted from weak opponents.
The German Social Democrats have been marooned on about 25% for nearly a decade. As you say Merkel hasn't had any meaningful opposition for most of that time.
The German Social Democrats are a cautionary tale to Labour about the "centre ground" nonsense.
The SPD in the last period in govt were more Blairite than Blair (cutting unemployment benefits and removing "regulations") and have never recovered.
I wonder how much wine and expensive food was wasted at the "summit" in Malta. I don't think it comes as a surprise to anyone that absolutely nothing was achieved today. But at least out of touch bureaucrats and politicians had a good time.
Perhaps you
"I would not start from here" is not a useful way to begin!
Large scale enforced repatriation. Refusal to accept any more migrants Increase the number of refugees being taken from the camps in Turkey and Jordan so people know they gave more chance of resettlement if they stay where they are than if they try to make the journey.
None of it is easy nor nice but right now Merkel's policy is killing more people. Just as we said it would.
Repatriation is difficult when countries refuse to take returners.
I am sure with all that "influence" the EU has they will be able to work something out. It would most probably be easier if Mandelson did not embark on a campaign of bullying and intimidating Africa.
(snipped)
I understand why they want to leave. But just because they want to come here does not mean we are obliged to accept them. We cannot be a refuge for the population of every single shithole country in the world. We simply can't. And if we were, Europe - the very Europe which is the attraction - would be destroyed.
So the question is who is let in and the numbers. And the rest will need to be shut out. That may sound brutal and blunt. But it's no more brutal than encouraging people to risk their lives coming here. And - bluntly - European governments owe their primary duty to their own citizens not to everyone else in the world.
it's the equivalent of being on a lifeboat, with room for 10 more people, but there are 200 people wanting to get into the lifeboat.
How are we going to keep them out?
How do we live with ourselves afterwards?
Let's be blunt. We manage to live with ourselves perfectly well despite men, women and children, unseen and unknown, dying of easily curable diseases in Africa every day of the week.
I had missed the fact, by the way, that Merkel has called for the reintroduction of the Dublin accords. So now that she has encouraged hundreds of thousands of migrants to come to Europe with the promise they will be welcome in Germany she is saying they should be sent back to the EU countries they pass through to get to Germany.
It is no wonder the Hungarians are so pissed off.
Presumably the other countries could retort by saying that since those migrants are already in a safe country (Germany) they have no need to leave it to come to their countries to claim asylum.
Merkel has behaved very stupidly. She may be supported by Germans but if she wanted to make this a European remedy then she ought to have consulted other European states first before opening her mouth. It serves her right if now they tell her to get stuffed.
I think Merkel will go down in history as one of the worst Western leaders of the earliest 21st Century.
Germany has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the western world, a higher gdp per capita than we do and weathered the global economic crisis comparatively well, it also has generally sound finances and an excellent education system. She may have gone a bit overboard on this refugee issue but that comment is ridiculous, most countries would gladly swap Obama, Hollande, Cameron etc for Merkel
Scrapping nuclear power, screwing up the Greek economy, overwhelming her country with migrants aren't obvious achievements.
She didn't screw up the Greek economy the Greeks did, apart from Syrians she has actually let in fewer migrants than Cameron and none of that remotely does anything to give her the accolade of worse leader of the 21st century, especially given the relative strength of the German economy
I had missed the fact, by the way, that Merkel has called for the reintroduction of the Dublin accords. So now that she has encouraged hundreds of thousands of migrants to come to Europe with the promise they will be welcome in Germany she is saying they should be sent back to the EU countries they pass through to get to Germany.
It is no wonder the Hungarians are so pissed off.
Presumably the other countries could retort by saying that since those migrants are already in a safe country (Germany) they have no need to leave it to come to their countries to claim asylum.
Merkel has behaved very stupidly. She may be supported by Germans but if she wanted to make this a European remedy then she ought to have consulted other European states first before opening her mouth. It serves her right if now they tell her to get stuffed.
I think Merkel will go down in history as one of the worst Western leaders of the earliest 21st Century.
Merkel is a bungler who has benefitted from weak opponents.
The German Social Democrats have been marooned on about 25% for nearly a decade. As you say Merkel hasn't had any meaningful opposition for most of that time.
The German Social Democrats are a cautionary tale to Labour about the "centre ground" nonsense.
The SPD in the last period in govt were more Blairite than Blair (cutting unemployment benefits and removing "regulations") and have never recovered.
Germany has PR though, which means a left party and a Green Party also get around 10% each between them. If we had PR a 'Left Unity' party and the Greens would be on a similar total and the Afd is also beginning to turn into a German UKIP
I have recently come into contact with a lot of junior doctors. They were all furious about having their contracts and terms of employment changed. While dispensing immaculate care.
In short, whereas previously when junior doctors worked eg Saturday nights, it counted as unsocial hours and attracted increased rates of pay, the new deal will mean working Saturday nights will not be classified as unsocial hours and hence will not attract increased rates of pay.
That is quite a change and I understand the anger and resentment.
Thing is, there was not a junior doctor I met who wasn't on the way to becoming a non-junior doctor.They were all extremely well-educated, bright, dare I say AB types who understood that the future would likely bring them significant riches if they kept on as they were. They were all far too bright not to know the game they were playing or path they were on and rewards it would bring. Otherwise they would leave or f**k off somewhere else (like the bankers were supposed to do).
This is not to say that they don't deserve an extra few grand a year today, nor that they should have a few grand taken away from them at a stroke. Just to say that lifetime earnings of the majority of "junior doctors", if made known to the general public, would likely lose them any residual support they retained following the first 100 deaths attributable to their strike action.
Lawyer Christina Lee argues that Germany shouldn't treat refugees harshly in the name of teaching them the country's 'values' - and that the crisis could be a learning opportunity for Germans themselves."
I wonder how much wine and expensive food was wasted at the "summit" in Malta. I don't think it comes as a surprise to anyone that absolutely nothing was achieved today. But at least out of touch bureaucrats and politicians had a good time.
Perhaps you
"I would not start from here" is not a useful way to begin!
Large scale enforced repatriation. Refusal to accept any more migrants Increase the number of refugees being taken from the camps in Turkey and Jordan so people know they gave more chance of resettlement if they stay where they are than if they try to make the journey.
None of it is easy nor nice but right now Merkel's policy is killing more people. Just as we said it would.
Repatriation is difficult when countries refuse to take returners.
I am sure with all that "influence" the EU has they will be able to work something out. It would most probably be easier if Mandelson did not embark on a campaign of bullying and intimidating Africa.
(snipped)
I understand why they want to leave. But just because they want to come here does not mean we are obliged to accept them. We cannot be a refuge for the population of every single shithole country in the world. We simply can't. And if we were, Europe - the very Europe which is the attraction - would be destroyed.
So the question is who is let in and the numbers. And the rest will need to be shut out. That may sound brutal and blunt. But it's no more brutal than encouraging people to risk their lives coming here. And - bluntly - European governments owe their primary duty to their own citizens not to everyone else in the world.
it's the equivalent of being on a lifeboat, with room for 10 more people, but there are 200 people wanting to get into the lifeboat.
How are we going to keep them out?
How do we live with ourselves afterwards?
Let's be blunt. We manage to live with ourselves perfectly well despite men, women and children, unseen and unknown, dying of easily curable diseases in Africa every day of the week.
Yes, exactly.
So maybe this is fate's way of levelling out the injustices.
Goodness, if Powell is any representative, Labour have not learnt any lessons from the Scottish referendum.
If they talk about leaving the EU like it's wild-eyed craziness, they're going to repel ANYONE who votes Leave from voting Labour.
At least 60-70% of Labour voters will vote In, if they are strongly pro Leave they will probably already be voting UKIP anyway
Yes, but that still leaves 30% of Labour voters who will vote Leave, not to mention that increasing their vote would require winning Leave-inclined Middle Englanders.
I'm not saying they shouldn't be in favour of the EU, but if they have a tone that anyone who wants to leave is stark-raving mad (like the tone they had about people who wanted Scottish independence) then they're going to repel all Leave-ers.
I have recently come into contact with a lot of junior doctors. They were all furious about having their contracts and terms of employment changed. While dispensing immaculate care.
In short, whereas previously when junior doctors worked eg Saturday nights, it counted as unsocial hours and attracted increased rates of pay, the new deal will mean working Saturday nights will not be classified as unsocial hours and hence will not attract increased rates of pay.
That is quite a change and I understand the anger and resentment.
Thing is, there was not a junior doctor I met who wasn't on the way to becoming a non-junior doctor.They were all extremely well-educated, bright, dare I say AB types who understood that the future would likely bring them significant riches if they kept on as they were. They were all far too bright not to know the game they were playing or path they were on and rewards it would bring. Otherwise they would leave of f**k off somewhere else (like the bankers were supposed to do).
This is not to say that they don't deserve an extra few grand a year today, nor that they should have a few grand taken away from them at a stroke. Just to say that lifetime earnings of the majority of "junior doctors", if made known to the general public, would likely lose them any residual support they retained following the first 100 deaths attributable to their strike action.
Fox?
Junior Doctors are certainly not strike happy 70's BL workers. It is very difficult to provoke people like you describe (and I recognise your description) into striking, yet Mr Hunt has done so. He is monumentally inept.
Hunt refuses to negotiate on all the issues in the contract (for an example he wants to end monitoring of working hours).
Myself and my Senior colleagues are making plans to cover what we can. We are used to prioritising urgency of care. The back of the queue will move more slowly as a result though.
Hunt's biggest folly though is how he is needlessly antagonising the people he needs onside to get the NHS functioning through the next five years. Tinfoil hatters on medical media are speculating that this is exactly what he wants. He wants to collapse the NHS from within to facilitate privatisation.
I am not that paranoid. I do not think that Jeremy Hunt is more than a #tubularbellend
I have recently come into contact with a lot of junior doctors. They were all furious about having their contracts and terms of employment changed. While dispensing immaculate care.
In short, whereas previously when junior doctors worked eg Saturday nights, it counted as unsocial hours and attracted increased rates of pay, the new deal will mean working Saturday nights will not be classified as unsocial hours and hence will not attract increased rates of pay.
That is quite a change and I understand the anger and resentment.
Thing is, there was not a junior doctor I met who wasn't on the way to becoming a non-junior doctor.They were all extremely well-educated, bright, dare I say AB types who understood that the future would likely bring them significant riches if they kept on as they were. They were all far too bright not to know the game they were playing or path they were on and rewards it would bring. Otherwise they would leave or f**k off somewhere else (like the bankers were supposed to do).
This is not to say that they don't deserve an extra few grand a year today, nor that they should have a few grand taken away from them at a stroke. Just to say that lifetime earnings of the majority of "junior doctors", if made known to the general public, would likely lose them any residual support they retained following the first 100 deaths attributable to their strike action.
Fox?
There was an interesting Matthew Parris article on 7 November which was on precisely this topic:
"Britain is overdue for a desanctification of out public servants. They're good, hard-working people, mostly......But for pity's sake, spare us the halos and put away your pantomime shrouds.........."
And in relation to the doctors, he describes it as a bog standard industrial dispute.
"What it is not is either.....a brave crusade by high-minded politicians representing helpless sick people against the greed of a blackmailing medical profession or..... noble resistance by starving young doctors who care only for their patients' interests. There are no angels here and no devils."
"They feel authorised by their moral status to take hostages.....It will degrade.... the claims by public service providers to superior virtue."
If doctors want to be paid market rates - and I see why they do - then they can accept other aspects of the market as well. Or they can say that they want a public state run service and accept that the price paid for that, as well as rationing for the patients, is that their pay gets screwed down. It's what happens when you work in the public sector and the government has to cut back its deficit.
And I have worked in both the public sector and the private. In the former I was paid diddly squat and went home at 5 and in the private I am paid lots more and work all hours. You pays your money......
at this difficult time for patients Mr Owls you will doubtless be appalled by recent revelations of the naked greed of many senior NHS bosses.
Well I thought Tories understood market forces as Mr Sox said.
However it is ridiculous that the NHS is paying some bosses excessive sums.
I have had many offers to work at upwards of triple NHS rates including one of £600 a day, never taken them always worked for NHS rates.
Interesting email from the BMA today, they seem to have finally found their backbone.
1st Dec is emergency cover only, 8th Dec and 16th Dec will be all out. There were instructions for us non-striking grades too.
I think that like Scargill Mr Hunt has chosen a poor moment to provoke a strike.
Well, that's cheering. I have been undergoing a number of tests - some of them for possible cancer. I am still waiting for the results and now a new problem has arisen which will likely also need more tests. It is not easy waiting and wondering whether no news is good news or go away and write your will.
Still at least the BMA has found its backbone, even if others lose theirs, eh!
All the very best Cyclefree. I shall keep my fingers crossed for you. Please let us know how you get on.
I have recently come into contact with a lot of junior doctors. They were all furious about having their contracts and terms of employment changed. While dispensing immaculate care.
In short, whereas previously when junior doctors worked eg Saturday nights, it counted as unsocial hours and attracted increased rates of pay, the new deal will mean working Saturday nights will not be classified as unsocial hours and hence will not attract increased rates of pay.
That is quite a change and I understand the anger and resentment.
Thing is, there was not a junior doctor I met who wasn't on the way to becoming a non-junior doctor.They were all extremely well-educated, bright, dare I say AB types who understood that the future would likely bring them significant riches if they kept on as they were. They were all far too bright not to know the game they were playing or path they were on and rewards it would bring. Otherwise they would leave of f**k off somewhere else (like the bankers were supposed to do).
This is not to say that they don't deserve an extra few grand a year today, nor that they should have a few grand taken away from them at a stroke. Just to say that lifetime earnings of the majority of "junior doctors", if made known to the general public, would likely lose them any residual support they retained following the first 100 deaths attributable to their strike action.
Fox?
Junior Doctors are certainly not strike happy 70's BL workers. It is very difficult to provoke people like you describe (and I recognise your description) into striking, yet Mr Hunt has done so. He is monumentally inept.
Hunt refuses to negotiate on all the issues in the contract (for an example he wants to end monitoring of working hours).
Myself and my Senior colleagues are making plans to cover what we can. We are used to prioritising urgency of care. The back of the queue will move more slowly as a result though.
Hunt's biggest folly though is how he is needlessly antagonising the people he needs onside to get the NHS functioning through the next five years. Tinfoil hatters on medical media are speculating that this is exactly what he wants. He wants to collapse the NHS from within to facilitate privatisation.
I am not that paranoid. I do not think that Jeremy Hunt is more than a #tubularbellend
Strangely I had a consultation with my doctor today and we both agreed that taxes will need to rise, or treatments rationed or charging (with appropriate exemptions) introduced. The practice of charging is common throughout the World and I can say with actual experience that you are charged in Australia and New Zealand to see a doctor and have to pay the prescription charges.
I have recently come into contact with a lot of junior doctors. They were all furious about having their contracts and terms of employment changed. While dispensing immaculate car
That is quite a change and I understand the anger and resentment.
Thing is, there was not a junior doctor I met who wasn't on the way to becoming a non-junior doctor.They were all extremely well-educated, bright, dare I say AB types who understood that the future would likely bring them significant riches if they kept on as they were. They were all far too bright not to know the game they were playing or path they were on and rewards it would bring. Otherwise they would leave of f**k off somewhere else (like the bankers were supposed to do).
This is not to say that they don't deserve an extra few grand a year today, nor that they should have a few grand taken away from them at a stroke. Just to say that lifetime earnings of the majority of "junior doctors", if made known to the general public, would likely lose them any residual support they retained following the first 100 deaths attributable to their strike action.
Fox?
Junior Doctors are certainly not strike happy 70's BL workers. It is very difficult to provoke people like you describe (and I recognise your description) into striking, yet Mr Hunt has done so. He is monumentally inept.
Hunt refuses to negotiate on all the issues in the contract (for an example he wants to end monitoring of working hours).
Myself and my Senior colleagues are making plans to cover what we can. We are used to prioritising urgency of care. The back of the queue will move more slowly as a result though.
Hunt's biggest folly though is how he is needlessly antagonising the people he needs onside to get the NHS functioning through the next five years. Tinfoil hatters on medical media are speculating that this is exactly what he wants. He wants to collapse the NHS from within to facilitate privatisation.
I am not that paranoid. I do not think that Jeremy Hunt is more than a #tubularbellend
I also wish I had a window into the soul of Jeremy Hunt.
But the central point remains that junior doctors are not a hugely disadvantaged group in society. Indeed they are the opposite. They are the elite. They have singularly become junior doctors and as mentioned, and as you know because you work with them, there are precious few under- or ill-educated amongst them. In fact, I would be interested to know the proportion of private vs state educated junior doctors.
So if it is possible to put aside the fact that they are doctors who work in the NHS, which of course is hugely emotive, we are left with the fact they are a very well off cohort who could perhaps stand some belt-tightening, no?
Hunt is giving the junior doctors an 11% pay rise in their basic pay to get rid of all these extra payments. He says that unless they were working illegal hours (which no doubt many were, either for the NHS itself or agencies) they will not be worse off.
It may not be insolvency inducing generosity on the scale that Labour handed out to the GPs but I have yet to hear a representative explain why this is not a reasonable deal.
I have recently come into contact with a lot of junior doctors. They were all furious about having their contracts and terms of employment changed. While dispensing immaculate care.
In short, whereas previously when junior doctors worked eg Saturday nights, it counted as unsocial hours and attracted increased rates of pay, the new deal will mean working Saturday nights will not be classified as unsocial hours and hence will not attract increased rates of pay.
That is quite a change and I understand the anger and resentment.
Thing is, there was not a junior doctor I met who wasn't on the way to becoming a non-junior doctor.They were all extremely well-educated, bright, dare I say AB types who understood that the future would likely bring them significant riches if they kept on as they were. They were all far too bright not to know the game they were playing or path they were on and rewards it would bring. Otherwise they would leave of f**k off somewhere else (like the bankers were supposed to do).
This is not to say that they don't deserve an extra few grand a year today, nor that they should have a few grand taken away from them at a stroke. Just to say that lifetime earnings of the majority of "junior doctors", if made known to the general public, would likely lose them any residual support they retained following the first 100 deaths attributable to their strike action.
Fox?
I am not that paranoid. I do not think that Jeremy Hunt is more than a #tubularbellend
Time and again, your posts leave people like me, a taxpayer and occasional user of the NHS's services with the distinct impression that any strike action has more to do with getting one over the Tory government and the Health Minister, than anything to do with patient care and wellbeing. All those extra billions and ring fencing, whilst everyone else cuts? Hmmm. Lansley, Hunt, in fact anyone who attempts to improve and reform the so called 'Envy of the World' (Ha Ha) i.e. upset the cosy status quo, becomes the enemy. And so the doctors political crusade begins. It's painfully obvious.
How many extra patients do you think will die as a result of strike action?
I had missed the fact, by the way, that Merkel has called for the reintroduction of the Dublin accords. So now that she has encouraged hundreds of thousands of migrants to come to Europe with the promise they will be welcome in Germany she is saying they should be sent back to the EU countries they pass through to get to Germany.
It is no wonder the Hungarians are so pissed off.
Presumably the other countries could retort by saying that since those migrants are already in a safe country (Germany) they have no need to leave it to come to their countries to claim asylum.
Merkel has behaved very stupidly. She may be supported by Germans but if she wanted to make this a European remedy then she ought to have consulted other European states first before opening her mouth. It serves her right if now they tell her to get stuffed.
I think Merkel will go down in history as one of the worst Western leaders of the earliest 21st Century.
Germany has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the western world, a higher gdp per capita than we do and weathered the global economic crisis comparatively well, it also has generally sound finances and an excellent education system. She may have gone a bit overboard on this refugee issue but that comment is ridiculous, most countries would gladly swap Obama, Hollande, Cameron etc for Merkel
Scrapping nuclear power, screwing up the Greek economy, overwhelming her country with migrants aren't obvious achievements.
Sean_F: the Greeks screwed up their own economy. Their politicians have had multiple chances to leave the Euro, including one at the start of the year backed by the IMF. That they chose not to is hardly Angela Merkel's fault.
at this difficult time for patients Mr Owls you will doubtless be appalled by recent revelations of the naked greed of many senior NHS bosses.
Well I thought Tories understood market forces as Mr Sox said.
However it is ridiculous that the NHS is paying some bosses excessive sums.
I have had many offers to work at upwards of triple NHS rates including one of £600 a day, never taken them always worked for NHS rates.
Interesting email from the BMA today, they seem to have finally found their backbone.
1st Dec is emergency cover only, 8th Dec and 16th Dec will be all out. There were instructions for us non-striking grades too.
I think that like Scargill Mr Hunt has chosen a poor moment to provoke a strike.
Well, that's cheering. I have been undergoing a number of tests - some of them for possible cancer. I am still waiting for the results and now a new problem has arisen which will likely also need more tests. It is not easy waiting and wondering whether no news is good news or go away and write your will.
Still at least the BMA has found its backbone, even if others lose theirs, eh!
Goodness, if Powell is any representative, Labour have not learnt any lessons from the Scottish referendum.
If they talk about leaving the EU like it's wild-eyed craziness, they're going to repel ANYONE who votes Leave from voting Labour.
At least 60-70% of Labour voters will vote In, if they are strongly pro Leave they will probably already be voting UKIP anyway
Yes, but that still leaves 30% of Labour voters who will vote Leave, not to mention that increasing their vote would require winning Leave-inclined Middle Englanders.
I'm not saying they shouldn't be in favour of the EU, but if they have a tone that anyone who wants to leave is stark-raving mad (like the tone they had about people who wanted Scottish independence) then they're going to repel all Leave-ers.
Yes but probably at least around 50% of Tories will vote Leave so they have more of a Europe problem if it is a narrow In than Labour, although UKIP will clearly make play for Leave voters from both parties
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
Why should the NHS pay for people to change gender while others wait for cancer drugs?
Usually because the cancer drugs in question have not been shown to be efficacious. If someone is sick, there is a desperate desire to try anything that might help. And drug companies are assiduous at making sure stories about their wonder drug are covered in the Daily Mail.
But usually if NICE is not recommending a drug, there's a good reason. Usually, it's because it's only been shown to work in a narrow range of cases.
In the US, they are much more liberal about prescribing these things than in the UK. But their cancer survival rates are no higher.
Why should the NHS pay for people to change gender while others wait for cancer drugs?
Usually because the cancer drugs in question have not been shown to be efficacious. If someone is sick, there is a desperate desire to try anything that might help. And drug companies are assiduous at making sure stories about their wonder drug are covered in the Daily Mail.
But usually if NICE is not recommending a drug, there's a good reason. Usually, it's because it's only been shown to work in a narrow range of cases.
In the US, they are much more liberal about prescribing these things than in the UK. But their cancer survival rates are no higher.
Bridgend Ogmore Vale was Labour gain from Independent ( a bit of a surprise as the Independent candidate was the previous Labour councillor for the ward ) . Dorset Rodwell was a bigger surprise Green gain from Labour
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
Can you confirm the Junior Doctors leader does not run and actively engage in his own weekend wedding photography business
Hunt is giving the junior doctors an 11% pay rise in their basic pay to get rid of all these extra payments. He says that unless they were working illegal hours (which no doubt many were, either for the NHS itself or agencies) they will not be worse off.
It may not be insolvency inducing generosity on the scale that Labour handed out to the GPs but I have yet to hear a representative explain why this is not a reasonable deal.
It seems to me that doctors want both to work in the public sector and have the pay of the private sector. Well, we all want our cake and to eat it too. But this is the real world. The government has a deficit. The NHS has been ring fenced. Doctors have had pay rises and are not starving oppressed slaves. If they worked in the private sector, they would be expected by those who pay their salaries to work every hour needed not this "Saturday night is sacred and I must be paid anti-social rates for it" which I've not seen in the private sector.
If they want the honour of being a professional then they need to behave like professionals. The junior doctors have no better case than junior lawyers, who earn considerably less, no better case than lots of other workers - people in care homes or firemen or soldiers etc etc.
And in the private sector over the last 7/8 years lots of people have lost their jobs, lots of people have had pay cuts, lots of people have had no pay rises, let alone 11% ones.
Hunt is giving the junior doctors an 11% pay rise in their basic pay to get rid of all these extra payments. He says that unless they were working illegal hours (which no doubt many were, either for the NHS itself or agencies) they will not be worse off.
It may not be insolvency inducing generosity on the scale that Labour handed out to the GPs but I have yet to hear a representative explain why this is not a reasonable deal.
Your sums are wrong. He has promised a 11% rise in return for giving up the 30% of their income that is paid as banding (overtime). Ironically this penalises most those are already working unsocial hours.
This will benefit Scotland though. The deal only apples in England so British doctors do not have to go to the antipodes. They will move to Scotland, Wales and NI. It is us in the English provinces that will have to manage unfilled posts with locums etc.
Hunt is giving the junior doctors an 11% pay rise in their basic pay to get rid of all these extra payments. He says that unless they were working illegal hours (which no doubt many were, either for the NHS itself or agencies) they will not be worse off.
It may not be insolvency inducing generosity on the scale that Labour handed out to the GPs but I have yet to hear a representative explain why this is not a reasonable deal.
It seems to me that doctors want both to work in the public sector and have the pay of the private sector. Well, we all want our cake and to eat it too. But this is the real world. The government has a deficit. The NHS has been ring fenced. Doctors have had pay rises and are not starving oppressed slaves. If they worked in the private sector, they would be expected by those who pay their salaries to work every hour needed not this "Saturday night is sacred and I must be paid anti-social rates for it" which I've not seen in the private sector.
If they want the honour of being a professional then they need to behave like professionals. The junior doctors have no better case than junior lawyers, who earn considerably less, no better case than lots of other workers - people in care homes or firemen or soldiers etc etc.
And in the private sector over the last 7/8 years lots of people have lost their jobs, lots of people have had pay cuts, lots of people have had no pay rises, let alone 11% ones.
Most of the Junior Doctors on TV in the last few weeks, look like a bunch of ungrateful whining poshos with entitlement issues.
Their leader objecting to Saturday working so he can continue to take wedding photographs is really taking the piss.
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
His aim is to create a 7 day a week health service where ultimately our very expensive labs, equipment and operating theatres are used every bit as much on a Saturday and Sunday as they are the other 5 days of the week. Under the present structure the unsocial hours payments would make that prohibitively expensive. In short, as I understand it, doctors will not lose out now but will lose out to some degree as the service evolves in this way.
I am really struggling to find sympathy for such a stunningly rich and well paid group of people. My neighbour, a consultant in Ninewells, will soon retire on a pension of more than £60K a year at 60. Such rights are worth literally millions of pounds. I will, health permitting, be working into my 70s to help pay for it.
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
Can you confirm the Junior Doctors leader does not run and actively engage in his own weekend wedding photography business
I have no idea. He/she is free to do whatever he/she likes in his free time. Junior doctors are the ones who work most weekends already, and as I pointed out Hunts deal punishes most those that already work antisocial hours.
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
His aim is to create a 7 day a week health service where ultimately our very expensive labs, equipment and operating theatres are used every bit as much on a Saturday and Sunday as they are the other 5 days of the week. Under the present structure the unsocial hours payments would make that prohibitively expensive. In short, as I understand it, doctors will not lose out now but will lose out to some degree as the service evolves in this way.
I am really struggling to find sympathy for such a stunningly rich and well paid group of people. My neighbour, a consultant in Ninewells, will soon retire on a pension of more than £60K a year at 60. Such rights are worth literally millions of pounds. I will, health permitting, be working into my 70s to help pay for it.
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
... snip ... My neighbour, a consultant in Ninewells, will soon retire on a pension of more than £60K a year at 60. Such rights are worth literally millions of pounds.... snip ...
Could that be one of the reason why so many healthcare trusts and hospitals claim to be in the red?
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
Can you confirm the Junior Doctors leader does not run and actively engage in his own weekend wedding photography business
I have no idea. He/she is free to do whatever he/she likes in his free time. Junior doctors are the ones who work most weekends already, and as I pointed out Hunts deal punishes most those that already work antisocial hours.
Hunt is giving the junior doctors an 11% pay rise in their basic pay to get rid of all these extra payments. He says that unless they were working illegal hours (which no doubt many were, either for the NHS itself or agencies) they will not be worse off.
It may not be insolvency inducing generosity on the scale that Labour handed out to the GPs but I have yet to hear a representative explain why this is not a reasonable deal.
Your sums are wrong. He has promised a 11% rise in return for giving up the 30% of their income that is paid as banding (overtime). Ironically this penalises most those are already working unsocial hours.
This will benefit Scotland though. The deal only apples in England so British doctors do not have to go to the antipodes. They will move to Scotland, Wales and NI. It is us in the English provinces that will have to manage unfilled posts with locums etc.
The Scottish NHS faces the same pressures to provide more health care from a budget that is no longer growing at an unsustainable rate. Already a number of cancer drugs available in England are not available here to help balance the books.
So far as wages are concerned Hunt is adamant that no one working less than the legally permitted number of hours will lose out. Are you saying he is wrong?
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
Can you confirm the Junior Doctors leader does not run and actively engage in his own weekend wedding photography business
I have no idea. He/she is free to do whatever he/she likes in his free time. Junior doctors are the ones who work most weekends already, and as I pointed out Hunts deal punishes most those that already work antisocial hours.
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
I enjoy your posts generally and our debates. I really do. But I am finding it hard to respond in a polite manner, possibly because I am emotionally involved. You ignore the patients' perspective. Or rather this patient's perspective. If Hunt went climbing up Everest it would make no difference to me. What will make a difference is the doctors not turning up for work. You say that the strike could be stopped by Hunt. Well maybe it could. But it could also be stopped by the doctors. By them not striking because they owe a reciprocal obligation - not to some vague "public sector" - but to actual bloody patients who are worried and need help.
And apparently the reason doctors are at their wits' ends and patients will be put under more strain is because of some effing nonsense about turning up at a table without preconditions and imposing contracts unilaterally. Honestly, you sound like the most pedantic of lawyers missing the point, the substantive point, by a country mile.
How the hell do you think all those people who had their pay cut just like that at more or less a moment's notice in the private sector felt? All those people who lose their jobs at a moment's notice, walked off the premises and with their take it or leave it redundancy packages. Do you think they could demand negotiations and that it not be imposed unilaterally? Did they hell! Really, get real.
By all means ask for market-determined pay. You may get it and you may well deserve it. But you'll get a whole lot else besides. Be under no illusions about that.
And now I better go before I really lose it.
Please forgive me if I've been tough on you. I hope you understand.
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
His aim is to create a 7 day a week health service where ultimately our very expensive labs, equipment and operating theatres are used every bit as much on a Saturday and Sunday as they are the other 5 days of the week. Under the present structure the unsocial hours payments would make that prohibitively expensive. In short, as I understand it, doctors will not lose out now but will lose out to some degree as the service evolves in this way.
I am really struggling to find sympathy for such a stunningly rich and well paid group of people. My neighbour, a consultant in Ninewells, will soon retire on a pension of more than £60K a year at 60. Such rights are worth literally millions of pounds. I will, health permitting, be working into my 70s to help pay for it.
The deal doesn't apply in Scotland.
No but the pension entitlements of doctors are the same across the UK. We are talking about members of the top 1% of earners in the country here when rights like pensions are taken into account.
Hunt is giving the junior doctors an 11% pay rise in their basic pay to get rid of all these extra payments. He says that unless they were working illegal hours (which no doubt many were, either for the NHS itself or agencies) they will not be worse off.
It may not be insolvency inducing generosity on the scale that Labour handed out to the GPs but I have yet to hear a representative explain why this is not a reasonable deal.
Your sums are wrong. He has promised a 11% rise in return for giving up the 30% of their income that is paid as banding (overtime). Ironically this penalises most those are already working unsocial hours.
This will benefit Scotland though. The deal only apples in England so British doctors do not have to go to the antipodes. They will move to Scotland, Wales and NI. It is us in the English provinces that will have to manage unfilled posts with locums etc.
The Scottish NHS faces the same pressures to provide more health care from a budget that is no longer growing at an unsustainable rate. Already a number of cancer drugs available in England are not available here to help balance the books.
So far as wages are concerned Hunt is adamant that no one working less than the legally permitted number of hours will lose out. Are you saying he is wrong?
Yes his sums are wrong by his own calculator as published on the DoH website.
One item that Hunt refuses to negotiate is that he wants to abolish monitoring of working hours for junior doctors. That is one thing that the BMA insists on keeping as an essential safeguard.
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
Can you confirm the Junior Doctors leader does not run and actively engage in his own weekend wedding photography business
I have no idea. He/she is free to do whatever he/she likes in his free time. Junior doctors are the ones who work most weekends already, and as I pointed out Hunts deal punishes most those that already work antisocial hours.
What is your point?
Hypocrisy
The deal doesn't apply in Wales either.
I am not talking about Wales. Your leader says that Junior Doctors already work weekends while at the same time he personally conducts his own wedding photography at the weekends as evidenced by the media recently
I think voters are out to mock everything I believe. I thought the Lib Dems were good at holding seats - and they lose then all. I thought Labour would never pick a left wing leader, and they did. I thought a left wing Labour party would lose votes, and it hasn't. And I was really sure that a left wing Labour party would wipe out the Greens.. ..
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
Can you confirm the Junior Doctors leader does not run and actively engage in his own weekend wedding photography business
I have no idea. He/she is free to do whatever he/she likes in his free time. Junior doctors are the ones who work most weekends already, and as I pointed out Hunts deal punishes most those that already work antisocial hours.
What is your point?
Hypocrisy
The deal doesn't apply in Wales either.
I am not talking about Wales. Your leader says that Junior Doctors already work weekends while at the same time he personally conducts his own wedding photography at the weekends as evidenced by the media recently
Clearly he doesnt work every Saturday afternoon! He is free to spend his free time however he likes.
I am not encouraging them to come. You may recall that I have been fairly forthright in my opposition to mass immigration from outside the EU.
I was just annoyed at the asinine comment that the summit hadn't solved the problem in two days.
It is not an easy solution. Repeal of the refugee convention, or at least go back to the pre 67 convention that applied only to refugees from europe itself. Then there needs to be the sort of leverage you describe on african states, perhaps including an australian style off shore system.
It will be pretty brutal to enforce.
The summit shouldn't even have taken place in the way it did. The 'solutions' they were coming up with were frankly ridiculous. It is the idiotic bleeding hearts, the EU and in particular Merkel who have turned a serious situation into a crisis and who have blood on their hands. All we can do now is come up with practical if harsh solutions that will bring things under control as quickly as possible and take away the incentive for people to put their lives at risk.
The only one of the main European leaders who has come out of this with any credit is Cameron. At least he has come up with practical and compassionate solutions. Unfortunately he has been undermined by the sheer lunacy of German and EU policy.
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
Can you confirm the Junior Doctors leader does not run and actively engage in his own weekend wedding photography business
I have no idea. He/she is free to do whatever he/she likes in his free time. Junior doctors are the ones who work most weekends already, and as I pointed out Hunts deal punishes most those that already work antisocial hours.
What is your point?
Hypocrisy
The deal doesn't apply in Wales either.
I am not talking about Wales. Your leader says that Junior Doctors already work weekends while at the same time he personally conducts his own wedding photography at the weekends as evidenced by the media recently
Clearly he doesnt work every Saturday afternoon! He is free to spend his free time however he likes.
I am sure some journalist will be looking into the time he spends at weekends as this dispute proceeds, but hopefully common sense will prevail as I think the Doctors have a lot more to lose than Jeremy Hunt
I think voters are out to mock everything I believe. I thought the Lib Dems were good at holding seats - and they lose then all. I thought Labour would never pick a left wing leader, and they did. I thought a left wing Labour party would lose votes, and it hasn't. And I was really sure that a left wing Labour party would wipe out the Greens.. ..
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
Can you confirm the Junior Doctors leader does not run and actively engage in his own weekend wedding photography business
I have no idea. He/she is free to do whatever he/she likes in his free time. Junior doctors are the ones who work most weekends already, and as I pointed out Hunts deal punishes most those that already work antisocial hours.
What is your point?
Hypocrisy
The deal doesn't apply in Wales either.
I am not talking about Wales. Your leader says that Junior Doctors already work weekends while at the same time he personally conducts his own wedding photography at the weekends as evidenced by the media recently
Just like the whining Firemen who howled and yowled when their working practices were shaken up, and they couldn't run their own little scams on the side anymore.
I think voters are out to mock everything I believe. I thought the Lib Dems were good at holding seats - and they lose then all. I thought Labour would never pick a left wing leader, and they did. I thought a left wing Labour party would lose votes, and it hasn't. And I was really sure that a left wing Labour party would wipe out the Greens.. ..
Comments
I was just annoyed at the asinine comment that the summit hadn't solved the problem in two days.
It is not an easy solution. Repeal of the refugee convention, or at least go back to the pre 67 convention that applied only to refugees from europe itself. Then there needs to be the sort of leverage you describe on african states, perhaps including an australian style off shore system.
It will be pretty brutal to enforce.
Still at least the BMA has found its backbone, even if others lose theirs, eh!
I know that sometimes it can matter a great deal because, as I have said before (and apologies for saying it again but I feel strongly about the matter) when the junior doctors went on strike before (a long time ago) the effect was that my father's treatment for cancer was fatally delayed and he died, long before he should have.
And, frankly, with children still at home - the same age as I was when my father became ill, I'd really rather not go through this again.
I don't give two hoots about who started it, who's playing silly buggers about meetings or whatever. Lives are at stake and doctors have professional obligations. My father was a doctor and he would never have dreamt of doing anything to harm his patients.
Sorry: am probably too involved to comment sensibly. This is not a game and pointing fingers at Mr Hunt, however justified, does not really cut it with me. Some things are real.
Also,I had a little more of WH's 16-1 about Keir Starmer for next Lab leader and Michael Gove at 28-1 for next Tory leader.Even though he does look like a fish,he could impress as a justice minister or he could,of course,cock up his implementation as he did at education.Compared to Osborne who unbelievably has come in to 6-4,28-1 about Gove is a value bet.
How do we live with ourselves afterwards?
I still think the Referendum will turn out to be less about Cameron's weak-as-piss "hard won victories" - and more about the fundamental question of whether the UK still has control of its borders - or whether Brussels does. Because a first world country that has lost control of its borders is at grave risk of no longer being a viable first world country. And News International has the means to steer the Referendum in that direction....
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315888/Kids-Company-paid-monthly-allowances-prison-inmates.html
So Alan, you better get on that fold up bike of yours and ....
https://twitter.com/suttonnick/status/664933498290065408
The SPD in the last period in govt were more Blairite than Blair (cutting unemployment benefits and removing "regulations") and have never recovered.
If they talk about leaving the EU like it's wild-eyed craziness, they're going to repel ANYONE who votes Leave from voting Labour.
In short, whereas previously when junior doctors worked eg Saturday nights, it counted as unsocial hours and attracted increased rates of pay, the new deal will mean working Saturday nights will not be classified as unsocial hours and hence will not attract increased rates of pay.
That is quite a change and I understand the anger and resentment.
Thing is, there was not a junior doctor I met who wasn't on the way to becoming a non-junior doctor.They were all extremely well-educated, bright, dare I say AB types who understood that the future would likely bring them significant riches if they kept on as they were. They were all far too bright not to know the game they were playing or path they were on and rewards it would bring. Otherwise they would leave or f**k off somewhere else (like the bankers were supposed to do).
This is not to say that they don't deserve an extra few grand a year today, nor that they should have a few grand taken away from them at a stroke. Just to say that lifetime earnings of the majority of "junior doctors", if made known to the general public, would likely lose them any residual support they retained following the first 100 deaths attributable to their strike action.
Fox?
"Germany can't impose its values on refugees
Lawyer Christina Lee argues that Germany shouldn't treat refugees harshly in the name of teaching them the country's 'values' - and that the crisis could be a learning opportunity for Germans themselves."
http://www.thelocal.de/20151112/germany-cant-impose-values-on-refugees-by-force
So maybe this is fate's way of levelling out the injustices.
(edited for grammar)
I'm not saying they shouldn't be in favour of the EU, but if they have a tone that anyone who wants to leave is stark-raving mad (like the tone they had about people who wanted Scottish independence) then they're going to repel all Leave-ers.
Hunt refuses to negotiate on all the issues in the contract (for an example he wants to end monitoring of working hours).
Myself and my Senior colleagues are making plans to cover what we can. We are used to prioritising urgency of care. The back of the queue will move more slowly as a result though.
Hunt's biggest folly though is how he is needlessly antagonising the people he needs onside to get the NHS functioning through the next five years. Tinfoil hatters on medical media are speculating that this is exactly what he wants. He wants to collapse the NHS from within to facilitate privatisation.
I am not that paranoid. I do not think that Jeremy Hunt is more than a #tubularbellend
"Britain is overdue for a desanctification of out public servants. They're good, hard-working people, mostly......But for pity's sake, spare us the halos and put away your pantomime shrouds.........."
And in relation to the doctors, he describes it as a bog standard industrial dispute.
"What it is not is either.....a brave crusade by high-minded politicians representing helpless sick people against the greed of a blackmailing medical profession or..... noble resistance by starving young doctors who care only for their patients' interests. There are no angels here and no devils."
"They feel authorised by their moral status to take hostages.....It will degrade.... the claims by public service providers to superior virtue."
If doctors want to be paid market rates - and I see why they do - then they can accept other aspects of the market as well. Or they can say that they want a public state run service and accept that the price paid for that, as well as rationing for the patients, is that their pay gets screwed down. It's what happens when you work in the public sector and the government has to cut back its deficit.
And I have worked in both the public sector and the private. In the former I was paid diddly squat and went home at 5 and in the private I am paid lots more and work all hours. You pays your money......
But the central point remains that junior doctors are not a hugely disadvantaged group in society. Indeed they are the opposite. They are the elite. They have singularly become junior doctors and as mentioned, and as you know because you work with them, there are precious few under- or ill-educated amongst them. In fact, I would be interested to know the proportion of private vs state educated junior doctors.
So if it is possible to put aside the fact that they are doctors who work in the NHS, which of course is hugely emotive, we are left with the fact they are a very well off cohort who could perhaps stand some belt-tightening, no?
It may not be insolvency inducing generosity on the scale that Labour handed out to the GPs but I have yet to hear a representative explain why this is not a reasonable deal.
How many extra patients do you think will die as a result of strike action?
(Agree on the others, mind.)
Why should the NHS pay for people to change gender while others wait for cancer drugs?
http://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2015/11/daniel-hannan-mep-the-games-afoot-and-the-eurocrats-are-delighted-with-camerons-renegotiation-pitch.html#idc-cover
Workers in essential services have to be pushed to the extreme to strike, but there is a reciprocal obligation. That is to honour independent pay awards (strangely these are overruled for Doctors but sancrosanct for MPs) and to negotiate in good faith on working conditions. Hunt has withdrawn from negotiations. He claims that the deal is financially neutral. If so then what is his aim? Junior Doctors are the ones who work weekends already.
He could stop the strike tommorow by returning to the negotiating table without preconditions and withdrawing his threat to impose the contract unilaterally.
But usually if NICE is not recommending a drug, there's a good reason. Usually, it's because it's only been shown to work in a narrow range of cases.
In the US, they are much more liberal about prescribing these things than in the UK. But their cancer survival rates are no higher.
Dorset Rodwell was a bigger surprise Green gain from Labour
If they want the honour of being a professional then they need to behave like professionals. The junior doctors have no better case than junior lawyers, who earn considerably less, no better case than lots of other workers - people in care homes or firemen or soldiers etc etc.
And in the private sector over the last 7/8 years lots of people have lost their jobs, lots of people have had pay cuts, lots of people have had no pay rises, let alone 11% ones.
This will benefit Scotland though. The deal only apples in England so British doctors do not have to go to the antipodes. They will move to Scotland, Wales and NI. It is us in the English provinces that will have to manage unfilled posts with locums etc.
Their leader objecting to Saturday working so he can continue to take wedding photographs is really taking the piss.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/12/eu-leaders-race-to-secure-3bn-migrant-deal-with-turkey-president
I am really struggling to find sympathy for such a stunningly rich and well paid group of people. My neighbour, a consultant in Ninewells, will soon retire on a pension of more than £60K a year at 60. Such rights are worth literally millions of pounds. I will, health permitting, be working into my 70s to help pay for it.
What is your point?
Green +98
Con -22
Lab -305
So far as wages are concerned Hunt is adamant that no one working less than the legally permitted number of hours will lose out. Are you saying he is wrong?
And apparently the reason doctors are at their wits' ends and patients will be put under more strain is because of some effing nonsense about turning up at a table without preconditions and imposing contracts unilaterally. Honestly, you sound like the most pedantic of lawyers missing the point, the substantive point, by a country mile.
How the hell do you think all those people who had their pay cut just like that at more or less a moment's notice in the private sector felt? All those people who lose their jobs at a moment's notice, walked off the premises and with their take it or leave it redundancy packages. Do you think they could demand negotiations and that it not be imposed unilaterally? Did they hell! Really, get real.
By all means ask for market-determined pay. You may get it and you may well deserve it. But you'll get a whole lot else besides. Be under no illusions about that.
And now I better go before I really lose it.
Please forgive me if I've been tough on you. I hope you understand.
One item that Hunt refuses to negotiate is that he wants to abolish monitoring of working hours for junior doctors. That is one thing that the BMA insists on keeping as an essential safeguard.
The only one of the main European leaders who has come out of this with any credit is Cameron. At least he has come up with practical and compassionate solutions. Unfortunately he has been undermined by the sheer lunacy of German and EU policy.
Was she extolling the virtues of the Edstone?